Page 1 of A Most Improper Duchess
Chapter One
8March1876
Meetings at Lords were never like this.
Fundraiser committees weren’t like this.
The Ilex Rowing Club Annual General Meeting wasn’t like this.
Arley didn’t think there wereanymeetings in all of London quite like those held for Spencer and Co Travel.
‘Phineas and Lawrence. If we could please focus on the agenda.’ Lady Iris Dalton tapped at the list on the table before her. Her voice held her crisp, no-nonsense timbre, but Arley could feel her stamina waning. Or maybe that was just himself.
Further down the table, Phineas Babbage leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, a slightly smug grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. Lawrence Hempel, sitting opposite, had half stood and leaned in as if about to give Phineas a well-deserved wallop.
‘He started it,’ Lawrence snapped, sounding as petulant as one of his many children.
Arley tried to shoot Phineas a look to say,must you, but Phineas determinedly avoided his glare.
‘You have five minutes. I have rehearsal,’ Odette Delaney, soprano, announced. Arley shot a look at the clock. The meeting was meant to have finished over half an hour ago.
He gritted his teeth, then forced his jaw to relax. Last summer, he’d become an investor in the travel company formed by Iris. She’d worked secretly with her adoptive father, Albert, at his trading company for years, even taking over when he became ill and his memory began to fade. But when her father’s decline had become known, the board of Abberton and Co had unceremoniously removed them both from the company. For Iris, her work was like air, and in a show of neighbourly comradery, the street had bound together to invest in Spencer and Co, her idea for a travel company providing bespoke and boutique tours for the middle classes. At the time, he had rather liked the idea, and Iris was more than competent enough to see it through. But he hadn’t envisaged regular meetings, and he hadn’t expected them to be so chaotic. Having to undertake the actual work, the affability of that afternoon had faded as quickly as the plate of biscuits that had been set before Iris’s husband Hamish.
‘Iris!’
Iris shuffled her papers and cleared her throat. ‘As I was saying, the current list of itineraries covers short samplers to appeal to couples, but we’d like to offer—’
‘Iris!’ Closer now, the voice of Albert Abberton bounced down the hall. Iris looked down, blinking fast.
‘Hamish, would you take over?’ She pushed back her chair and darted from the room. Hamish had been staring out the window. He shook himself to alertness and shuffled the papers in front of him.
‘As Iris was saying…’ His eyes skated the page. ‘Errrr…’
Arley internalised a frustrated breath. Hamish was many admirable things, but astute businessperson was not one of them. That moniker belonged to his wife, who had also taken the remaining shreds of calm with her when she left.
‘The park is looking fresh already.’ Phineas half turned to Odette. ‘Don’t you agree, Miss Delaney?’
‘No one is interested in your view of the park,’ Lawrence snapped.
‘I wasn’t speaking to you,’ Phineas drawled.
Young Elise Hartright, Iris’s assistant, tapped her fingers together. ‘We really must continue with the agenda.’
Lawrence’s daughter Rosanna toyed with a bracelet on her wrist.
‘Two minutes,’ Odette said, half standing. ‘Covent Garden does not wait.’
Chatter, barbs and excuses. All of them swirled around the room, each one echoing louder than the one before. The grey tom with the white tipped tail leapt onto the table and skidded across the polished wood. The teapot rattled, milk spilled and splashed onto the floor. Sugar cubes scattered, and everyone gathered up their papers to stop them from becoming soaked. The cat lapped at the milk.
There was only one thing for it. Arley inhaled, broadened his shoulders, and found the necessary tone, the one he had started working on when he turned 6 and had mastered by the time he was twelve. Hisduketone.
‘Can we please focus on the task at hand?’ His voice cut the raucousness, and the settling silence formed into a bubble that surrounded him, always, in everything he did.
Never raise your voice, but don’t be meek. Never lower your gaze, but eschew condescension. Fill the space. Don’t impose. Always, always remember who you are.
Dukes led, they commanded, they directed. Even here, around the table where Iris had insisted all votes and opinions were of equal weight, being a duke inspired a special type of respect.
Odette pushed back her chair with a look at the clock. Arley frowned. She settled. No one was going anywhere until this was done.
