When James’ father died, most of James’ sisters were still in town for the Season, staying at the town house, hoping for matches. His father and mother and his youngest sister Charlotte, who was not yet out, had stayed in Middlewich since the duke had never fully recovered from his illness last autumn. When James arrived back in the duchy, his father had been reduced to hoarse rattling exhalations and eyes that showed the exhaustion that comes at the end of a life.
“Father,” James said to him. His father looked at him. “You know the Earl Drake’s wife? We spoke of her at Christmas?”
Was it his imagination or had the old man nodded, just a bit?
“And we spoke of her stepmother. An actress.”
His father coughed weakly and struggled to breathe in.
“I love her. The stepmother. Her name is Catherine. She is beautiful, resilient, clever, and courageous. And I am going to marry her when she agrees to it. And that’s the end of it.”
His father’s lips moved. James leaned forward and put his ear to his father’s mouth.
“Wastrel,” the old man whispered. “Whore.”
His last words. A few hours later the duke stopped breathing. The doctor listened to the duke’s chest and shook his head. The heart had stopped. “The duke is dead,” the doctor said, looking at James. “There is a new duke, Your Grace.”
James hugged his mother. She was pale and tired, but she did not cry. She pulled away and held him at arm’s length and looked up at his face. “You are the duke, James.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“And once you marry, I will be a dowager duchess. And your father, he doesn’t suffer anymore.”
“Yes, Mother.”
She turned, her skirts whirling, and left his father’s sickroom. He heard her go into the nursery. There was quiet and then a howl and Charlotte, tears streaking her face, ran into the sickroom and seized their father’s hand and sobbed. Charlotte had always been the duke’s favorite and, like William, the brother she did not remember, she had never been frightened of him, able to tame him by curling her small hand into his and swinging his arm until he picked her up.
James went to stand behind his sister and she released her father’s hand and turned to him and cried into his waistcoat for a long time.
The rest of his sisters arrived the next day from London with their chaperone aunts and their maids. Their Season was over, ended by the death of their father. And now James had the responsibility of six sisters, seven if you counted the fifteen-year-old Charlotte, to find husbands for.
His father was buried. His mother’s sixty-first birthday came and went. James headed to London to present himself to the House of Lords, to petition for a transfer of the title to himself. It was really all just ceremonial. No one questioned his legitimacy.
As the ducal carriage made its way toward London, James considered that he was going to have to move into the town house, eventually, as the title-holder. But for the moment, his rooms still afforded him a degree of privacy that the house in Mayfair would not. He would wait until things were settled between Catherine and him. After their marriage—for that is what he still hoped for, despite their last meeting—they might move into the town house together and then the castle.
When he and Enfield arrived at his rooms in London at noon, he was met by half a dozen letters under the door. He recognized the hand. It was Catherine’s. In each letter, she entreated him to come to her as soon as he returned. He ran, as he had never run before, all the way to her house.
Catherine, beautiful Catherine, was in the drawing room.
“That will be all, Chelsom,” she said. As the butler took his hat and closed the door, James, still breathing heavily, took a step toward her.
“Catherine, I—”
She cut him off with a deep curtsy and the words, “Your Grace.”
“Ah, yes,” he stammered. “You’ve heard, I gather.” He ran his fingers through his hair.
“You have my condolences on your father’s death, Your Grace.”
He studied her. She looked tired but her skin and her eyes had a clarity and a glow to them. A few fine lines were etched by her mouth that he did not remember from before.
“Tell me, before all else, tell me, have you accepted Ffoulkes?”
“I have not.”
A weight came off his chest. He smiled.
“And are you well, Kate—I mean, Catherine, Mrs. Lovelock? And all your family?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And Arabella, she is well?”
“She is traveling with my eldest stepdaughter Mary and her husband.”
“Ah, yes. The Viscount and Viscountess Tregaron.”
“You have a good memory, Your Grace.”
“Catherine,” he stepped forward and seized one of her hands. “I would never forget anything that had anything to do with you.”
“You are very kind, Your—”
“Please call me Jamie. Please. I can’t bear it. I just can’t.”
She took back her hand and he thought there might have been a glisten in her eye. Then it was gone.
“You must bear it, Your Grace. It’s for the best,” she said.
“You say that, but I don’t see how it can be. It’s certainly not for me.”
Her voice was ice. “You are young, you will heal.”
He folded his arms and put both of his hands into his armpits and clamped his arms down and held them there, containing himself. “I am not raising my voice because if I do, I will be accused of being young. I am not storming around this room because if I do, I will be accused of being young. I am not making violent and passionate love to you as I want to, because I will be accused of being young. Yes, Catherine, I am younger than you. I am not young.”
She turned and looked at him and reached out suddenly and stroked his jaw with one finger.
“So clean,” she said. “Do you know, the first time I met you I thought you could not grow whiskers?”
“I can grow whiskers,” he growled. “Three years ago, when I spent six weeks at Lord Bastable’s hunting camp without my valet Enfield, I grew a full beard. It was red-blond. I came back from that trip looking like a damnable Viking.”
She laughed. “I would have loved to have seen that.”
“Oh, Kate.” He put his arms around her waist. “Kate, let’s go to a cottage somewhere for six weeks, Ireland or Portugal or the Alps, and let me grow a beard for you.”
She did not break away from him but she did not embrace him. She looked at his waistcoat buttons.
“I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything!” He kept his arms around her but stooped down to try to get into her line of sight. “Anything, Catherine, you know that.”
“I would feel better,” she said, still avoiding his eyes, “if you removed your hands from my person. I suddenly feel that I am trading intimacy for your kindness and I do not want that. I want things to be pure. And right. Between us.”
He took his hands off her waist immediately and backed away—one, two, three steps from her.
What did she mean? Were they to be as sister and brother now? Friends, as she had said on his last visit? As if somehow the night at the inn at Duddenhoe End, the nights at Sommerleigh, yes, even that disastrous time in his rooms that still filled him with shame (how could he have misread the situation so badly?)—as if all those had never happened?
Fine, fine. He could accept that. For now. Anything to get back in her orbit. He would change her mind.
“I need you to acquire the painting that you saw at Sir Francis’ house,” she said.
“To steal it?”
“I would prefer if you bought it, and, of course, I would pay you back. Mr. Siddons refuses to sell to me but he may sell to you. But if you have to steal it . . .” She smiled sadly. “I suppose in encouraging you to perform acts of larceny, I am not really starting this pure and right relationship on a good footing.”
James grinned. A job he was made for. Finally, a good use for his skills at pilfery. “I don’t anticipate any difficulty. I’ll buy it. The price will be no barrier. And it will be my gift to you. And if I can’t buy it, I’ll steal it.”
“The thing is . . .” She hesitated. “I don’t know where it is. Mr. Siddons plans to show it in the Exhibition at the Royal Academy.”
“The upcoming Exhibition?”
“Yes.”
“But that opens in,” he thought quickly, “four days.”
Catherine bit her lip. “Yes.”
“Then the painting is either with Siddons or on the premises of the Academy. I’ll go at once.”
Catherine looked relieved and felt for the nearest chair and sat down, rather quickly. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
James took a step toward the door of the drawing room but hesitated and turned to her.
“I would like something in return. I do want to trade for intimacy. But intimacy of a different kind. When I bring you this blasted painting, I want you to sit with me. And for us to speak together. About everything. Truthfully. I will tell you my secrets. You will tell me yours. Will you do that for me?”
She seemed to tremble. She folded her hands in her lap in front of her abdomen as if she were shielding herself.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
