NOVEMBER 1878, STONEBRIDGE MANOR
The Duchess of Somerset, dressed regally yet warmly, stood at one of the two long windows in her sitting room. Her expression serious, she tilted the letter she read toward the day’s light outside, the better to make out the writing. Coming to a place where she could stop, she glanced up and saw that outside a gentle snow had begun to fall. Her reflection in the window showed her she had a delighted smile on her face. By tomorrow morning, the grounds would be coated in a mantle of white.
Then her frown returned. Oh, dear, tomorrow her mother-in-law and her sister, the dowager Duchess of Glenmore, were supposed to come for a visit. Now they might not be able to, if the snow kept up. Well, if she knew Rosamond Sparrow Treyhorne, nothing could keep her from visiting her grandchild. She might have chosen to live with her sister, but they were only a two-days’ drive away at Glenmore and were frequent, and welcome, visitors at Stonebridge.
Behind her, a burning log in the fireplace snapped and popped, drawing the duchess’s gaze there. She saw Robin brushing and hanging her gowns in an armoire. Everything was as it should be. Satisfied, the duchess went back to her letter, her quick mind absorbing all the pertinent facts.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace. But will that be all?”
The duchess looked up, smiling at her lady’s maid. Very polished now and sure of herself, Robin hardly looked like the same raw girl who, eighteen months ago, had been frightened by Rosamond’s maids. “Yes. Thank you. Where is the duke?”
Robin sighed. “He’s in the nursery again, Your Grace.”
The duchess sighed as well. “Tell me he’s not watching Eugenia sleeping? He’ll wake her, and she’ll be a little dragon princess all afternoon.”
Robin giggled. “He pulls up a chair and sits right by her cradle, he does. Just sits and watches her. Makes her nurses quite testy. But he’s ever so very much in love with her, he is.”
And this pleased the duchess tremendously. “Yes. He’s like a child himself with her. I do believe, however, he runs Scotty and Her Grace Nana a good race on who will spoil her the most.”
“Oh, I think it’s Scotty, hands down, Your Grace. I’ve never seen the like of such a big man to be so gentle with a little one, and the baby not even a year old yet.”
At that moment, the door from the hallway opened and in walked the very handsome Duke of Somerset and Glenmore, a good man much loved by his wife and all those around him … except for his new valet, Carrouthers, who could not get the duke to submit to his ministrations without a pitched battle.
The duchess very quickly held her letter down at her side, away from the duke’s notice.
“And here you are, Yancey, my love,” he said. “I’ve just been in the nursery. Eugenia looks more and more like her beautiful mother every day.”
“Yet she has your eyes. And your stubborn chin.”
“Yes,” he said proudly, in danger of popping his buttons off his vest. “I think we’re in for it with her. Oh, and you missed it, dear. Eugenia rolled over.”
He smiled at his wife, and her heart began to beat as if for the very first time. It happened every time she saw him. “She’s nine months old, sweetheart. She’s been doing that for many months now.”
“Yes, but she’s the best at it I’ve ever seen.” The duke nodded at Robin when she curtsied. “Hello, Robin, old girl.”
“Your Grace.” Robin quickly left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
Sam watched the maid do so, and then turned to his wife. “She flees from me.”
“You frighten her.”
“I do? What do I do to frighten her?”
“You speak to her. You really aren’t the usual thing in a duke, you know.”
His grin was a sly one. “Yes. I know. That’s your American influence at fault.” Coming to stand behind Yancey, he wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close and tight. “I haven’t seen you all day. Where have you been keeping yourself, my love?”
Yancey leaned her head back against Sam’s warm muscled chest. This man was her world. “I’ve been about. You are the dreary one, locking yourself away in your study all day.”
“The dratted accounts, my love. Double the accounts now. And Mother’s and Aunt Jane’s bills were in the lot. They’re not the most frugal of women.” He brushed aside her hair and nibbled at her earlobe. “And then there were tenant petitioners all afternoon. By the way, I think my new secretary has his eye on your Robin.”
Oh, this was good news. “Michael does? Really? Robin blushes to her roots if anyone even says his name around her.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him.”
“You will not.”
“I will. Oh, and a contingent even came in this afternoon from Lakeheath-on-Somerset. About the yearly Christmas pageant.”
“Dear God.”
“That’s the spirit, dear.” He gently turned Yancey around to face him. She could—and fully intended to—spend the rest of her life staring into his gray eyes. “I hear you received a letter today.” Teasing her, he clutched at her wrist and held up her hand. “And what’s this? Is it from Mr. Pinkerton?”
Yancey stared at her husband. “Yes, it is. And no, you can’t.”
Sam’s expression fell. “No, I can’t what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do. And you can’t.”
“Why not?”
Yancey crossed her arms and stared up at her vexed husband. “Because you faint at the sight of blood. And darling, I don’t like to bring up bad times, but I thought you were dead that day in the tower.”
He grumbled his irritation. “And I could have been, too, if I’d rolled down all those steps. Thank God for Scotty’s quick thinking.”
Yancey bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “Yes, wounded though he was, he managed to stop you.”
“I could have been wounded, too.”
Yancey nodded, putting her hands on his arms, which he’d now crossed over his chest. She leaned into him and raised her face for a kiss. “I know, sweetheart. But I thank God every day that you weren’t.”
“Scotty gets to go with you, doesn’t he?”
Yancey sighed. “We’ve been through this, Sam. Yes, he does. He always goes with me.” She thought to distract him. “Come on, let’s go see if Eugenia is awake. We can bundle her up and take her out to see the snow.”
“You’re changing the subject, Yancey.”
Taking her husband’s hand, Yancey turned to head for the closed door to the sitting room that was now hers and Sam’s together. She much preferred his suite of rooms to her prior ones when she’d arrived here undercover for Mr. Pinkerton. “Yes, I am changing the subject.”
When she passed a low table in the room she dropped the letter there. Sam snatched it up, reading it as she led him out of the room. “Where’s he sending you this time? Not before Christmas, I hope?”
“Yes. Before Christmas. And he wants me to go to London—”
“London? At this time of year? Is the man mad? The roads will be treacherous. Yancey, my love, when we married and you accepted Mr. Pinkerton’s proposal that you become his foremost detective in England, I must say I never once thought about what it would mean to our family life, your keeping your career. While I have the utmost respect for you, dear, and your abilities, you are also my wife and—”
“Would you like to go with me?” Yancey opened the door to the hallway and turned to see Sam’s face light up.
“Really? Do you mean it? And Eugenia? We have to take Eugenia.” He pulled the letter up to read it. “Good heavens, stolen artwork from America has shown up in London? Splendid. That shouldn’t involve any bloodshed. We’ll open the house there. And take Nana. She loves London.”
“Of course.” Yancey’s heart brimmed with love and joy. She could never have pictured an ending like this to events that began eighteen months ago as a marriage masquerade.