Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

" H ugh? Hugh?! Where is that young man? Is he in the library, Perkins?"

Rebecca Vaughan, the Dowager Duchess of Redbridge, carried her eighty years lightly on a tall, straight-backed frame. Her grey silk skirt swished with the briskness of her step as she marched through Redbridge Hall, throwing open doors and peering into empty drawing rooms, games rooms, and studies as she went.

Now, after scanning the billiards room and finding it as empty as all the other rooms, she tapped her foot impatiently on the parquet hallway floor and fixed her powerful gaze on the butler, who had given only a nervous cough in answer to her question.

"Well, Perkins, is he in the library or not? As the butler, you of all people should know where your master is."

"His Grace is not to be disturbed, Your Grace," the anxious butler answered, placing himself very deliberately in front of the library doors as though to head her off. "I served His Grace brandy and a ginger biscuit, as he is accustomed to have at this hour of the afternoon. Then, we heard that there was someone at the door. As I left the room, he said that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances?—"

The imposing silver-haired lady threw a stern hand in the air, disinterested in the butler's extended narrative of Hugh's afternoon. "I am not 'any circumstances,' young Perkins, am I? I hope I am not an unwelcome presence. I am the Dowager Duchess of Redbridge and the present Duke's grandmother. I knew your father well, as he was a butler in our London townhouse when my husband was still alive. How is Mr. Perkins Senior faring?"

"I would never imply, in any way, that you are unwelcome in your grandson's house, Your Grace," Perkins said, his face a picture of confusion and conflicted emotions. "My father is faring very well in his retirement, thank you, although his rheumatism pains him in winter. He will be honored by your interest—Your Grace, please!"

"Please, indeed!" Rebecca snorted, rattling the brass handles on the locked wooden library doors, having stepped around Perkins to seize hold of them while he was speaking. "Hugh! This is your grandmother, and I know you are in there."

"Perhaps His Grace has gone to sleep," Perkins offered desperately. "I'm very sure we should not wake him so suddenly."

"Well, I'm very sure that the Duke of Redbridge is avoiding all callers as usual and hoping that I'll go away as soon as possible. Hugh? Where are you? It's your grandmother. I will not be ignored!"

"Might I serve you some tea in the morning room, Your Grace?" Perkins suggested. "I could try to wake His Grace up while you wait in comfort."

Rebecca snorted again. "This really is absurd. I have no patience for such games!"

"I wouldn't call them games, Your Grace." Perkins defended his employer loyally, but in a quiet voice, evidently not wanting his words to carry through into the library. "His Grace genuinely seems to believe that…that…"

He bit his lip as the Dowager Duchess turned back and looked at him inquiringly.

"He believes what, Perkins? Believes that he's under some supernatural curse that he fears bringing down on anyone close to him? Stuff and nonsense! It's all very well avoiding Edwin and Georgina—that woman gets on my nerves, too. But I'm his grandmother, the wife of the tenth Duke of Redbridge. I won't have it, Perkins. I will not! Hugh! Hugh!!"

Now the determined patrician lady banged on the door with her fist, loudly enough that no footsteps were heard from inside the library before the lock clicked and the doors suddenly swung open.

"I said I was not to be disturbed, Perkins," the Duke of Redbridge snapped, his saturnine expression and tone further reinforced by the slim black mask that covered a portion of his face.

The butler quailed somewhat before his tall, black-clad figure, but the Dowager Duchess faced him with her hands on her hips.

"You may address me, Grandson, and not your butler. Perkins, you may return to your duties."

"Grandmother." Hugh sighed in resignation. He bowed respectfully to his grandmother and then waved Perkins away, who looked rather relieved. "I did not wish to receive guests this afternoon."

"Who does?" Rebecca responded acerbically, her eyes showing her understanding, if a little sympathy. "Bad guests are a burden, and even good guests become an irritation when they overstay their welcome. Still, hospitality is the duty of every noble in Society. The Duke of Redbridge has a duty to receive guests."

"That is as may be," Hugh answered with disdain. "But I have no more time for these people than they have for me."

"I'll have no arrogance or self-pity, Hugh," his grandmother warned. "Not in myself and not in any member of my family."

"It's the truth, not arrogance or self-pity," he argued, stepping aside to allow her inside the library.

Instead of taking one of the indicated seats, the Dowager Duchess stopped in the doorway, reaching out to grip her grandson's forearms with surprising strength.

Hugh looked back at her unblinkingly as she appraised him from his dark hair and the black silk mask he wore to the somber mourning suit that seemed his habitual dress.

The sunlight streaming through the library windows haloed his broad-shouldered body and lit up his partly-covered yet still-handsome features. His dark eyebrows were presently knitted in a frown above his deep blue eyes, and his jaw was firmly set, with determination more than intrinsic ill-temper.

"You're a healthy and fortunate young man, Hugh Vaughan," his grandmother pointed out. "Why on earth do you persist in shutting yourself away like this?"

"Fortunate!?" Hugh repeated with a bitter laugh. "You really call me fortunate?!"

"Poppycock!" Rebecca huffed, still holding onto him. "When will you learn to let go of the past? You were thirty years old on your last birthday."

"I'll let go of the past when the past lets go of me," Hugh answered. "Until then, I see little reason to burden myself with the company of others, let alone shock them with mine. You know very well how things stand."

"I will not listen to this again, Hugh," she insisted, although she now released him from her grip and allowed him to lead them to two comfortable leather chairs beside the largest window. "It's long past time that you took full responsibility for your estate. You use your uncle as your stooge."

"Stooge?! Hardly!" Hugh protested angrily. "Uncle Edwin does as he thinks best, and I allow it. If my lawyers, bankers, and agents prefer to deal with a man with a normal face, I understand that. Half of them are terrified of me. Would you have me revoke permission for Uncle Edwin to act on my behalf and frighten them all the more?"

"Edwin's representation was never meant to continue beyond your majority, except for emergencies. But still, you're letting him handle your lawyer, your bank, and your agents as though the business of the duchy is beneath you. Is that how the Duke of Redbridge should conduct himself?"

"Beneath me?! Ha! As I've already told you, these people are terrified of me. They stare, and I hear them whispering. What good does it do the duchy if they're afraid to speak up when I ask them a simple question? Around the ton, they still say that I'm cursed. You must hear it, too."

"Foolish women's gossip and childish gibberish. Anyone I hear spreading such rumors gets the sharp end of my tongue, I assure you, and?—"

"Grandmother!"

They looked at one another for a long moment with equally determined eyes, both at an impasse.

Then, Rebecca sighed. "Please, Hugh, listen to me, even if you'll listen to no one else. You are the Duke of Redbridge, like your father and your grandfather before him. Their blood runs in your veins. Do you think they'd want to see you like this, skulking about and barricading yourself in your library in case of unwelcome guests? Showing the whole world your contempt?"

"Don't," Hugh bit out, flinching at the mention of his father. "I know there are those who believe I'm not half the man that my father was. Or that Henry would have been?—"

"That's not what I'm saying. It's high time you simply live such nonsense down and do your duty as the Duke of Redbridge. You have responsibilities."

"Redbridge needs an heir," Hugh said flatly. "Yes, I'm well aware of that fact, Grandmother, and have thought on it at length. But there are certain prerequisites for siring an heir. I admit that I have a certain arrogance and disdain when it comes to dancing and having foolish conversations. Even if I partake in such petty amusements, I doubt I will find a woman suitable enough to become my Duchess."

He again indicated his masked face with a humorless laugh and shook his head at the absurdity of the idea, his dislike of social engagement very evident in both his expression and tone.

"You must go out into Society and take your place, regardless of how you feel," his grandmother insisted, undeterred. "I know that Lady Tarleton has invited you to her ball next month. Accept her invitation and attend without that mask."

"A Society ball?! What fun that would be," Hugh said sarcastically, the idea evidently holding little attraction. "What a coup for the gossip sheets if the cursed Duke of Redbridge's entrance silenced the conversation and emptied the ballroom…"

"There's no need for such melodrama, young man. The Duke of Felbourne lost one arm during his time with His Majesty's army, and Lord Gasborough has a glass eye from experimenting with explosives in his outbuildings. We've all seen scars before."

" You might have seen scars, Grandmother, and your friends the Duchess of Felbourne or Lady Gasborough. But not the young ladies and gentlemen who will be at Lady Tarleton's ball. Be realistic, Grandmother, and don't patronize me with sympathy or wishful thinking. I'll be merely an object of derision and fear if I go about normally in Society."

"If that's what you set out to be, yes, you would," the Dowager Duchess countered mercilessly. "But not otherwise. It's your choice, Hugh. Please, go to Lady Tarleton's ball without such ideas fixed in your head. Dance with some pretty young lady who pleases you and bring her back here to be the Duchess of Redbridge…"

"Grandmother, what young lady of a good family would ever want a man like me?"

"There are hundreds of suitable young ladies who would still want to be the Duchess of Redbridge even if you had three heads and a thoroughly evil disposition. I promise that all you have to do is show your face during the Season, and they'll flock to you. I would vet prospective brides, of course, and help you choose someone appropriate for the estate and title."

Hugh continued to shake his head at his grandmother's suggestions. He seemed to find her ideas the most absurd notions in the world. "With my face? Impossible! I do not see how it is to be done."

Rebecca pursed her lips and then nodded to herself as if coming to a decision. "I did think that you might persist with this line, Hugh. There is also another way."

"Another way?" Hugh echoed.

His grandmother opened her elegant reticule and extracted a small, rolled document from within. "Another way," she confirmed. "Ring for tea, Hugh. We'll discuss this over some refreshments."

"Can't you even take that mask off when you're only with me?" The Dowager Duchess of Redbridge sighed as Perkins bowed out of the library once more and closed the doors.

On a table beside the fireplace sat a steaming silver teapot and two slices of buttered fruit cake.

Hugh shook his head, his hand flying defensively up to his face as if to check that his mask was still in place.

"Hugh…" his grandmother began but then paused, accepting that whatever she could say on the subject of his face would be pointless.

Instead, she unrolled the slightly yellowed parchment and placed it on the table, pinning the ends with the sugar bowl and milk jug.

"Read that," she instructed as she poured the tea. "It's an agreement made twenty-five years ago between your grandfather and his best friend, the previous Viscount Sedgehall. My maid found it in the drawer of an old desk. I suspect both men were in their cups when they wrote this, but the intention is clear, and from what I know of the Wright family, such an arrangement would still be welcomed."

With his mask and usual dour expression, it would have been hard for anyone to gauge Hugh's reaction to the contents of the document. Rebecca waited unblinkingly for his reaction.

"You honestly think that any modern young woman would agree to this arrangement?" he asked finally, looking up at his grandmother's expectant face.

"Why not? As I've already told you, you're the Duke of Redbridge and a good catch for young ladies in high society, regardless of your oddities."

"My oddities? My face, you mean…"

"No, I do not mean your face, Hugh Vaughan. I mean your peculiar behavior and contempt for Society. Now, your grandfather and Viscount Sedgehall made a sworn agreement that men in the direct line of descent of either family could claim a bride from the other family if they reached the age of thirty without finding a wife and there were unmarried ladies of marriageable age available."

"You're pointing out that I'm now thirty years of age and should claim a bride from the Wright family? This isn't some Gothic novel, Grandmother," Hugh scoffed, returning to his tea. "What next? An advertisement in the Times? Duke in need of a wife… "

"Real life is stranger than any Gothic novel, my boy. You of all people should know that. Well, you are indeed thirty years of age, and there are two unmarried girls in the Wright family. I know for a fact that their father is keen to see them well and safely married. Introduce yourself with this contract, and you could be married to a good woman by Christmas."

This time, Hugh offered no immediate answer. He was staring off into the distance, or perhaps into the depths of his mind. Wherever he was looking, Rebecca did not wish him to become lost there.

"I believe that both young girls are rather beautiful, and the eldest is reputed to be quick-witted and somewhat outspoken—a good match for any man of intelligence and character."

"What are their names?" Hugh asked finally.

Rebecca tried hard and just about succeeded in keeping the triumph from her expression as she began to rattle off the two girls' names and virtues.

"The elder is Miss Catherine…"