Thank you for your continued kind support. I appreciate it.
Standard disclaimer.
Arthur couldn't get home fast enough.
The carriage was too far away, the traffic too congested. Time dallied in a most impertinent way.
Gwen tried to mollify him.
"She's fine, I'm sure. Perhaps, she merely said she was ill, so she wouldn't have to entertain the Awfuls."
He nodded, hoping she was correct. Still, he could not rest easy, until he'd confirmed it with his own eyes.
When they reached Bradford House, Arthur took the stairs two at a time and stormed down the corridor, to the duchess' suite.
He flung open the door and saw her lying in the center of her bed, eyes closed and hands clasped atop the bed-covering...motionless.
His veins became ice floes.
This couldn't happen. Not yet.
He knew she was getting older and that inevitably, her health would fail. But she was still so strong-willed, so alive. She couldn't do this to him now.
He wasn't ready to be alone.
"Mother?" When she gave no answer, a knot stuck in his throat. "Mother."
At last her eyes opened, with an innocent flutter of lashes, but her voice was weak.
"Arthur? Is that you, my dear boy?"
'What the...'
He knew in that moment, that this was all a ruse. In all his life, his mother had never once referred to him, as her 'dear boy.' He would have remembered.
The duchess was alive, well, and as cunning as ever. And he was going to throttle her.
"Come closer." Her pale hand groped the air. "I want to look on your face one last time."
'Wow! Her acting skills are most impressive. She should take to the stage.'
She mustered a pathetic cough.
"My only regret...the fete at Vauxhall tonight."
"Never mind it. We won't go," he said.
"No." The volume of her protest seemed to revive her a bit. "No, you must attend. Everyone's expecting you."
"Then, why are you playing ill?"
"I'm not playing." She smoothed the bed-coverings with one hand. "I'm simply too weak for Vauxhall this evening. The drafts, the fog by the river, all those stairs. I feel a chill coming on, just thinking about it. The two of you must go without me. I don't want to ruin your evening."
"I find that hard to believe. You were all too eager to ruin our afternoon."
'Diabolical woman.' Did she truly not understand, the panic she'd just put him through?
It was a thousand times worse, than any matchmaking, or even drugging and kidnapping him. He couldn't forgive her for this.
"You are not ill," he said. "I command you to rise from that bed and be well."
She fixed him with a droll gaze.
"Arthur, you are a duke. You are not St. James curing the lepers."
"Tell me, mother, which saint is the patron of beleaguered sons?" He glared at a mysterious lump beneath the bedspread. "What is it you have under there?"
Her hands covered the lump.
"Nothing."
"It's not nothing. I can plainly see you have something under that blanket. What is it?" He reached for the counterpane and bed linens, planning to draw them back.
But she tugged them close.
"Leave me be."
"I want to know what you're hiding."
They tussled back and forth for several seconds. Until something sharp stabbed him in the wrist.
"Ouch," he cried.
He pulled back his hand. Incredulous, he rubbed at a small round wound. She was stabbing him with pins now? 'Good Lord! She'd be a terror with a saber.'
"I revise my previous statement," Arthur said. "You are ill. Seriously ill. And when this week is over, we're going to discuss living arrangements for your decline. I hear there are lovely sanitariums in Ireland."
Gwen waved him to the side of the room.
"It's all right," she whispered. "It's for the best. If I'm to be a social disaster, it will go much easier without her there."
Arthur wasn't so sure.
He knew exactly what his mother had in mind.
She wanted to force the two of them to be alone. So they'd spend the whole evening together, in a hopelessly romantic setting, and then...
"It's not a good idea," he said.
Her soft brown eyes pleaded with him.
"I'm only in London this one week. Chances are, I'll never return. I was looking forward to seeing Vauxhall. And to earning my keep, at last."
He sighed and leveled a single finger at her nose.
"Your comportment had better be dreadful."
She lifted a hand in mock salute. But her fetching smile, gave him grave misgivings. Soon, there'd be nothing he could deny her.
On his way out of the bedchamber, he addressed the vigilant butler.
"Harrison," he said, "See that my mother does not move from that bed. And summon the doctor. Not the gentle-mannered one, either. The one with the leeches."
Once the duke had left the room, Gwen approached the duchess' bed.
"Really, your grace. That wasn't very kind of you. He was terribly concerned."
Arthur had been more than concerned.
She'd watched his face go pale as ash, and he'd clenched his hands, until his knuckles bleached to bone.
Didn't they realize how fortunate they were, to have each other?
She'd never known two people, who so clearly loved each other, yet, spent so much time and effort denying it.
There was phlegm, and then there was sheer obstinacy.
"I should think this sort of ploy is beneath a duchess," Gwen said.
The duchess clucked her tongue.
"Very well, I admit it. I'm not truly ill. I'm desperate. Look."
The duchess threw back the counterpane, revealing a misshapen baby blanket, large enough to swaddle a calf.
Not even just a bovine calf, but possibly an elephant calf.
The yarn had been changed twice, partway through. So one-third of it was peach and another third was lavender.
Now, she was working her way through a ball of pink.
And skeins of white, green, and blue, lurked ominously nearby.
Gwen whistled at it.
"That is dire."
"I know. And it's growing worse by the hour. This evening is the chance we've been waiting for. You'll see."
"No, your grace. I'm going to be a disaster. I have to be. Elegance, comportment, accomplishment, elocution...all of it. I don't possess any of the qualities a duchess needs."
The older woman waved a hand.
"Forget all that. There is exactly one quality, and one quality only, that makes a woman a duchess."
"What's that?"
"She marries a duke."
Gwen shook her head.
"It's not going to happen."
"I know my son, girl. He's half in love with you already. It started that very first day, and then this morning...?" She huffed. "One strong push in the right direction and he'll fall hard. Don't try to tell me you're not feeling something for him."
Gwen sighed, not knowing how to argue.
Arthur had declined to take her to his bed. But after the bookstore today, she believed that he did care about her. At least a little.
And she knew herself to be dangerously close, to falling in love with him.
But what did it matter?
That didn't mean he'd want to marry her. Or that she could ever marry him.
She rose from the bedside.
"I'll leave you to your rest."
"One last thing," the duchess said, just as she had reached the door. "You're to have the amethysts tonight. I'll tell Frieda."
'The amethysts?'
Gwen was stunned.
"But, your grace, I couldn't possibly wear..."
"You're ready for them. And what's more, he's ready to see you in them." As she left the room, the duchess called after her, "I'm counting on you, girl."
Too many people were counting on her, it seemed.
Her loyalties were growing more and more divided.
The duke had hired her to save him from his matchmaking mother.
And the duchess wanted to be rescued from a creeping tangle of yarn.
But she was beginning to care for them both...and she knew they each needed something more.
But somewhere, much too far away, there was poor Danielle, faithfully gathering eggs and counting the days until Saturday.
Her sister needed her most of all.
Gwen drew to a halt in the corridor and cast a look at the porcelain shepherdess, she'd nearly demolished a few days back.
'What am I doing here?' she internally asked.
To these people, country life made for decorative figurines. She knew it to be backbreaking, ceaseless work.
No matter what delusions the duchess suffered under, she could never belong in this aristocratic world.
All she wanted, was a little shop in Spinster Cove and a circulating library of naughty books.
She didn't want to mean well...but to do well...for her and her sister. She couldn't start dreaming of the wrong fairy tale.
She was a hardworking girl, and she'd been hired for a reason...to be a comprehensive catastrophe.
"Percy? Percy...something terrible has happened."
Lord Percival Payne, looked up from the letter he was writing.
His wife stood in the doorway of his study...as always, an enticing vision of dark hair and plump, kissable lips.
But her lovely eyes had gone grim, behind her spectacles.
He rose from his desk at once.
"Good God, Nan. What is it?"
"We must do something," she said.
"Of course we will, darling." He crossed the room to her. "Of course we will. I could crash through the window this instant, if you asked. Or pen a strongly worded letter to The Times. But the actions we take, will be more effective, if you explain to me first what's going on."
He took her by the shoulders and guided her to the divan.
"It's that horrid, debauched friend of yours," she said. "From before we married."
He chuckled.
"That description fits a shocking number of people, I'm afraid. You'll have to narrow it down."
"The duke. That grabby, disgusting duke from Winterset Cottage."
"Arthur?"
"Yes, that's the one. He's got Gwen Campbell. Our Gwen, from the Bull Pen. And he's holding her hostage here in Town." She shuddered. "God knows what he's done to the poor thing. Probably made her his sordid love puppet."
Percy struggled not to laugh.
"Nan, I'm trying to follow you, but you're making it quite difficult. Perhaps you can start again and tell me what actually happened today."
"I saw them together. I was going to the bookshop to..." She blushed a little. "To see if any more copies of my book had been sold. I can't help it."
"And had they?"
"Yes," she said proudly. "Three."
"Excellent, honey. That's brilliant." He only purchased two of them himself.
He knew she'd throttle him for buying them up, but he couldn't help it. The market for geological treatises wasn't especially robust.
But she was so damned adorable, when she was pleased with herself...and especially creative in bed. His motives were entirely selfish.
"Anyhow, as I was approaching the bookshop, I saw the two of them leaving it. The Disgusting Duke of Bradford and Gwen Campbell. Clear as day."
Percy sighed.
He hated to prod at a sore spot, but this was too much to be believed.
"Were you wearing your spectacles?"
She gave him an offended look.
"Of course I was."
"Still. I think you must have been mistaken."
"I'm not. I know I'm not, Percy. Don't you believe me?"
"I believe, without a doubt, that you believe you saw them." He clasped one of her sweet little hands in his and stroked it soothingly. "But I still think it a great improbability."
"It's true, that two more different people never existed," Nan agreed. "That duke is vile and debauched. And Gwen is so well-meaning."
"Well. Opposites do occasionally attract. And Spinster Cove women 'abducted' by rakes, are not always so unwilling, as the observer might suspect."
She smiled.
"I suppose that's true."
"Before we go haring off on a rescue mission, let's consider a few bits of information.
From all evidence, Gwen had no means of traveling to London.
Secondly, I know Arthur. The man would never be near a bookshop. And last..."He placed a light, affectionate touch to her nose. "...you have been complaining that your spectacles need new lenses. A mistake seems the most likely explanation."
"Percy..."
"However," he added, "I will do all I can to set your mind at ease. Today, I'll ask around at the clubs. See what gossip there is of Arthur."
"That's a good idea. I'll pay a call on Susan and Lord Radcliff. If anything were amiss in Spinster Cove, they would have heard."
"Excellent. And if our little fact-finding investigations turn up nothing, we'll perform an experiment. We'll call at Bradford House tomorrow."
She nodded. Her eyes misted with tears.
"Darling Nan." He stroked her cheek. "Are you truly that concerned?"
"No," she said. "Oh, Percy. I'm just so proud." She squeezed his hand. "You're using the scientific method."
Stay safe!