Chapter 3
After the governess had gone, Richard O’Neill collapsed into a chair, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.
He was only three days into his ridiculous masquerade as the duke, and already he felt like he’d made a thousand mistakes.
He was lucky that the duke’s longtime servants expected him to behave in an eccentric way.
It was hard to master the duke’s personality, when he’d always considered himself so radically different from Cecil Irving, the Duke of Thanet.
The ability to constantly talk was more difficult than he’d imagined.
And the flirting! God how he hated to subject the poor governess to one of Cecil’s worst traits. But if Richard was going to be convincing as the duke, he had to notice everything in skirts.
Not that it was difficult to notice Miss Meriel Shelby.
He was fascinated by the obvious lengths she went to, to disguise herself.
Though she tried to hide her beauty behind lifeless colors and drab hairstyles—and those spinster spectacles!
—her radiance still peeked through like the sun from behind rain clouds.
She had the profile of a cameo: pert nose, a delicate mouth, and a chin that strained not to rise defiantly into the air.
Her hair, bound tight to her head, wanted the freedom to cascade in curls across her shoulders like the rays of the sun.
Petite in stature, she displayed the well-rounded curves of a woman.
And her eyes had looked on him with such directness, he’d been able to see their deep blue color behind the spectacles. They had reminded him of the depths of a forest pond, still water hiding what was beneath.
It was almost easy to adopt the duke’s distracted air, since all Richard seemed capable of doing was thinking about Miss Shelby. Such rare beauty was normally seen at the center of a drawing room, surrounded by adoring men.
Far from where he usually stood at parties. He was always the man talking business in the corner. Maybe that was why his luck with women had not been good. He had been too busy to pay them the attention they deserved.
But now he was pretending to be the Duke of Thanet, and no woman could be safe from him.
Even the poor governess.
The trick would be to flirt—and not follow through.
Because of course he would be seeing a lot of the governess.
This would be the hardest part of the masquerade.
Cecil had always ignored his son. Oh, he’d treated Stephen well, given him the best of everything—except his attention. This was normal amongst the ton.
Richard knew all too well how it felt to be an ignored child.
Somehow he would have to convince the staff that he’d had a change of heart about Stephen.
Perhaps illness had made the duke see how important his son was to him.
But the little boy who’d walked solemnly into the study had seemed so…
hopeful. Richard didn’t remember what it was like to expect goodness from people with such childlike trust, like this boy still did. Richard would not turn him away.
Stephen was important—he was the heir. And no one at Thanet Court knew of the rising danger to him.
Richard had always prided himself on being focused on his work. He’d already had the staff investigated—even the new governess.
Because he must consider Stephen his work now.
~oOo~
As usual, Richard awoke at dawn. He started to sit up, then fell back on his elbows as he remembered where he was—who he was.
The room was still gray with shadows, but the opulence was unmistakable, from the velvet bed curtains hanging above him to the intricately carved furniture centuries old. The ceiling was painted and frescoed, and the fireplace mantel was held up by statues of nude women.
He wondered how much the succession of duchesses had appreciated that.
His mind was abuzz with everything he wanted to do today, especially putting an advertisement in the London papers to hire a new valet. To Mrs. Theobald, he’d explained the absence of Cecil’s valet by claiming that the young man had fallen in love and quite to follow the girl north.
Richard couldn’t begin his day until noon, which was Cecil’s usual time to rise.
Richard must have been more exhausted than he thought, because he ended up falling back asleep.
When he next awoke, the sun was streaming in the tall mullioned windows.
By the clock, it was ten. In the silence, he heard the faintest patter of feet overhead.
Though it had been many years since he’d been to Thanet Court, he remembered what was over the master suite—the nursery.
Miss Shelby had already been at her lessons for several hours. He wondered if Stephen was as poor a student as his father. Not that the duke was unintelligent—he just hadn’t cared about the world beyond his own little kingdom, or even how to run it properly.
Richard flung back the covers. The duke would just have to awaken early today.
He ate a solitary breakfast waited on by two footmen.
Then he surprised the steward in his office.
Jasper Tearle was obviously unaccustomed to the duke questioning him, but Richard was not a man who could ignore what he was in charge of, even temporarily.
He spent the rest of the morning pretending to be bored while looking over the account books.
He asked questions as if he was ignorant, and couldn’t really study everything like he wanted to.
With an estate of this size—and all the other property—there was no reason for Cecil to be running out of money.
During his solitary luncheon, he was considering how best to drop in on Stephen’s seashore lesson without looking like he was following the boy—which he was—when the butler announced a visitor.
“Who is it, Hargraves?” Richard asked. He resisted the urge to rise to his feet. Instead he lounged back in his chair and waited with an assumed indolence he was far from feeling.
A woman breezed in and said, “It’s your long-ignored neighbor.”
Richard smiled, though inside he cursed his bad luck. Miss Renee Barome. Her brown hair haphazardly tumbled down her back from the wind, and her riding habit was wrinkled and dusty. Why couldn’t she be married and gone? Renee had once known Richard O’Neill as well as she knew the Duke of Thanet.
“Good afternoon, Miss Barome,” he said, giving her a leer worthy of Cecil.
She sank into the chair at his side. “Oh please, Cecil--you sound like your brother.”
Richard inwardly stiffened, but on the outside he laughed and rudely slung one leg over the arm of the chair.
She picked up a spoon and helped herself to a taste of his pudding.
“You’re so upset that I didn’t visit you immediately, that you have to insult me, fair Renee?” he asked.
“So now it’s an insult to be compared to your brother?” She gave him a sideways look. “Last I knew, he was a rather successful fellow.”
“Ah, but without the title, how happy can he be?” Richard grinned.
Renee laughed. “I imagine he makes himself happy, just as you do. It’s been some time since he haunted this part of England. When did you last see him?”
“Months at least. Maybe years. One loses track.”
“Not you, Cecil. You never succumbed to the pressure to let your brother go.”
He waved a hand. “I was young then. Now he’s far too stuffy for me. But must we talk about him? Surely there is gossip to be had. We always had fun making fun.”
She sighed, and her pleasant expression faded into worry. “You haven’t changed, Cecil. Even illness can’t make you into a serious man.”
“I’m still far too young for that.”
“But feeling better?” she asked with concern.
Renee had always had a hopeless crush on Cecil, and it saddened Richard to see that she still cared a bit too much. Though a gentlewoman, she was not polished enough for Cecil’s taste, not enough wealth and breeding. But it would have done Cecil good to marry her.
“So news of my illness spread even to this remote outpost?” he asked.
“Of course. The neighbors were quite worried.”
“You mean you were worried. I’m not sure the other neighbors cared—unless it interfered with my hosting the annual Thanet masquerade.”
She finished his pudding and sat back. “You would have to be on your deathbed to escape that. Have you set a date?”
Richard rose to his feet. “I’m still thinking about it. Care to accompany me for a ride, Renee?”
When she brightened, he felt guilty. She was the one person he would not flirt with. He wanted to ask if she’d found someone to love her as she deserved, but he suspected from her behavior that she had not.
But he needed an excuse to see Stephen, and she would do well for that.
Renee glanced at the dogs. “Are they coming with us?”
“No, although they have developed a new fondness for me. It must be because I could have died.”
“Cecil!”
He concealed his worry, and hoped that the dogs’ newfound affection wouldn’t be his undoing.
~oOo~
The well-trained horses were led easily down the narrow path that cut into the side of the cliff.
Richard walked in front, holding the reins of both horses.
Renee walked behind. The day was just cloudy enough to give relief from the hot sun.
Below Richard, the rocky sand stretched out to the North Sea, and people strolled by twos and threes, taking in the sun.
It was easy enough to spot Stephen and his governess.
Their heads were bent together as they examined something on the ground.
Feeling relieved, Richard pretended he wasn’t purposefully looking for anyone, as he waited for Renee to catch up to him.
She smiled and took a deep breath of sea air.
When he linked his hands and offered to boost her back into the saddle, she gave him a surprised look but accepted, shaking her head.
Probably another thing Cecil wouldn’t do.
His brother would have probably brought a groom for such things.