Page 112 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days
After such distressing family news, the overwrought duchess was stretched to the edge of an invisible tether.
Generally, he agreeably enjoyed the reminiscing banter of the two school chums, but today he would do what he could to ease his wife’s social burden until she could collect herself.
“Lady Throckmorton,” he greeted. “Are you awaiting your Dr. Forsythe?”
Several guests started when she threw her head back, exposing her neck in an overexuberant giggle. “MyDr. Forsythe? Listen to you! I think he left early for the dig. I was on my way to see him now.”
“That is where we’re headed as well.” He tucked Alexandra’s arm in his own. “I’ll bid you good—”
“Oh, that’s wonderful.” Lady Throckmorton gestured expansively. “Might I prevail upon your generosity to conduct me there? Dr. Forsythe mentioned that they’d finish transporting the Redmayne bones today, and he seemed thrilled to distraction over the prospect. I promised him I’d be there, but I fear he has left without me.”
It wasn’t in his nature to pity Forsythe, but he was mightily tempted. It appeared the good doctor was doing his best to avoid the tenacious flirt, and suddenly Piers found he was impatient to conduct her to Forsythe’s side.
“You may share our conveyance, of course.” He led his brooding wife and the beaming Lady Throckmorton to their carriage and handed them both inside. The catacombs were less than two miles away, short enough to walk, but the day promised to be hot and did its best to melt them in their work clothes. The sooner they got underground, the better.
Since Alexandra seemed incapable of conducting conversation as they trundled over the ancient cobbled streets, Piers rose to the occasion. He’d learned that one only needed to wind Julia Throckmorton like a clockwork toy and then sit back and make appropriate noises until she ran out of breath.
“My wife tells me, my lady, that you have quite the tour of the Continent scheduled after your stay here. What is your itinerary?”
Her expression turned rapturous. “Dress fitting in Rouen, then off to Paris for a fete with the Duc de Longley,and Venice and Milan. After that I have been invited to a soiree in the Alps where two eligible Prussian princes will be in attendance. Then I’ll see out the summer at Lake Geneva, where they’re having a marvelous grand party for our ten-year reunification at de Chardonne.” She turned to Alexandra. “You, Francesca, and Cecelia are planning to attend, aren’t you? Especially now that you’re married to a duke. How properly sick with envy everyone will be, and it’ll give us something else to reminisce about that isn’t… you know… the unpleasant scandal.”
Piers’s brow crimped as he felt his wife go tense as a bridge cable beside him.
“Scandal?” he queried.
“She never told you?” Julia lifted a golden brow at Alexandra. “Less than a month before we graduated de Chardonne, our headmaster quite disappeared. There was such a to-do, they didn’t even hold a proper soiree for our launch.”
“How terrible that must have been for you,” Piers did his best to keep his dry sarcasm out of his voice, suspecting he only half succeeded.
If Julia noticed, she gave no indication. “An absolute nightmare, to be sure. There was to be dancing with the boys at le Radon, which included two Italian dukes, and rumor had it, a Romanoff. All canceled. Can you imagine having to return from the Continent swathed in black? I never got to wear my lavender dress commissioned for the occasion. I’ve never quite recovered from the disappointment.”
Piers turned to his wife, thinking her pallor hadn’t yet quite improved. “We can attend, if you wish,” he offered solicitously. “Lake Geneva is rather diverting in the—”
“No,” she said decisively, then took a moment for deeperconsideration, her expression smoothing into a remote, placid courteousness. “No, thank you both, but neither Francesca nor Cecelia can attend, and I promised not to go without them. I hope you understand, Julia.”
“Of course,” she said graciously. “How extraordinary that the three of you are still so inseparable. I’ll at least be able to tell everyone that I went on holiday with the new Duchess of Redmayne. Everyone thought the three of you would remain hopeless spinsters. Now if only we can marry off the other two, though I doubt they’d be able to catch such lofty husbands, if you don’t mind my saying.”
Piers minded just about every word that escaped her mouth, but he inwardly smiled when Alexandra’s grip on his arm tightened with a possessive edge. He would have liked to remind Lady Throckmorton that she hadn’t gone on holiday with them, she’d insinuated herself into their honeymoon. Instead, he inclined his head and replied, “Not at all.”
“One does wonder, though…” She gave her chin a speculative tap. “Whatever happened to Maurice de Marchand? He really was quite a… imposing sort of headmaster, wasn’t he?”
“Imposing, yes,” Alexandra agreed, not taking her eyes from the sparkle of the sea-swept morning.
“Think you he ran off with a lover?” Piers ventured. “Or perhaps stole money from the institution and disappeared?” Or perhaps he killed himself, he added silently. The very idea of wrangling a gaggle of giggling debutantes was enough to make one properly consider wrapping his lips around a pistol and pulling the trigger.
“One hopes.” Julia shrugged. “Though the authorities treated it like a murder. There was speculation that a little blood was found along with other evidence.”
“None of the evidence was conclusive, if I remember,” Alexandra cut in. “The coroner reported that there wasn’t even enough to confirm a paper cut, let alone a death.”
“Yes, well, men don’t just vanish into thin air. There must have been a witness—”
Alexandra leaned forward, her features solemn and troubled. “Witnesses can perjure themselves. Science does not. If you’re going to speculate about a murder, youmusthave proof.”
“Actually,” Julia argued, drawing her shoulders up in a huff. “You don’t have to have proof to speculate about anything, darling. That’s what speculation is. I don’t know why your dander is up, Alexandra, it’s not as though anyone accusedyouof murdering him.” She laughed giddily. “The very idea!”
That was his wife, a scientist before all things, staunch and passionate in regard to the truth.
Not at all a bad stance to hold, he thought proudly.
