Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Six of James’ sisters were still in town for the Season, staying at the town house, hoping for matches.
His father and mother and his youngest sister Charlotte, who was not yet out, had stayed in Middlewich since the duke had never fully recovered from his illness last autumn.
When James arrived back in the duchy, his father had been reduced to hoarse, rattling exhalations and the exhaustion that comes at the end of a life.
“Father.” His father opened his eyes. “You know the Earl Drake’s wife? We spoke of her at Christmas?”
Had the old man nodded, just a bit?
“And we spoke of her stepmother. An actress.”
His father coughed weakly and struggled to take breath in.
“I love her. The stepmother. Her name is Catherine. She is beautiful, resilient, clever, and courageous. And I am going to marry her when she agrees to it.”
His father’s lips moved. James leaned forward and put his ear to his father’s mouth.
“Wastrel,” the old man whispered. “Whore.”
His last words. A few hours later, the duke stopped breathing. The doctor listened to the duke’s chest and shook his head. His Grace’s heart had gone still.
“The duke is dead,” the doctor said, looking at James. “There is a new duke, Your Grace.”
James hugged his mother. She was pale and hunched, but she did not cry. She pulled away and held him at arm’s length and looked up at his face. “You are the duke, James.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Once you marry, I will be a dowager duchess. And your father, he doesn’t suffer anymore.”
“Yes, Mother.”
She turned, her skirts whirling, and left his father’s sickroom.
He heard her go into the nursery. There was quiet and then a howl and Charlotte, tears streaking her face, ran into the sickroom and seized their father’s wrinkled hand and sobbed.
Charlotte had always been the duke’s favorite and, like William, the brother she did not remember, she had never been frightened of the duke, able to tame him by curling her small hand into his and swinging his arm until he picked her up.
James went to stand next to his sister, and she released her father’s hand and turned to him and cried into his waistcoat for a long time.
The rest of his sisters arrived the next day from London with their chaperone aunts and their lady’s maids. Their Season was over, and they were all in mourning. And now James had the responsibility of ensuring the happiness of six sisters—no, seven, counting the fifteen-year-old Charlotte.
His father was buried. His mother’s sixty-first birthday came and went. James headed to London to present himself to the House of Lords, to petition for a transfer of the title. It was really all just ceremonial. No one questioned his legitimacy or his right to be duke.
As the ducal carriage made its way towards London, James considered his domestic arrangements in town.
As the title-holder, he would have to move into the town house eventually.
But, for the moment, his rooms still afforded him a degree of privacy that the house in Mayfair did not.
He would wait until things were settled between himself and Catherine.
After their marriage—for that is what he still hoped for despite their last meeting—they might move into the town house, together.
When he and Enfield arrived at his rooms in London, they were met by half a dozen letters under the door. He recognized the hand as Catherine’s. In each letter, she entreated him to come to her as soon as he returned. He ran as he had never run before all the way to her house.
Catherine, beautiful Catherine, was at home to him. She was home to him.
“That will be all, Chelsom,” she said. As the butler closed the drawing room door, James, still breathing heavily, took a step towards her.
“Catherine, I—”
She cut him off with a deep curtsy and the words, “Your Grace.”
“Ah, y-yes,” he stammered. “You’ve heard, I gather.” He ran his fingers through his hair.
“You have my condolences on your father’s death, Your Grace.”
He studied her. She looked tired, but her skin and her eyes had a clarity and a glow to them. A few fine lines were etched by her mouth that he did not remember.
“Tell me, before all else, tell me. Have you accepted Ffoulkes?”
“I have not.”
A weight came off his chest.
“And are you well, Kate—I mean, Catherine, Mrs. Lovelock? And all your family?”
“Yes.”
“And Arabella. She is well?”
“She is traveling with my eldest stepdaughter Mary and her husband.”
“Ah, yes. The Viscount and Viscountess Tregaron.”
“You have a good memory, Your Grace.”
“Catherine.” He stepped forward and seized one of her hands. “I would never forget anything that had to do with you. Certainly, nothing as important as your family.”
“You are very kind, Your—”
“Please call me Jamie. Please. I can’t bear it. I just can’t.”
She took back her hand, and he thought there might have been a glistening in her eye.
“You must bear it. It’s for the best,” she said.
“You say that, but I don’t see how it can be. Not for me.”
Her voice was ice. “You are young. You will heal.”
He folded his arms across his chest and put his hands into his armpits and clamped his arms down and held them there, containing himself.
“I am not raising my voice because if I do, I will be accused of being young. I am not storming around this room because if I do, I will be accused of being young. I am not making violent and passionate love to you as I want to because I will be accused of being young. Yes, Catherine, I am younger than you. I am not young.”
Something in her face softened. She reached out and stroked his jaw with one finger.
“So clean,” she said. “Do you know, the first time I met you, I thought you could not grow whiskers?”
“I can grow whiskers,” he growled. “I had six weeks at Lord Bastable’s hunting camp once, and I grew a full beard. It was red-blond. I came back from that trip looking like some damnable Viking.”
She laughed. “I would have loved to have seen that.”
“Oh, Kate.” He put his arms around her waist. “Kate, let’s go to a cottage somewhere for six weeks, Ireland or Portugal or the Alps, and let me grow a beard for you.”
She did not break away from him, but she did not embrace him. She looked at his waistcoat buttons.
“I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything.” He kept his arms around her but stooped to try to meet her eyes. “Anything, Catherine, you know that.”
“I would feel better if you removed your hands from my person. I suddenly feel I am trading intimacy for your kindness, and I do not want that. I want things to be pure. And right. Between us.”
He took his hands off her waist immediately and backed away—one, two, three steps from her.
What did she mean? Were they to be as sister and brother now?
Friends, as she had said on his last visit?
As if somehow the night at the inn at Duddenhoe End, the nights at Sommerleigh, and, yes, even that disastrous time in his rooms that still filled him with shame (how could he have misread the situation so badly?)—as if all those times together had never happened.
Fine, fine. He could accept that. For now. Anything to get back in her orbit, to be in the same room with her.
“I need you to acquire the painting you saw at Sir Francis’ house,” she said.
“Acquire?”
“I would prefer if you bought the painting, and, of course, I would pay you back. Mr. Siddons refuses to sell to me, but he may sell to you. But if you have to steal it . . .” She smiled sadly.
“I suppose in encouraging you to perform acts of larceny, I am not really starting this pure and right relationship on a solid footing.”
James grinned. A job he was made for. Finally, a good use for his skills at pilfery. “I don’t anticipate any difficulty. I’ll buy it. The price will be no barrier. And it will be my gift to you. And if I can’t buy it, I’ll steal it.”
“The thing is . . .” She hesitated. “I don’t know where it is. Mr. Siddons plans to show it in the Exhibition at the Royal Academy.”
“The upcoming Exhibition?”
“Yes.”
“But that opens in,” he thought quickly, “four days.”
Catherine bit her lip. “Yes.”
“Then the painting is either with Siddons or on the premises of the Academy. I’ll go at once.”
Catherine looked relieved and felt for the nearest chair and sat down, rather quickly. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
James took a step towards the door of the drawing room but hesitated and turned to her.
“I would like something in return. I do want to trade for intimacy. But intimacy of a different kind. When I bring you this blasted painting, I want you to sit with me. And for us to speak together. About everything. Truthfully. I will tell you my secrets. You will tell me yours. Will you do that for me?”
She trembled. She folded her hands in her lap in front of her abdomen as if she were shielding herself.
“Yes, Your Grace.”