Duchess by Mistake (2 page)

By then the coachman had gotten off the box and opened the carriage door. Which was a good thing for Mrs. Hudson because rain was beginning to fall. "Please come sit with me," Elizabeth said.

The woman and her daughter climbed in and sat opposite her. Elizabeth could tell from the little girl's curious gaze that this must be the first time she had ever been inside a carriage. "I am Lady Elizabeth. What is your name?" Elizabeth asked the angelic looking child with copper tresses.

"Louisa."

Elizabeth eyed the mother. "Your daughter is lovely."

Mrs. Hudson's eyes still misted. "She takes after my husband."

How sad that this woman had lost the husband she obviously adored. Elizabeth's gaze went to the woman's bag. "Are you going somewhere?"

Mrs. Hudson burst into tears. "We've just been evicted from our lodgings. . ." Mrs. Hudson tried to calm herself enough to offer assurances to her worried daughter. "It's all right, pet. Mum's all right."

It occurred to Elizabeth that she must have been evicted for failure to pay rents. Which meant that she likely had no place to go. "Where will you live?"

The woman shook her head. "I don't know what we'll do." A fresh wave of tears overtook her.

Elizabeth reached across the coach and patted her. It seemed like a miracle that she came to Miser Street at the exact time Mrs. Hudson was forced from it. "Please don't worry. That's why I've come today. Captain Upton wants to ensure that you and Louisa are looked after." Elizabeth had not the slightest notion what kind of sum would be needed to pay the woman's rent, but she thought the pin money in her reticule should go some distance. "How much money should you need in order to return to your lodgings?"

"I am behind eighteen guineas—and that's not counting this month."

"Allow me to go speak with your . . . proprietor." Elizabeth disembarked from the coach and scurried across the puddled pavement to Number 12.

Though Mrs. Hudson and her little girl were spotless, that was not the case with the foul-smelling rooming house where they resided. On the first floor, a rain-splattered Elizabeth made the acquaintance of Mrs. Preble, a seemingly well-fed, middle-aged woman who wore a widow's cap. Elizabeth explained the plight of the unfortunate Mrs. Hudson.

"It's coin in me pocket that puts food on the table, not a soft heart." There was a hardness in the woman's face.

"If you allow Mrs. Hudson to finish out the month, I shall pay you twenty pounds, which includes what she owes—and happens to be every penny I can lay my hands on." By next week Elizabeth hoped to procure lodgings in a decent neighborhood for Mrs. Hudson. The area around Covent Garden was no place for a genteel woman and child.

Mrs. Preble's eyes brightened. "Till the end of the month it will be then." Her gaze darted to the reticule Elizabeth was opening. She dumped the entire contents on the nearby desk top. Coins of every denomination and varying shades of metal made a small mountain. It looked like much more money than Elizabeth knew it was.

"It should be twenty pounds," Elizabeth said.

* * *

As the coach rattled across the busy city, a sense of exhilaration courses through her. Helping Mrs. Hudson and her dear child had given Elizabeth more joy than anything ever had. Assisting at Anna's sewing school had made her feel useful, but not like today.

For some time now she had grown tired of the Great Husband Hunt. She must resign herself to spinsterhood. She would, after all, end up being the maiden aunt like her namesake, Aunt Elizabeth. Only once had Elizabeth ever fancied herself in love, and he had not returned her ardor enough to offer for her hand.

No, make that twice, she thought. As a very young girl she had pined away over her brother's friend who just this day had returned to England after a five-year absence. From the age of twelve until the year of her presentation, she had dreamed of capturing the handsome duke's heart. Given that there was an eleven-year age gap between her and Aldridge, him having been interested in his friend's twelve-year-old sister was as impossible as a dry Scottish spring.
Perhaps if he had been in England the year I was presented
. . .

It would do her no good to dwell on what was done and could not be undone. She no longer believed a husband and family of her own were necessary to her happiness. Her joy would come from helping war widows like Mrs. Hudson.

Throughout the snarling carriage ride, she began to form a plan. She would go through all of James's letters to identify those who were killed, and with Haverstock's help she would go to the War Office and seek the direction of each of those widows.

But first she to find a way to procure a large house in a respectable neighborhood. Her home for war widows and their children could brighten these family's lives, just as Anna's sewing school had done so much to better the lives of women and children in the East End.

* * *

"I have come to the conclusion I shall never wed." Elizabeth regarded her beautiful sister-in-law as the two sat in Lady Haverstock's scarlet study penning letters later that afternoon.

Anna looked up from her gilt escritoire. "You can't mean that. You're but one and twenty years of age. There's much time for you to find someone you love as much as I love Charles."

It stung rather that Anna had not assured her of Captain Smythe's love. It seemed Elizabeth had been the last to discover the dashing officer had no intentions of plighting his life to hers--after stealing her heart before he returned to the Peninsula. "The only man I ever fancied myself in love with did not return my affection, and I've not met another since who would tempt me to give up the life I've grown happy with."

"That man wasn't worthy of you. Pray, pet, if you just be patient you'll find a great love."

"I think not. In recent weeks I have chosen to emulate Charlotte and do good works."

"There's one significant difference between you and Charlotte. She has a husband to whom she is happily married."

Elizabeth shrugged. "I don't need a husband in order to have a full, rewarding life in the service to the less fortunate."

"I cannot say that I haven't noticed how much time you've been spending at our sewing school."

Elizabeth shrugged. "Someone had to step in with those poor, unfortunate souls when Lydia was breeding." It pained Elizabeth to speak to Anna of her sister's recent confinement for she knew how devastated Anna was over the loss of her own babe.

"You've done much good," Anna said.

"I mean to do more. Has it not struck you that there are a great many officers' widows who have become destitute? Many of them have lost not only their beloved husbands but also their homes."

Anna nodded sadly. "How can you alleviate such a grave problem? You're but one person. One very young person--with no fortune."

It was true that Elizabeth had no fortune. Dear Anna was dipping into her own fortune to provide dowries for each of Charles's sisters. "I have given this much thought. I may not have fortune, but by virtue of my birth, I have access to many noblemen with deep pockets, and I mean to play upon that strength."

"What have you in mind?"

"This very afternoon I have located a large house in a respectable neighborhood. It can easily accommodate ten families--provided the children share chambers with their mothers."

"And how do you propose to pay for it?"

"It belongs to the Duke of Aldridge, and I mean to ask for its use. After all, because he's Charles's oldest friend and because I've known him all my life, I believe I can persuade him to help. Despite his debauchery, he
is
noted for his generosity. And it helps that he's one of the richest men in the kingdom."

Anna's dark brows lowered. "I'm sure he's not really debauched. If that were the case, I don't think Charles would be as fond of him as he is."

"Perhaps I've used too strong a word. The privileged man does behave in a scandalous fashion."

Anna nodded. "I do look forward to meeting him." She dipped her pen in the ink pot. "Tell me, is this house of his in Mayfair?"

"Oh, no. Nothing that fashionable. It's in Bloomsbury. The homes on Trent Square have belonged to the Dukes of Aldridge for generations. I learned that the last occupant of Number 7 Trent Square has recently died, and it has become vacant."

"How fortuitous, then, that the duke's returned to London."

Indeed it was. Elizabeth need not tell Anna she planned to call on the duke. Anna would object. Resigned to being a spinster, Elizabeth had no wish to continue acting like a miss on the Marriage Mart. She was a woman now, and she was embarking on this new chapter of her life. Alone. Elizabeth would take sole responsibility for this scheme, and she refused to solicit Anna's money for this endeavor.

Anna looked at the clock upon the chimneypiece, then stood. "I told Lydia I'd come see the babe this afternoon. Will you come with me?"

Despite that Anna had lost weight in her grief over her own babe, Elizabeth thought she'd never seen a more beautiful woman than her brother's dark-haired wife. Huge brown eyes thickly fringed with extraordinary lashes were set in a flawless oval face. Every bit as striking as her huge eyes was the sheer whiteness of her perfect teeth.

Poor Anna was already attached to Morgie and Lydia's infant son. It was such a pity she had no babe of her own. She would be as wonderful a mother as Lydia was proving to be. "I saw little Simon only yesterday. There are other matters that demand my attention."

* * *

Sometime after donning a dress which matched the periwinkle colour of her eyes and topping it with a matching pelisse suitable for calling at Aldridge House, Elizabeth found herself knocking upon the door of that fine house on Berkeley Square. She wondered how many times Charles had passed through this door during his two and thirty years. Since she had only come out three years previously, she had never had the opportunity to pay a call upon the duke, owing to his long absence from England.

The white-haired butler who answered her knock looked as if he'd been in the employ of the Aldridges for at least two generations. He quickly offered her a tight smile and spoke before she had the chance to offer her card. "Please come in. His grace awaits. If you will just follow me up the stairs."

She supposed with this being the duke's first day back, he was entertaining callers in the drawing room. She had not considered that she would not have him all to herself. It would be difficult to make her bold proposal to him in a room full of people. Her brother had once said the duke did not like to have his charities acknowledged, preferring anonymity.

Her gaze lifted to the massive chandelier that glistened above, then she began to follow the stooped-over butler as he mounted the stairs, his movements slowed by age. All the way up the impressive, iron banistered staircase portraits of long-dead Aldridges stood almost one on top of the other and seemed to be staring at her.

To her surprise, when they reached the first floor he did not stop but continued mounting stairs to the next level. Though her experience with ducal residences was limited, she was unaccustomed to finding a drawing room so far removed from the home's entrance. In most of the houses with which she was familiar, the third level was reserved for bedchambers.

They reached the third level. It was slightly less formal than the second level, actually looking remarkably like the third--bedchamber--level at Haverstock House. The butler turned to the right and shuffled along another corridor until he reached the first paneled and gilded door. It was closed. He teetered to a stop and turned to face her with a somber countenance. "You will find his grace in here." Then he began to retrace his steps.

She drew in a breath, reached for the door handle, and opened it.

She heard a splashing sound before the door was fully open. How peculiar. When she had clear view of the room, she gasped. There in its center, framed by the fireplace behind him, the Duke of Aldridge was emerging from his bath. His long, glistening, gloriously formed body was completely naked.

In her entire life Lady Elizabeth Upton had never seen a naked man in the flesh. Though her first instinct should have been to run screaming from the chamber, she was frozen to the spot, unable to remove her gaze from . . . the manly part. And so much more. From his wide shoulders along his burnished skin and muscled limbs, the dark-haired duke exuded a masculinity like nothing she had ever seen.

A flood of memories of her former adoration of this man many years ago walloped her. She felt the heat climbing into her cheeks and knew she should flee from the profligate duke. Yet, like a compulsion to watch a grim sight not suitable for female sensibilities, she was incapable of turning away.

"You're not Belle!" he said, snatching his toweling and covering the lower portion of his statue-worthy body. His voice held a note of incredulity.

No doubt, Belle was a lady of the demimonde. What a wicked man he was! To think, his first day back in the kingdom he chose to spend with a woman of
that
sort.

At the sound of his voice, she realized how shameless she must appear. And how very improper it was for her to be there. She came to her senses, let out a full-fledged scream, turned on her heel, and fled down the stairs.

And came face to face with her brother.

"Haverstock!" she cried.

His brows lowered with concern. "What's the matter, Lizzie?"

She tossed her head back in the direction of the duke's private chamber. "That man! He's thoroughly debauched." Then she scurried down the stairs. Never again would she come to this . . . this temple of profligacy.

***

Aldridge was having the devil of a time trying to remember where he had seen that chit before. No doubt, she was a lady of Quality. He'd likely scared the poor thing senseless. There had obviously been a serious misunderstanding.

As soon as he called for Lawford, Haverstock came striding into Aldridge's bedchamber. When he saw that Aldridge was without clothing, his facial expressions thundered. "What in the hell were you doing with my sister?"