Runaway Duchess (London Ladies Book 1) Read online

  “As I was sayin’, I used to work fer the duke. I lived right in his house, I did. I started as a scullery maid, but I always had a talent with hair, ye see, and his wife made me ‘er personal lady’s maid.” Her small chest lifted with pride. “I was the maid of a duchess, I was.”

  “His first wife or his second?” Charlotte queried. Beneath the table her fingers curled into fists of excitement. This was exactly what she needed! Firsthand information as to how the duke’s two wives had lived–and died.

  Gossip said the first expired after a riding accident, while the details surrounding the second duchess’s death were a bit murkier. Some people claimed she was always in poor health, while others whispered foul play was involved. Whatever the truth, the duke had never been brought before the House of Lords.

  “The first one. Lady Allison, ‘er name was. She was a strong willed gel. Always arguing with the duke about this and that. Why, ye could hear ‘em shouting clear across the house sometimes. Then one day Lady Allison started acting strange like. She turned real quiet and never raised her voice to the duke again, even when he deserved it. Which he always did, if ye asked me. Man was a bleedin’ cur.”

  “And the riding accident?” Charlotte asked.

  For the first time since she’d sat down, a flicker of fear passed over Vera’s face. “I don’t know about none o’ that,” she mumbled. “Lady Allison got up early one morning to go riding in the park. She told me not to tell anyone, so I didn’t. I pretended like I ain’t even seen her sneaking out of the house with a bag of ‘er favorite jewelry.”

  “She was going to run away. His first wife, she was going to leave him,” Charlotte guessed.

  Instead, Allison had ended up with a broken neck.

  Coincidence?

  She rather thought not.

  “The second duchess? Lady Priscilla, was it not?”

  “Aye.” Vera nodded. “Prissy, she said to call her. She was a right thin slip of a girl. Barely said boo to anybody. The duke, he had ‘er wedded and bedded before her seventeenth birthday. He liked breaking their spirits, he did. It was a game for ‘im. The more they resisted, the longer he drew it out, like a cat toyin’ with a mouse.”

  Disgust for the duke and sympathy for his child bride filled Charlotte in equal measure. The poor girl had barely been out of the schoolroom and ill-equipped to deal with a predator more than twice her age. No doubt her parents had been ecstatic about the marriage…up until the point their daughter died.

  If memory served and the gossip was even half true, Priscilla’s remaining family had received a sizable inheritance from an anonymous benefactor a week after their daughter’s death. It was enough to allow them to settle in the country permanently, which they did with all haste, and no one had ever heard from them again

  “Tell her what they looked like,” Tabitha said urgently. “Tell her, Vera. Tell her what you told me.”

  Vera finished her pastry and slowly licked her fingers clean one by one. “I’m gettin’ around to it. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. As I was about to say”–she narrowed her eyes at her sister–“even though the first duchess and the second were different as night and day in the way they behaved, they could ‘ave been sisters.”

  A feeling of unease slithered down Charlotte’s spine. She straightened in her chair, resting the soles of her ankle boots flat on the floor and bringing her hands up from underneath the table to rest them flat on the table. “What…What…” Her tongue was dry and stuck to the roof of her mouth. She cleared her throat and tried again. “What did they look like?”

  Vera raised a scrawny eyebrow. “Why, they looked jest like you, Lady Charlotte. Red hair an’ all.”

  Chapter Three

  Charlotte feared she was going to be sick.

  She left Twinings in a dizzying blur, standing up from the table so fast she sent two of the teacups crashing to the floor. As they lay broken in a dozen different pieces, Charlotte realized that was how she felt. Broken and shattered and horribly, horribly frightened.

  Fear was a new concept for her. She may have led a mundane life, but she had always been safe and secure and, most importantly, in charge of her own destiny. Now it felt as though everything was beyond her control. In the blink of an eye she’d gone from being in command of her own life to being at the mercy of a madman.

  On some level, Charlotte knew she still retained a little control. After all, unless her mother forced her down the aisle bound and gagged, Bettina could not make her agree to marry Paine. But her mother was so blinded to the duke’s faults (and so desperate for the social acclaim being the mother-in-law of a duke would bring her), that Charlotte feared it very well could come to that.

  One way or the other, Bettina had it in her power to make her daughter’s life a misery. And not for the first time Charlotte wished her father was still living.

  He’d died when she was only seven years of age, taken by fever while on his yearly expedition to India. At least he had seen to it to provide for his wife and child in his will before embarking on the ill-fated trip, but Charlotte would rather have his warm arms around her and his level head to guide her than all the money in England.

  “What happened?” Dianna demanded the moment Charlotte was in the carriage and the door was shut. “You look horrible. Pale as a ghost. What did your maid say?”

  Taking a deep breath, Charlotte repeated everything Vera had told her nearly word for word. When she was finished Abigail made a non-committal humming noise and returned to reading her book. Her niece’s reaction was a bit more ill-contained, particularly for Dianna.

  “What a horrid man!” she exclaimed. Color mottled her cheeks and her eyes flashed a stormy shade of blue. “You cannot marry him. I forbid it.”

  “If only it were that simple.” Charlotte slumped back into her seat and closed her eyes as the carriage jolted forward. She felt Dianna pat her knee, and attempted a smile that fell flat on her lips. “There is no proof, but I know he is somehow responsible for the deaths of his first two wives. I know it. I am afraid,” she confessed softly. “I am afraid of him, Di.”

  “I would be as well. Surely if you told your mother–”

  “I cannot. She will want to know where I received my information, and if I reveal Tabitha’s name she will be let go without a reference.” The stark realization was one Charlotte had come to the moment she had left the teahouse.

  The only thing Bettina disliked more than her daughter’s rebellious nature was gossip, and Charlotte knew that was all her mother would claim Vera’s story was: nasty, ill-gotten gossip by a maid who had nothing better to do than spread lies. Tabitha would be fired on the spot, and Charlotte would be no closer to breaking her engagement to the duke than she had been before.

  “Di, what am I going to do?” Unaccustomed to the feeling of helplessness that pushed down on her shoulders like a heavy wool cloak, Charlotte opened her eyes and turned her gaze to the window. London rushed by a blur of color and noise, an ever-changing beast of epic proportions that cared little for the woes of a single troubled woman.

  “We will come up with something.” Dianna’s tone rang with confidence, and Charlotte turned her head to smile with a grateful smile.

  “You sound so very positive.”

  “Because I am. This is not how your story ends, Charlotte. The princess never really has to marry the ogre, she only thinks she has to. That way her prince charming has someone to rescue her from.”

  “I would much rather rescue myself,” Charlotte decided after she thought about it for a moment. “It is much more efficient that way.”

  Dianna, who was first and foremost a romantic, gave a gentle shrug. “I suppose. Either way, we will come up with something. You will not have to marry the duke. I swear it.”

  Charlotte hoped it was a promise Dianna would be able to keep.

  The next evening marked Lord and Lady Nettle’s Annual Ball. It was an exclusive affair that required a hand written invitation from the host
ess herself, an invitation that even Bettina had been unable to procure. But it seemed there was nothing off limits when one was engaged to a duke, and two days ago one of the coveted invitations had been hand-delivered to their doorstep along with a dozen white roses.

  Having always disliked the forced politeness, aimless chatter, and rigidity of balls (not to mention having to remember a dozen different steps), Charlotte was not looking forward to the night ahead with any sense of enthusiasm. The only highlight she could see was that Paine would not be in attendance. He was suffering from a head cold, and the rain that had plagued the city for most of the day would be keeping him inside.

  He had written as much in a letter that she’d received over breakfast. A letter he had signed–she still cringed to think of it now, eight hours later–‘yours in everlasting love, Richard’.

  The fact that he had begun using his Christian name in their correspondence was not a good sign. It implied a sense of familiarity that most certainly did not exist between the two of them, and Charlotte made it a point to sign her own return letter with a very formal and impersonal ‘Lady Vanderley’.

  She hadn’t wanted to write back at all, but her mother had been insistent, and rather than start off the day with yet another argument, she had reluctantly agreed.

  “Manners,” Bettina had harped as she stood over Charlotte’s shoulder and watched her write her reply word for painstaking word. “Remember your manners, dear. No one likes a rude duchess.”

  “I am not a duchess,” Charlotte had pointed out, waving the quill in the air and causing Bettina to back away for fear of being splattered with ink. “Nor will I ever be one.”

  Her mother had not bothered to respond, which only made it all the more frustrating. How could she argue her point when Bettina refused to argue?

  At least I will not have to worry about Paine tonight, Charlotte thought with a sigh as she waited patiently within a large receiving parlor to be announced. It was the first time she’d ever seen the interior of Lord and Lady Nettle’s elegant London mansion, and as she shuffled forward behind a half dozen other young women waiting to be let into the main ballroom, she allowed her gaze to wander absently around the room.

  It was clear no expense had been spared when Lady Nettle had furnished her home. Matching rosewood tables gleamed beneath the flickering light cast down by not one, but two chandeliers. The walls were covered in the finest silk and paintings framed in gold hung at eye level depicting various hunting scenes. A chaise lounge upholstered in sumptuous red velvet looked so comfortable that Charlotte was of half a mind to curl up on it and take a nap, but at that very moment the line began to move forward again and she was forced to move along with it or else risk having her shoulder pulled from its socket.

  “Must you hold me so tightly?” she hissed to her mother. “I am not going to bolt, you know.”

  “One never knows with you,” Bettina replied, speaking through a feigned smile she applied to her face as carefully as she did her powders and creams. “That is the problem.”

  Arm in arm, mother and daughter strolled in seemingly perfect harmony through the parlor and into the grandiose ballroom. As they descended the marble staircase, Charlotte didn’t even to count the number of chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

  “Your invitation cards, if you please.” A short, portly butler with thinning hair stopped them at the foot of the stairs and held out a gloved hand.

  Charlotte reached automatically for the reticule she always carried, but her fingers closed around only soft muslin. Of course. When one dressed formally one did not wear a purse for fear of ruining the line of the gown. Quite impractical, really, but there it was.

  Her attire for the evening was a deceptively simple creation that highlighted her best features: namely, her fiery red hair and hazel eyes. It was an empire waist design that gathered tightly beneath her breasts before falling away in a soft, shimmering skirt of pale pink spun through with gold. Matching thread, slightly wider and studier in design, held her hair back from her face in an intricate display of curls that had taken Tabitha nearly two hours to fashion. She wore no jewelry save a pair of emerald earrings and a matching bracelet.

  “Here,” Bettina said, releasing her death grip on Charlotte’s arm in order to thrust two cream colored envelopes at the butler.

  Sensing an opportunity to establish a bit of temporary peace between them before they were allowed into the ballroom, Charlotte leaned in close while the butler searched for their names on an impressively long ledger.

  “Mama, you look very pretty tonight,” she praised with a smile.

  It was true. Dressed in a gown of dark blue, Bettina looked positively regal with her auburn hair swept back in a twist and a necklace comprised of heart shaped sapphires and diamonds at her throat. The jewels glittered like ice beneath the becoming glow of the candlelight, highlighting a roses and cream complexion she guarded more fiercely than any gem in her possession.

  Charlotte’s mother had aged as all noblewomen wished to: softly and gradually, with only a faint set of wrinkles at her eyes and mouth to indicate she was no longer in the full bloom of youth. The streaks of gray in her hair she disguised with cinnamon; a natural home remedy only the wealthy could afford as the sweet smelling spice was a luxury when used in pies and pastries, let alone for beauty.

  Unfortunately, softness on the outside did not always translate to softness on the inside and there was a hard edge in Bettina’s voice when she said, “You are slouching, Charlotte. Straighten up. I knew we should have gone with the smaller corset. Even though the Duke of Paine is not in attendance tonight, you still represent him. Remember, all eyes will be on you tonight.”

  “Will they be on me, Mother? I wonder why that is.” Charlotte tapped her chin. “Could it be because I am to marry a duke, or is it because I am marrying a man three times my age?”

  Bettina’s eyebrows snapped together. “I do not approve of your tone.”

  “And I do not approve of—”

  “Now announcing Lady Bettina Vanderley and her daughter, Lady Charlotte!” The butler’s deep baritone carried easily across the ballroom, effectively cutting off Charlotte mid-sentence and causing two-dozen heads to swivel in their direction.

  “Smile,” Bettina demanded. Her fingers closed like dagger tipped claws around Charlotte’s wrist, leaving her no choice but to walk directly into the hellish melee of tittering ladies, oversized gowns, and lewdly staring gentlemen.

  Within moments, they were completely surrounded, and in an act of sheer desperation Charlotte accepted the first dance that was offered to her in order to escape the congratulations and well wishes that were tumbling from everyone’s lips.

  She had hoped the betrothal announcement would have gone unnoticed, at least for a few more days. She should have known better. Even one person reading of her impending nuptials to the duke would have been enough to flame the fires of gossip. There were no secrets kept among the nobility, and Charlotte inwardly cursed her mother for allowing the announcement to be printed without her knowledge or permission. Now everyone would think she wanted to marry Paine, a lie she could hardly deny in a room filled shoulder to shoulder with her peers.

  A lady did not simply break an engagement to a duke, especially one as powerful as Paine. To do so would cause a scandal of outlandish proportions she would not soon recover from, and while she was certainly not above doing such a thing if it would ensure her freedom, she would rather save ruining her name and casting herself as a social pariah for a last resort.

  Although she’d dragged her heels through three seasons and was nearly at the end of her fourth, Charlotte did want to marry someday. But to a man who would foster her independent spirit, not crush it. Unfortunately, as the years passed, she’d started to doubt such a person existed. Or if he did, he was very, very good at hiding. And if she couldn’t end things with Paine, she’d never have the opportunity to find him.

  The person she was meant to be with.
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  Not a lecherous murderer who could have passed for her grandfather.

  “I hear you are to marry a duke,” said her dance partner, effectively drawing her out of her own head.

  Belatedly realizing she hadn’t been paying attention when he had introduced himself, she adopted a pretty smile and batted her lashes, two things which always seemed to ensure the conversation would stay light and not delve into personal matters she had no intention of discussing with anyone, let alone a perfect stranger. “Did you? How lovely. Are you enjoying the ball thus far?”

  But her partner was not easily swayed off topic. “Are you implying you are not engaged?” he persisted, his eyes filling with undisguised hope even as the hand he had resting lightly on her shoulder dropped a few inches to linger noticeably closer to the curve of her spine.

  He was handsome, Charlotte supposed, if one liked men who reminded them of basset hounds. Still, even with his drooping bottom lip and thick mop of brown hair, he remained a far better prospect for marriage than her current fiancé, and her smile slowly faded as they took a second turn around the room.

  If she had not been so damned picky during her first three seasons this is whom she could have ended up with. A kind gentleman, one who most likely spent his days out on the hunt field and had few aspirations beyond living off his inheritance, but one who was sweet and gentle and did not make her want to cringe and shudder every time she looked at him.

  But oh no, that had not been good enough for her.

  No, she had refused to accept any man’s offer for her hand–and there had been quite a few, as she was a pretty girl from a well to do family with a sizable dowry–because they just weren’t right. Like a shoe that was either a tad too small or too big.

  Now she didn’t have any shoes at all, and her mother was asking her to walk on broken glass.