Page 5 of Her Wily Duke

“I suppose that is possible.”

“Perhaps he got a bad driver — someone very old or very young — and they drove the carriage into a ditch. Perhaps vines and ivy will grow over his body forever.”

“There are worse ways to die.”

Wiggins spoke with a steady, unemotional voice, which annoyed Frederick.

“Don’t interrupt.” Frederick turned to face the window, running his fingers through his long oily hair. “It is a savage world outside Foxridge Park. Especially during the summer and autumn. Especially in the south. Robbers and thieves guard the roads out of London. Highwaymen will take his purse. Murderers will poke at him with their long knives. He was a fool to leave here, and doubly a fool to come back, now.”

“Those are, indeed, all things which could happen.”

Frederick sighed and turned back to face Wiggins again.

“You know how much I appreciate you, Wiggins…”

“I do, Sir.”

“Stop interrupting! I love you like my own brother, but you constantly interrupt me, and you never contradict me. You agree with whatever I say, and frankly, it’s exhausting.” Wiggins gritted his teeth as though wanting to admit that, yes, this was a problem. “Why is everyone so afraid of me?” said Frederick, as much to himself as to his servant. “I have asked the entire household staff that question, and still have not received a straight answer.”

“Not everyone fears you.”

“Name one person who doesn’t.”

“I can name two. Lady Caroline, your sister — and Miss Emme Mowatt.” Frederick paused and looked at Wiggins for a moment with a perplexed expression, as though he had never heard that name before. “The singing teacher,” said Wiggins. “The one who has been training Lady Caroline, at your direction, for the past few months.”

“Oh, of course! Yet what reason would she have to be afraid of me? I have given her a reliable position. After Father’s death it was necessary for someone to continue with Caroline’s voice and pianoforte lessons, and no one here was qualified to do that.” He paused again, as though struck by a new thought. “Why isn’t she afraid of me?”

“Pardon, Your Grace?”

“Everyone else is so scared of me. What makes her different?”

Wiggins considered his words carefully.

“She is young and arrogant. A very proud creature. You should see the way that she addresses the staff, as if she was their queen.”

“I remember being struck by her impertinence when I interviewed her,” said Frederick, the corner of his mouth turning up in a smile. “It was delightful.”

“I should think such a disposition would have been disqualifying.”

“Not in a girl like her.” A smile transfigured his face for a moment, making it almost handsome. “Pride and obstinacy are vices in a man. They will drag him down to ruin. But there was something in her eyes when I spoke to her. A fire. It invigorated my old bones.”

Wiggins wondered, not for the first time, whether Frederick had fallen for the young woman. Yet he dared not ask. And Wiggins also wondered why the Duke referred to himself as having old bones, while not yet having reached thirty years of age.

“Perhaps if your brother had been born a woman,” said Wiggins, “relations between you would not be so frayed.”

“Perhaps,” said Frederick. “Or if he had not been born my brother.”

Silence fell between them for a moment, as Wiggins tried to make sense of Frederick’s last remark. The sun had slipped behind the hills, leaving the room dark, all but for the lamp on the desk.

“Do you wish me to go and retrieve Lord Whitewell, then?”

Frederick stared at him incredulously.

“What? No. Of course not.”

Wiggins stared at him in turn, meeting his gaze stoically.

“It is a ten-mile walk from the Trenton Inn,” he said. “You surely do not mean to make him walk all that way, no doubt with luggage?”