Romancing Daphne Read online

  “I was raised to be a gentleman and have every intention of living up to that ideal.”

  The duke raised an eyebrow. That was all the change his expression underwent, but the effect was chilling. His web of scars tugged at his features, rendering the already frightening gentleman terrifying. James had never fully believed the rumors surrounding the Duke of Kielder, but the sight sent a ripple of unease through him. For the first time, he began to believe His Grace might truly be capable of all his reputation credited him with.

  “I assure you, Your Grace, your sister-in-law will come to no harm at my hands.” He tried to sound and look convincing. The weight of the duke’s glare made him terribly uneasy.

  “You will find I do not put much store by the word of a gentleman with whom I am not well acquainted. I require proof of his reliability.”

  It was a warning, if James had ever heard one. The duke would be watching him. Not a particularly comforting thought. And a confusing one at that. Had not the duke asked James to call on his sister-in-law? Father said His Grace had gone so far as to suggest James court the young lady. Why, then, did the duke act as though he distrusted James as much as he would a shifty-eyed snatch-thief?

  “I will see if Daphne still wishes to go driving with you.” His Grace gave no indication that he expected Miss Lancaster to do anything but give James the cut direct or, if she was feeling particularly good-natured, cordially invite him to take himself off.

  His Grace’s departure did not relieve the tension. James rose and crossed the room, fighting the urge to pace—or flee. The duke had more or less forced him to call on Miss Lancaster, yet he could scarcely have been less welcoming. And when he’d called the day before, no one else had been visiting. He’d fully expected to walk into a room full of people making a good show of being Miss Lancaster’s particular friends. Something was odd in the arrangement, but he could not put his finger on just what.

  “I hope you realize the duke is not being dramatic when he makes these threats. He means every word.”

  James spun around at the sound of a young lady’s voice. In a tall-backed armchair near the fireplace sat a young lady with golden ringlets and an angelic face. She could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Her startlingly green eyes twinkled with unmistakable mischief. The girl, no doubt, was a handful.

  “I am Artemis.” She smiled amusedly—apparently his confusion showed. “Daphne’s younger sister.”

  “Miss Artemis.” He offered a small bow.

  “Are you going to marry her?” She certainly didn’t want for nerve.

  He managed to speak through his shock. “I am utterly unacquainted with your sister.”

  Miss Artemis shrugged. “There is not much to know. She is quiet and bookish and terribly boring.” She sighed quite dramatically, leaning back in her chair. “Sometimes I marvel that we are at all related.”

  James had no idea what to say to that. Agreement would be ungentlemanly toward Miss Lancaster, but arguing with Miss Artemis was not acceptable either. No response proved necessary. Miss Artemis kept talking without his input.

  “Our older sister Athena was a smashing success when she had her debut. Falstone House was simply crawling with gentlemen from the very first day, and she has hordes of friends every time she comes to Town. Persephone is welcomed simply everywhere. I don’t imagine Daphne will convince very many gentlemen to call on her more than twice.” Artemis shook her head. “This is your second time, so I suppose you won’t be back again.”

  “I can think of no reason not to return.” In reality, he could think of plenty but knew himself committed to being a friend for the remainder of his time in London. Miss Artemis seemed unaware of her brother-in-law’s machinations. James had no intention of being the one to inform her.

  He heard footsteps approaching in the corridor. Miss Artemis tucked her legs up onto the chair, indicating with a finger to her lips that she wished him to say nothing of her presence there. He looked about and realized just how he’d missed her upon first arriving. The position of her chair completely hid her from the rest of the room.

  “Guard your liver with your life,” Miss Artemis whispered. “Adam is particularly fond of foie gras.”

  “Which of your organs would the duke harvest if he found you here?”

  Miss Artemis grinned. “All of them.”

  Yes, the youngest Miss Lancaster was definitely a handful. Not wishing to get the girl in trouble nor wanting to attempt an explanation of their very private tête-à-tête, James moved closer to the door.

  Miss Daphne Lancaster stepped inside an instant later. She could hardly have proven more of a contrast to her sister—dark hair, dark eyes, and entirely subdued. Her expression remained passive, no hint as to her feelings. Miss Artemis had described her sister as “terribly boring.” James could not say how accurate the evaluation was.

  Seeing Miss Lancaster dressed for a carriage ride, James assumed she had not, as the duke had predicted, decided to toss him out on his ear. “Shall we, Miss Lancaster?”

  She nodded. That was all the conversation he was to receive, apparently. Perhaps she meant to save all hints of gratitude for the efforts he was making until they were out of the house.

  He offered his arm and led her from the drawing room to the front door. The Duke of Kielder stood in the entryway, his expression black and foreboding. That threatening eyebrow of his had lowered, though it made him only slightly less intimidating.

  “Not a scratch, Tilburn.”

  James dipped his head but did not manage a reply. He was doing a favor for this family, after all. Why, then, did they all seem so put out with him? Even a potentially homicidal guardian ought to lower his weapons for a ready-made friend he himself had acquired for his ward.

  “Fanny.” At the duke’s command, a maid stepped to the door wearing an unprepossessing outer coat, obviously intending to spend time out of doors. “I expect a detailed accounting of all Lord Tilburn’s actions, especially those of which I would not approve.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” The maid curtsied, gave James a look of warning, and, head held triumphantly high, led the way out the door and to the waiting carriage.

  A detailed report. He hadn’t expected that. It certainly was not the first time he’d taken a young lady for a ride in the park, but it was likely to be, by far, the most uncomfortable of such outings he had ever undertaken.

  Chapter Five

  Daphne slowly released a breath, willing the tension to ease from her shoulders. She would never forgive herself if she ruined this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by being too nervous to enjoy even a moment of it. Perhaps if she thought of him as James instead of both names together, he would seem less intimidating, different somehow from the imaginary gentleman she’d thought of so often during the past half dozen years.

  He broke the silence between them. “Has your sojourn in London been pleasant thus far?”

  Her voice stuck in her throat a moment when she turned to look at him. His eyes focused ahead as he carefully drove the carriage toward the park. Even in profile, she thought him the handsomest man of her acquaintance.

  Stop being a gudgeon, she told herself. What a ridiculous person she must seem, entirely unable to speak a coherent sentence. Was it any wonder she’d sunk under the weight of her come-out?

  “The warmer weather of Town is . . . is a welcome change after the long winters of Northumberland,” she said.

  Had her very first sentence really been a comment on the weather, and a broken, inarticulate one at that? He was bound to think her an imbecile now.

  “Lancashire is not particularly warm during the winter months either.”

  He hadn’t laughed at her. That was encouraging.

  “You seem to prefer Lancashire to London.” That was a better topic of discussion. He would at the very least realize she had paid atten
tion during their conversation the day before. And the comment had emerged whole. That was an accomplishment.

  A moment passed before he replied, his attention focused on maneuvering the carriage around a cart on one side of the street and a carriage moving in the opposite direction on the other. The vendor who tended the cart watched them rather closely as they passed. A touch too closely, in fact.

  “My mother’s health has been poor for many years,” he said when they had successfully passed the obstacles. “I worry for her when I am away. Likewise, my brother remains on his estate a great deal of the time—also in Lancashire—and I sorely miss his company while I am in Town.”

  A note of longing threaded through his words. Daphne glanced at him as they continued at a subdued pace. She understood loneliness. Perhaps he would appreciate knowing she did. She was not, however, ready to confess that she felt alone most of the time. Her father had begun rejecting her company when she was still very young. She had tried again and again to convince him to allow her a space in his life, but to no avail. One did not endure such personal and repeated dismissals without a great many scars. She would not, however, speak of that. His opinion of her would be rendered decidedly low if he knew her own father had not cared overly much for her. An accounting of her siblings was a far safer topic.

  “My sister Athena and her family do not come to—They do not travel from their home often,” she said, “and I miss my brothers as well.”

  “I did not realize you had brothers.” James glanced briefly at her before returning his attention to the increasingly busy street.

  She nodded. “Linus is in the navy.”

  He looked over at her once more, his gaze lingering.

  She had to turn her gaze away, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. He would probably like her better if he did not study her overly much.

  “You said you had brothers. How many others are there?” he asked.

  “One other: Evander. He—” Her throat closed up a touch. Speaking of her siblings had not proven a harmless subject after all. Thoughts of Evander did not always affect her as they had in the first few years after Trafalgar. What a time for her emotions to take hold once more. She prayed her voice would remain level. “He was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar.” Her voice broke as she forced out the word killed.

  Evander had meant the world to her. Of all the members of her family, only he had never been too busy to notice a lonely child desperate for affection. After leaving for the navy, he had regularly sent her letters in addition to those addressed to the family as a whole. She had lived for those letters. She would read them again and again until the creases wore through. He had been her reassurance that she mattered to someone. His death had torn her to pieces, fragments of which remained unhealed and broken still.

  “I am sorry for your loss,” James said.

  Dear heavens, she was very nearly crying in front of James Tilburn. What a ridiculous impression she must have been making. Not only could she not seem to produce an unbroken sentence, but she was turning into a watering pot too. “Forgive me.” She blinked away a tear threatening to form in her eyes. “I do not always grow so emotional when speaking of him.”

  “I assure you, Miss Lancaster, there is nothing to forgive. Were I, heaven forbid, to lose my brother, I doubt I would ever fully recover.”

  James carefully tooled his way into the mad crush of carriages and horses descending on Hyde Park. The outing had not yet proven disastrous. She was keeping up her end of a conversation. He did not seem utterly bored with her. A smile tugged at Daphne’s lips even as she felt warmth creep into her cheeks.

  She had worried for hours on end over the reason for James’s call the day before. Adam, she feared, had forced the call despite insisting he’d merely suggested it. But James didn’t act like someone being bullied into spending time with a young lady. He’d asked her to take a ride with him without any noticeable prodding from her brother-in-law. She had reason to hope James enjoyed her company.

  “Hyde Park is busy this afternoon,” he said. “A sure sign the Season has truly begun.”

  Daphne nodded, glancing around at the others who had ventured out for the promenade. “I have never been at the park during the fashionable hour. My sister and brother-in-law prefer to avoid crowds.”

  “I cannot say I blame them. With the Season in full swing, the madness of this undertaking boggles the mind.”

  Daphne would gladly endure even the most crowded days in the park simply to sit beside James Tilburn as she was. She’d wanted for so long to know him better. “Do you often come for the promenade?”

  He nodded. “Often enough to know that this is Mrs. Bower and her daughter approaching in their carriage. Have you met them?”

  Daphne’s pulse quickened dreadfully, as it always did at the prospect of meeting new people. “I have not.”

  “I would be happy to make the introduction, if you would like. This is also Miss Bower’s first Season, and I believe the two of you are of an age.”

  Her first inclination was a quick and decided refusal. But that would make her even more ridiculous than she likely seemed, having admitted to never before entering Hyde Park during the daily crush. “Yes, please,” she managed with some degree of believability.

  He brought the carriage to a very gentle stop. The approaching carriage did the same. A matron in a bonnet with so wide a brim as to cover her face entirely sat on the far end. Closer to James’s carriage sat a young lady who looked shockingly like two of Daphne’s sisters: flawless complexion, beautiful golden curls, and a figure that would have inspired even the pickiest of sculptors. How horribly dowdy Daphne must have appeared in comparison, with her drab-brown hair and alarmingly colorless complexion. She had a figure, but only just.

  “Miss Lancaster,” James began the introductions, “may I make known to you Mrs. Bower and Miss Bower.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” she offered.

  “Mrs. Bower, Miss Bower, may I present Miss Lancaster, sister of the Duchess of Kielder.”

  That never failed to both impress and terrify people. Miss Bower’s eyes widened, though in a way that somehow only made her more pretty. Her mother’s may very well have done the same, but her face was not visible.

  “Lord Tilburn,” Mrs. Bower said, “I did not realize you were at all connected to Her Grace’s family.”

  “The duke and I belong to the same political party and the same club,” he said. “Now that Miss Lancaster has made her bows, I am pleased to be given the opportunity of knowing her better.”

  Daphne recognized it for the polite explanation it was but cherished it just the same. She hoped he really was pleased at the acquaintance. She herself was elated.

  The same scenario repeated a few times. Some of the individuals they spoke with were already known to her; others were new acquaintances. Some of her trepidation over the coming Season abated over the course of their ride. She would recognize a few faces in the crowd, at least.

  They had completed half a circuit of the park when a rider on horseback slipped into her line of vision, keeping pace with James’s carriage. Though she did not see the rider’s face, Daphne felt certain she knew him. She attempted to watch the stranger surreptitiously.

  “I did not wish to alarm you,” James said, “but that man has been following us for some time, hovering nearby every time we have paused to greet someone.”

  The man in question looked very briefly in their direction. That fleeting glimpse was enough to identify him.

  “Good heavens,” Daphne whispered. Her face heated in an instant. She might as well confess. “That is Johnny from the stables.”

  “One of your stable hands?”

  “Yes.”

  “And does the man on the horse just ahead of us look familiar as well?” James asked. “He has done a remarkable job of following us, considering he is in f
ront and not behind.”

  Though she could not see who was riding, Daphne knew the horse. Fanny’s barely veiled look of guilt told Daphne her growing suspicions were entirely accurate.

  “How many others are there?” Daphne asked under her breath.

  Fanny hesitated. Slowly she raised both hands.

  “Seven?” Daphne’s shock added unintended volume to her words.

  She turned her face forward, keeping her expression neutral by sheer willpower. Adam was having them followed? A maid in the carriage was to be expected if a young lady did not have a mother or sister or companion with her, but to commission the entire stable staff to keep an eye on them was the outside of enough. She began calculating in her head. The two mounted men. She suspected the “vendor” they’d passed earlier was likewise a spy Adam had sent. Four others lingered somewhere in the vicinity.

  “This is a decidedly new experience for me,” James said. “I have driven out with young ladies on any number of occasions but have never once been stalked.”

  Humiliation closed swiftly in on Daphne. She refused to break down in front of him twice in the course of a single carriage ride. Yet her embarrassment threatened to overcome every effort to conceal it.

  “I am sorry,” she managed to say.

  An awkward and heavy silence fell between them.

  The tiny tiger perched on the back of the carriage in front of them glanced back at them a few times. By the second look, Daphne recognized the Falstone House knife boy.

  “A flower for your lady?”

  Daphne turned at the sound of a voice thick with a lower-class London accent. A girl, probably only a year or two younger than herself, held up an assortment of nosegays as she kept pace with the slow-moving carriage. Hyde Park traffic never was likely to set any speed records during the busiest times of the Season.