Chapter Six
Neither Chatham nor Hy said a word to Katie on the short carriage ride home. When they did finally speak to her—in the foyer of Chatham House—it was only to say a polite, goodnight.
Katie didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried that Hy was going to allow her to go to bed without delivering a full-blown raking. But as she trudged up to her chambers, she did know that she would not get a wink of sleep tonight.
Becky Stone, her lady’s maid, confidante, and erstwhile childhood playmate was dozing in a chair when Katie entered her chambers.
Becky blinked at the sound of the door shutting and glanced at the clock on the mantel. “You are back early.”
Katie tossed her reticule onto her dressing table.
“Oh no,” Becky said, pushing up from the chair and hurrying toward her. “I know that look. What is amiss?”
Katie and Becky had been born only three days apart.
For most of Katie’s life Becky, whose large family mostly worked in service, had been the richer of the two even though Katie was the daughter of the Earl of Addiscombe.
Not until Katie’s sister Phoebe married the screamingly wealthy Viscount Needham did Katie have a frock that was made just for her rather than one of her sisters’ remade dresses.
Five years ago, Katie’s mother had forbidden her to engage Becky as her lady’s maid. “The girl is a hayseed, Kathryn. You will engage a proper servant.”
But after the Countess of Addiscombe had been banished to Bath by Katie’s older sisters and their husbands Katie had gone to live with Hy, who had allowed her to choose her own maid. The decision had been an easy one and Becky had been with Katie ever since.
“I am in trouble,” Katie confessed as Becky removed the lustrous set of pearls from her neck and laid them in their special velvet-lined box.
“What did you do now, my lady?” Becky asked as she plucked the tiny emerald brilliants from Katie’s hair.
Katie stared at her reflection in the mirror, her head spinning.
“What happened, Katie?” Becky asked again.
Katie met Becky’s worried gaze. “I don’t want to talk about it right now—but I will later, I promise.
I need to pay a visit to Andrew.” Andrew Derrick—a cousin by marriage—was Katie’s closest friend.
Before his marriage Andrew had been one of the most notorious bachelors in England for decades.
If anyone could tell her about Dulverton it would be Andrew.
“You wish to call on Mr. Derrick?” Becky asked in dismay. “Shouldn’t you wait until morning?”
“This cannot wait. I need to see him now,” Katie said firmly.
Becky’s jaws flexed and she didn’t move.
“Please,” Katie wheedled. “It’s just across the square. You know I won’t be in any danger.”
“Fine. But you will take me with you.”
“Fine,” Katie echoed, lacking the energy to argue with her determined servant.
A sleepy footman opened the door at Andrew’s house.
“Is your master available?” Katie asked as she hurried inside.
The handsome young man blinked owlishly “Aye, my lady. He’s not gone to bed yet. I believe he is in his study.”
Katie unfastened her cloak and handed it to Becky.
“What about Mrs. Derrick?” Katie asked as she pulled off her gloves.
“She’s out of town, my lady.”
Katie was relieved to hear it. She liked Stacia Derrick a great deal, but it would be uncomfortable enough getting the information she wanted out of Andrew without having an audience.
She gave Becky her gloves, “I won’t be long. I know the way to the study,” she told the footman.
The young man eyed Becky with obvious interest. “I can put the kettle on down in the kitchen.”
Becky gave him a repressive smile. “I will wait in the parlor, thank you.”
Katie bit back a smirk at the footman’s obvious disappointment and hurried up the stairs.
Andrew wasn’t in his study, but Katie had a good idea where he might be and took the stairs to the top floor. Outside the nursery, a young maid lolled in a chair beside the door. She leapt to her feet when she saw Katie. “Good evening, my lady.”
Katie smiled. “He is in there, I presume?”
The maid giggled. “I have never seen a man who loves his children so much.”
“You should meet my other brothers-in-law,” Katie muttered. “I cannot believe he makes you sit out here and wait.”
“Oh, no, my lady. He told me to go have supper earlier. When I came back I didn’t want to interrupt him in case he’d got Miss Cordelia off to sleep. She is teething and miserable. The master is the only one who can stop her crying, poor mite.
Andrew Derrick had a way with females of all ages.
Katie quietly opened the door to the dimly lighted nursery.
“Katie!” Andrew cried loudly, smiling as he stood up from the chair where he’d been rocking his daughter. His bright blue eyes flickered over her ballgown, and he raised his eyebrows.
Katie ignored the question in his gaze and said, “I hope I didn’t wake the baby.”
“Miss Cordy wasn’t sleeping, was she?” he asked the infant in a silly voice.
“Nooooo, she wasn’t,” he crooned. “She’s a night owl just like her papa.
” He kissed Cordelia’s nose and the baby gurgled happily.
His eyes went ridiculously round, and the stupidest look Katie had ever seen settled on his gorgeous face.
“Who loves Papa best, hmm? Who is Papa’s darling? ”
Katie rolled her eyes, but then Cordelia gave a joyous shriek of laughter and she could understand Andrew’s urge to elicit that magical sound.
“She’s getting sleepy,” he said in the same silly voice, gently rocking the baby as he walked the expanse of the room. “If you give me just a few minutes…”
“Take all the time you need,” Katie said.
She sank into one of the comfortable chairs and watched as one of the most infamous rakes in England patiently carried his daughter back and forth and back and forth, whispering to her and kissing her and rocking her until she finally drifted off to sleep.
And then he tiptoed to the cradle and gently laid her inside it.
He covered her to her chin, took one last look, and then motioned to Katie to follow him.
Outside in the corridor, the nursery maid stood when she saw her employer. “You can go in now, Mary. Ring for me if she wakes again and is fussy.”
“Of course, sir.” The young woman gave Andrew the same fatuous look that every female did, from eight to eighty.
“So,” Andrew said as he led Katie to his study, shut the door, and gestured to a chair. “What are you doing running around dressed to the nines at this hour of the night? I hope you brought your maid with you, or Chatham will scold me.”
“Yes, yes, yes—of course I brought my maid.” Katie flopped into a chair and then winced and reached beneath her. She snorted when she pulled out a baby’s rattle and set it on the table next to her. “What do you know about the Duke of Dulverton?”
Andrew gave her a startled look and then barked a laugh. “You mean the Duke of Dullness?”
Katie frowned. Dullness? Good God! The man had not been dull. Rude? Certainly. Arrogant? Undeniably. But dull? The memory of that scorching kiss and the duke’s hard, hot length thrusting against her belly slammed into her like a wall of heat. Katie resisted the urge to fan herself.
No. Not dull.
Katie saw that Andrew was looking at her oddly and realized he was waiting for a response.
She hastily smothered her heated recollections and sneered. “Oh, I see. Dull-verton. How very clever and droll, Andrew. Are you ten years old?”
“Trust me, the man did not get the name just because it was alliterative; Dulverton is dull. The name might have been coined at Eton, but His Grace has only grown into it more fully in the years since.” He sat back in his chair and propped his feet on the corner of his desk.
“Why the devil are you here”—he twisted to look at the longcase clock— “at half past two in the morning asking about the Duke of Dullness of all people?”
Katie ignored his question. “Is there something wrong with him? I mean, other than your claim that he is dull.”
“Wrong with him?” he repeated doubtfully.
“Aside from being dull he’s also bloody rude.
At least he is to me anytime I have the misfortune to encounter him.
Which is rarely, thank God. The man hardly ever comes to town and almost never—” He broke off, sat up, and his feet slid off the desk and hit the floor with a thump.
“Wait, wait, wait just a minute. Chatham mentioned Dulverton was in town this week.” His eyes were out on stalks.
“Don’t tell me the duke offered for you? ”
She bristled at his amazement. “And why would that be so shocking, pray?”
“Not because of you, darling, but because I never believed he would marry again.”
“Again? I didn’t know he was married before.”
“It was more than twenty years ago and it ended in disaster. He was young—not yet come into his title—seventeen, at most. He hasn’t mingled in society ever since, so I suppose any gossip about him being married before simply died down.
” He snorted. “An unexpected benefit of being such a boring fellow.”
“You and I know that gossip is always ready to rise from the dead.”
“Perhaps for most people, but the man really is duller than ditchwater.”
“Who was his wife?”
“Nobody you would have heard of.” A faintly lecherous smile stretched Andrew’s gorgeous lips.
“Why are you smirking?” Katie asked.
“I never smirk.” His smirk only grew larger.
Katie snorted. “Ah, I see.”
“See what?”
“You were her lover.”
He tried to look innocent and failed spectacularly.
“Men are such dogs.”
“Tut, tut, darling. She was the one breaking her vow to Dullnes—er, Dulverton,” he corrected at her scowl.
“What was she like?”
“Gorgeous. Promiscuous. All in all, a lovely little piece of fluff.”
It was difficult to think of the arrogant, proud man she had met earlier married to a lovely little piece of fluff.
“I was not the only man she dallied with,” Andrew said, as if that excused his behavior.
“What happened?”