Page 53 of A Most Improper Duchess
‘Blastandsodit,’Arley mumbled under his breath as he slipped into the study. It would take some time to get used to this coat. Fumbling in the dark, he found a drawer in the armoire, and dropped the embossed ducal ring inside. He’d meant to leave it before the day’s escapade but had forgotten. It had been affixed to him for so long, he barely registered its weight on his finger. And while he could have tossed it into the Thames, the final shred of his sense of duty would not allow him to be so careless. He rubbed at the dint it left on his finger.
‘You could have killed your mother with a stunt like that.’
A lamp flared into life as Arley spun. ‘I was going to tell you. Phineas has a letter.’
She raised a brow. ‘I do not want a letter. I want to hear the words from my son.’
Eyes puffed, but not red. She’d ceased crying some time ago, then. Slumped in his father’s chair, wearing her nightclothes and a thick dressing gown, she looked as fierce as the day she’d found her voice, all those years before.
‘How did you guess?’ he asked. He and Phineas had been so careful, their plan so meticulous. Had they made some mistake that would see the entire thing come undone?
‘There is no way my son would have made such a mistake. You are too cautious. Too much like your father.’
‘Perhaps I am really impetuous. Perhaps I am more like you.’
'I have only been impetuous once.' Her jaw tightened and her lips pressed. Dampness glinted in her eyes. ‘I suppose you are.’
Arley dropped the ring into the drawer and moved away from the cabinet. He clutched at the sleeves of his slightly ill-fitting coat. In his mind, he’d prepared himself for her absence from his life, but now the separation loomed, he felt as torn as when he’d seen Vivianne as the perfect duchess.
‘It’s a little melodramatic,’ she said finally. ‘People might miss you.’
‘Those who might miss me will be told the truth. Any others will miss the connection to the title. They will not miss me.’
She pushed herself from her chair and stood before him. Barely reaching his collarbone, her eyes weighed full of her incredible sharpness, and wit. ‘She’s lovely Arley, but are you certain she’s worth it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, and his uncertainty sunk in him. It hadn’t been that long, not really, and here he was, turning his back on the only life he had known. But he also knew that to say it was all for Vivianne would be a lie, because he also wanted the escape for himself. Wanted to be free of expectation, to walk in the sun without the trim of his hat being reported on, to be invisible. For that scarce week where he had been a nobody of Paris, how he had loved it. He wanted to meet this man he could have been, and there was only one way to be truly free. ‘I hope so. But if not, well… at least I will have tried. I wish it didn’t have to be so final, but there’s no other way to stop being a duke.’
She grasped him so tight, his chest hurt, and choking down a half cry, he gripped her in return. ‘Your father would be terribly disappointed in you,’ she said.
‘Probably about time he was, isn’t it?’
One last embrace, and Arley left, not turning back as he reached the study door and not pausing as he slunk through his house like the stranger he longed to be. He moved through the kitchen and to the side door where Phineas was waiting with a carriage borrowed from Dalton, its crest faded from storage and neglect. So focused on the door, he didn’t notice the shadowy form by the carriage house until he was almost on top of it.
‘Cecil. What in heavens?’
He wore a dark travelling suit, and half bent to pick up a case by his feet. ‘I heard you and Mr Babbage the other night. Ready when you are, your grace,’ he whispered.
‘You can’t come. It’s risky enough that Mother and Tillman guessed before I am even out of the drive, let alone London.’
‘Please, your grace. I serve the duke. I cannot in good conscious serve a man I know isn’t. The line going back is so vague, it could be anyone.’ He leaned forward, his voice low and full of consternation. ‘What if it’s an American?’
‘You can’t just leave,’ Arley hissed. ‘People will miss you.’
‘I told the staff I was retiring, on the wishes of the future duchess. A terrible lie, but it raised barely a peep.’ Cecil gave him a sad smile. ‘No one will miss me.’
‘I would have.’ The admission rolled off his tongue with dangerous speed yet was propelled by truth. Beyond his mother, Cecil had been the one constant in his life. Perhaps, he didn’t need to leave every thread of himself behind. ‘Get in then. But you can’t keep calling me your grace.’
Arley hauled himself into the carriage, then held out his hand to help Cecil climb in after him. He pulled the door shut.
‘What do I call you then? You can’t be Mr West. People may figure it out.’
The carriage bumped as Phineas climbed onto the driver’s seat. A click of his tongue, and they moved forward with a jolt. Arley picked up a folder that had been left on the seat beside him and flicked it open, his eyes squinting in the faint glow of the street lamps. He shook his head and gave a half laugh. ‘It seems Phineas has already picked a name for me. For both of us.’
Chapter Twenty-four
Inthedaysthatfollowed, Vivianne remained a fussed over, if slightly diminished, guest of Mrs Crofts. A week after the wedding that wasn’t, the investigative officers declared that her beloved’s body had likely been dragged under a passing boat, been caught up in the currents, and taken to sea with the retreating tide. Witnesses were found who gave jumbled accounts of a man in a skiff rowing easily along the river, and how they had lost sight of him as a storm rolled in. The discovery of a shoe, and a torn bit of cravat, seemed to settle the whole thing.
After all, why would he pretend? What type of man did not want to be a duke?
