LITMIR.BIZ

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he said, his voice rough with urgency. ‘I’m tired, Miss Wood, and eager to see my girls. Please take me to them directly.’

      ‘Lady Mary, Your Grace?’ she asked with a hesitation that did not please him, not from the woman he’d trusted as his daughters’ governess. ‘And Lady Diana?’

      ‘My daughters,’ he said, taking another step towards her. His daughters, his girls, his cherubs, the darlings of his heart—who else could have made him come so far? Solemn, dark-haired Mary, the older at nineteen, and Diana, laughing and golden, a year younger. Could any father have missed his children more than he?

      A second woman came to join the governess, dark and elegant, a lady dressed in widow’s black. Most likely this was the house’s owner, he guessed, their landlady Signora della Battista.

      ‘My journey has been a long one, Miss Wood,’ he said, ‘and you are making it longer still.’

      ‘Your daughters,’ the governess repeated with undeniable sadness, even regret. The older woman spoke gently to her in Italian, resting her hand on her arm, but Miss Wood only shook her head, her gaze still turned towards Richard. ‘You did not receive my letters, your Grace, or theirs? You do not know what has happened?’

      ‘What is there to know?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve been at sea, coming here. The last letters I had from you were from Paris, weeks ago, and nothing since. Damnation, if you don’t bring my girls to me—’

      ‘If it were in my power, your Grace, I would, with all my heart.’ With her hand once again on the rail, she slowly sank until she was sitting on the top step, so overwhelmed that she seemed unable to stand any longer. ‘But they—the young ladies—they are not here. Oh, if only you’d been able to read the letters!’

      A score of possibilities filled Richard’s heart with sickening dread: an accident in a coach, a shipboard mishap, an attack by footpads or highwaymen, a fever, a quinsy, a poison in the blood. Long ago he’d lost his wife, and grief had nearly killed him. He could not bear to lose his daughters as well.

      ‘Tell me, Miss Wood,’ he asked hoarsely. ‘Dear God, if anything has happened to them—’

      ‘They are married, your Grace,’ the governess said, and bowed her head. ‘Both of them. They are married.’

      Chapter Two

      ‘Married?’ roared the Duke of Aston. ‘My daughters? Married?’

      ‘Yes, your Grace.’ Jane Wood took a deep breath, and told herself that the worst must now be over. Surely it must be, for as long and as well as she’d known the duke, she could not imagine him becoming any more incensed than he was at this moment. Nor, truly, could she fault him for it. ‘Both have wed, and to most excellent gentleman.’

      ‘Most excellent rascals is more likely!’ His handsome face was as dark as an August thunderstorm, and she realised to her surprise that his expression was filled with as much disappointment as anger. ‘Why did you not put a stop to these crimes, Miss Wood? Why did you permit it?’

      ‘Why, your Grace?’ She forced herself to stand, to compose herself to give her answer. In his present state, the duke would see any kind of confusion as weakness and incompetence. Rather, further incompetence. His Grace never expected to be crossed, and his temper was legendary. After nearly ten years in his service, Jane knew that much of him, just as she knew that the surest way to calm him was to present the facts in a quiet and rational manner. That had always proved successful with him before, and there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t again.

      She took another breath and lightly clasped her hands at her waist, the way she always did. She shouldn’t have let herself be so shocked. She wasn’t some callow girl, but a capable woman of nearly thirty. A calm demeanour was what was required now, she told herself firmly, a rational argument. Yes, yes—rationality and reason. Not a defence, for she believed she’d done nothing wrong, but the even, well-reasoned explanation of the events of the last few weeks that she’d been rehearsing ever since she’d come to Venice from Rome.

      But she’d always expected to be delivering that explanation in the duke’s sunny library at Aston Hall, in Kent, once she herself was safely returned to England, and long after he would have read his daughters’ letters. She never imagined he would have come charging clear across the Mediterranean like a mad bull to corner her here on the staircase of the Ca’Battista.

      ‘Permit me to summon the watch, Miss Wood,’ said Signora Battista in indignant Italian, standing beside her. ‘Or at least let me call the footmen from the kitchen to send this man away. There is no need for you to tolerate the ravings of this lunatic!’

      ‘But there is, signora,’ Jane murmured swiftly, also in Italian, ‘because he is my master. I am employed in his household, and rely upon him for my livelihood.’

      ‘Livelihood!’ The signora made a sharp click of disdain. ‘What manner of life can there be with an intemperate male creature such as this one?’

      Swiftly Jane shook her head, appalled by such disrespect. She was most fortunate that the duke was proud, as only an English peer could be, of speaking no other language than English, and hadn’t understood the other woman’s comments. Hurriedly she shifted back to English herself.

      ‘Your Grace,’ she began, ‘if you please, may I present Signora Isabella della Battista, the owner of this fine house? Signora, his Grace the Duke of Aston.’

      To Jane’s dismay, the signora’s nod of acknowledgement was also calcuated at the precise angle to signify exactly where a parvenu English duke of only two or three hundred years’ nobility stood in relationship to her, a member of one of the most ancient families of the Republic of Venice who was at present so unfortunately impoverished that she was in need of rich travelling foreigners as lodgers.

      ‘Madam,’ the duke said curtly to the signora, too caught up in his own anger to perceive her slight. ‘Damnation, Miss Wood, come down here where I can see you properly.’

      Jane grabbed her skirts to one side so she wouldn’t trip, and hurried down to stand before him.

      Or, rather, beneath him. In the half-year since she’d last seen him at Aston Hall, she’d forgotten how much taller he was than she, and how much larger, too. The duke had a presence that few men could match, a physical energy that seemed to vibrate from him like the rays from the sun. While most men of his rank and age masked their emotions behind a show of genteel boredom, he let them run galloping free. The results could make him either the very best of men, a paragon of charming good nature and generous spirit, or the very worst of devils, when his temper triumphed. Everyone acquainted with the duke knew this to be so, from his daughters to his servants, his neighbours, even his pack of hunting dogs.

      As, of course, did Jane. And there was absolutely no doubt as to which side of the duke now held sway.

      ‘Explain, Miss Wood,’ he ordered curtly. ‘Now.’

      ‘Yes, your Grace.’ She took another deep breath, and forced herself to meet his gaze. ‘Your daughters have both wed most excellent gentlemen, your Grace, gentlemen of whom I dare to believe you yourself will approve upon acquaintance.’

      ‘Then why the devil didn’t they wait to ask me properly?’ the duke demanded. ‘Gentlemen, hah. Only the lowest rascal steals away a lady from her family like that.’

      ‘In ordinary circumstances, they would have, your Grace,’ Jane agreed, blushing at what she must next say. ‘But once your daughters had…ah…become their lovers, it seemed best that they wed at once before—’

      ‘My girls were ruined?’ the duke asked, sputtering with horror.

      ‘Not ruined, your Grace,’ Jane said. ‘They were—they are—in love, and love will not be denied.’

      ‘It would have if I’d been here,’ he said grimly. ‘Their names, Miss Wood, their names.’

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