Duchess Material

Two

A s the carriage pulled into traffic and headed toward her flat near Bloomsbury, Phoebe stared at Will Margrave’s commanding profile through the veil of her lashes.

No.

He could not simply be “Will” to her anymore, but the Duke of Ellis.

Your Grace.

When he first burst into the inspector’s office it had taken Phoebe a moment before she recognized him—though perhaps that wasn’t terribly surprising given how little she had seen of him these last eight years. And even when they had happened upon one another, he was usually too preoccupied with the pompous gentlemen and fawning ladies surrounding him to spare her more than a passing nod—and sometimes not even that.

His posture had been stiff and his manner imposing, like every other man who thought himself terribly important. Though she supposed it was warranted in his case, if one felt anything other than contempt for the English aristocracy. Nevertheless, the old and illustrious title he had inherited eight years ago seemed to have seeped into his very bones, snuffing out any trace of the cavalier young man with the lopsided grin who had once invaded her thoughts far more than she would ever admit—to say nothing of her heart. But then his narrow-eyed gaze had fixed upon her, setting off an irritating flare of heat as her mind caught up to what her body already knew.

He actually came.

The incident in the tenement house had unfolded rather quickly once that awful maintenance man Mr. Felton appeared. Phoebe explained that she was simply looking for her missing student Alice Clarke, but he accused her of trespassing and immediately found a constable passing by. Phoebe had only invoked the duke’s name in a last, desperate attempt to put the constable off. After all, he was the most powerful person she knew—never mind that they were barely on speaking terms. Still, Phoebe issued the command with all the outraged self-importance she could muster. She was fairly certain she even said Unhand me , like a silly maiden in a penny dreadful. But her protest had done nothing. The constable just shot her an irritated look and hauled her off to Bow Street, muttering something like Damn modern girls never know their place.

“How long has your student been missing?”

She turned at the question and met her reluctant rescuer’s eyes. They were darker inside the carriage, closer to black than brown. Or maybe it was just the way he was looking at her. A mediocre novelist might describe them as piercing , but that was the only word that came to mind. Phoebe ignored the answering shiver of interest. “A week, Your Grace.”

“Don’t call me that,” he said with a sudden scowl.

She let out a short, surprised laugh. “Why? That’s how one addresses a duke, is it not?”

He rolled his eyes. “Your sister doesn’t.”

“That’s because Alex doesn’t have any respect for the peerage.”

A very undignified snort erupted from him. “And you do?”

Phoebe had spent enough time among people who thought that because their great-great-great-grandfather had been Groom of the Stool to Charles II or some other such nonsense that they were entitled to act however they wanted whenever they wanted to whomever they wished. She and Will had once mocked such people, until he became one of them.

“Touché.” She lifted a shoulder. “Very well. I will call you Ellis. Is that better?”

“No,” he said sullenly.

She couldn’t help smiling at the trace of petulance in his tone. He didn’t really expect her to call him Will anymore, did he? That was a relic from a far different era she would rather not revisit. When nobody knew he would become a duke and Phoebe could still delude herself into desperately hoping these feelings weren’t hers alone.

“But Ellis is your title.”

He gave an unduke-like shrug and turned back to the window. “I’d prefer Margrave.”

Then he fell into a short brooding silence and Phoebe was grateful she could look freely upon him for a moment. As the carriage took a turn, a beam of late afternoon sunshine illuminated his face to devastating effect and drew attention to his sharp cheekbones. Really, it was outrageous that a man would possess such cheekbones. One could allow the chiseled jaw and the full lips, but the cheekbones were simply too much. A lock of his thick, dark hair fell across his forehead and as Will absently pushed it back, Phoebe’s heart twinged at the familiarity of the movement. She wasn’t sure what angered her more, that he still retained the mannerisms of his former self or that she still remembered so very much.

“Doesn’t this girl have parents?”

She startled at the question and met Will’s eyes. He raised a brow, waiting for a response. Had he noticed her staring at him? And if so, for how long? Phoebe cleared her throat to hide her embarrassment.

“Ah, no. She is an orphan. Her mother had been sick for some time and passed on earlier this year, while her father died when she was very young. No other family to speak of.”

“Do you know such intimate details of all your students?”

Phoebe lifted her chin at the disapproval in his tone. “Unfortunately Miss Clarke is hardly an outlier. There are many girls in similar situations. The school tries to provide as much assistance as possible, but funds always fall short of the need.” She then gave a pointed look around the grand carriage.

Will shifted in his velvet-clothed seat. “Not that I need to explain myself to anyone , but I inherited this conveyance.”

“And I suppose you inherited your cashmere coat and silver-handled walking stick as well?” Phoebe smiled widely as she said this. She may not have much respect for the peerage, but she usually saved this level of sarcasm for only her sisters.

Will gave her another narrow-eyed look. “All right. You’ve made your point, Atkinson.”

“Is that how you’ll address me?” She was far too pleased by the idea, not that she could ever admit it.

“Seems fitting given your sister refuses to be called Alexandra.”

“Yes, but as you know only a select few are permitted to call her Alex.”

His mouth curved in the faintest hint of that lopsided smile at the mention of his dear friend, and Phoebe felt a distressingly familiar pang of jealousy. As a girl, she had often felt like the odd man out in their company, though Will had always tried to make her feel welcome even when Alex did not. Yet another old memory she did not wish to revisit. “Have you heard from her lately?”

“I received a letter last week.”

Phoebe hesitated for a moment. “Is she enjoying New York?”

He cocked his head at the question. “Don’t you know?”

“We had a disagreement before she left,” she admitted. “I… I don’t suppose she said anything to you about it?”

Will turned thoughtful. “Even if she had, I wouldn’t break her confidence.”

Phoebe let out a breath and nodded. “Good. I’m glad she has you,” she added quietly.

Alex didn’t have many friends. Not that she seemed to notice. Or care. She preferred financial portfolios to people. It was her single-minded dedication to profitability at any cost that had led to their argument in the first place. Still, Phoebe didn’t like fighting with her. She could always send a letter rather than wait another month until Alex returned to London, but it was nearly impossible to gauge her sister’s mood over correspondence. One felt as though they were conversing with a letter-writing machine rather than an actual person. No, definitely better to wait.

Will was giving her that piercing look again. The one she could feel in her chest. “And how is Cal?” she asked a tad too brightly. “I haven’t been back to Surrey since Christmas.”

He returned his gaze to the window yet again. “Fine. Not much changes with him.”

Will’s younger brother had been a promising art student when he was injured in a terrible carriage accident that claimed the life of his best friend and left him with a debilitating shoulder injury. As far as Phoebe knew, he hadn’t picked up a paintbrush in years.

“I don’t see you around town much,” Will continued, deftly steering the subject away from his younger brother. “Though Winifred is everywhere I go. I’m not sure that girl even sleeps.”

Phoebe had wondered the very same about her vivacious younger sister.

“Yes, well, that is because Freddie is the only Atkinson sister who actually enjoys society. And thank God for that. She keeps Mother occupied so Alex and I can do as we please.” Will smiled at that and Phoebe ignored the answering shiver of interest again. “I mostly keep to my corner of London. There is little to tempt me to venture towards Belgravia and beyond.”

“Aside from your family, you mean.”

She offered a half-hearted shrug in response. That was a thorny topic these days. Her mother was the granddaughter of an earl, but had committed a grave faux pas when she married Phoebe’s father, the brilliant, dashing son of a successful accountant-turned-banker—and new money. Then, instead of being ashamed of their poor match, her parents had the audacity to be happily married, even when they had only three daughters and no sons. Some of the more conservative members of society still snubbed them to this day, but they didn’t much care. Thus the family was considered, well, a bit eccentric. Their reputation had helped create a close-knit, nurturing atmosphere at home that, as Phoebe found, could quickly become suffocating.

Will gave her a searching look but didn’t press further. “What will you do about Miss Clarke now?”

“I’m not sure,” Phoebe said with a sigh. “If I wait for the police, nothing will ever happen.”

“That detective seemed like a competent fellow.”

“Perhaps, but I doubt Miss Clarke will be much of a priority to him.”

Will frowned. “You’ve become quite cynical, Atkinson.”

Phoebe held her tongue as anger flared inside her, hot and quick. That was rich, coming from him. Men like the duke were the very reason it was so blasted hard not to be cynical these days. “I’m merely a realist.” She glanced out the window and noticed they were close to her flat. “Drop me off here, please.” This unexpected reunion had grown tedious.

Will followed her gaze. “But we haven’t reached your street yet.” Even still, he tapped the handle of his walking stick against the ceiling and the carriage slowed to a stop.

She mustered a coy smile. “You can’t possibly think I can be seen by my neighbors alighting from a duke’s carriage. I’m simply trying to preserve my reputation. And yours.”

His frown deepened as he moved to open the door for her, but she was faster.

“Nice to see you again, Margrave,” Phoebe called over her shoulder as she practically leaped onto the pavement. She almost meant it too. “And thank you again for your help.”

He called after her, but she didn’t turn back. The words faded into the street noise as she lifted her chin and made her way home, alone once again.

As Will watched Phoebe march down the street like a woman who had not just spent the better part of the day in police custody, his mother’s long-ago warning echoed through his mind: That Atkinson girl is not for you anymore.

She had been referring to Alex—for Will could never convince his mother that they were only friends—but the words had been an unsettling reminder of all that had changed thanks to a fearsome Sicilian’s dagger and his degenerate cousin’s habit for cheating at cards.

His father had never once spoken of the possibility that the dukedom might fall to him before his own early death, and his mother was just as shocked as Will by the news. She had been estranged from her late husband’s family upon their marriage, as Will’s grandfather expected his only son to marry the daughter of an important business associate, not an impoverished country squire in London for the season. But they had happily settled in Surrey and Will’s father had become a successful country barrister in spite of the estrangement.

On occasion when his father had too much brandy at Christmas he spoke of his grandfather’s distant cousin descended from a more illustrious branch of the Margrave tree, but it was treated like just another fairy tale: “Hansel and Gretel,” “Briar Rose,” and the Duke of Ellis with a dozen estates. What boy could imagine all that? What man? Will’s imagination hadn’t been big enough.

So although the Atkinsons may have been a perfectly acceptable family to unite with when he had been Mr. William Margrave, gentleman’s son, they were not the right sort for a future duke. They had money and connections, but their blood simply wasn’t blue enough. Only Mrs. Atkinson, the granddaughter of an earl, could claim a direct line to the aristocracy. Will knew nothing of Mr. Atkinson’s ancestry, which said enough. He was meant for more now. The daughter of an earl or better would be ideal. Someone to help him adjust to his new station. Someone who had been born and bred to understand what it took to be a duchess. Someone like Lady Gwen.

Will snapped the curtain shut and sat back in his seat. He didn’t need any reminders of how limited his choices were. That knowledge had followed him for years. He let out a sigh and checked his pocket watch. There was still time to pay Lady Gwen a short call, though he would have to come up with some reason to excuse his absence. Will winced. They weren’t even engaged yet and he was already lying to her. That wasn’t exactly an auspicious beginning, but he could hardly tell her where he had been all afternoon, could he.

Because you don’t trust her.

The wince turned into a grimace. Damn that Phoebe Atkinson. Will didn’t need more complications in his life, especially now. He needed to focus on his future and all the great things that lay ahead, not waste time wading through past memories—and Phoebe was firmly a part of his past.

Will instructed his driver to take him to the Fairbanks’ home and reached for the satchel on the seat beside him. Now seemed as good a time as any to go over Parliament business. He didn’t agree with many of the positions of the Conservative party, but the old duke had been an important fixture and a confidant of Lord Salisbury, the current prime minister. Upon his death, it was just assumed that Will would take his place and he had been too overwhelmed at the time to give it much thought. Besides, he wasn’t a young idealist anymore, but a man with responsibilities. With dozens, nay, hundreds of people who depended on him for their livelihoods. And Will couldn’t leave anything to chance, which meant following the guidance of the old duke’s friends like Lord Fairbanks.

However, as the years passed and Will slowly found his footing, he began to bump up against the barriers constructed by powerful men who wanted the world to remain as it was. So Will chose his battles carefully, strategically, so as not to arouse any suspicion. If he was labeled a radical, those doors that had opened for him with such reluctance would slam shut and he could lose what little power he had amassed. This way he could advocate for gradual change from the inside. He was being pragmatic.

I’d say a coward.

Will gritted his teeth as Phoebe’s contemptuous gaze flashed through his mind. This was insupportable. He flicked the curtain aside to glance out the window. They were still a good mile away from Mayfair, but Will banged on the roof. He couldn’t sit here any longer. And certainly not while Phoebe’s scent still hung in the air. Somehow it was more cloying than any perfume. As soon as the carriage came to a stop, he threw open the door and stepped down onto the pavement to the bewilderment of his coachman.

“Your Grace?”

“Thank you, John. I’ll walk the rest of the way. I could use some fresh air.”

His coachmen didn’t even try to hide his confusion. This was Central London. There was no fresh air to speak of. But Will didn’t need to explain himself. He was a duke, and dukes did whatever they pleased. So he turned swiftly on his heel toward his destination, grateful for every step that brought him farther away from Phoebe Atkinson.