Page 3 of Most Unusual Duke

“I accept,” Miss Templeton replied. “Alfred.”

He rose and slipped the ring over the fourth finger of her left hand, held that hand in both of his, kissed the back of it and led his betrothed to the dance floor. The orchestra began to play, and Beatrice wondered at herself, at the hint of a tear in her eye, at the painful beating of her heart. How astonishing, after what she’d been through, that a romantic impulse stirred within her breast.

She stood as still as one of the marble columns that lined the perimeter of the floor. Showy and offering no structural support, they gave the illusion of presence to what was a mundane ballroom. She felt akin to them, those useless props, as her title and consequence was as much of an illusion, her very person a construction. Her face was a cipher, a remote mask she had donned very early in her marriage. She had always been ladylike and composed; she now felt petrified, turned to stone, forbidding and formidable no matter her apparent femininity.

Beatrice’s figure had always been considered the apex of womanly design. She was small, pleasingly rounded in the correct places, with skin as pale as milk and hair as golden as a freshly minted guinea. How keen she had been to make her come-out, knowing she was a pattern card of female perfection. Pride goeth before a disastrous marriage, and she had enjoyed Incomparable status for a very short time before the alliance with Castleton was made.

The mask descended every day of that marriage, a shield of ice, her armor against the world, against her husband. Her cornflower-blue eyes shone as guileless as a milkmaid’s until one was close enough to see the hauteur in them. Her skin was as pale as the day she debuted but now gave the impression of ice, not youth. The chill embedded itself into the marrow of her bones, and there was nothing in this world able to melt it.

A plague of rakes milling about the room cast thoughtful looks in her direction, and she faced them down; the last thing she needed was one of their scurrilous lot, emboldened by Lowell’s effort, dropping to one knee before her. It happened often enough in private and was easily thwarted with an indomitable dispassion that sent the importunate suitor straight back out the door. She had to credit their audacity, as it was known she had the ear of the prince regent, although no one knew why. Naturally, they speculated she was his mistress. Let them; she was secure in the hold she had over His Highness, and it had nothing to do with the pleasures of the flesh.

She attached herself to a coterie of dowagers who muttered to one another as they watched the soon-to-be ducal couple waltz, Miss Templeton’s gown showing to its best advantage, the skirt opening and closing like the petals of a lily as Lowell swept her around the floor. A whimsical nod to Felicity’s days as a wallflower? She would make a formidable duchess, and Beatrice applauded hersangfroidand sense of humor.

They were acquaintances, not bosom friends, as it would do neither woman credit in society should they seek to deepen their friendship. A marchioness of means paying particular attention to an Honorable of no means to speak of would draw too much notice, and she knew Felicity wished—or had done—to remain as unnoticeable as possible. Did the woman know to whom she pledged her troth? Or, rather, to what? Miss Templeton did not give the impression she lacked wits. Had Lowell revealed himself to her, revealed the beast he held within? Perhaps a coded letter of felicitation was required. A cryptic yet informative missive to put her on her guard.

The most terrifying thing Beatrice learned in her marriage to the Marquess of Castleton may now come in useful.

To wit: she knew how to recognize a wolf-creature on sight. She would instruct Miss Templeton how to discern them, from the lightness of their gait, the glint in their eyes, eyes that appeared to change color depending on their mood, and their ability to hear through the very walls, never mind at a distance. She would tell her friend to be aware, to beware: these creatures, though not the horrors to be found in the pages of a Gothic novel, were perhaps more alarming as they walked amongst thetonundetected.

Was Lowell as beastly as Castleton? The duke was not like him in aspect, but what of his nature? Beatrice hoped he was not. She had long held the duke in high regard as he had not maligned his sister, Lady Phoebe Blakesley, for fleeing England rather than wed the monster to whom Beatrice herself had been given. How much the worse it must have been for the lady, who would have known what lay in her future. How lucky to have such a brother. How Beatrice had often longed for one like the Duke of Lowell.

She did not lack brothers, but as the first girl born after four boys, she soon became household custodian, with her father and his sons playing at being lords of the manor and her mother weakened unto near incapacity due to yearly confinements. As soon as Beatrice reached the age of reason, she took on responsibilities beyond her years. The boys did not know what anything was worth in money, from a bun in a teashop to a year of their tenants’ rents, and yet they had a fortune to draw upon, to join their clubs and purchase their overbred steeds, thanks to her. Beatrice struck a perfect balance between parsimony and extravagance, between strictures and indulgences, wrought from hard-won experience in learning to judge the weather and the harvest and the mood of the cook and the perspicacity of the butler. She managed it, even as a girl still in the schoolroom, even as her mother produced three more brothers and one last, darling sister, even as she sought her father’s approval and did not find it.

It never failed to astonish her that she wanted a family of her own, and yet she did. She yearned to raise useful sons and confident daughters, to be honored as a capable helpmeet, to take on the mantle of wife and make it good, better, best.

Beatrice had accepted Castleton with that in mind, and it spectacularly had not come to pass.

She’d heard that Lowell had a female chamberlain. She herself would make a prodigious chamberlain, had acted as one in all but name before being set aside like a porcelain shepherdess on a side table. In an underused parlor. In the back of a great house. She was only to look beautiful when her husband wished to gaze upon her, to be composed and flawless as she waited upon her lord to pay her his addresses. And what addresses they had been.

Why Castleton chose her was beyond comprehension. Knowing what she did now, regarding the circles he moved in, it made little sense that the marquess had not yet plucked another bride from amongst his own kind. Perhaps her father and he shared a club? Castleton would have sought an instantaneous solution to his failed nuptials; from her father’s point of view, it was past time she was auctioned off. Auctioned she was, though the great sum she garnered for her family would not go far without her there to husband it.

Beatrice snorted to herself, without a wrinkle on her visage to betray her.Husband, indeed.As if she’d seek out another one of those. Despite her small stature and general bosominess, once she set aside her blacks she was well able to fend off the fortune hunters, the impecunious suitors who attempted to gain her hand and her wealth with promises of carnal delights. She faced down the highest among them, the prince himself, and succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. She moved through society after years of isolation, in thetonbut not of it, enjoying notoriety if not prestige, even as the novelty began to pall…

Why ought she remain in society? Beatrice had nothing to prove and nothing to gain. Did she merely seek to poke thebeau mondein the eye with her independence and her iciness? She knew they called her Lady Frost behind her back, and it touched her not a jot. What need had she to remain as the cynosure of these silly people who had no idea what they harbored in their midst? She would leave, taking her secrets with her, leave London, make a start by leaving this ball—

A servant in royal livery hove into view and bowed before her. The intake of breath as this was witnessed soughed around her like a wintry wind. Beatrice ostentatiously accepted the proffered slip of paper. She read it, implacable. She nodded infinitesimally to the footman and followed him out of the ballroom, a gale of gossip in her wake.

Three

The footman led Arthur down one corridor after another, the manor’s humble facade belying a warren of halls and doors. Muffled sounds of illicit coupling emitted from behind more than one of those doors until the lit sconces reduced in number and they entered a shadowy conservatory.

The lady of the house was inordinately fond of orchids.

As they approached a small dais hosting a daybed and a work basket, another door opened, and they were joined by a human female, haughty in bearing—none other than Lady Frost. She was directed to stand at his left and took her place without so much as a glance at his person.Tongossip had it she was a “special friend” of George’s, although, if Arthur recalled correctly, His Highness preferred his females to be comfortable in frame and cozy in nature.

This little bit would not be to the royal taste. The lady gave the impression of ten stone of imperiousness contained in a two-stone saddlebag. Arthur was not sure he’d ever seen so small a human adult; he doubted her nose came up to his sternum. Her blonde hair was caught up in a tight matronly twist, but the sober coiffure did nothing to dim its golden brightness even in the low light. Herembonpointwas impressive considering her stature, and yet she had no bum to speak of. An urge bubbled up in Arthur to tease her about it; in the first instance, nothing ever bubbled up within him, ever, and in the second—there was no second. Why in the name of Freya would he tease a female of any species? His bear snorted and sniffed and rolled in his aura, searching for something, Arthur knew not what.

Down, you, he scolded.This is neither the time nor the place.

Curious, curious, his bear muttered.

What is?Arthur leaned in a fraction and scented nothing of interest.

Nothing where something ought to be, his creature responded.

He was prepared to lecture his bear on philosophical fatuity when yet another door opened, this one at the back of the dais, presumably leading directly from the garden. His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent George IV, entered, done up in his usual finery; the light of the few candles caught on the embroidery rioting up and down his coat, depicting a leap of hares. His pantaloons were as tight as pantaloons could be, and Arthur suspected he would need to be cut out of them at the end of the evening. He discerned the hand of Lady Jemima Coleman in the royal vesture, although it was not widely known she was responsible for thehabillementsof several highly ranked personages, the prince not least among them. That snippet of tittle-tattle would rock more than one foundation.

He was torn out of his musings regarding Georgie’s wardrobe as Lady Frost dropped into so deep a curtsy it was surely derisive. There was a flavor to the abject obeisance that implied its excessive depth served to shore up the uncertain authority of its object. She curled as naturally as the branches of the orchids surrounding them, her chin touching her chest as she lowered to the floor. Arthur managed the most cursory of bows and exposed his neck, as was the Shifter way, not wishing to draw attention from her audacity.

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