When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,14

disappointed silence. Perhaps she had been a governess after all. Duncan pulled a bound folder from the shelves at waist height and untied the ribbon.

“Let’s determine whether you can decipher my penmanship, for without that ability, the entire enterprise is doomed.”

She accepted the papers he shoved at her, then reached toward her face, her hand dropping back to her lap.

“Use mine,” Duncan said, extracting a pair of spectacles from his breast pocket.

She took them, held them up to the light, then used the hem of a shawl to polish the lenses. Perched on her nose, the spectacles imparted a prim air, which for reasons known only to snowbound imbeciles, made her oddly attractive.

“Prostitution in Paris,” she recited, “is undertaken with none of the outraged hypocrisy that characterizes the English version. The French are pragmatic even in this, albeit joyfully pragmatic, or so the coquettes would have their clientele believe. The trade is plied—”

“Enough.” Duncan retrieved his essay. “You can both decipher my handwriting and translate French at sight. Good to know.”

Her expression was disgruntled. “You establish that from three lines of prose?”

“My handwriting is worthy of every pejorative in Dr. Johnson’s lexicon. For the sake of continuity, you’d best start at the beginning of my travels. In a general sense, the itinerary begins near your shoulders and ends near your feet.”

That description had a risqué interpretation, though the lady chose to ignore it.

She rose and walked around Duncan to the shelves nearer the window. “Then my first priority is to put the material in chronological order. I trust you were conscientious about dating your observations?”

“Yes.” Maybe. On occasion.

The room smelled of leather—the best of the bound volumes had been moved here away from hordes of mice in the library—with a faint undernote of coal smoke. Miss Maddie, by contrast, exuded the fragrance of roses. Good old damasks, their perfume straightforward and assertive. Somebody had doubtless stored rose sachets among the dresses in the attic, or perhaps the staff had put rose-scented soap in Miss Maddie’s guest room.

“The task seems simple enough,” she said, reaching for the first folder on the leftmost shelf. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Dismissed again, which should be a relief. “If you need anything, the parlor across the corridor has a bell pull.”

“I need solitude, Mr. Wentworth, and a good deal of time.”

She needed a step ladder, a footstool, and about three months of good nutrition. Duncan bowed and gave her the solitude.

* * *

“Where the hell could she be?”

Lieutenant Colonel Lord Atticus Parker had slept, awoken, danced, and dined with that question drumming in his mind for the past four months.

“Somewhere safe, God willing,” Thomas Wakefield replied. “Matilda has endured Moscow winters. A little snow won’t bother her much.”

And that was the problem. Matilda Wakefield had endured Russian winters, forced marches on the Peninsula as little more than a child, Viennese ballrooms, Paris intrigues.…She’d be entirely too unbothered by a life in hiding. She was a lady—a widowed duchess, no less—but she was also her father’s daughter.

Wakefield poured another portion of port into both glasses. The snow had stopped, and a howling wind had come with nightfall, meaning roads would drift closed by morning.

“You haven’t heard anything?” Parker asked.

Wakefield’s jovial façade faltered. “Do you think if I knew where my only child was that I’d be sitting on my backside swilling port and pretending an optimism I don’t feel? Brigands abound, women are vulnerable, and from what we know, she took very little in the way of money or valuables with her.”

Matilda had taken an unusually broad linguistic education, a fine appreciation for art, and an unfeminine penchant for chess, though damned little in the way of practical necessities. She had also taken the key to Parker’s advancement in a military too happy to remain at peace.

Parker bore a certain fondness for the lady—he’d courted her, after all—and no fondness at all for her father. “I could go back to my superiors,” he said. “Have them put out discreet word that she’s missing. Every village and hamlet has a militia of some sort.”

“And have her name on handbills all over the realm?” Wakefield replied. “Thank you, but no. You may not care to protect Matilda’s reputation, but I certainly do.”

More likely, Wakefield protected himself at Matilda’s expense. “Her reputation won’t do her much good if she’s dying of a lung fever somewhere in East Anglia.”

Wakefield rose, a lean man aging handsomely. He was an old hand at the diplomacy game, sometimes representing his government officially, sometimes