a change, dear brother, you can’t blame this muddle on me. The girl is your problem, not mine, and comes courtesy of our departed mother.’ He waved the letter of introduction in salute before passing it to his brother. ‘May I present Lady Miranda Grey, come to see his Grace the Duke of Haughleigh.’ The blond man grinned.
‘You’re the duke?’ She looked to the imposing man in the doorway and wondered how she could have been so wrong. When this man had entered the room, his brother had faded to insignificance. She tried to stand up to curtsy again, but her knees gave out and she plopped back on to the sofa. The water in her boots made a squelching sound as she moved.
He stared back. ‘Of course I’m the duke. This is my home you’ve come to. Who were you expecting to find? The Prince Regent?’
The other man grinned. ‘I think she was under the mistaken impression that I was the duke. I’d just come into the library, looking for the brandy decanter, and found her waiting here …’
‘For how long?’ snapped his brother.
‘Moments. Scant moments, although I would have enjoyed more time alone with Lady Miranda. She’s a charming conversationalist.’
‘And, during this charming conversation, you neglected to mention your name, and allowed her to go on in her mistake.’ He turned from his brother to her.
His gaze caught hers and held it a moment too long as though he could read her heart in her eyes. She looked away in embarrassment and gestured helplessly to the letter of introduction. ‘I was expected. I had no idea … about your mother.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she added as an afterthought.
‘Not as sorry as I am.’ He scanned the letter. ‘Damn that woman. She made me promise. But it was a deathbed promise, and I said the words hoping her demise would absolve me of action.’
‘You promised to marry me, hoping your mother would die?’ She stared back in horror.
‘I promised to meet you. Nothing more. If my mother had died that night, as it appeared she might, who was to know what I promised her? But she lingered.’ He waved the paper. ‘Obviously long enough to post an invitation. And now here you are. With a maid, I trust?’
‘Ahhh … no.’ She struggled with the answer. It was as she’d feared. He must think she was beyond all sense, travelling unchaperoned to visit strangers. ‘She was taken ill and was unable to accompany me.’ As the lie fell from her lips, she forced herself to meet the duke’s unwavering gaze.
‘Surely, your guardian.’
‘Unfortunately, no. She is also in ill health, no longer fit to travel.’ Miranda sighed convincingly. Cici was strong as an ox, and had sworn that it would take a team of them to drag her back into the presence of the duke’s mother.
‘And you travelled alone? From London?’
‘On the mail coach,’ she finished. ‘I rode on top with the driver. It was unorthodox, but not improper.’ And inexpensive.
‘And when you arrived in Devon?’
‘I was surprised that there was no one to meet me. I inquired the direction, and I walked.’
‘Four miles? Cross-country? In the pouring rain?’
‘After London, I enjoyed the fresh air.’ She need not mention the savings of not hiring a gig.
‘And you had no surfeit of air, riding for hours on the roof of the mail coach?’ He was looking at her as though she was crack-brained.
‘I like storms.’ It was an outright lie, but the best she could do. Any love for storms that she might have had had disappeared when the rain permeated her petticoat and ran in icy rivers down her legs.
‘And do you also like dishonour, to court it so?’
She bowed her head again, no longer able to look him in the eye. It had been a mistake to come here. Her behaviour had been outlandish, but she had not been trying to compromise herself. In walking to the house, she had risked all, and now, if the duke turned her out and she had to find her own way home, there would be no way to repair the damage to her reputation.
He gestured around the room. ‘You’re miles from the protection of society in the company of a pair of notorious rakes.’
‘Notorious?’ She compared them. The duke looked dangerous enough, but it was hard to believe his brother was a threat to her honour.
‘In these parts, certainly. Does anyone know you’re here?’
‘I asked direction of a respectable gentleman and his wife.’
‘The man, so tall?’ The duke sketched a measurement with his hand. ‘And plump. With grey hair. The wife: tall, lean as a rail. A mouth that makes her look—’ he pulled a face ‘—a little too respectable.’
She shrugged. ‘I suppose that could be them. If he had spectacles and she had a slight squint.’
‘And when you spoke to them, you gave them your right name?’
She stared back in challenge. ‘Why would I not?’
The duke sank into a chair with a groan.
His brother let out a whoop of laughter.
The duke glared. ‘This is no laughing matter, you nincompoop. If you care at all for honour, then one of us is up a creek.’
St John laughed again. ‘By now you know the answer to the first part of the statement. It would lead you to the answer to the second. I suppose that I could generously offer—’
‘I have a notion of what you would consider a generous offer. Complete the sentence and I’ll hand you your head.’ He ran fingers through his dark hair. Then he turned slowly back to look at her. ‘Miss … whatever-your-name-is …’ He fumbled with the letter, reread it and began again. ‘Lady Miranda Grey. Your arrival here was somewhat … unusual. In London, it might have gone unnoticed. But Marshmore is small, and the arrival of a young lady on a coach, alone, is reason enough to gossip. In the village you spoke with the Reverend Winslow and his wife, who have a rather unchristian love of rumour and no great fondness for this family. When you asked direction to this house, where there was no chaperon in attendance, you cemented their view of you.’
‘I don’t understand.’
St John smirked. ‘It is no doubt now well known around the town that the duke and his brother have reconciled sufficiently after the death of their mother to share a demi-mondaine.’
‘There is a chance that the story will not get back to London, I suppose,’ the duke said with a touch of hope.
Which would be no help. Because of her father, London was still too hot to hold her. If she had to cross out Devon, too … She sighed. There was a limit to the number of counties she could be disgraced in, and still have hope of a match.
St John was still amused. ‘Mrs Winslow has a cousin in London. We might as well take out an ad in The Times.’
The duke looked out of the window and into the rain, which had changed from the soft and bone-chilling drizzle to a driving storm, complete with lightning and high winds. ‘There is no telling the condition of the road between here and the inn. I dare not risk a carriage.’
The look in his eyes made her wonder whether he expected her to set off on foot. She bit back the response forming in her mind, trying to focus on the goal of this trip. A goal that no longer seemed as unlikely as it had when Cici first suggested it.
‘She’ll have to stay the night, Marcus. There’s nothing else for it. And the only question in the mind of the town will be which one of us had her first.’
She gasped in shock at the insult, and then covered her mouth with her hand. There was no advantage in calling attention to herself, just now. Judging by the duke’s expression, he would more