The Duke (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 6) Read online

  THE DUKE

  Silver Linings Mysteries Book 6

  A Regency Romance

  by Mary Kingswood

  Published by Sutors Publishing

  Copyright © 2020 Mary Kingswood

  Cover design by: Shayne Rutherford of Darkmoon Graphics

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction.

  Version 2

  Author’s note:

  this book is written using historic British terminology, so saloon instead of salon, chaperon instead of chaperone and so on. I follow Jane Austen’s example and refer to a group of sisters as the Miss Wintertons.

  About this book: The dramatic conclusion to the series!

  The sinking of the Brig Minerva results in many deaths, while for others, the future is suddenly brighter. But it’s not always easy to leave the past behind…

  Lord Randolph Litherholm has spent a year coming to terms with the death of his twin brother, Gervase, the 7th Duke of Falconbury. Now it’s time to set aside his mourning and accept his role as the 8th Duke. It’s not the management of the vast Litherholm wealth that bothers him, for he’s been running the estate for years. No, his reluctance is all due to the marriage that was arranged for his brother, and the expectation that Ran will take on his brother’s bride as well as his title.

  Lady Ruth Grenaby’s marriage was arranged when she was twelve. Now she’s twenty-one and still waiting for her wedding day. Her intended husband is dead, but to her father, the younger brother will do just as well. He’s a duke, after all, and his eldest daughter can’t possibly marry a less exalted man. She’s a dutiful daughter, so she’ll do as her father says and marry Ran, even if he only sees her as another inherited obligation. But shattering events cause her to re-evaluate everything she’s ever believed in, and she must decide between duty and love.

  This is a complete story with a HEA. Book 6 of a 6 book series. A traditional Regency romance, drawing room rather than bedroom.

  Isn’t that what’s-his-name? Regular readers will know that characters from previous books occasionally pop up. Lawyer Mr Willerton-Forbes, his flamboyant sidekick Captain Edgerton and the discreet Mr Neate have been helping my characters solve murders and other puzzles ever since Lord Augustus. The Duke of Camberley’s heir, the Marquess of Ramsey, made a fleeting appearance in The Earl of Deveron, and became an improbable suitor in The Betrothed. The relations of Lord Randolph Litherholm, previously seen in The Lacemaker, include his uncle, Lord Arthur, his aunt, Lady Anne, and his sisters Lady Henrietta Redpath, Lady Alice Winne, Lady Elizabeth Litherholm, Lady Narfield (Georgiana). Lady Charlotte Litherholm and her timorous companion, Camilla, of Durran House, were last seen in The Apothecary. Mr Jonathan Ellsworthy, survivor of the Brig Minerva, and his particular friend, Miss Ginny Chandry, were previously seen in The Clerk and The Orphan. Ginny’s brother, Mr Michael Chandry of Pendower, appeared in The Clerk. Lady Ruth Grenaby made a fleeting appearance in The Orphan, helping the distressed Violet Barantine.

  About the Silver Linings Mysteries series: John Milton coined the phrase 'silver lining' in Comus: A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634

  Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud

  Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

  I did not err; there does a sable cloud

  Turn forth her silver lining on the night,

  And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

  Ever since then, the term ‘silver lining’ has become synonymous with the unexpected benefits arising from disaster. The sinking of the Brig Minerva results in many deaths, but for others, the future is suddenly brighter. But it’s not always easy to leave the past behind…

  Book 0: The Clerk: the sinking of the Minerva offers a young man a new life (a novella, free to mailing list subscribers).

  Book 1: The Widow: the wife of the Minerva’s captain is free from his cruelty, but can she learn to trust again?

  Book 2: The Lacemaker: three sisters inherit a country cottage, but the locals are surprisingly interested in them.

  Book 3: The Apothecary: a long-forgotten suitor returns, now a rich man, but is he all he seems?

  Book 4: The Painter: two children are left to the care of a reclusive man.

  Book 5: The Orphan: a wilful heiress is determined to choose a notorious rake as her guardian.

  Book 6: The Duke: the heir to the dukedom is reluctant to step into his dead brother’s shoes and accept his arranged marriage.

  Want to be the first to hear about new releases? Sign up for my mailing list.

  Table of contents

  Table of contents

  The Litherholm Family

  The Grenaby Family

  Prologue

  1: The Duke Of Falconbury

  2: To Valmont

  3: A Courtship

  4: Identification

  5: A Betrothal

  6: Visiting Lady Elizabeth

  7: A Small Dinner

  8: Trehannick Inn

  9: Questions Of Marriage

  10: Of Dandies And Valets

  11: Return To Valmont

  12: The State Banqueting Room

  13: Early Awakening

  14: The Ways Of Nobles

  15: Meetings

  16: Considerations

  17: Games Of Cards

  18: Morning Prayers

  19: Making A Choice

  20: Friends And Advice

  21: Two Galleries

  22: Reconsiderations

  23: Carriages Awaiting

  24: Making Friends

  25: Unexpected Visitors

  26: Guardian Angel

  27: Revisiting The Past

  28: The Eve Of The Wedding

  29: The Schoolroom

  30: Invitation To Dinner

  Thanks for reading!

  About the author

  Acknowledgements

  Sneak preview of Stranger at the Dower House: Chapter 1: The Dower House

  The Litherholm Family

  Hi-res version available at my website.

  The Grenaby Family

  Hi-res version available at my website.

  Prologue

  SEVEN YEARS AGO

  JULY

  Valmont looked its best, the summer greenery not yet faded, the lodge gardens a blaze of colour as the carriage rolled onto the long drive. Lord Randolph Litherholm felt the customary bloom of pride when he looked at the avenue, the twin lines of trees in their mature splendour, each one a perfect specimen, marking the route to the house in satisfying symmetry. There was always a pleasure in coming home, no matter the circumstances. Beyond the Roman Arch, the avenue gave way to the formal gardens and Valmont itself, its imposing stone face shimmering with light from the myriad windows.

  The carriage circled around the sparkling fountain to halt beneath the front doors.

  “Lord Randolph! What an unexpected pleasure, my lord.” Brent, the butler, trod lightly down the steps to greet the carriage. “Not bad news, I trust? Is Lord Marcus well?”

  “A mild seizure, Brent. He will recover but I was very much in the way, so I thought it best to come home,” Ran said, as he made his way up the steps. “How is my father?”

  “His Grace is a little better, I fancy, my lord. His breathing is a little easier in this dry weather. He will be very happy to have you at home again, as will Lord Beckhampton, I make no doubt, although he is enjoying the company of the Lady Ruth Grenaby.”

  “Ah, the famous Lady Ruth. At last I shall meet her.”

  “A delightful young lady, if I may make so bold, my lord.”

  “So everyone says,” Ran said, as they passed into the cavernous entrance hall. Valmo
nt was built on a grand scale, as if it were a home for giants. Or kings, perhaps, since it was fashioned after the Palace of Versailles.

  A drift of music emanated from the Grand Saloon on the far side of the hall, then, with a sudden clash of chords, a burst of laughter. Two voices, one familiar, the other high and girlish. With a smile, Ran waved away the hovering footmen and crossed the hall. The high doors to the Grand Saloon stood open, and there they were, the two of them, side by side on the stool before the pianoforte, giggling together. Gervase looked as he always did, slightly rumpled, the disorder about his hair owing more to carelessness than fashion. And Lady Ruth—

  Ran’s breath caught. He had mingled with the accredited beauties of the ton, but he had never in his life seen anyone to equal this girl. Everything about her was perfection, from the smoothness of her complexion to the hair that curled softly around her face, held in place with a simple ribbon. She looked up at him, and he gazed into her clear grey eyes and was lost. He could neither move nor speak.

  Ger saw him too and jumped up. “Ran! You are back early — how famous!” He raced across to the door where Ran stood, and punched him on the shoulder. “This is wonderful, for you can meet Ruth at last. Ruth, come and meet my brother — the sensible one of us.”

  She rose and came smilingly towards them in a graceful motion. She would do everything gracefully, he realised. Even at fourteen, she was queenly and serene.

  “Lord Randolph, what a pleasure to meet you at last. Ger has talked about you so much.” They were on intimate terms already, then, if she called him Ger rather than Lord Beckhampton, without the least ceremony.

  “Lady Ruth,” he murmured, bowing over her hand. “Likewise. Are you enjoying your stay at Valmont?”

  “Very much, as always.” Her smile was gentle, but everything about her seemed to be gentle. “Ger is looking after me very well. Do you play the instrument, Lord Randolph?”

  “Not at all. Ger is the one with the musical talent in this family. I am not even competent to turn the pages for him.”

  She laughed, a delicately musical sound, and he was enchanted. “Are you staying long, Lord Randolph? For you were not expected, I think. I am sure that Ger said you were engaged elsewhere for the full week of our visit.”

  “So I was, but Uncle Marcus suffered a mild seizure, nothing too serious, thank the Lord, but I thought it best to leave him to the leeches. But pray do not let me keep you from the instrument. I must go and pay my respects to your parents.”

  “They will be in the Royal Withdrawing Room with your father and uncle,” she said, with another smile. “They enjoy these visits as much as I do, I believe.”

  Ran laughed. “Ah, the lure of the card table! I shall see you at dinner, my lady.” And with a few words of greeting to the chaperon, sitting quietly with her needlework across the room, he made his exit.

  Brent was lurking in the hall. “I have informed His Grace your father of your arrival, and he requests that you await him in the Ante-Chamber, my lord. Shall I bring you anything to eat?”

  Ran handed his hat and gloves to a footman. “No, thank you, Brent.”

  He entered the Ante-Chamber and poured himself a glass of Canary, wondering a little at the order. His father was not usually so keen to see him, but perhaps he was concerned about Uncle Marcus. He picked up the London newspaper and settled down without impatience. The Duke of Falconbury was not a man to concern himself with keeping his second son waiting, and would arrive when it suited him and not a moment before.

  In the event, it was no more than ten minutes before the door opened and the duke entered the room. Ran appraised his father carefully. The pallor of his skin, the slight puckering of the forehead, the dullness of the eyes that suggested pain were all much as he remembered from his Easter visit, the last time he had seen his father. No improvement to be seen there. But it was the stoop to the shoulders that made his heart ache, seeing the once strong and upright figure sliding into old age and illness. Not that he would admit to it, naturally.

  “Good God, boy, what have you done to your hair?”

  Ran laughed. “It is quite the fashion at Oxford, I assure you.”

  “I cannot say that I like it. Too short by half, and not a bit of powder. Not enamoured of that coat, either, but I am old-fashioned, I daresay. You young men have not a bit of style these days. Too drab altogether. But what is this about Marcus? Some kind of a seizure, Brent said.”

  “Not the first, seemingly. His physician believes he will make a full recovery, in time.”

  “Physicians? Bah! What do they know? Ignorant fools, the lot of them. Have you seen your brother yet?”

  “Yes, sir. He was at the instrument with the Lady Ruth.”

  “Hmpf. So what do you think of her? Pretty little thing, eh?”

  Pretty! Such a bland word for so much beauty, so much serene elegance. “Undoubtedly a diamond of the first water. She will do very well for Ger.”

  The duke’s face softened. “She certainly will. It is all agreed with Orrisdale, thirty thousand, no less, and they will marry three years from now, when she is seventeen. Gervase will be four and twenty by then, a good age to be settled. Just as well you are back early, for I have Gurney harassing me about the Low Mead, and Camfield keeps bothering me about some investment or other. They do fuss so! Maybe you can look into that for me, eh? See what they want. And the London lawyers will be here next week and that will be hour after hour of dry legal business.”

  “I would be happy to take care of that for you, sir. I enjoy all that dry legal business, believe it or not.”

  “Good, and you can help Gervase with that side of things when I am gone, for he has no more sense than a rabbit, sometimes. Always at his music, or out on that ill-tempered beast of his. Good with the cards, though, I will say that for him. He has that from me, at least. I suppose the music came from his mother. I just wish he had a bit more address. Tongue-tied in company, and it won’t do. He should exert himself more. He will be the Seventh Duke of Falconbury one day and he owes it to the family name to be a leader of men, not skulking in the shadows like the poor relation.”

  “Once he has more experience in society, he will learn how to put himself forward,” Ran said, although he was not at all sure he believed it. “And when he marries, the Lady Ruth will help smooth his path.”

  “True, very true,” the duke said, the lowering brows lifting a little. “She is a taking little thing, very demure and well-behaved, a good, dutiful daughter. She will make him an excellent duchess. Her parents have brought her up very well. Come and make your bows to them, eh, and then you can take yourself off, for they will not want you underfoot for the whole afternoon. Plenty of time for a few more rubbers of whist before the dressing bell.”

  Ran was allowed five minutes of polite conversation with the Duke and Duchess of Orrisdale before his father chased him out of the card room, and they settled down eagerly for more play. There were a dozen things he probably ought to be doing, but his footsteps drew him inexorably back towards the Grand Saloon, and the music drifting out of the open door.

  She was singing, now, a melodic Italian tune, with Ger playing enthusiastically for her, and even the stolid chaperon had laid down her needle to listen, a smile on her face. Ran smiled, too, as he watched, entranced. Those grey eyes caught and held his, and he felt he could drown in that clear gaze. So much perfection in the shape of one girl… almost a woman. Ran had never imagined meeting anyone who was quite so perfect, but in a few years, the Lady Ruth Grenaby would embody every female grace in one person, the ideal of womanhood.

  And then she would marry Ran’s brother.

  1: The Duke Of Falconbury

  FEBRUARY

  Ran picked up the nearest quill pen. As usual, there were precisely three laid out for his use, trimmed and prepared with meticulous care by one of his under-secretaries, but he always took the nearest to hand. He dipped the pen in the inkstand and wrote his name at the spot indicated by his a
ttorney. The parchment was removed to be sanded by another of his under-secretaries, and a second parchment was placed before him. The pen was dipped a second time, his name inscribed, the parchment removed by yet another under-secretary.

  In stately procession, the two parchments were carried around the mahogany desk, as large as many dining tables, and placed in front of the bluff, middle-aged farmer sitting on the opposite side, stiff in his Sunday best coat. He too chose a pen, dipped, signed, then dipped and signed again, laying his pen down with a sigh of obvious relief and a wide smile. Beside him, his country attorney, in a dazzlingly white neckcloth, no doubt bought new for the occasion, smiled also.

  Then Max Lorrimer stepped forward with the sealing tray and the ducal seal for the final part of the ceremony. He himself, as the most senior secretary, undertook to melt the wax and apply a measure to each parchment, while Ran merely pressed the seal into the molten wax.

  And then it was done. Another contract signed, another useful business added to the ducal estate, another very satisfactory day. Ran congratulated himself inwardly for his success. There were glasses of Madeira and dishes of sweetmeats and fifteen minutes of laboured conversation with the farmer and his attorney, every word no doubt to be remembered and carried back to their northern fastness, to be related to red-cheeked wives and daughters and wide-eyed neighbours, the glories of Valmont described in grandiose terms. Of the owner of so much splendour, less grandiose terms would be employed. Lord Randolph, the farmer would say, shaking his head sorrowfully, was nothing out of the way at all, and wore only a plain black coat, pale pantaloons and a triflingly simple neckcloth, such as a cheap attorney might wear, with not a bit of jewellery to be seen, apart from a paltry signet ring. Not at all like a duke.

  When the visitors had been shown out, and the steward and various attorneys and secretaries dispersed to their usual tasks, Ran retreated to his own office, a much smaller and less imposing apartment one floor below.