My Dear Duchess Read online

  M. C. Beaton is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, several Regency romance series and a stand-alone murder mystery, The Skeleton in the Closet – all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit www.mcbeatonbooks.co.uk for more, or follow M. C. Beaton on Twitter: @mc_beaton.

  Titles by M. C. Beaton

  The Poor Relation

  Lady Fortescue Steps Out • Miss Tonks Turns to Crime • Mrs Budley Falls from Grace

  Sir Philip’s Folly • Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue • Back in Society

  A House for the Season

  The Miser of Mayfair • Plain Jane • The Wicked Godmother

  Rake’s Progress • The Adventuress • Rainbird’s Revenge

  The Six Sisters

  Minerva • The Taming of Annabelle • Deirdre and Desire

  Daphne • Diana the Huntress • Frederica in Fashion

  Edwardian Murder Mysteries

  Snobbery with Violence • Hasty Death • Sick of Shadows

  Our Lady of Pain

  The Travelling Matchmaker

  Emily Goes to Exeter • Belinda Goes to Bath • Penelope Goes to Portsmouth

  Beatrice Goes to Brighton • Deborah Goes to Dover • Yvonne Goes to York

  Edwardian Candlelight

  Polly • Molly • Ginny • Tilly • Susie • Kitty • Daisy • Sally • Maggie • Poppy • Pretty Polly • Lucy • My Lords, Ladies and Marjorie

  Regency Candlelight

  Annabelle • Henrietta • Penelope

  Regency Royal

  The Westerby Inheritance • The Marquis Takes a Bride • Lady Anne’s Deception • Lady Margery’s Intrigue • The Savage Marquess • My Dear Duchess • The Highland Countess • Lady Lucy’s Lover • The Ghost and Lady Alice • Love and Lady Lovelace • Duke’s Diamonds • The Viscount’s Revenge • The Paper Princess • The Desirable Duchess • The Sins of Lady Dacey • The Dreadful Debutante • The Chocolate Debutante • The Loves of Lord Granton • Milady in Love • The Scandalous Marriage

  Regency Scandal

  His Lordship’s Pleasure • Her Grace’s Passion • The Scandalous Lady Wright

  Regency Flame

  Those Endearing Young Charms ? The Flirt • Lessons in Love • Regency Gold • Miss Fiona’s Fancy • The French Affair • To Dream of Love • A Marriage of Inconvenience • A Governess of Distinction • The Glitter of Gold

  Regency Season

  The Original Miss Honeyford • The Education of Miss Paterson • At the Sign of the Golden Pineapple • Sweet Masquerade ?The Constant Companion • Quadrille • The Perfect Gentleman • Dancing on the Wind • Ms. Davenport’s Christmas

  The Waverly Women

  The First Rebellion • Silken Bonds • The Love Match

  Agatha Raisin

  Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death • Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet

  Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener • Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley

  Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage • Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

  Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death • Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

  Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

  Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam • Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

  Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came

  Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate • Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

  Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance • Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon

  Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor

  Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye

  Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison • Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride

  Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body • Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns

  Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers • Agatha Raisin and the Christmas Crumble

  Hamish Macbeth

  Death of a Gossip • Death of a Cad • Death of an Outsider

  Death of a Perfect Wife • Death of a Hussy • Death of a Snob

  Death of a Prankster • Death of a Glutton • Death of a Travelling Man

  Death of a Charming Man • Death of a Nag • Death of a Macho Man

  Death of a Dentist • Death of a Scriptwriter • Death of an Addict

  A Highland Christmas • Death of a Dustman • Death of a Celebrity

  Death of a Village • Death of a Poison Pen • Death of a Bore

  Death of a Dreamer • Death of a Maid • Death of a Gentle Lady

  Death of a Witch • Death of a Valentine • Death of a Sweep

  Death of a Kingfisher • Death of Yesterday

  The Skeleton in the Closet

  Also available

  The Agatha Raisin Companion

  My Dear Duchess

  M. C. Beaton

  Constable & Robinson Ltd.

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First electronic edition published 2011

  by RosettaBooks LLC, New York

  This edition published in the UK by Canvas,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013

  Copyright © M. C. Beaton, 1979

  The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in

  Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-47210-136-5 (ebook)

  Cover copyright © Constable & Robinson

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter One

  Everyone in the top ten thousand agreed that the weather was no respecter of persons. A heavy rain roared down on London town with unremitting violence, chuckling in the lead gutters, pouring down the drainpipes and setting the filth from the kennels awash over the roads. The Season had begun but two weeks ago and now the promising groundwork that had been assiduously laid by hopeful mothers and their equally hopeful daughters seemed to be in a fair way to being ruined. Rides in the park at the fashionable hour, shopping in Bond Street, ices at Gunters—the myriad of opportunities for chance encounters to further the acquaintance of the ballroom—were all being washed away.

  Even Clarence Square, the most fashionable of Mayfair addresses, had not escaped the ravages of the deluge. Water soaked into the brick facade of its elegant buildings and ran in little waterfalls from its stately porticos. The pretty gardens of the square were pockmarked by huge depressing puddles and the battered rose bushes threw their scarlet petals over the sodden grass lik
e summer warriors bleeding to death before an onslaught of watery spears.

  Captain Henry Wright jolted into the square in the confines of a stuffy carriage and fretted for the hundredth time in the cage that was called love. Instead of putting on the gloves with his friends at Jackson’s or playing a rubber of piquet at White’s, here he was, all dressed up like a Bond Street fribble in a coat with twelve shoulder capes and buttons the size of soup plates, going to call on a young female and endure the cold glances of her odious mother.

  Ever since he had set eyes on Clarissa Sayers but a se’enight ago at her come-out ball, his heart had been lost—to the great amazement of London society who had labelled the Captain a hardened flirt. His sister, Emily, could point out that Mrs. Sayers, whose vast fortune came from a series of thriving woolen manufacturies in the North, smelled of the shop and was an encroaching Cit. His friends could remind him that since he had just been honorably discharged with a leg wound after the long rigors of the Peninsular War, he was bound to be susceptible and ready to fall for the first pretty face he met. But all in vain. He had no sooner set eyes on Clarissa’s ethereal beauty than his heart was well and truly hers.

  His goddess preferred the Dandy set rather than the athletic Corinthians that the Captain favored—hence the outrageous coat which was already beginning to make him feel uncomfortable.

  In spite of the drenching rain, he walked slowly up the wide marble steps and then banged on the knocker with unnecessary violence. He was admitted by the butler and, with relief, was divested of his outer coat. Revealed underneath was an impeccable swallow tail coat which might meet with the butler’s approval, but he felt sure that his love would have been better pleased had he attired himself in all the glory of padded shoulders and a nipped waist.

  His heart beating fast, the Captain followed the butler up the wide carpeted stairs to a morning room on the first floor and, straightening his cravat and feeling like a schoolboy, made his entrance.

  But there was nothing in his manner to betray his feelings to Miss Clarissa Sayers or to her mother who were engaged at their embroidery. From his fair curly hair cut in a fashionable Brutus crop to his shiny hessians with their little gold tassles, he was the epitome of languid elegance.

  Mrs. Sayers was a plump woman of middle years dressed in a green and white striped dress displaying a generous expanse of mottled bosom. An elaborate lace cap was balanced precariously on curls of an improbable gold. Her heavy jaw betrayed all the force of character that was necessary for a matron, however rich, with a background of trade, to storm the aristocratic bastions of London’s West End. She hid her heavy domineering character behind a mask of helpless girlish fluttering. When her bluff Yorkshire husband had departed this world in a fit of apoplexy she lost no time, once the regulation period of mourning was over, to realize her lifelong ambition. Her beautiful daughter should make her debut in London and marry a title. No less than a Lord would suffice. And with her fortune and Clarissa’s looks, she was in no doubt that she would soon succeed. She had paid a certain “lady of quality” handsomely to assure her daughter’s entree into the best circles and only certain hostesses, notoriously high in the instep, had kept their doors firmly closed.

  She eyed the handsome Captain with a gleam of disfavor which she hurriedly masked by ringing the bell for refreshments. After all, the Captain moved in the first circles and his father’s death had assured him of an easy competence. And she had no fear of her darling throwing herself away. Clarissa was as ambitious to secure a title as her mama.

  Clarissa betrayed none of her ambitions, however, as she smiled prettily at the Captain and thanked him in her soft voice for having ventured out in such terrible weather.

  “I am sure no one else would have been so brave,” she smiled, flashing a melting look at Captain Wright. As usual, he was so taken aback by her beauty that he scarcely heard what she said. Her hair, as fair as his own, rioted over her small head in artistic disorder. Her gown of blue-figured muslin complemented wide blue eyes set in a small heart-shaped face. The slightest gesture she made from the turn of her wrist to the way she applied neat stitches in the tambour frame in front of her was poetry in motion.

  “Now you’ll be turning our poor young Captain’s head,” fluttered Mrs. Sayers. “You know the Earl of Minster and the Marquis of Blandhaven are to call. I declare my child has so many handsome beaux Mr. Wright, it quite makes me worry which she is going to choose.”

  “I hope she chooses from the heart,” said the Captain lightly.

  “But of course I will,” said Clarissa, opening wide her blue eyes which seemed to hold a meaning for the Captain alone. “You at least do not think that titles mean anything to me, my dear Mr. Wright.”

  A footman arrived with the tea tray and the Captain took the opportunity to lean closer to Clarissa. “Does that mean there is hope for me, Miss Sayers?” he asked in a light, teasing voice. But when she looked up into his grey eyes what she saw there made her heart beat faster with a pleasant sensation of power. She would ensnare him further. Broken hearts could only add to a debutante’s consequence, and the handsome Captain was quite a catch.

  “Of course you may hope,” she whispered with a cautious eye on her mother who was busy with the tea things out of earshot at the other side of the room.

  “Miss Sayers,” he said with a hard edge to his voice. “Do not flirt with me, I beg…”

  “Flirt?” Clarissa turned a pretty muslin shoulder on him. “You do me great wrong. I never flirt.”

  She turned back and cast a look up at him through her lashes. He was watching her with a fierce speculation in his gaze which for a moment gave the belle pause. Perhaps… just perhaps… this Captain who exuded such a strong air of commanding masculinity might prove more than she could handle. Then she mentally shrugged. There had never been any man in her young life that she had been unable to manage.

  Mrs. Sayers bustled back and began coyly making pleasantries in such an arch manner that the Captain could only wonder how the vulgar creature could have produced such an exquisite daughter.

  When he finally rose to take his leave, he enquired of the ladies if he might expect to see them at the opera that evening. Gasparo Pacchierotti, the male soprano, was to sing. “Oh, dear,” simpered Mrs. Sayers with a quick look at her daughter, “I think since the weather is so dreadful, that perhaps we shall sit quietly at home. But we shall certainly be with Mrs. Bannington’s party at Vauxhall on the morrow.”

  He bowed. “Pray do not ring for the servant, madam. I can find my way,” he said. Clarissa raised her eyes to his in farewell. They seemed to hold a message of warmth meant for himself alone. Already dreading the long wait until the following evening, he closed the door behind him and stood for a few moments on the landing. Should he have pressed them to accompany him to the opera? The message in Clarissa’s eyes had been unmistakable and no young girl that he had ever met would look just that way at a man unless her affections were engaged.

  A drop of moisture fell on his hand and he stared at it in a puzzled way. The roof must be leaking. It was followed by another drop. He looked upwards.

  A child’s face stared sadly and solemnly down at him from an upper landing. He raised his hand in mock salute and prepared to descend the stairs.

  A small hiccupping sob stopped him in his tracks.

  Moved by a kindly impulse he turned about and mounted with easy athletic steps to the upper floor. Crouching beside the bannisters in the shadowy light of the stairwell was a young girl. Her long, black hair fell straight to her waist and she was dressed in a short, faded tarlatan gown. He thought her to be about fourteen. He put his long fingers under her chin and turned the tear-stained face up to his.

  “Why so mournful, miss,” he said gently. “Is there not enough water already on this dreadful day?”

  Large black eyes flecked with golden light held his own for a moment and then dropped. “It’s of no use,” sobbed the pathetic figure. “I shall live in the
schoolroom till I die.”

  “Surely a few years is not so long,” he said teasingly.

  The girl got to her feet. “I am seventeen years of age,” she said with a quaint dignity, “and until Clarissa gets married I’m condemned to remain up here.”

  “Clarissa! Why? How should that affect you, my child?” asked the Captain intrigued.

  “I am determined to introduce myself,” said the girl, smoothing down her faded gown, “I am Miss Frederica Sayers and you are Captain Henry Wright.” She went on as he would have interrupted her. “You see I know everyone who calls. I see them from the top of the stairs, although it’s very difficult telling what people are like by just the top of their heads.”

  “But why must Clarissa be married before you descend the stairs?” pursued the Captain, looking down at her. No wonder he had taken her for a child. She was barely five feet tall!

  “Oh, please come into the schoolroom where we can talk,” said Frederica. “Someone’s coming.”

  The bewildered Captain found himself whisked into the schoolroom and the door shut behind him. It was a small, depressing room with a sanded floor and furnished with a deal table and two upright chairs. Small barred windows let in the dull grey light of the murky day outside. His petite hostess jerked forward one of the hard chairs and motioned him to sit, perching herself on the other and gazing at him with wide eyes. She began without preamble. “It’s like this. Mama says I am a troublesome ingenue and that I would only embarrass Clarissa if I appeared in public and that poor Clarissa has waited a long time for this Season since she is already two and twenty.”

  The Captain looked at her and raised his thin brows. “I am surprised your sister is not yet wed. It does not say much for the young bloods of Yorkshire.”

  “Oh, she had offers a-plenty but she didn’t want any of them. She wanted to have a Season and marry a title but Papa said there was nothing wrong with Yorkshire and she should stay there… but… then he died and Mama said she would see to it that Clarissa was rewarded.”

  “I fear you are confusing your mama’s ambitions with those of your sister,” commented the Captain acidly. It was only natural after all that this embarrassing chit should be jealous of her beautiful sister.