Ivy had been reading from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to the children before bed. Walker refused to settle down unless Mary stayed until he fell asleep. The one night that the duke had insisted he go to sleep by himself, the boy had been seized with night terrors and was found wandering about in the hall, oblivious to his surroundings.
At last he nodded off. Ivy closed the book. “You may read in your room for fifteen more minutes before you go to sleep, Mary. You know I’m in the next room if Walker wakes up. Heavens, I’m so tired I can hardly move.”
No sooner had she closed her eyes to take a momentary rest than thunder boomed from the fields beyond the house. Five minutes or so later a series of blasts drew her—and Mary—to the window.
“Walker hates thunderstorms,” Mary whispered, wide-awake and scornful.
Ivy studied the clear starlit sky. “I don’t see a single cloud.”
“Isn’t tomorrow your day off?”
“Yes, but I have work to do here. And I’m having my stitches taken out.”
“Did Uncle James forbid you to see your lover?”
Ivy turned to the girl in exasperation. “No. He forbade you to discuss adult concerns. I do not have a lover.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Run off to your room before you disturb your brother. The thunder seems to have stopped now, anyway.”
Another boom resounded from the fields. Walker sat bolt upright and bellowed, “The French are coming! Papa! Uncle James!”
“Dear me,” Ivy muttered, and gave Mary a nudge toward the door. “It’s only thunder, Walker,” she said, drawing the curtains on the starry night before she left the window to console him.
He had dropped back off to sleep before she reached the bed. Mary stared at him from the door. “You told a lie, Lady Ivy. It wasn’t thunder at all.”
“Well, whatever it was, it’s over now. Perhaps there are poachers in the woods.”
“My mother would thrash Walker for wailing like an infant.”
Ivy tucked in the covers and joined the girl at the door. “If your brother asks, which I doubt he will, you are to assure him it was thunder he heard—unless you wish to stand in the corner tomorrow.”
“I shall tell Uncle James.”
“Go ahead.”
“What if he dismisses you?”
“Then you will soon be arguing with another governess.”
Ivy heard the girl’s apology but did not linger to acknowledge it. She hurried to her room and from the window witnessed the duke canter into view on his gray. His cloak billowed out like a black sail. The two heavyset men riding in his wake enhanced his dashing, devil-may-care appearance.
Ivy felt an irrational urge to open the window and demand to know what he had been doing at this hour. Perhaps it was at this unguarded moment of emotion that the green-eyed monster of jealousy crept into the chamber and, finding a disquieted soul, offered to keep her company into the night.
She would have been better off with Mary’s precocious honesty or Walker’s fears. Her uninvited guest tormented her with sly dialogue.
Where would the duke have gone so mysteriously, in the middle of the night?
He could have gone to visit a neighbor, Ivy reasoned. Or a tenant who had taken ill after supper. That was a decent landlord’s duty.
He could have gone in search of the sexual gratification you refused him. Do you not remember how his reception room overflowed with women on the day of his interview?
Ivy could hardly forget.
But he had chosen her—as a governess.
He kissed you at a masquerade ball five years ago. Twice you have let him go now.
Ivy stood firm. He’d probably gone hunting. She had heard gunshots fired.
Indeed, the voice mocked her. And his prey begged to be caught. What do you know of the games that sophisticated lovers play?
Ivy drew back into the curtains. As James drew nearer, he swayed unsteadily in the saddle and then slid to the ground without his customary agility. One of his companions dismounted and hastened to his side.
Ivy’s heart raced. Had he been shot? It didn’t seem possible that anything could diminish his vitality. He had been injured at war and survived to return to the ruling class. Still, he was mortal, no matter how everyone had come to place him on a pedestal.
He’s been fighting over a woman, the voice taunted in glee.
“You wicked man,” she said, wanting to pound her fist on the window and run to his aid at once. The sinner. Risking his life over a woman who wasn’t Ivy or even the lady from London he invited to sin with him in his exquisite home.
Fickle, the voice said in the silence.
Amoral.
Passionate.
She wished she could ask her sisters’ opinion instead of listening to this plaguesome voice in her head. Her sisters might try to confirm her first suspicion, that the duke had merely been out hunting.
But for what at this time of night? Or whom? And why did he need assistance to dismount? Was he drunk?
Rosemary would advise her to ask him in the morning and not lose any sleep over what was only speculation tonight. But Rosemary had never been kissed by a charismatic duke at a masquerade ball or swept off to his bed in what would have been a romantic moment except for the hideous gash on her wrist and the presence of Elora in the adjoining room.
Ivy wasn’t going to question him in the morning about his late-night rendezvous. He would only consider her curiosity a sign that she could not stop thinking about him if put to another test, which was obviously true. But Ivy needn’t give him another reason to gloat.
She said her prayers and went to bed, resolved to find out discreetly from the other servants what mysterious activities the master had committed during the night.
Except he looked so haggard the following day she decided she would rather remain in ignorance. His eyes brooded with secrets. Deep lines of fatigue drew his face into a forbidding mask.
Evidently the duke had exerted himself to the brink of physical exhaustion in some nocturnal mischief. If his dissolute appearance was the result of an assignation, Ivy doubted she would survive a love affair with the scoundrel.
Still, in her heart she believed that his ominous deportment had less to do with romance than it did with an issue infinitely more dangerous.
* * *
For the next four nights the disturbing pattern continued. Elora had left them before Ivy could ask her if she heard anything unusual after she retired. Ivy moved Mary and Walker to rooms across the hall and they slept fitfully from the moment she settled them into bed. The duke no longer appeared for evening prayers at all, and Ivy thought this was for the best.
He was short-tempered with the staff. He avoided Ivy. And when he walked through the house, an indelible darkness followed in his wake.
Even his appearance had changed in the past week. He’d lost weight and his elegant clothes hung on a chiseled frame that was strangely beautiful to behold. As far as Ivy could tell, he spent most of his daylight hours fencing, boxing, and in archery contests with Wendover and his two younger brothers, who were soon to join the navy. If Ivy hadn’t known better, she would have sworn the duke was preparing for battle himself
Finally, on the fifth night, as she waited at her window for his return, he slid off his horse, and for once, his attendants weren’t quick enough to catch him.
She raced from her room, not caring whether the stupid man was in league with the devil, a smuggling ring, or Wellington’s spies. He was clearly engaged in some activity that put his safety at risk, and it must be stopped.
She needn’t have worried about anyone noticing her. The house was in an uproar when she descended to the first floor. She shrank back as Wendover and the gamekeeper helped the duke up the stairs.
“I am capable of walking myself,” he snapped.
He looked dreadful, pale, his cloak hanging at an odd angle from his neck like a broken wing. He leaned heavily against the balustrade, and it seemed that the flock of servants below held their collective breath until he turned his head and shouted, “Go!”
Carstairs ordered two footmen to fetch His Grace’s physician. Wendover and the gamekeeper remained behind the duke in the likely event that he would miss a step and fall.
Ivy was grateful the children had gone to bed.
She knew that she must discover the duke’s secret. And she would do so tonight.