Chapter 8

Once back in the house, Patrick marched her directly to the study and closed the door firmly against the ears of prying servants.

"Now, tell me what today's performance in the park was about."

In a halting voice, Dorothy explained how she had been angry at the Duke of Dawford's behavior and had followed him out into the street to berate him for his poor manners and uncivil treatment of her family.

"What were you thinking?!" Patrick exclaimed before she reached the end of her story. "The man is a duke, and not just any duke. As I've evidently failed to impress upon you, the Duke of Dawford is one of the most accomplished and influential young men in the kingdom. Like him or not, his favor has great value to our family. Crossing such a man is beyond imprudent, Sister."

"We do not have his favor," Dorothy pointed out. "He made that abundantly clear throughout the evening. You did not hear everything he said to me at the table, Patrick. They were most disrespectful to all of us, you included."

"That really is of no import, Dorothy," Patrick dismissed her with irritation. "You should not let yourself become so overemotional. What matters to me is that you followed an eminent and well-respected man into the street outside our house and… what? Abused him to his face?"

"I told him what I thought of him and what kind of man he was, yes," Dorothy admitted. "I'm not sorry either. He deserved every word!"

"Then what happened?"

Dorothy closed her eyes, overcome again by the memory of that kiss and the way she had melted into the Duke of Dawford's strong body.

"Someone saw us together, out in the street," she replied evasively, deciding that there was no need for him to know certain details. "A lady in a carriage. I didn't see her face, but I'm guessing it was one of the women who saw us in the park today, likely the lady you called Miss Cooper, or her companion."

Patrick half-turned away now and leaned against the marble mantelpiece above the fireplace, his face thoughtful.

"So, do I have this right, you were seen alone and unchaperoned in the street with the Duke of Dawford, possibly deep in an intense conversation with him?"

"Yes, I suppose so," Dorothy replied cautiously, unnerved by his silence.

Patrick was neither raging nor threatening punishment at this moment. His face was strangely contemplative as though thinking over some plan. She knew the ton could freeze out social transgressors and their entire families after a scandal. Sometimes families even disowned the transgressor, leaving them to fend for themselves in order to retain their social position.

In cases like her own, however, the simplest and most effective remedy was usually marriage, regardless of the feelings of the couple involved. Bearing in mind Patrick's fawning on the Duke of Dawford, he would not be reluctant to administer this remedy.

If Dorothy had been seen with an untitled man with no fortune, perhaps matters might have been different, but as it was, she could almost see the cogs and wheels in her brother's mind turning in this direction. She made a final, hopeless, attempt to steer him away from his likely inevitable destination.

"He really is unbearable, Patrick. I can't stand him. I've already told you how rude and disrespectful he is. He's also utterly arrogant. He thinks that every unmarried young lady in London wishes to throw herself in his path and trip him down the altar with her."

"He's not wrong," her brother said sharply and then smiled unnervingly. "That's what any sensible young lady wants to do, and seems to be exactly what you have done yourself, Dorothy."

The gleeful expression that had now appeared on Patrick's features made her feel slightly ill. He looked close to rubbing his hands.

"While I do not approve of your methods, I commend your spirit and resourcefulness, Sister," he continued. "I think you've put the Duke of Dawford right where we want him."

"I want him absolutely nowhere, Patrick," she hissed. "As long as he's not in our house. Can't we just let this Season go? Try again next year?"

"Dorothy, you've put the Duke of Dawford himself under an obligation, you dense little girl. I'm willing to believe you did nothing but insult the man, but Miss Cooper or whoever witnessed your outdoor meeting last night might tell a different story. The Duke of Dawford is an honorable man and is sure to feel bound to do the right thing."

"No, Patrick, please…." Dorothy shook her head in despair, watching her ambitions crash around her. "Can we not take some time to think this matter over? The ton might decide to occupy itself with some other scandal tomorrow."

Her brother was no longer listening to her.

"I expect the Duke here with a proposal of marriage as soon as he becomes aware of the rumors," Patrick continued. "If he does not arrive within the day, I shall call on him and remind him of his duty. Perhaps I will wheel Father over to the Duke's house with me."

"Patrick, I do not wish to marry that man!" Dorothy insisted, stomping her foot to try to draw his attention.

"A summer wedding! Then you can enjoy the Season as the Duchess of Dawford. I will go and consult Father now."

"You must listen to me, Patrick. You and Father can consult all you want, but I tell you now, if the Duke of Dawford asks for my hand, I will refuse it."

"Don't be ridiculous," Patrick scoffed and breezed past her to the study door. "Father will be delighted!"

At luncheon, Lord Prouton did indeed seem delighted, almost as pleased as his son at the prospect of forcing Dorothy into marriage with their uncivil and unsociable neighbor.

The two of them crowing over their victory made her quite sick. They weren't even keeping their voices down for the servants' prying ears, and Dorothy feared that there were now two sources of rumors about her affairs circulating around London, one beginning in her own home.

"Does it really not matter to either of you that I do not wish to marry the Duke of Dawford and he certainly will not wish to marry me?" she interrupted them as they were debating logistics and whether or not a special license would be needed.

They both looked blankly at her.

"An ordinary license will do," Patrick said, picking up his conversation as though she had not even spoken. "After all, it was only a misinterpreted argument. There is no question of, ahem, needing to hurry matters along."

"True, true," her father agreed. "But there's a certain cachet to a special license, isn't there? Only the very top families marry that way."

"You're right, Father. There is that to consider too. We must discuss the matter with the Duke of Dawford when he calls. There's also an interesting investment opportunity that I'd like to bring him on now that he will be joining the family. I wonder if I could somehow tie it into the marriage contract…"

In her anger, Dorothy dropped her cutlery on her plate of barely touched ham and vegetables and marched to her bedroom. Once inside, she picked up a pillow from her bed and screamed her frustration into it. Then, she threw the cushion down onto a couch and beat it with her small fists, while a few tears of rage escaped her eyes.

The knocking at her door was so faint that she barely heard it. It was only when the person on the other side of the door pushed it open slightly and repeated the tentative rapping that she looked up.

"Who is it?" she demanded, wiping hastily at her eyes.

A young chambermaid, Annie, entered the room cautiously. Like the house itself, she had been with the Hoskins family for only two months, and Dorothy barely knew her. She must have been around Dorothy's age but blonde and thin with shy blue eyes.

"Are you quite well, Miss Hoskins? I was passing in the corridor and I heard noises. If you're ill, I could ask Mrs. Nennery to make you a posset, or a poultice for your head. She's very good at doctoring as well as cooking."

"Oh, no, no… There's absolutely no need for that, but thank you, Annie. I am simply… cross with my family. That is all."

Annie nodded sympathetically. "Yes, I heard."

"I expect everyone has heard by now," Dorothy sighed with frustration. "Patrick and Father have been talking so loudly, I think the gossips are likely now quoting them in Hampstead."

"He isn't such a bad man, you know," the young maid offered tentatively.

"My Father? He probably isn't, but he has been guided by Patrick in everything since he had a stroke."

"No, I mean the Duke of Dawford. It won't really be so bad as you think if you do have to marry him. I just wanted to let you know that."

Dorothy blinked in surprise. This slip of a chambermaid knew the Duke of Dawford well enough to offer assurances about his character?

"How do you know that?" she asked immediately.

"I used to work for Lady Carreford here before she moved. That's why I was hired, I think, because I knew the house. The Duke was such a good neighbor to Lady Carreford, especially when her memory started to fail. He took her on walks in the park every Sunday when she started getting lost on her own."

"I wonder why?" Dorothy questioned, imagining he must have had some ulterior motive.

"I think he understood because of his mother," Annie said. "I do think he liked Lady Carreford's company too. The Dowager Duchess keeps to the house, and he said he had no one else to walk with on a Sunday morning."

Dorothy laughed, struck by the image of that hulking great man carefully escorting the tiny and wizened Lady Carreford about Hyde Park among the courting couples and happy families.

"Then, when she couldn't write properly anymore, he sometimes used to write letters for her. His Grace was the only person she trusted with her correspondence. Now that she lives with her daughter, His Grace sends letters to her there. Sometimes the daughter replies and Lady Carreford sends a kind word to me. He even sends the page across for me with one of his maids."

This story made both of them smile.

"You do show the Duke of Dawford in a better light than my brother, who seems obsessed only with his rank and ability to make money. Perhaps I have judged him a little unfairly in some regard. Everyone has some good qualities."

"There's far more to him than just his money, Miss Hoskins. Shall I tell you one more story?"

Slowly, Dorothy nodded, intrigued by the contradictory picture now being built up around this man.

"My little brother fell out of one of the apple trees in the garden last summer. Charlie was meant to be helping pick the apples, but he was fooling around. He broke his arm, and I was beside myself. Lady Carreford's cook wasn't like Mrs. Nennery. I didn't know where to find a physician, and the only carriage had been sent out for a parcel."

"Poor Charlie!" Dorothy commented sympathetically. "What happened?"

"Well, the Duke must have heard Charlie's screaming and come out to see what had happened. The next minute, he vaulted straight over the garden wall, assured Lady Carreford that he would deal with it, and picked my brother off the ground. He took both of us to the physician in his own carriage and paid for everything too."

"That was a real kindness. I see why you would defend him," Dorothy conceded.

"Charlie even got some peppermints from him once his arm was bound up, even though he didn't deserve them. His Grace said that Charlie had already had his punishment and would be more careful in the future. Oh, he really is a good man, Miss Hoskins, you must believe me!"

Annie clasped her hands earnestly before her as she made this final statement.

"I believe you, Annie," Dorothy said. "Thank you for taking the time to tell me these things."

Annie nodded, bobbed a quick curtsey and scurried away, perhaps afraid she had said too much and forgotten her place, although Dorothy did not care over much for such conventions.

Dorothy felt better in some ways now but worse in others. It was not only her own life that stood to be ruined by last night's indiscretion, and she would have cared less for causing pain to a thoroughly bad man than one with such undeniable streaks of good in his character.

How could a man who would go to such lengths to care for an elderly neighbor or the young brother of a maid take so little care with the feelings of his equals?

As a husband, such a contradictory personality would doubtless prove infuriating. As might the fact that he could cool her temper with a simple kiss…