The carriage passed over a bridge that seemed to span a deep moat, rattled over wet cobblestones under a mossy stone arch, then crossed a courtyard and pulled up smartly at the foot of a flight of weathered stone steps. The ladies were handed ceremoniously down from the carriage by a pair of impressive footmen in black and silver livery, and looked about them curiously at the ancient ivy-covered buildings that surrounded them. As she set one elegantly shod foot on the cobbles, Lady Louisa staggered slightly, finding herself enveloped in a warm embrace by a whirlwind in human form: Lady Blanche, tall, plump and flushed, dark hair touched with grey, come out in flattering haste to greet her. ‘My dear Lou!’ her hostess cried. ‘I am so happy to see you at long last! You have not altered one jot!’
Lou?mouthed her companions to each other, but then it was their turn to be welcomed. Their hostess drew them inside to take off their bonnets and pelisses, and pressed them to sit and take tea by the huge and welcome fire in the Castle’s cavernous great hall. A regiment of servants bore away their outer clothing, and they were left alone with Lady Blanche. ‘I am sorry my brother and the rest of the family are not here togreet you,’ she said, ‘but we could not be entirely sure of the hour of your arrival, and they have taken advantage of a break in the incessant rain to go out riding. My children are still quite new to the estate, and Gabriel is showing them around. He is ridiculously proud of the place, though I am sure one would not think it of him when he affects to care for nothing and nobody.’
While her aunt and her old schoolfriend exchanged reminiscences of people and events that meant little to her, Georgie looked about her in quick interest. She had grown up in a castle with medieval origins, and this was another such. But her home had been tamed, she thought now, by centuries of peace, and was set, besides, in the gentle countryside of Hampshire. Surrounding its towers and battlements were rolling landscaped acres, a man-made lake created by Capability Brown, a Grecian temple; not, as here, jagged cliffs, lonely beaches, and the wild North Sea. And the Pendleburys, her own people, were an old family by most people’s standards, but the Mauleverers, the feudal lords and now Dukes of Northriding, were, she understood, older still, and had ruled this starkly beautiful country with a mailed fist since the Norman Conquest.
The difference was reflected inside the ancient building. This great room contained little that told an observer she was in the nineteenth century; massive oak furniture, faded hanging tapestries, burnished armour and weapons, smoke-blackened beams, all were perfectly and deliciously medieval. Even the pair of enormous grey wolfhounds slumbering by the mighty fireplace were in keeping, and might have stepped out of a poem by Mr Scott. It was undeniably impressive, even a little intimidating. The room’s current inhabitants, thought Georgie, idly weaving a fantasy as the three older ladies chatted, were the interlopers here – not just her party, southerners as they were, but Lady Blanche too. Their modern dress was at odds with their surroundings – they should have been wearing fur-trimmedvelvet gowns with long sweeping sleeves, and elaborate pointed hennin headdresses over shaved brows. But then, she mused, it would be foolish to forget that such times were harsh as well as romantic, and at the advanced age of nineteen she would presumably already have been a mother several times over. Or dead in childbirth.
She took herself mentally to task for wool-gathering, and returned her attention to the conversation around her. Lady Blanche was describing the other guests, who were, she explained, most of them currently taking tea in one of the sitting rooms in the more modern part of the Castle. ‘I am sure they are all excellent people in their way, and full of every accomplishment, but I do not find them uniformly sympathetic, Louisa, and I am excessively glad that you are all here to bear me company in my time of trial. For you must know,’ she said, leaning forward a little and including Miss Spry and Georgiana in her confidences, ‘that my exasperating brother has at last been brought to see that he must marry, and I have therefore assembled the cream of feminine society – or so they plainly consider themselves to be, and I have no particular reason to disbelieve them – so that he may look at them, and they may look at him. Of course, you might with justice wonder why such an awkward exercise was not performed in London, during the season, rather than dragging half the ton up to the wilds of Yorkshire.’
‘I believe I can understand why. You had not until recently put off black gloves, had you, Blanche?’ said Louisa softly.
Her friend sighed. ‘It is true, alas.’ She turned to Georgie and said, with a sad little smile, ‘I had two brothers, but the younger, Ashby, was killed at Waterloo, and the next in line for the dukedom after him, our cousin John, who grew up here and was like another little brother to us, also took injuries there that he later died of. So after such heavy losses, Gabriel must reconcilehimself to marriage, however much he has always said that he dislikes the idea, and I am returned from Ireland to help him. It is an onerous enough task, I do assure you.’
The ladies all murmured their condolences, and their hostess said in a brighter tone, as if deliberately shaking off lowering thoughts, ‘It must also be admitted that Northriding Castle and its surroundings will not appeal to everyone, even ifwethink it the finest place in the world. Therefore it is by no means a bad idea that any woman who fancies herself as Duchess should see what sort of bargain she is taking on. For Gabriel, as I have said, is excessively attached to the place, and will wish his children to be reared here, as we were.’
Georgiana found herself more than a little surprised that Lady Blanche should be so frank, and this must have been reflected on her face, for that lady said, ‘My dear Lady Georgiana, I would not speak so plainly to everyone, but you must know that I do not include you as one of the marriage party, as I term it. You and Miss Spry, and dear Louisa, are my guests, invited expressly by me, and you may be pleased to consider yourselves above the fray. My son Bram is a little older than you, I think, and my daughter Eleanor a little younger, and I hope you will grow to be fast friends and contrive to amuse each other. Please do not think that I have brought you here as one of the aspirants for my brother’s hand; I am sure Louisa would never consent to such a cold-blooded plan, even if I had contemplated it for a second. Apart from any other considerations, I know the Pendleburys generally marry for love, and this can be no love match.’
‘Thank you for restoring my character, Blanche,’ said Louisa drily. ‘I was saying as much in the carriage not half an hour since. I have no taste for matchmaking, but I have not the least objection to watching others’ exertions in the field. Tell me, haveyou made any progress? Is any one of the horses in the race favoured over the others?’
Georgie did not doubt that Lady Blanche was about to answer this question with what appeared to be her habitual devastating frankness, but she was not to have the opportunity to do so. The dogs, which had been snoozing peacefully all the while, so that she had almost forgotten their presence, suddenly twitched, as at a sound only they could hear, and as suddenly were both fully alert, springing to their feet and rushing lithely to the great oak door that led to the courtyard, where they milled impatiently, letting out the odd excited bark. The massive portal opened, and several people in riding dress entered, in a great gust of cold air that made the fire waver and smoke billow into the hall for a moment. The dogs jumped about in ecstatic welcome, but were quelled by a firm word. The newcomers were a young man, pale and fine-featured, with dark auburn hair, a young lady of an appearance so similar that she must surely be his sister, and an older gentleman. He was perhaps in his early thirties, tall, well-built and coldly handsome, his long black locks streaked liberally with silver and his eyes of a similar unusual, striking shade. There could be no possible mistake. It was him. The Silver Duke.
3
It took every atom of Georgiana’s self-control to preserve a fragile appearance of composure as Lady Blanche presented her family to her newly arrived guests. She smiled mechanically at the young people, and murmured polite commonplaces, which they returned. The young gentleman was plainly taken with her, and asked her what seemed to be a great many questions, but she had no thought to spare for him, and returned only mechanical answers to his civilities.
The Duke bowed over her aunt’s hand, greeting her with cool courtesy, then turned to Georgie. She curtsied, and raised her eyes to his. The hand he took in his much larger one was trembling, she noted with little surprise. She could do nothing to prevent it. Their eyes locked as they had done once before, bright blue to silvery grey, and she was so close that she saw the flare of utter astonishment as he recognised her. There could be not the least doubt that he recognised her. She saw his pupils dilate as memory flooded them. Flooded him. She was sure she must be flushed, her breathing constricted, and hoped distractedly that others, if they saw it, would ascribe it to the heat of the fire. Not him, of course – no, he knew better.
‘Lady Georgiana,’ that instantly recognisable voice purred. ‘What a… pleasure it is to make your acquaintance.’ She could only pray that no one else noticed the minute hesitation before the word ‘pleasure’. But she heard it, and her whole body tingled at the recollections it evoked, the recollections it was surely meant to evoke. That he should dare to speak of pleasure… He had recovered his composure with astonishing swiftness; indeed, unlike her, he had never truly lost it. He was, she thought, toying with her deliberately. This could hardly be a surprise to her.
And then he had released her, and moved on to greet Miss Spry, and Miss FitzHenry was shyly addressing some cordial remark to her about her journey to which she was obliged to reply. There was a general movement; the Duke and his nephew took their leave with many expressions of regret – Georgie avoiding her host’s penetrating gaze all the while – and went off to take tea with their other guests, and Lady Blanche and her daughter summoned the housekeeper. They would take Lady Louisa and her companions up to their rooms, they said, where their luggage (which had arrived in a separate coach with the abigails some time earlier) had already been unpacked, and allow them to rest for an hour or two before it would be necessary to change for dinner and greet the rest of the company.
Georgiana pasted a smile to her face, and said everything that was proper, until at last she was left alone in her chamber, sinking into a chair set beside her bed and putting her cold hands to her face in sheer unbelieving horror. There was a spectacular, dizzying view from the room’s casement down to the beach hundreds of feet below, where angry waves roared and lashed across slick black rocks, but she did not see it. She was blind to her surroundings, back in that warm, sensual, depravedhouse in Mayfair, and that small, locked room. She felt now as though she had never left it. As though she never would leave it.
She could almost have laughed when she reflected on her thoughts during the carriage ride, and all her pitifully sensible resolutions. To wait, to be patient, to curb her wildest impulses. To behave properly, like other young ladies, and to wait for love, and marriage. The trouble was, it had been so very easy to form such a purpose over the past few weeks. Then, she had been secure in the belief that the latest and worst instance of her recklessness had been entirely and most providentially without consequences. Up till this afternoon, she had believed that once again she had shown evidence of bearing a charmed life. She’d heard nothing more from Mrs Aubrey, she’d been touched by no breath of scandal, she’d come hundreds of miles away from home, and she had convinced herself that her ridiculous imaginings about meetinghimagain had been just that – ridiculous.
Of course, Georgie had wondered a thousand times who the man could possibly have been. She’d spent many hours wondering. He was plainly someone of great experience, she could vouch for that. Her whole body tingled at the recollection. His honeyed, seductive voice, his glittering eyes, his long, clever fingers, the smile that just touched his firm lips, his mouth: good God, his beautiful, sensual mouth. His kiss, his… All these things and more had obsessed her, waking and sleeping. But as the weeks went by, she had convinced herself by sheer force of will that it did not matter. That she had put the past behind her, and learned her lesson from it. That they would never meet again, and he would not recognise her if they did. That he was nothing to her, just as surely as she was nothing to him. And most of all that she was safe. She didn’t deserve to be safe, but she’d persuaded herself that she was.
But now she was in his home, he had recognised her – this she knew with every fibre of her being – and she was so very far from safe. She was in his hands – an entirely involuntary shudder ran through her at the thought – he was the notorious, scandalous, dangerously attractive Duke of Northriding, and she had not the least idea what he would choose to do with the power he held over her.
4
Georgie dressed for dinner that evening with unusual care. She, Louisa and Miss Spry were housed together in a tower, each with a bedchamber that opened into a comfortably furnished shared sitting room. The walls of all these chambers were curved, wood-panelled, and the small windows offered magnificent, albeit currently rain-drenched, views out over the sea, the wild coast and the inland moors. It was undeniably picturesque, said Miss Spry, but must be extraordinarily inconvenient for the servants. At least they were not obliged to haul all the water for the ladies’ ablutions up the steep spiral staircase with its timeworn stone treads; there was an ingenious dumbwaiter, operated by a pulley, set in one of the thick walls. Unconsciously echoing her niece’s thoughts upon arrival, Lady Louisa said that she would never previously have imagined that any dwelling-place could make her own venerable childhood home, Castle Irlam, seem almost modern. And yet she admitted that this place did. ‘I suppose it is the proximity to the sea and the height of the cliffs that produce much of the powerful effect. It is sinister, even in summer. Can you imagine,’ she said with a shiver, ‘what it is like here in the depths of winter?’
‘You have no appreciation for the sublime,’ Jane Spry replied with fond mockery. ‘I find it magnificent; do not you, Georgiana? One of the most striking places I have ever visited. Although I shall be sure to take my warmest shawl down to dinner, and I recommend you both do the same or risk dying of pneumonia, so perhaps I am nothing but a sad hypocrite.’
Georgiana agreed that the prospect was indeed magnificent to contemplate, and hoped that it might be possible to descend and walk along the beach one day, if the rain ever abated. ‘Though I cannot imagine how the strand may be reached,’ she said, peering down. ‘I can see no path, and if there is one it must surely be dangerously precipitous.’
She was determined to converse as lightly and naturally as possible, and to ignore the lurking sense of dread that haunted her. She had administered a silent, stern lecture to herself while she was dressing, telling herself that she must remain composed at all costs. Any undue agitation she betrayed would be perilous, and might attract attention that she by no means desired. Attention from the Duke himself, and from her fellow visitors.
Whatever might happen, whatever disaster impended, she would not allow herself to imagine that her host had the least intention of exposing her, of revealing to his distinguished guests where they had met and exactly what had passed between them there. She must remember that he had assembled a company here at his home with the fixed intention of choosing a bride from the young ladies present. His sister had explicitly said as much: that he must marry and set about obtaining an heir – what an innocuous phrase that was, if one did not think about it too deeply – as quickly as possible. Such a purpose would hardly be served by creating a fearful scandal with another guest. Young ladies and their families who had travelled so far in search of a rich and titled husband might overlook much in the way of thegentleman’s irrevocably tarnished reputation, but surely they would not overlook such an insult.
If anyone learned her guilty secret, Georgie realised suddenly, they would inevitably think the Duke had brought her here to serve most dishonourably as his mistress of a night while he made his choice of bride at leisure and then courted another by day. Such an affront could not be borne, and no woman of birth and breeding would ever look at him again if what he had done became widely known. So perhaps she was not entirely without weapons of her own, although in order to use them – as had been the case with Mrs Aubrey – her own reputation must first be entirely destroyed. But she could threaten, could she not, if it came to that, even if in truth there was little chance of carrying out her threats? This thought, extreme and Gothic as it was, made her feel a little better, and gave her the courage to straighten her shoulders and regard herself with critical attention in the silvered mirror. She would go down fighting if she must, take full responsibility for her own rash actions, and look her best while she did it. She had her pride to sustain her, even if she was quaking inside at the prospect of seeing him again.
‘I do not think I have ever seen you looking so well, my dear girl,’ Louisa said behind her. ‘That gown is extraordinarily becoming, and quite out of the common way.’ Louisa was known for her stylish dress, and a compliment from her was a rare thing, and to be treasured. It gave her niece a little much-needed courage. In Venice last winter, Georgiana had found a changeant silk that exactly matched her eyes and yet was shot through with gold – it was an unusual colour, or colours, for a fabric, and she had purchased a full bolt of it and brought it home. When it had become clear that the summer was to be an extraordinarily cold one, she had had it made up into an evening gown with long sleeves and a demi-train. She wore it now with a bright shawl ofIndian silk and an ancient family jewel on a long gold chain. This was no occasion for tiny puff sleeves, demure pearls and white muslin. She needed armour.
The wisdom of her choice was soon revealed to her, after she and her companions made their way down winding stairs, along galleries, and down yet more stairs to the reception room where the guests were all assembled – some might have said, huddled – by another roaring fire. The older ladies were most of them sensibly dressed, with long sleeves, warm shawls and modish lace caps tied under their chins, but some of the debutantes in the party had foolishly chosen to array themselves in thin, clinging muslin gowns that might be appropriate for a July evening in Brighton in any normal year, but not for North Yorkshire in this year without a summer. These gowns, designed to display and to entice, left their bare arms and the exposed portions of their bosoms slightly blue and shivering now, a sad prey to gooseflesh. Georgie smiled inwardly to herself, and moved forward with Louisa to greet the company with a serenity she had previously thought beyond her grasp. She could do this, she told herself. She must.
She soon realised that her presence was creating a certain amount of dismay among the young ladies and their mamas, which they were concealing with varying degrees of success. Of course, she thought, they consider me one of their number, and a rival; they imagine I have entered myself into the lists as a candidate for Northriding’s hand. I suppose there is no way of conveying to them that they are fair and far off in such a supposition. They would simply not believe me, and I cannot really blame them. I am here, after all.
