To Pleasure A Duke (The Husband Hunters Club #3)

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

J ack brought the note to her, slipping it into her hand under the breakfast table. His eyes were bright and he put his finger to his lips when she would have asked what it was. So a reluctant Eugenie hid it away until she was able to read it in private.

But there seemed to be more problems to deal with than usual in the Belmont household. The twins were up to their usual mischief, causing her mother to retreat to her parlor with palpitations and leaving Eugenie to smooth matters over. Terry had gone to market with Mr. Belmont, and returned with a filly his father said had cost his son far too much blunt.

“You’ll see,” Terry retorted. “I’ll double it and more.”

It seemed unlike her brother to exert himself in such a way but Eugenie was pleased that at least he was doing something other than playing cards and drinking at the Five Bells. He and Jack were out with the new filly as soon as they’d finished luncheon, discussing how they were going to train it into a prize-winning champion.

With a sigh of relief, Eugenie retired to her room and closed the door. A moment later she’d broken the seal on the note and was seated on the bed, reading it with a growing sense of anger.

Eugenie, I have a new dare for you.

Let me see how fearless you are.

Come to the old Jobling house tonight and I will be waiting.

Sinclair

The tap on her door startled her, and she quickly slipped the note under her skirts and sat on it. But it was only Jack.

“Barker brought it,” he explained, when she asked how he’d come by the note. “He told me not to tell anyone but you. He’ll come by later for a reply. Is it a secret, Genie? Is it from Somerton?”

“Yes,” she said, cautiously, “but Barker is right. You mustn’t tell anyone, Jack.”

Jack nodded. “I wish I had a secret, like you and Terry,” he said, a little wistfully.

Eugenie was about to ask him what Terry’s secret was, but his next words drove all other thoughts from her mind.

“Are you and Somerton lovebirds?”

“Goodness no!” she burst out. “How could we be? He is a duke, Jack.”

He looked so disappointed she relented.

“I suppose you could call us friends.”

“Oh.”

“But even friends have to be careful. Father wouldn’t approve, and neither would Somerton’s mother, so it’s best if we keep it to ourselves, Jack.”

“You don’t have to remind me to stay quiet,” he said, with a roll of his eyes. “Terry’s already been on and on at me. Are you going out tonight, too?”

Too? What was Terry up to now?

“Better tell everyone you have a headache then or they’ll be knocking on your door. In fact, if I was you, I’d tell them you were sick and bring up a bowl with you, and then you can be sure the twins won’t be bothering you. They’re terrified of vomit.”

Eugenie giggled at his practical advice, despite her present state of emotional upheaval. “Thank you, Jack.”

When he’d gone, she lay back on the bed and stared at her ceiling. She wasn’t going to meet Sinclair. He could wait all night if he liked but it was over and done. She’d already told him so, and if, in his arrogance, he chose not to believe her then that was his problem.

As if to emphasize the fact, she rose determinedly from her bed and went to her dressing table drawer, where she kept paper and ink. Full of righteous zeal, she began to compose a letter to her friends from Miss Debenham’s Finishing School. Soon she was so caught up in her comical tale of woe she barely noticed the time slipping by.

Alas, my friends, I will never be the Duchess of Somerton.

At first she decided to stick to the truth—more or less—in saying that the dowager duchess would never approve. But soon she was embroidering the story to make them laugh. She giggled as she finished the letter and signed her name, setting it aside to be posted.

Her next chore was not quite so enjoyable.

Eugenie wrote a brief reply to the duke’s note, telling him she would not be meeting him and it was over. Completely and utterly over.

I request you not to approach me again. We are unsuited in every way and you must see that yourself.

She signed her name and, suddenly remembering Erik, wrote a postscript that if there was ever any trouble with the goat she would prefer it if Barker contacted Jack.

It was done. Quickly, Eugenie addressed the letters and slipped them into their envelopes. The letter to her friends could go by post, but the one to the duke would return via Jack and the groom, Barker.

* * *

“Do you think it will work?” Annabelle asked anxiously, eyes big and dark in the twilight.

She had slipped out into the garden but said she couldn’t stay long. Her mother would be looking for her and she seemed to have a sixth sense for mischief. Lizzie had promised to guard her bedchamber door like a little lioness, swearing Annabelle had a migraine if anyone asked, but Annabelle was dismissive of Lizzie’s tale-telling abilities.

“It has to work. Then we will have enough money to get to Scotland.”

For a duke’s sister, Terry had discovered, Annabelle was always short of blunt. Everything was bought for her or sent from London. When she was married—so she told him—she would receive an allowance, but for now she had nothing.

“You just have to make him believe you are set on the filly and nothing else will do.”

Annabelle nodded, although he could see she didn’t like the idea of using her brother in this way. She probably saw it as underhand and dishonest. But what choice had they? To Terry’s relief she seemed to realize that herself and asked no more questions.

“I long to be safe in Scotland,” she murmured, with a glance over her shoulder. “I will live the life of an ordinary girl. I will call myself Miss St. John and—”

“Perhaps you should think of another name. Something less distinctive.”

“Miss Penniless?” she teased.

“Miss Mysterious?”

She laughed, glancing over her shoulder again.

“I’d better go back to the house. It would be awful if we were discovered now, just when our plans are going so well. Good-bye, Terry.” She pressed his hand and was gone, her pale skirts drifting through the dark garden. Terry watched her go, until there was nothing left but the call of the night birds and the hum of the insects.

* * *

“Well, it is all arranged,” Annabelle said, a tremor of excitement in her voice, as she flung herself onto her bed.

Lizzie watched her uneasily. “What is all arranged?”

“My future,” Annabelle said mysteriously, and then laughed.

“Annabelle, you know that Terry Belmont is not suitable as a husband for you. Your brother would never allow it.”

Annabelle gave her a knowing smile. “I’m not marrying him, Lizzie. No need to worry.”

Lizzie closed her lips tightly. She was worried sick about her charge and yet she felt compelled to keep her secrets. If she went to the duke or the dowager duchess, Annabelle would deny everything and then insist she was sent home to the vicarage. Apart from the ignominy of it, Lizzie knew if she wasn’t here then there would be no one to stop Annabelle’s headstrong rush to destruction.

“You like him, don’t you?”

Annabelle was watching her, a little gleam in her dark eyes, a curve to her lips. Lizzie pretended not to understand.

“Terry Belmont,” Annabelle explained. “You like him, Lizzie, and don’t pretend you don’t.”

“I don’t like or dislike him. He is nothing to me.”

“You’re fibbing, Lizzie. I didn’t think vicar’s daughters were allowed to tell lies.”

“Annabelle—”

“Do you want me to ask him if he wants to marry you?”

Lizzie felt light-headed at such a humiliating idea. “Don’t you dare do such a thing! You are being cruel, Annabelle.”

The other girl looked taken aback, as if something she had believed perfectly tame had suddenly bitten her. “Very well. It was just a thought. My apologies, Lizzie.”

Lizzie took a deep breath, and then another, calming herself, reminding herself of her position.

“Besides, he would probably refuse,” Annabelle went on. “He wants to join the army but his family can’t afford a suitable regiment. You wouldn’t want an army husband, would you, Lizzie? Always traveling about from town to town, living in foreign countries, sleeping in a tent!”

Lizzie said nothing, but her thoughts had taken flight. She imagined traveling through lands she had never seen before, living in close quarters with her husband, sleeping beside him in the cozy warmth of a canvas cave, darning his shirts while he sat beside her, feeling a warm sun on her face that was far from England.

She had never expected such a future. Life, for Lizzie, was plain and unadorned. But now she knew that if she had the chance to be an army wife, to be Terry Belmont’s wife, then she would take it.