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“Yes. My lord,” Mrs. Prats nodded, “and his guest.”
“Beg pardon?” Miss Caroline scoffed at the same time as Marilee snorted in disbelief.
“A carriage came by in the wee hours, it did,” Mrs. Prats explained. “The byway’s washed clear through with the spring rains and so the gentleman came here instead. Knows my lord. Carron said,” Mrs. Pratt provided as explanation. Caroline nodded. Mr. Carron was the butler. He would know the truth of the matter.
Caroline and Marilee stood up straight with interest, one with feminine curiosity and the other with nothing more than surprise. Only now did Miss Caroline recall the light she had seen the previous night. Either she had forgotten, or simply thought it a dream. Either way, the memory had been entirely lost to her until this very moment.
“Who is it?” Caroline asked, thinking that it might have been someone she had made acquaintance with all those years ago.
“I’d have told you if I’d known,” the housekeeper clucked. “I’ve been too preoccupied all morning getting his rooms ready to poke about such nonsense.” She nodded. “He’s a duke, I’ll give you that much.”
“A duke! Is he young?” Caroline asked.
Marilee clasped her hands to her heart and sighed at Miss Caroline’s romantic assumptions.
“Is he married?” Caroline continued.
Her questions went unanswered because the housekeeper had already turned upon her heel and exited the room, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like ninnies and death of me under her breath, but truth be told, if he was a duke, he was old. They all were. Only in books were dukes young and handsome and dashing.
A quarter hour later,Miss Caroline was ready to enter the drawing room. Marilee had added some final touches to her appearance and pinched some color into her pale cheeks.
“What a tale that would be,” Caroline had sighed. “The fated storm demands that a quiet, but attractive, duke hole up for a fortnight,” for that was the amount of time they recalled that it usually took the byway to drain.
“Only to fall madly in love with the young mistress of the house,” Marilee continued the story laughing. “Without the storm, they’d have never met and so they owe their wedded bliss to some Grecian weather god or pagan harvest ritual which brought about the torrential rains.”
“My word, Marilee! Don’t let the Vicar hear you say such things. Pagan indeed!”
“The Vicar is on the other side of the byway! With the inns!” Marilee had giggled. “And if the Duke of Bramblewood did not give the vicar an apoplexy over Christmastide, I’m sure my mere words will not move him.”
Caroline shook her head but could not help but feel her pulse quicken as she had descended the staircase. With every step nearer to the drawing-room door her anticipation grew exponentially until she had to force herself to tread slowly and stifle a smile as she tapped on the door and waited her father’s invitation to enter before she crossed the threshold.
The draperies were drawn against the wet chill, but she knew the room well: the massive old furniture and the somewhat faded carpet which Father had not replaced, not due to lack of coin, but simply because he did not wish to change anything. A roaring fire burned, but she did not need its light to see the man who stood next to her father. Despite her knowledge of reality, she could not have helped but be persuaded somewhere deep within that it would have been something if the visitor were indeed a young, unmarried duke. What kind of something, she wasn’t sure. But something indeed; a fairy story, perhaps.
“Caroline,” her father beckoned her with an outstretched hand. “Come meet the Duke of Manchester. His Grace, George Bennington, my daughter, Miss Caroline Graves.” The surname had rung a distant bell of familiarity, but for the moment, she could not say why.
From behind her father’s towering form stepped another, nearly as tall as the Baron himself. But where her father was wide but firm, this man was sagged and paunchy, as if he had willingly spent every day in his life in excess. The Baron’s hair was thinner than it had been five years past, but still dark and flowing. The duke’s, well, the duke had hardly any to spare. His face had fashioned upon it what she thought must be his polite attempt at a smile, but she found that in his irritation it was rather more of a sneer. His cheeks were reddened as if the two men had been having a most unpleasant discussion. The annoyance in her father’s eyes told her that she had been a welcome intrusion.
This man was quite simply everything opposite that she and her maid had imagined, except, perhaps, his remarkable height. His watery blue eyes were disconcerting.
“Father,” Caroline stepped forward with an elegant nod and then dipped into a formal curtsey. “Your Grace.”
The introductions made; Caroline had been forced to pull her hand away when it seemed that the duke held on a bit longer than felt proper. His gaze was assessing, as if he were the sort of man who always looked to make a play with his connections. In a way, she supposed that was true of all men, especially those of consequence and perhaps, most women as well.
“To think,” the duke mused as if the topic were perfectly usual, “My sister gave birth to a disfigured whelp that killed her and yet you still managed to produce this. Life is not fair.”
Bennington, she recalled now. Lady Anne Bennington, her father’s first wife. This, she noted, was the belated woman’s brother. Caroline had not known much about the woman’s family. Not that any remained, and certainly not their status. It was no wonder Lady Anne had been disowned. Very likely her family had had higher aspirations for her than a baron.
“I have long heard whispers of your beauty, Lady Graves,” the duke continued, “but I see now that the rumors fall short. You are… most delicious.” He gestured at her, at all of her, with appreciation. It was as if she were a confection standing before them for examination and not a living being with agency of her own.
Miss Caroline shivered and then ground her teeth together, but gave no other indication that she had even heard the base comment. She had never encouraged the fascination with her physical features. In fact, since her mother had passed, she had made a concerted effort to downplay her innate beauty. Although there was little she could do about her grey eyes, which were by far her most startling feature. She shivered with disgust at the way the older gentleman’s features had altered from disdain for her father to nearly salivating at the sight of her. She had been trained better, however, and her father’s warning hand upon her arm told her that holding her tongue had been the right thing. The duke might have taken the gesture as mere fatherly affection, but she knew otherwise. Her father hadn’t touched her in years and the rigid way his fingers pressed into her skin warned that this man was not to be trifled with. She knew that. He was, after all, a duke.
If the duke was to be stranded with them, and her father was clearly unnerved by the prospect, she would need to do all that she could to ensure civil interactions. Best to face the horns of the bull and be done with it, she decided.
“Your sister?” Caroline asked with feigned ignorance.
“Yes,” the duke narrowed his eyes on her before they flicked sharply to her father. “The baron’s first wife. Or has he not spoken of her at all?” A neat trap, Miss Caroline thought, but she would not be caught. She verbally stepped around it.
“He has, indeed,” she replied with a gentle grin. “I have been told that she was very beautiful and that her death was mourned by all here at Gravesend Manor.”
