If the Duke Demands Page 5

  “We’ll see.” Quinton might be ready to charge out into the world on his own, but Sebastian wasn’t ready to give him up just yet. As he glanced between his brothers, he knew how lost he would have been these past two years without their help. “Any other business to discuss?”

  “I have plans for London, too,” Mother spoke up.

  “Of course.” Sebastian’s eyes softened on her, knowing how beneficial this season would be for her. He’d been worried about her this winter and knew that London would reenergize her spirit. “You want to spend as much time as possible with Josie and the children.”

  “No, dear.” Her lips curled into a pleased smile, and her eyes gleamed, reminding him of the joyful woman she’d been before his father died. “Miranda Hodgkins.”

  His heart stopped.

  And when it started again, the lurch ripped his breath away. He cleared his throat to keep down the panic that his mother had somehow discovered what had happened last night. Almost happened. “What about her?”

  “She’s done a remarkable job with the orphanage these past few years.”

  That was what she wanted to say? He smiled with relief. “Yes, she has. A wonderful job by all accounts.”

  Her smile turned beaming. “So I’ve decided that we will sponsor her for the London season.”

  Dread surged through him, numbing him in a flash. “Pardon?” He prayed that he’d heard incorrectly, that his mother had confused Miranda with someone else, that there was another young woman who needed a sponsor for the season.

  “I want Miranda to come to London with us this season, so we can express our gratitude for all she’s done for the orphans and the village. And for our own family as well.” Oblivious to his distress, she continued enthusiastically, “She has no one except Rebecca and Hamish, and they’re not in a position to give her the season she deserves. We are. And we should.”

  “To what end?” His chest tightened. Young ladies made London debuts in order to snag husbands. Was his mother seriously considering an attempt to marry off Miranda to some London dandy?

  As if reading his mind, she answered, “Only for the experience of it, I assure you. Every young lady should be able to enjoy the excitement of a London season at least once.” She added, almost in afterthought, “Although I wouldn’t chase away any gentlemen who might spark an interest in her.”

  Wordlessly, he slid his gaze to Robert. Did his mother have any idea of where Miranda’s true interest lay?

  No, of course she didn’t. His mother wasn’t cruel. If she did know, she wouldn’t place Miranda in a position to see Robert wooing anyone else.

  When he didn’t agree, her smile dissolved. “It was your idea, Sebastian.”

  His idea? Impossible. Yet a fuzzy memory formed painfully at the back of his mind of a passing conversation in the carriage returning from Christmas morning service, a conversation he’d dismissed at the time as unimportant. A London season, introductions, a new wardrobe…all things better left to the ladies, especially when his attention was focused on the estate as he watched it roll past the carriage windows, of repairs that needed to be made to the stables and a new bridge built over the creek between the south meadows, a new roof installed on Blackwood Hall, the walls reinforced around the western pastures…Wouldn’t it be nice, Mother, if you gave Miranda a London season?

  Good God. He had mentioned it.

  “We owe it to her,” Elizabeth Carlisle continued, her eyes glistening. “She was a great help to me after your father’s death when Josie had to return to London. I don’t know what I would have done without her. It would be lovely if we could repay her kindness.”

  He conceded that point. Miranda had provided important support for his mother during that dark time. She’d stopped by Chestnut Hill every day on her way home from the village to check in on them, often came with her aunt and uncle for Sunday dinners, and cajoled his mother into shopping trips to the village or delivering baskets to the tenants, which Sebastian had come to suspect were nothing but excuses for her to take his mother out of the house and away from her grief.

  They did owe her a great deal for her kindness. He only wished there was some other way to repay her than with a London season.

  “It would break Miranda’s heart if she didn’t have this opportunity,” she insisted.

  Sebastian grimaced. It would break her heart to watch Robert court Miss Morgan.

  But Mother was right. With only Rebecca and Hamish to care for her, no connections in society except for their family, and not enough money to buy the gowns, accessories, and everything else she would need for a proper debut, Miranda had no chance at a real season without the Carlisles’ help.

  And yet, the last person he wanted to deal with in London was Miranda, especially when he was hunting a wife and she was hunting Robert. He couldn’t imagine a more potentially disastrous situation for all of them.

  “Perhaps we should wait a year,” he countered gently, doing his best to maneuver himself out of the sticky situation in which he had unwittingly placed both Miranda and himself. Up to their necks. “With this being the first season for the family out of mourning—”

  “Certainly not.” His mother straightened her spine in that way she did when she prepared to do battle with her sons, in the past over everything from snakes in laundry baskets to racing cows down High Street. “Besides, I’m looking forward to it myself.” Her face softened at the slightly selfish admission, and a lightness and happiness came over her that Sebastian hadn’t seen nearly often enough since Father died. “Josephine never had a proper debut, and since none of you three have yet to secure wives and grandchildren for me to spoil—”

  All three men glanced guiltily away from her, to cast their gazes onto the floor, the wall, out the window—anywhere but on their mother.

  “Then I’ll have Miranda to dote on.” She beamed happily at the idea. “And sponsoring her will give me the opportunity to finally assist with a young lady’s London season.”

  Sebastian shook his head, knowing the headaches of a season. “Invitations to court and vouchers to Almack’s, all that pomp to suffer, all the social hoops to jump through—”

  “Shopping trips to Bond Street and visits to the dressmaker for beautiful ball gowns.” Her eyes shined at all the possibilities of the season. “Carriage rides through the park, grand balls, art exhibitions, musicales, nights at the theater…”

  As she continued to tick off a long list on her fingers, Sebastian knew he’d lost. After last night, he wanted to keep Miranda as far away from him as possible, but he would also do anything to make his mother happy.

  And yet, not wanting to be accused of not trying to stop this goose egg of a plan in four weeks when all hell broke loose, he warned solemnly, “The girl causes nothing but trouble.”

  She smiled patiently at him. “In case you haven’t noticed, Miranda is no longer a girl.”

  Oh, he’d certainly noticed that, all right. Which was the biggest trouble of all.

  “She simply needs supervision and a proper place to channel her exuberance,” she assured him. “I’ll take care of her and all the arrangements, and since we’ll be staying with Josephine and Chesney, you’ll hardly see her. You’ll barely know she’s in London at all.”

  His mother’s assurances did nothing to alleviate the uneasiness clawing at his gut, but he had no choice. He wouldn’t do anything to take away the first signs of excitement in Mother since Father died. If it took giving Miranda a proper London season to make his mother happy again, then he’d do it.

  Even if it killed him.

  “Very well,” he grudgingly acquiesced. “We’ll give her a season.”

  His mother beamed happily, and Sebastian’s chest lightened. Whatever problems Miranda did manage to create in Mayfair, seeing that happiness again on his mother’s face would be worth it.

  He hoped.

  “Good. It’s all settled then. If you’ll excuse me.” She rose from her chair, and all three of her
sons scrambled to their feet. “I have a house to see to, to make certain all is put back to order.” She headed toward the door, then paused to glance back, a knowing gleam in her eyes. “Including the cupid statue from the rose garden fountain that somehow found its way into Lord Batten’s bed.”

  Robert and Quinn exchanged guilty glances, then dropped their gazes to the floor, saying nothing to incriminate themselves.

  With a long-suffering sigh and shake of her head, she glided from the room, a perfection of matronly force.

  Robert and Quinn flopped back down into their chairs. Sebastian crossed from behind his desk to the coffee tray, not bothering with the pretense of coffee as he poured himself a cup of straight whiskey.

  He shot Quinn a glance. “Were you really planning on setting a May Day bonfire?”

  “Seb.” His youngest brother feigned injury at the accusation. “You know we’d never do anything like that.”

  “Not for May Day,” Robert piped up in his brother’s defense. “But Guy Fawkes—”

  “An imperative,” Quinn interjected resolutely. Then he grimaced with disappointment. “But the donkey rides were true.”

  “Not anymore.” Sebastian took a gasping swallow of whiskey. “I don’t want any trouble this season. It’s going to be hard enough for Mother to be in London for the first time since Father’s death. I don’t want any of us to make it harder for her than it needs to be.”

  Quinn nodded, suddenly serious. “Then it’s a good thing she’s bringing Miranda. Truly, Seb. We all know you don’t like her, but—”

  “I like her,” he interrupted, far more defensively than he’d intended. He did like her. She was sweet and endearing in her own way, when she wasn’t causing trouble. But while he was searching for a duchess, he simply preferred to like her from two hundred miles away.

  “But she is good for Mother,” Robert concluded seriously in that peculiar way all three brothers had of finishing each other’s thoughts.

  Quinn nodded. “Miranda will keep her busy.”

  “And keep her mind off Father,” Robert finished soberly.

  Sebastian sighed in grudging agreement. “Just keep Miranda from causing problems for me, will you?”

  “Sorry.” Quinn shook his head with a wide grin. “I’ll be too busy looking for my own women to keep close.”

  “Looking but not finding,” Robert goaded with a laugh.

  “Oh, I’ll catch them all right.” Quinn kicked his feet up onto the corner of the desk and laced his hands behind his head as he leaned confidently back in the chair. “As easy as salmon fishing in Scotland. They’ll be taking the bait and begging me to—”

  “Throw them all back once they’ve seen the size of your lure?” Robert finished.

  Quinn laughed. Then, realizing that the barb was at his expense, he snapped his mouth shut and glared at his brother.

  “No one will be throwing anyone anywhere.” Sebastian smacked at Quinn’s feet for him to take his boots off the desk. “So keep your drunkenness to places where no one knows you, and don’t gamble where they don’t. And if you must go whoring—”

  “Salmon in Scotland,” Quinn reminded him pointedly.

  Robert shook his head. “The size of the lure—”

  “Be careful,” Sebastian finished somberly. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to either of you. Or to Mother.”

  Both brothers stared at him quietly for a moment, understanding the grimness behind that warning, then nodded their compliance. Relieved that he’d managed to corral his brothers’ antics, if only temporarily, Sebastian blew out a long breath and took another sip of whiskey.

  Robert slapped Quinn on the shoulder. “Maybe Chesney can get us into Boodle’s.”

  “Or White’s,” Quinn added.

  “What’s the use of having a marquess in the family—”

  “If he can’t get us into the book at White’s—”

  “Or under a skirt at Boodle’s?”

  The two brothers grinned at each other.

  “No,” Sebastian said firmly, the start of a headache throbbing behind his eyes. The two of them could try Job’s patience.

  Instead of dampening their enthusiasm, his admonition only drew a laugh from Robert. “That’s because you’re afraid we’ll take all the pretty women before you get to them.”

  He scowled. He loved his brothers and would do anything for them…if he didn’t kill them first himself. “That is not—”

  “Sowing wild oats before you shackle yourself to some lord’s prim daughter is all very fine and good,” Quinn advised Sebastian with mock solemnity, as if he were an Oxford don delivering a lecture.

  Robert joined in. “But best not to get caught doing anything that could turn you into a pariah for the well-bred ladies.”

  “Don’t drink where anyone knows you—”

  “Don’t gamble where they don’t—”

  “And if you must whore, be careful,” the two brothers finished together. Then they glanced sideways at each other and grinned.

  Sebastian shook his head. Good God. The two of them together was exhausting.

  He rubbed at his forehead to ease the headache that they put there, but he also took their teasing warning to heart. He couldn’t risk even a hint of scandal this season given his need to find a bride and his desire to make his mother happy, but he knew it wouldn’t be his brothers who would cause problems. They might be wild and careless, but they also knew how important this season was. That alone was enough to keep them well-behaved until at least the end of June, May Day bonfires and donkey rides aside.

  No, the risk to his season came in the form of a petite country gel with unruly strawberry-blond hair, a pert nose dotted with freckles, and a penchant for stirring up trouble.

  Tossing back the rest of the whiskey, he welcomed the burn down his throat. He knew what he had to do about Miranda.

  It was time the two of them came to an understanding about her behavior.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Arrrh! Arrrrrrrrh!” Miranda raised her wooden sword high above her black-felt hat with its white-stitched skull and crossbones and gave her best imitation of a pirate. “Make ’im walk the plank! That’s the punishment for a landlubber—to the plank wi’ ’im!”

  “To the plank!” All the children around her yelled and raised their own little sticks like swords. Then they took a loosely tied Mr. Grundy, the man hired to do maintenance around the orphanage, and led him toward a short board lying flat on the grass between the sheets and blankets tied to the clotheslines stretching across the rear of the garden. So loosely tied, in fact, that when he reached up to scratch his nose, the rope coils fell down around his ankles, and he had to yank them back up into place. All around them, the sheets billowed on the afternoon wind like a ship’s sails.

  Miranda laughed, a bubble of happiness swelling inside her. Such a good time they were having! And she was so glad for it. Both she and the orphans needed a break this afternoon during one of winter’s rare warm days, with the children having spent all morning inside at their studies and she at taking inventory in the basement storage rooms. A long list of tasks still awaited her, but she couldn’t resist stealing away for an hour of play with them.

  “Any last words ’fore ye join Davy Jones in ’is locker, ye scurvy dog?” She circled the wooden sword toward Mr. Grundy. He’d had the happy misfortune this afternoon of taking his lunch at the same time as the children and so had gotten caught up in their play, although the unabashed grin on the older man’s face told her he enjoyed the fun as much as she did.

  “To be or not to be,” he recited, his hand held dramatically over his heart, “that is the question.”

  “And none of that soliloquy-in’,” she warned. “You lousy Dane!”

  “Plank! Plank!” the children sent up a chant.

  Miranda laughed, nearly doubling over and losing all hope at playing a convincing pirate captain now. Oh, how she loved these children!

  Since Josephine Car
lisle married her marquess and left for London, Miranda had taken responsibility for managing the Good Hope Home. In the three years since she’d been caring for the home and its two dozen orphans, she’d grown to love it more than she’d ever thought possible. The responsibility challenged her, the orphans adored her, and her life finally had a sense of purpose beyond caring for her auntie and uncle.

  The best part, though, were the children—always so energetic, so full of life and hope. Being around them made her feel good about herself and the possibilities in the world.

  Even now as they flocked around her as their pirate captain and forced poor Mr. Grundy to walk the plank, she had a precious glimpse of what it must have been like to grow up with brothers and sisters. Oh, Rebecca and Hamish had been very good to her, loving her and raising her as if she were their own, but they were childless. They didn’t always understand her and the boundless energy that sometimes swelled inside her until she thought she would burst if it didn’t get out. And that usually caused more trouble for her than she wanted to admit, as most of the villagers and farmers could attest.

  What must it have been like to be part of a large family, one full of noise and confusion and all the wonderful pandemonium of a well-lived household? That was why she was drawn to the Carlisles, she supposed. Chestnut Hill had always been so happy and energetic, so full of loving disorder, and there was always some scheme of one kind or another that Josie and her three brothers had planned in which she could join. Certainly, her home with Auntie and Uncle was very nice, but it was always too silent, too still. Too serious for comfort.

  The joy of organized chaos—she laughed as the children forced Mr. Grundy to jump from the plank onto the pretend ocean of grass. Well, she’d certainly found it!

  “And so they go to it,” she announced with a dramatic flourish of her wooden sword. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead!”