Page 4 of A Most Improper Duchess
A riot of pastel pink, with prints hung frame to frame, mismatched lampshades, and floral wallpaper flanked him as he walked down the hall. Trill laughter and light chatter served as an accompaniment to the visual onslaught, and while light, colour and cheer surrounded him, a warning twist in his stomach slowed his step. He willed his feet to stop, but somehow, Arley still found himself framed in the archway in full view of a very crowded sitting room.
Ladies. At least a dozen of them. Some fawning over bolts of cotton, others twirling a length of ribbon in the air.
Young ladies. With their hair pinned up.
Debutedladies.
Andtheir mothers.
‘Miss Hartright!’ The man's booming voice cut clear over the gabble. ‘His Grace would like a word.’
Silence didn’t so much settle as smother the room. Even the clock seemed to hold its tick. All eyes turned.
Elise shot to her feet, then picked her way through the group. ‘Just a moment,’ she called as she slipped by him and raced up the stairway behind them. ‘Apologies, your grace. Everything is ready on my desk.’
The ladies, the staff, himself, all of them paused in a surreal tableau. They watched him, eyes blinking. He tried to avoid settling his gaze. One mother leapt off the chaise and wove her way across the room.
‘Your grace! We met two years ago, at the opera. Do you remember? May I introduce my daughter?’
‘Lovely to see you again… ahh…’ He scraped his memory but found no recollection of the woman’s face. What was taking Elise so long?
‘Your grace, we sat together at the hospital charity benefit.’ Another of them, this one a little more forthright, bumped in from the side. Like blackbirds on the lawn, a few more piqued, heads jerking, knees bending in anticipation. One squawked, then a few others called out in unison.
‘Your grace—’
‘Duke Osborne—’
The clock chimed to signify the hour, just one full throated, heavy bong, but it worked like a starter's pistol. Every daughter, every mother, discarded the fabric they had been inspecting, lunged from their seats and jostled across the room, their skirts pressing and voices rising in a cacophony of greeting.
Arley tried to locate his duke's voice to excuse himself, but could not trawl quick enough to find it. He took a quick step back, only to knock into Miss Hartright. Papers spilled from a folder she had been clutching and cascaded across the floor. Notes, tickets, travel papers. She bent to scoop them up. Arley crouched to help.
‘What is it?’ someone said.
‘Travel documents.’
‘Where is he going?’
‘Paris, he’s going to Paris,’ someone else said, the murmur rippling.
Elise passed the stack of papers to him. Her eyes widened with confusion as she looked from the group to the papers in his hand, then to him. Arley’s chest caught. The room swam. Their faces crowded as whispers passed between them. So many of them. And theyknew.
Like the hand of a protector, the man who had opened the door tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Down the stairs, then through the kitchen,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I sent your carriage around the back. Let us get you a speedy departure, shall we?’
Arley didn’t question. He simply dashed beneath the man’s outstretched arm and clattered down the stairs and through the kitchen, shouting ‘pardon’ and ‘apologies,’ as he raced. He took the stairs into the courtyard two at a time, before emerging into the weak spring light. Through the carriage house arch, he caught sight of the heavy wooden wheel of his carriage. He ran now, chest heaving, flung open the door and clambered inside before he fell back against the squabs. Behind him, someone shouted, and as the vehicle rolled forward, in climbed the man who had come to his rescue. He pulled the door closed behind him.
‘Well, I’ll pluck a goose. Does that happen often?’
‘It’s not usually so… intense.’ Arley slumped back against the seat and stared up at the wood panelling. Each clip-clop from the horses sounded in his ear like the gossip telegraph that would no doubt already be humming through the city as news of his travel plans leaked. The wealthier families would be hurriedly organising steamer passages. Those with connections over the Channel would be writing, perhaps taking on the hefty expense of a telegram to deliver the information. At every turn, there would be someone wishing to make an introduction. To push forward a debutante. To ask a favour. Book a meeting. Any thoughts of moving through the city with semi-obscurity faded. He leafed through the papers Elise had given him. Tickets, accommodation, his travel itinerary. How much had they seen?
Everything. They had seen everything.
The man leant forward and presented his hand. ‘Algernon Pascoe. I’m a friend of Hamish’s. For a man about to embark on a journey to the most delicious city on the continent, you look awfully downcast, your grace.’
Arley gave the man’s hand a firm shake. Hamish had never mentioned an Algernon before, but then, it wasn’t as if they spent much time together. ‘I was meant to be travelling incognito. I didn’t realise how much I was looking forward to it. A week away from…’ He waved his hand in the vague direction of the street. ‘That.’
‘You were planning on moving quietly. Not making a fuss. And soon, everyone will know that the most eligible duke in England is traveling to Paris. That is most unfortunate.’
The streets writhed with people jostling against one another. A man driving a wagon stood and shouted at a person on the sidewalk and the two of them gestured obscenities at one another. A train whistle cut the air. Rain slapped against the glass.
