Held up by a flooded bridge near Beauvais, it took Minerva five days to reach London. She prayed that Blake, traveling ahead on horseback, had made it in time to see his father.
Incessant rain followed her across the Channel and onward from Dover. The gutters along Piccadilly worked overtime, their efficiency threatened by the thick layer of straw laid down on the street to muffle the clatter of carriage wheels and preserve the peace of the invalid in Vanderlin House. The absence of signs of mourning at the entrance, or on the servants’ liveries, reassured her that the Duke of Hampton still lived. Her short term as Marchioness of Blakeney would continue a little longer. The idea of becoming a duchess and mistress of this, and half a dozen other mansions, seemed unreal.
The atmosphere in the house was one of sobriety and anticipation. Standing in the gilded hall at the foot of the great staircase, surrounded by bowing footmen with somber faces, she wondered where she should go. This was her home now, but she wasn’t even sure if she could find the way to the suite she’d only seen once. She wished Blake would appear, and dreaded it.
After the news of the duke’s illness arrived, all their conversation had been of practicalities. She’d offered to ride with him but, excellent horsewoman as she was, she couldn’t keep up with his speed and stamina and had acknowledged the fact. She stayed to supervise the transportation of their possessions and servants from Paris. The honeymoon was over.
Hanging over her were two facts. She and Blake were new lovers. And they’d just had a blazing row. She wasn’t sure which was paramount and both made her nervous about their coming reunion.
She’d had plenty of time on the road to ruminate. She admitted to herself that she’d said some hard things to her husband. Not that she thought all of them unjust, but she’d been less than tactful in their expression. In fact she’d been beastly. She had survived dozens of arguments on the practice and philosophy of politics, and prided herself on an ability to make the kind of rational case of which many men thought a woman incapable. Blake had driven her to an unprecedented rage and she didn’t know why. Neither had she any idea how to approach him.
Her own uncertainties aside, she was concerned for him. Despite the complexities of his relations with his father, which she didn’t understand, he must surely be affected by his parent’s grave illness. She suddenly longed for her own father and a comforting embrace from that cheerful and loving eccentric. The contrast between William Montrose and the Duke of Hampton couldn’t be greater and, for all the duke’s material advantages, she rather thought she’d been dealt the better hand.
A footman took her traveling cloak, but the butler who’d greeted her with a respectful “My lady” had vanished. Within a few minutes a young woman entered the hall.
“Lady Blakeney,” she said with a deep curtsey. “I am Amanda Vanderlin. Let me show you to your rooms. I’m afraid your suite is full of painters so we’ve prepared one of the guest chambers for you.”
This was Blake’s favorite sister. If Minerva hadn’t recognized her, she would have known by the strong family resemblance.
“I’m glad to finally meet you, Amanda. I’ve seen you often over the years. We may even have met at a public day at Mandeville.”
For a moment Amanda seemed disconcerted by the familiar address. Then she smiled and looked very like Blake at his most charming. “Of course we’ve met. Those public days are rather hideous, aren’t they? Everyone seems so stiff and proper and embarrassed to be there.”
“I wish we were meeting at a happier time. How is His Grace?”
“Not well. We fear he may not last the week.”
“Where is Blake?”
“He’s sitting with the duke now. So is my sister Anne, Lady Kildarren. Our mother is resting after being with him all night.”
“I’d like to see Blake,” Minerva said. “Does he know I’m here?”
“Filson will inform him. Meanwhile, let me take you upstairs. You must be weary from the journey.”
While she washed off the dust and did her hair, Amanda told her how things stood. “Anne and Kildarren and I arrived from Scotland yesterday. Maria and Gideon Louther have been here most of the time, but they’ve returned to their own house for a while. I can’t really believe it. My father has had a bad heart for a long time, but he never showed any weakness. At nearly seventy years old we shouldn’t be surprised, but he’s always seemed immortal and invincible. My mother says he has weakened, but I’ve seen so little of him in recent years.”
Minerva squeezed her sister-in-law’s hand for a moment. “I can see how distressing it must be. I’ve been very little at my father’s house in the past two years and this makes me realize how much I miss him. I am glad that marrying Blake means I shall be only three miles from him and my mother at Mandeville.”
They’d barely settled in the morning room when Blake entered. “Amanda,” he said, sounding harassed. “Where is Gideon? The Prime Minister is threatening to come and pay his respects and I don’t think the duke is up to it. Gideon will know how to fend him off.”
Minerva stood. For an aching moment their eyes clashed and she thought he was pleased to see her. A tentative smile died unborn when he offered her a formal bow.
“Minerva,” he said tonelessly. “I trust your journey was comfortable.”
All she could do was murmur a commonplace. His hair and clothing were less than pristine. Dark shadows under his eyes emphasized his pallor and spoke to his exhaustion. She had an urge to smooth back a stray lock from his brow, but nothing in his manner suggested he’d welcome the gesture.
“Do you have everything you need?”
“Amanda has been most kind.”
An awkward silence descended as Blake took in the sight of his wife. Amid the cold formality of Vanderlin House, rendered even grimmer than usual by the circumstances, she seemed young, vibrant, and very beautiful, like a fresh bloom in a catacomb. He was foolish to be glad she’d arrived. How could he take pleasure in the presence of a woman who despised him? While he faced the dread and grief of his father’s last illness, their quarrel and the words she’d spoken haunted him. Because they were true. He was about to step into his father’s shoes and be revealed in all his inadequacy.
He remembered the way she’d taken his hand when the news reached them in Paris, the calm efficiency with which she’d read his mother’s letter aloud. He had no doubt he could rely on her for any assistance he requested. Minerva would be a dutiful wife. Though not an obedient one. The thought induced an inner smile, the first he’d had in five days.
The humor didn’t reach his face and quickly faded from his mind. He didn’t want a dutiful wife, but the point was moot. Whatever type of spouse he wanted, he had one already and she stood before him, expectant.
“What can I do to be useful?” she asked.
He shrugged helplessly. “Not much. All we can do is wait.”
The butler came into the room to deliver a letter and announce a visitor. “Lord Iverley.”
Minerva welcomed her brother-in-law with a kiss on the cheek. Heaven forbid that he, her husband, should merit such enthusiasm.
“Blakeney.”
“Sebastian.”
The cousins greeted each other with their usual coolness.
“Louther says the duke wants to see me.”
Of course. His father wouldn’t see the Prime Minster. But the nephew he’d always admired and loved, who had all the intellectual attributes Blake lacked, Sebastian Iverley he would see. If Blake were a bigger man he’d take him upstairs himself and witness the last meeting between his father and the man he wished had been his son.
“My lord.” The butler held out the letter. “This was delivered from Windsor.”
The king himself had written. “It requires my immediate attention,” he said to his cousin. “Filson will show you up to the duke’s room. Amanda, will you come to the study with me? I need your assistance.”
He was glad of an excuse to escape. He didn’t know what to say to Minerva beyond trivialities. Their quarrel felt like a great barrier he needed to dismantle or climb over, but he had no idea how to do it. Neither, at this time, did he have the energy to try.
Left alone, Minerva tried not to be put out that Blake had turned to his sister before his wife for help. Was she going to have to make the first move to restore amicable relations?
When she thought about their last exchange in the streets of Paris she felt uncomfortable and confused. She couldn’t understand why she’d been quite so angry. It wasn’t as though either had entered their marriage willingly. Why did she care so much about his manipulations, or even his mistress? Things she’d said about his lack of concern for matters of importance were true. But she couldn’t deny she had said them in an ill-mannered, cruel way.
Applying her experience with her own family, especially Stephen, her closest in age, might help. They’d had dozens of vicious quarrels and they settled themselves in one of two ways. If things became virulent, violent even, a parent, nurse, or tutor might intervene. At which point brother and sister forgot their disagreement and united against the interfering authority. As they grew older, pinches and hairpulling ceased and verbal fluency improved. They’d argue each other to a standstill (or Minerva’s victory), refuse to speak to each other for half an hour or half a day, then carry on as though nothing had happened.
Neither of them, in her recollection, had ever apologized beyond a muttered, “I’m sorry.” She had little experience with the concept. And she could hardly compare her relationship to her brother with Blake, with whom she’d shared a bed and would share a lifetime. Being married was turning out to be a lot more complicated than she’d imagined.
“Will you read to me?” The duke’s white hand trembled as he pointed to a brown leather book. His father’s presence had shrunk to that of an old sick man of no special power.
The first time he’d seen him lying there, Blake had been shocked at how insignificant he looked. The huge room itself, dominated by the ancient bed of carved oak, had drawn most of his unwitting attention. Over all the years he’d never visited the room. The duke’s children had no part in his intimate life.
During one of the stilted conversations they’d endured since then, he’d learned the bed had come from Holland with Gerrit Vanderlin, the first duke. It seemed to have swallowed up the once tall and proud figure, just as family tradition dominated his father’s life.
Either Blake or his mother or one of his sisters attended the duke at all times, more often than not several of them. In addition, his brothers-in-law were often there, especially Gideon. And always a servant or two, and a doctor.
Today the duke had dismissed everyone but Blake. He could be thankful there would be no witnesses to his humiliation. With a hollow opening in the pit of his stomach he took the volume and opened it.
“Greek,” he said with relief.
“Herodotus.”
“You know I was never any good at Greek. The person you need is Cousin Sebastian.”
The duke gave no sign he’d noticed the bitterness Blake couldn’t keep out of his voice. “No matter. Your mother read to me from The Times earlier, but I find I don’t much care for the news. It’s hard to be interested in present events when I shan’t be here to witness their outcome.”
There was nothing to say. The doctors had told the duke he had only a few days to live at the most, and his father was ever a realist.
“I’d rather talk about the past. I’ve been thinking about my father.”
Blake prepared for another lecture on past Vanderlin glories. He’d heard many in his life and he supposed he could survive one more.
“I was twenty-two when he died. Like you I was abroad. The news of his last illness reached me in Rome. Unlike you I didn’t get back in time to see him.”
“I’m thankful I was no farther away than Paris.”
“I was about to leave for Greece. I never got there, you know. I never saw it.”
“Did you want to?”
“More than anything I ever wanted. I fancied myself something of a classical scholar in those days.” Regret filled his voice, a sentiment Blake had never associated with his father, who’d always appeared boundlessly confident and self-satisfied. “But it was not to be. I was Hampton and there were expectations.”
Blake braced himself for a final harangue on his own inadequacy. Instead the duke’s faded eyes regarded him a pensive expression. “I’m sorry I can’t live longer and spare you the dukedom a few more years.”
“Don’t you mean you wish the dukedom could be spared me?”
“Don’t jest about it, Blakeney. It’s not a burden to be carried lightly. If I’ve sometimes been hard on you, it’s because I wanted you to be prepared. I fear you are not ready for what you must face.”
“I have never seen you display any discomfort in your position.”
“I had a good many years to grow into it. And everything became easier once I found your mother.”
In thirty years Blake had never heard his father even approach a discussion of his personal affairs. He wasn’t precisely eloquent now, but something in his voice when he mentioned his own marriage conveyed a depth of emotion his son hadn’t suspected.
“I’m sorry I’ve been a disappointment to you, Father,” he said, the first time he’d ever addressed the duke in such a familiar fashion. “I wish I could have made you proud.”
A small rare smile creased the duke’s pale lips. “You have. You did well in Paris. I didn’t expect you to identify those friends of the Duke of Orleans in such a short time.”
“I should have guessed. That task was your idea, not Gideon’s.”
“I thought it was time to give you something to do. You justified my confidence.”
“But I didn’t really do anything, did I? You already knew those names.” Blake shook his head at his own blindness. Far from doing anything useful, he’d merely managed to stumble through a very easy test.
“Had your time in Paris not been truncated, I have every faith you would have found new and valuable information for us.”
“If my wife had anything to say in the matter, I have no doubt of it.”
The duke looked interested. “A very clever young woman. I hope you are getting on well with her. I’d like to think you will be as content as I have been.”
“She certainly is clever.”
He couldn’t talk about Minerva now. He’d scarcely seen her in the two days since she arrived at Vanderlin House. He knew he needed to resolve their quarrel and he wanted to find a way for them to live in harmony. But at the moment it was more than he could manage. There were too many other demands on his time and attention.
“She is young,” the duke said, “but my duchess was younger. Only seventeen when we wed and I was fifteen years older. I have never wanted another woman.”
“You never kept a mistress?”
“Not after I married. I hope you will not either. It’s one reason I made you dismiss your bird of paradise. I’ve forgotten her name.”
“Desirée de Bonamour.”
“An improbable name.”
“Not the one she was born with.”
The duke actually chuckled. “My first love was an Italian girl called Guilietta Giglio. Juliet Lily in English. Charming girl. I was quite heartbroken to leave her behind.”
“In Rome when . . .”
“Yes. Something else I lost when my father died. But I forgot Guilietta quite quickly.”
“Did you forget the other thing? About being a Greek scholar?”
“Not entirely. I maintained a few interests that were mine as a man and not as Duke of Hampton. You must do the same.”
Blake saw evidence of his father’s passion in the room: a battered bust of Homer, a graceful urn decorated in terra-cotta and black. There were symbols of classical learning all over the ducal residences. He’d taken them for granted and occasionally hated them.
“It won’t be Greek I’m afraid. As you know, I could never even master the alphabet.”
“You are a fine horseman, one of the best so I am told. You should be proud of that.”
“I do know my horseflesh.” In fact his father had criticized him for extravagance in his stables. “Pity I don’t have much notion of politics.”
“I believe Lady Blakeney could help you in that aspect of the Vanderlin affairs.”
She’d certainly like to, he thought dourly. “I thought that was what Gideon was for.”
“Gideon is a good man but he’s a follower, not a leader. You must learn to decide for yourself. In the end you are the duke and responsible for the outcome of your decisions. It’s one of the disadvantages of power.” His voice trailed off and he looked frailer than ever. “I’ve always had a great deal of power and I’ve tried to exercise it for good.”
Loath to cut off the most intimate conversation he’d ever had with his father, Blake knew he couldn’t let it go on much longer. With profound sadness he stood up and dared to take the duke’s hand. “I want you to know that I shall do my best for the family, and for the country too.”
“I believe you will, my son. You have a long life ahead of you and things change. Your goals in life will not be the same as mine, nor should they. Let me give you one more piece of advice. Remember this: in politics there are no final victories or final defeats. The next day things will be different and you must adapt to new conditions.” Another frail smile. “Rather like the hunting field.”
The duke’s voice was fading. “I believe I shall rest now. I’m glad we’ve had this talk.”
“Yes, rest, father. I’ll sit with you until my mother returns.”
The duke settled back into the pillows and closed his eyes. Within minutes his shallow breathing told Blake that he slept. He sat beside the bed, looking at the face that always appeared cold and immovable. Everything seemed different. Not only was his father old and weak, he was also human.
Blake felt a wave of regret that only now was he offered a glimpse of this side of him. Now that it was too late, he felt this was a man to whom he might have confided his secret. Instead, he’d always offered the most powerful reason for hiding it.
He reached for his earliest memories of his father and discovered what he had forgotten: approval and even a restrained affection. The valued heir, he’d been brought to the duke’s study each day. He had a faint recollection of infant games. Things changed when he grew old enough to read and his tutors reported his lack of progress. Bafflement changed to anger as years passed. Instead of affection he received punishment for idleness: birching from his tutors and scoldings from his parents, far more terrifying because of the weight of his father’s disappointment. His mother, who supported her husband in all things, regarded him with sorrowful despair. Her distant dignity, even when her children were small, had repelled any impulse to ask her for help. Only when Amanda was old enough to learn had he finally mastered the letters of the alphabet and their meanings.
He had been taught to read by a five-year-old girl. With his little sister he could achieve the state of calm that brought sense out of the chaos of the symbols. By that time he had been written off as irredeemably stupid, the dolt who, by accident of birth, must inherit the leadership of a family famous for brilliance. Amanda had been helping him ever since. Except when he went to Eton.
That’s where Huntley had come in, leading ultimately to disaster.
Suppose he’d told his father. Suppose he’d explained his inability to master the simple act of reading, instead of taking every measure to disguise it. He knew why he’d never been tempted. As long as he was perceived as lazy rather than brainless he had a chance to one day win his respect. Laziness could be cured; stupidity was forever.
He had one last chance. He would never have considered it without this afternoon’s surprising exchange, but he was overcome with the urge to be honest with his father at the last. He formulated a confession in his head and waited. On his deathbed he did not believe the duke would reject him. He hoped for a final blessing before he took up his father’s burden.
Half an hour passed and Blake felt at peace with his decision. He sat in the quiet room overlooking Vanderlin House’s ample garden, insulated from the noise of London by thick walls and curtains. Only the ticking of the mantel clock competed with the gentle breathing of the dying man.
Then something altered.
He leaped up and ran to the door, calling into the passage for the doctor. He rushed back to the bedside and heard only the clock. Groping for his father’s wrist he sought a pulse, in vain. He pulled his watch from his fob pocket and convulsively polished the gold back against his waistcoat. Setting it against his father’s nostrils elicited not so much as a hint of mist.
He stood aside, without hope, as the doctor hurried in. The pricking behind his eyes gave way to unshed tears.
The doctor stood up. “Your Grace,” he said. “I regret to inform you that His Grace has passed away.”
Within minutes the room filled. His mother, kneeling at her husband’s bedside, weeping, with Amanda beside her. Maria and Anne and their husbands. The senior servants. A royal equerry who had called on behalf of the king. His own wife standing at the back of the room wearing an expression of unwonted hesitation. Their eyes met and he meant to reach out to her. He wasn’t even sure if his hand moved before he was interrupted by Gideon.
“We talked about various contingencies, but the final decision about the arrangements will be yours, Hampton.”
For a wild moment he thought his father hadn’t died, after all. Then he realized the name was now his.