for a while, Maude, and I’ll join you shortly?’ He raised her fingers to his lips in tender salute. ‘Off you go, now. There is no point in bringing you in on this half the way through. I’ll explain it in private, for deuce knows there are bits that stretch the bounds of credibility and might need oft repeating.’
Maude glanced at her stepdaughter, seeking a small signal that Joan had no need of her support. Satisfied by a smile, the Duchess greeted her sister-in-law by clasping Dorothea’s thin hands before quitting the room.
‘I should like permission to retire, too, Alfred,’ Dorothea piped up the moment her niece’s fierce grey gaze veered her way. ‘My headache is worse. I have missed an appointment with Lady Regan because of it.’
Joan guessed that it wasn’t a migraine, but the thought of awkward questions being fired at her over the teacups that had caused the woman to abort her social engagement.
A grunt of agreement sanctioned Dorothea’s request. Before his sister quit the room the Duke said, ‘Now my wife is home you will no doubt wish to hurry back to your own hearth, Dorothea. Tobias will see to it that you have every help to get packed up to leave the moment you are ready.’
‘Indeed, I should like to be back in Marylebone, Alfred.’ Dorothea’s puckered lips formed a thin line at the termination of her services. ‘My nerves have been stretched beyond bearing these past weeks.’ A blameful gaze landed on her niece.
‘My bank draft for your trouble will no doubt soothe them, my dear.’ Alfred followed up that dry remark with an unmistakable nod of dismissal. He then sat down. Having shaken the teapot, he poured tepid tea into his wife’s abandoned cup, then took a gulp.
‘So...explain yourself, if you will,’ he commenced testily, jabbing a glance Joan’s way. ‘You had a meeting this afternoon with Rockleigh in the park, under cover of a stroll with your vicar friend, that much I know.’ He waved an impatient hand at his daughter’s immediate protest. ‘I’m not so easily duped by the use of a beard. I’ve some personal experience of a clandestine tête-à-tête from my own youth, you know.’
‘It was no arranged meeting!’ Joan burst out. ‘I was promenading with the Reverend Walters and we came upon Mr Rockleigh with a companion.’
‘A companion, eh?’ The Duke seemed interested to hear that. ‘And who was this person?’
‘I’ve no idea. He was dressed like a clerk; when Mr Rockleigh caught sight of us they parted and the fellow disappeared into the trees. Why on earth would you believe I’d plot an assignation with a man I don’t like?’
‘So...it is all an innocent coincidence. There are no lingering passions between you in danger of rekindling?’
Joan spluttered a sound that hovered between amusement and amazement. ‘If you mean pleasant feelings, then, no, there are not! Nor were there ever any. And I don’t know why you’d think differently; we were constantly at one another’s throats when you tried to force us to wed. And I have just said I have no liking for him.’
‘Mmm...love and hate are close kin. I recall you both protested too much,’ the Duke commented reflectively. ‘You mooned about for a while and as for Rockleigh...most fellows would have accepted a token of my gratitude and esteem if only to humour me. But he wouldn’t take a penny, then or now. I applauded his lack of avarice two years ago, but this time I’m uneasy about it.’
‘But you recently gave him fifty pounds, didn’t you?’ Joan sounded perplexed.
‘Is that what he said during this private talk you had?’
‘Yes...no...’ Joan amended in confusion. ‘He told me you’d offered him that amount and I assumed he’d taken it.’
‘I did offer it, but he would not have it. He also refused to come and thank me for my most generous gesture.’ Alfred was still smarting over the snub.
‘You wanted a street fighter to come here?’ Joan’s dark brows shot together in disbelief.
‘Of course not, my dear,’ Alfred answered tetchily. ‘I travelled to his territory and waited in a carriage in Cheapside. The detective I engaged delivered the note asking him to meet me and claim his reward.’ Alfred snorted in indignation. ‘Rockleigh dismissed me as though I were a nobody! Deuced cheek of the man!’
Joan nibbled her lower lip while digesting that astonishing fact. People—even those with wealth and standing—kowtowed to her father, bowing and scraping to earn his favours. But Rockleigh was a breed apart, it seemed.
‘So...what are we to do about all of this?’ the Duke muttered to himself as he got up from the sofa and began prowling the Aubusson carpet. ‘I’m hoping the Squire, as my man Thadeus Pryke named him, is as honest and sincere as was Drew Rockleigh, but I’m not sure.’
‘What do you mean, Papa?’ A shiver of apprehension rippled through Joan. The Duke of Thornley was rarely lacking in confidence, or at a loss to know what to do about any situation.
‘Rockleigh is cognizant with our secrets. He has not once hinted to me about your youthful indiscretion since you committed it and in the past we’ve often met at clubs and functions. But he is a different person now; who is to say the Squire will not seek to capitalise on what he knows? A man who has lost wealth and rank might claw his way back into society by whatever means present themselves,’ Alfred concluded bleakly.
Joan realised that her father’s attitude was horribly cynical, yet a similar fear had tormented her when Rockleigh had reminded her of her disgrace. ‘Your secret’s safe with me, my lady...but that might be all that is...’ A sultry gleam had been in his eyes, leading her to believe that lust was behind the threat. But perhaps the base desire he had was not for her, but for the riches lodged in her father’s bank vault. ‘He promised not to betray us, Papa,’ Joan said forcefully in an attempt to reassure herself as much as her father.
‘Promised? You talked about your disgraceful behaviour two years ago?’ The Duke had stopped roaming the room to bark questions at his daughter.
Joan nodded, inwardly berating herself for having brought her heated exchange with Rockleigh to such a dangerous point. The vicar had told her the Squire was a womaniser and she’d been unable to resist hinting at what she knew. He’d retaliated by bringing up the subject of her brazen visit to his hunting lodge.
‘If he means to blackmail me...’ The Duke left the rest unsaid, but his florid physiognomy told of the impotent rage he felt at the idea becoming reality. ‘He is no longer friendly with your brother-in-law so there is no loyalty at stake to make him hesitate.’
‘He will never risk you calling his bluff, Papa. A gentleman accused of seduction is not completely off the hook.’ Joan managed a wan smile, but her rapid heartbeat made her quite breathless.
‘It seems Rockleigh is no longer a gentleman and I doubt he gives a toss for fair play or etiquette.’ The Duke headed towards the sideboard to use the decanter. The cognac he poured was shot back in a single swallow. ‘Of course he might welcome marrying you now to get himself out of the mess he’s in.’ The Duke rubbed his chin with thumb and forefinger, adding rather wistfully, ‘If I truly believed that beneath the Squire’s scruffy exterior still beat Drew Rockleigh’s heart, then I’d hear him out if he called.’
A few of Joan’s slender fingers stifled her horrified laugh. ‘Well, thank heavens he made it clear he wants no more of me now than he did then.’
‘That must have galled,’ the Duke said gently, eyeing his daughter’s proud profile. His little Joan was easily wounded; indeed, when he’d told her two years ago that Rockleigh had declined several thousand acres of prime Devon farmland, together with a handful of Mayfair freeholds, rather than contract to marry her, Alfred had thought she might blub. Of course she had not...pride had seen to that. His daughter had concealed her humiliated expression. Then she had acted as though Rockleigh’s slight was to her liking. Just as she was doing now.
‘I don’t know why the matter cropped