Duchess by Mistake Read online

  "That man wasn't worthy of you. Pray, pet, if you just be patient you'll find a great love."

  "I think not. In recent weeks I have chosen to emulate Charlotte and do good works."

  "There's one significant difference between you and Charlotte. She has a husband to whom she is happily married."

  Elizabeth shrugged. "I don't need a husband in order to have a full, rewarding life in the service to the less fortunate."

  "I cannot say that I haven't noticed how much time you've been spending at our sewing school."

  Elizabeth shrugged. "Someone had to step in with those poor, unfortunate souls when Lydia was breeding." It pained Elizabeth to speak to Anna of her sister's recent confinement for she knew how devastated Anna was over the loss of her own babe.

  "You've done much good," Anna said.

  "I mean to do more. Has it not struck you that there are a great many officers' widows who have become destitute? Many of them have lost not only their beloved husbands but also their homes."

  Anna nodded sadly. "How can you alleviate such a grave problem? You're but one person. One very young person--with no fortune."

  It was true that Elizabeth had no fortune. Dear Anna was dipping into her own fortune to provide dowries for each of Charles's sisters. "I have given this much thought. I may not have fortune, but by virtue of my birth, I have access to many noblemen with deep pockets, and I mean to play upon that strength."

  "What have you in mind?"

  "This very afternoon I have located a large house in a respectable neighborhood. It can easily accommodate ten families--provided the children share chambers with their mothers."

  "And how do you propose to pay for it?"

  "It belongs to the Duke of Aldridge, and I mean to ask for its use. After all, because he's Charles's oldest friend and because I've known him all my life, I believe I can persuade him to help. Despite his debauchery, he is noted for his generosity. And it helps that he's one of the richest men in the kingdom."

  Anna's dark brows lowered. "I'm sure he's not really debauched. If that were the case, I don't think Charles would be as fond of him as he is."

  "Perhaps I've used too strong a word. The privileged man does behave in a scandalous fashion."

  Anna nodded. "I do look forward to meeting him." She dipped her pen in the ink pot. "Tell me, is this house of his in Mayfair?"

  "Oh, no. Nothing that fashionable. It's in Bloomsbury. The homes on Trent Square have belonged to the Dukes of Aldridge for generations. I learned that the last occupant of Number 7 Trent Square has recently died, and it has become vacant."

  "How fortuitous, then, that the duke's returned to London."

  Indeed it was. Elizabeth need not tell Anna she planned to call on the duke. Anna would object. Resigned to being a spinster, Elizabeth had no wish to continue acting like a miss on the Marriage Mart. She was a woman now, and she was embarking on this new chapter of her life. Alone. Elizabeth would take sole responsibility for this scheme, and she refused to solicit Anna's money for this endeavor.

  Anna looked at the clock upon the chimneypiece, then stood. "I told Lydia I'd come see the babe this afternoon. Will you come with me?"

  Despite that Anna had lost weight in her grief over her own babe, Elizabeth thought she'd never seen a more beautiful woman than her brother's dark-haired wife. Huge brown eyes thickly fringed with extraordinary lashes were set in a flawless oval face. Every bit as striking as her huge eyes was the sheer whiteness of her perfect teeth.

  Poor Anna was already attached to Morgie and Lydia's infant son. It was such a pity she had no babe of her own. She would be as wonderful a mother as Lydia was proving to be. "I saw little Simon only yesterday. There are other matters that demand my attention."

  * * *

  Sometime after donning a dress which matched the periwinkle colour of her eyes and topping it with a matching pelisse suitable for calling at Aldridge House, Elizabeth found herself knocking upon the door of that fine house on Berkeley Square. She wondered how many times Charles had passed through this door during his two and thirty years. Since she had only come out three years previously, she had never had the opportunity to pay a call upon the duke, owing to his long absence from England.

  The white-haired butler who answered her knock looked as if he'd been in the employ of the Aldridges for at least two generations. He quickly offered her a tight smile and spoke before she had the chance to offer her card. "Please come in. His grace awaits. If you will just follow me up the stairs."

  She supposed with this being the duke's first day back, he was entertaining callers in the drawing room. She had not considered that she would not have him all to herself. It would be difficult to make her bold proposal to him in a room full of people. Her brother had once said the duke did not like to have his charities acknowledged, preferring anonymity.

  Her gaze lifted to the massive chandelier that glistened above, then she began to follow the stooped-over butler as he mounted the stairs, his movements slowed by age. All the way up the impressive, iron banistered staircase portraits of long-dead Aldridges stood almost one on top of the other and seemed to be staring at her.

  To her surprise, when they reached the first floor he did not stop but continued mounting stairs to the next level. Though her experience with ducal residences was limited, she was unaccustomed to finding a drawing room so far removed from the home's entrance. In most of the houses with which she was familiar, the third level was reserved for bedchambers.

  They reached the third level. It was slightly less formal than the second level, actually looking remarkably like the third--bedchamber--level at Haverstock House. The butler turned to the right and shuffled along another corridor until he reached the first paneled and gilded door. It was closed. He teetered to a stop and turned to face her with a somber countenance. "You will find his grace in here." Then he began to retrace his steps.

  She drew in a breath, reached for the door handle, and opened it.

  She heard a splashing sound before the door was fully open. How peculiar. When she had clear view of the room, she gasped. There in its center, framed by the fireplace behind him, the Duke of Aldridge was emerging from his bath. His long, glistening, gloriously formed body was completely naked.

  In her entire life Lady Elizabeth Upton had never seen a naked man in the flesh. Though her first instinct should have been to run screaming from the chamber, she was frozen to the spot, unable to remove her gaze from . . . the manly part. And so much more. From his wide shoulders along his burnished skin and muscled limbs, the dark-haired duke exuded a masculinity like nothing she had ever seen.

  A flood of memories of her former adoration of this man many years ago walloped her. She felt the heat climbing into her cheeks and knew she should flee from the profligate duke. Yet, like a compulsion to watch a grim sight not suitable for female sensibilities, she was incapable of turning away.

  "You're not Belle!" he said, snatching his toweling and covering the lower portion of his statue-worthy body. His voice held a note of incredulity.

  No doubt, Belle was a lady of the demimonde. What a wicked man he was! To think, his first day back in the kingdom he chose to spend with a woman of that sort.

  At the sound of his voice, she realized how shameless she must appear. And how very improper it was for her to be there. She came to her senses, let out a full-fledged scream, turned on her heel, and fled down the stairs.

  And came face to face with her brother.

  "Haverstock!" she cried.

  His brows lowered with concern. "What's the matter, Lizzie?"

  She tossed her head back in the direction of the duke's private chamber. "That man! He's thoroughly debauched." Then she scurried down the stairs. Never again would she come to this . . . this temple of profligacy.

  ***

  Aldridge was having the devil of a time trying to remember where he had seen that chit before. No doubt, she was a lady of Quality. He'd likely scared the poor thing senseles
s. There had obviously been a serious misunderstanding.

  As soon as he called for Lawford, Haverstock came striding into Aldridge's bedchamber. When he saw that Aldridge was without clothing, his facial expressions thundered. "What in the hell were you doing with my sister?"

  Oh, damn! That's why she looked familiar! The duke grimaced. "It's not what you think."

  Haverstock's gaze raked over him from the top of his wet head down the full length of his nakedness. "Oh, isn't it? My god, Aldridge, she's an innocent! How could you?"

  By then Aldridge's valet had come striding in with fresh clothing for his master, and Aldridge began to dress. "It seems I owe your sister an apology. Cynthia, is it not?"

  "You know very well it was Cynthia! Only she now uses her given name of Elizabeth."

  "I assure you I have no dishonorable designs on your sister."

  Haverstock regarded him thoughtfully for a long, silent moment. "Then are you saying your intentions toward Elizabeth are honorable?"

  "But of course. What do you take me for?"

  "It appears I shall now take you for my brother-in-law."

  Just as his sister had done a moment earlier, Haverstock spun around and fled from the chamber.

  Aldridge wanted to call after him, wanted to reason with him, but what could he say?

  A rush of thoughts flooded his brain. It was his own damn fault this debacle had occurred. He was the one who'd told Lawford to instruct poor old, hard-of-hearing Barrow to admit a lady into his bedchamber. It had never occurred to him an innocent young lady--and not the worldly, corrupted Belle Evans--would show up at Aldridge House his first afternoon back in London.

  Philip Ponsby, the 5th Duke of Aldridge, had been born to extreme privilege, and accordingly, was accustomed to the gratification of all his wishes whether they be the acquisition of a new thoroughbred or a Rembrandt. Even infirmities that had struck other young men of his acquaintance had never visited him. He had also been favored with tolerable good looks and the ability to attract lovely lasses who had no knowledge of his exalted rank. But this afternoon as he stood only half dressed in his bedchamber, he was numbed by an overwhelming sense of bereavement.

  For he knew he would enter into a marriage neither he nor the shocked young lady desired. It was not only the honorable thing to do, it was also what he had to do to restore his friendship with the only fellow whose friendship had ever mattered to him.

  He must own that in the hinterland of his brain, he'd realized that upon returning to England he would have to settle down and see to securing the succession. Two and thirty years was more than enough time to sow his wild oats.

  At this point in his life he was resigned to marriage. But he had never thought that the selection of the future Duchess of Aldridge would be snatched from his own hands. For the first time in his two and thirty years, he felt powerless.

  Chapter 2

  Elizabeth Upton had never been so humiliated. Every member of her family--save for her brother in the Peninsula and her married sister in Cornwall--had learned of her indiscretion. Because she had exercised the unsound judgment of visiting a bachelor without benefit of a chaperon and, therefore, been exposed to . . . an exposed man, it was thought that she had been compromised.

  All of her claims of innocence had fallen on deaf ears.

  Upon her return to Haverstock House, she had positively refused to speak to Haverstock about the matter. Really, it was too, too embarrassing. She had not been able to purge from her memory the vision of that . . . that appendage between the Duke of Aldridge's slender waist and his muscled thighs. The very memory of it sent heat to her cheeks and a breathlessness to her lungs.

  Even statues of well-formed Greeks she'd seen in the British Library managed to conceal the . . . the shape of that particular endowment. And though she was no expert, she thought perhaps the Duke of Aldridge in every way was more. . . well, more everything than the average well-formed Greek.

  After she'd sent away a raging Haverstock, his gentle wife had come to Elizabeth. Anna at least listened to Elizabeth's defense but assured her that Haverstock would accept nothing less from the duke than marriage. "It's not right that he not marry you after you've . . . well, after you've seen things no maiden should see."

  Once Elizabeth had sent Anna away, Lydia then came and told her she must marry the duke. In her two decades, Elizabeth had never dared not to obey her wise and much-respected eldest sister. But today she sent Lydia away with vehement refusals to do as her sister bid.

  Next, her sister Kate had come to assure her of her stupendous good fortune in securing a--forced though it was--proposal from a duke! Really, Kate insisted, Elizabeth was the most fortunate lady in the kingdom. Being Elizabeth's least favorite sister as well as the sister whose mercenary opinions generated the greatest animosity, Kate, too, was sent away.

  That night Elizabeth refused to leave her bedchamber. She even sent away untouched trays of food that kindly Anna had sent up.

  * * *

  Aldridge never would have believed his first night back in London would find him standing behind closed doors in Haverstock's library, begging the hand of his youngest sister. Or was she the second youngest? Deuced if he knew. She'd been but a babe in arms the first time Aldridge had come home from Eton with Haverstock, who was then Lord Charles Upton. There must be a dozen years separating Aldridge's age from hers.

  She had still been in the schoolroom when he left England five years earlier. In the ensuing years she had come out, and despite that she was in possession of a pretty face and figure had failed to attract a husband.

  To his great misfortune.

  Nevertheless, in the past half a dozen hours he had resigned himself to this marriage. Ever pragmatic, he had enumerated the advantages to this alliance. First, it would unite his family to that of his greatest friend. Secondly, the Haverstocks were an old family of lineage nearly as noble as his own. Third, this Elizabeth-Who-Used-to-be-Cynthia was prettier than most of the young ladies of his acquaintance. And, fourth, if she was in possession of even half the intelligence of her plain elder sister, Lydia, he would count himself fortunate to be wed to so sensible a woman.

  Haverstock sat behind a sweeping desk, glaring. His anger obviously prevented him from extending the courtesy of asking Aldridge to sit. Consequently, Aldridge stood there feeling much as he had as a twelve-year-old standing before the headmaster.

  "You must know one of the reasons I've returned to England is to seek a wife, and it would give me inordinate pleasure if you'd do me the honor of allowing Lady Elizabeth to become my duchess."

  Still staring at him, Haverstock rose, then a smile slowly lifted as he stuck out his hand. "Welcome home, brother."

  The two shook hands.

  "Won't you have a seat?"

  Aldridge dropped into a nearby chair.

  "Damn, but it's good to have you back," Haverstock said.

  "It's good to be back. I'm looking forward to meeting your marchioness. Word of her extraordinary beauty reached me in Italy."

  "I hope one day your marriage to Elizabeth will bring you the happiness Anna's brought me." Haverstock grew solemn. "Despite her extraordinary beauty, I wasn't in love with Anna when we wed, but I soon fell under her captivating spell."

  It was a pity Aldridge would never be as besotted over Elizabeth as he'd been told Haverstock was over his wife. "I pray that you're right."

  Haverstock's countenance brightened. "Did you know Morgie and Lydia have a son?"

  "I did not. As fond as I am of Morgie, I never credited him with having such good sense as he demonstrated by marrying Lydia."

  His comment launched Haverstock into a chuckle. "They are uncommonly good for each other--and devoted to one another."

  Aldridge shook his head. "I cannot picture Morgie as a father."

  "Nor can he. I don't think he quite knows what to make of the little fellow, but in his own way, Morgie's very proud to have a son."

  Now Aldridge grew solemn.
"What about you? Is your Incomparable breeding yet?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Aldridge regretted bringing up a possibly painful subject.

  Haverstock's face shadowed. "We're just in the second year of our marriage. Anna's young. There will be time."

  Aldridge had obviously touched on a sensitive topic. Beastly of him.

  At the thought of the three life-long friends having sons, something deep inside of Aldridge unfurled. Neither his horse winning the stakes nor his winning bid for the da Vinci had made him feel as exhilarated as he felt at this moment contemplating a son of his own. "It's delightful to think of our offspring growing up as close to one another as we have been all these years." Now why had he gone and babbled such?

  "I hope that means you'll not be leaving the country anytime in the next twenty years."

  A smile on his face, Aldridge shrugged. "That depends. I mean to offer myself at the Foreign Office."

  "By Jove, that's the second-best news I've heard in a long while. We can put your analytical mind to good use on cryptology."

  "Is that not what you've been doing these past few years?"

  "It is, and I could use a hand."

  Aldridge leaned back in the chair and regarded his old friend. "If that's the second-best news you've heard, may I ask what's the best?"

  "Having you as a brother," Haverstock said with great solemnity. Then he stood. "I suppose it's time for you to speak to Elizabeth. I'll have her come down."

  Aldridge cleared his throat. He wanted his closest friend to know that he wasn't as debauched as he'd appeared that afternoon. "When I arrived at Aldridge House this afternoon, I received a note from Belle Evans informing me she was going to pay a call." He shrugged. "She needed the loan of a hundred quid. It was she I was expecting in my bedchamber--not your sister."

  Haverstock stiffened and did not respond for a moment. "What was my sister doing there?"