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  © Copyright 2015 by Diane Queenston - All rights reserved.

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  Second Chance For The Duke

  Historical Regency Romance

  Diane Queenston

  Gabriel, Duke of Crawfordmuir, had finally given in to Lady de Grey’s imperious demands that he visit her. She had been sending him invitations for months, and finally she wrote and told him that if he did not visit her soon, she would have to inform his grandmother that he was treating her oldest and dearest friend with shameful disdain.

  Madam, you have a felonious bent, he’d written in his letter of acceptance. I should not wish to risk my grandmother’s state of mind by having you blacken my character thus, and so I accept your invitation to Greylings with pleasure.

  Lady de Grey was a good friend, and famous for her hospitality, so it would be no burden for Gabriel to visit with her, but he was not of a sociable mind. Any time spent in society was less-than-felicitous time for him. His grandmother despaired of Gabriel ever marrying again. She was right to.

  Though Gabriel had never said as much to her, he had promised himself, after the debacle of his first marriage, that he would not make the mistake a second time. He would never marry again; he would never entrust his heart to any woman. He had learned his lesson. It was true that this meant that his line would end, but he had cousins. His cousin, Benjamin Howard would keep the Howard name at Crawfordmuir. Benjamin was Gabriel’s unofficial heir. Gabriel had never told Benjamin as much, but there was an understanding between them. It had yet to be set down in any form, though, since he did not want to commit to this path while his grandmother Howard was still alive. Not only would it upset her to think that Gabriel would have no children, but she loathed Benjamin for reasons she would never disclose. Gabriel had always set it down to an old woman’s peculiarities, but all the same he didn’t wish to upset her.

  Once he’d allowed himself to be shaken loose from Crawfordmuir, he found he did enjoy the prospect of seeing Lady de Grey again, and of doing a bit of traveling. He hadn’t really been out and about except on business since his marriage had fallen apart.

  It was a long trip down to Greylings so Gabriel had agreed to stay for a month. He had thought that he might extend his holiday by continuing on to the continent afterward, traveling to France or Italy, or perhaps Greece which would be a fine place to spend the winter.

  Inevitably though, the idea of travel reminded him of Marianne, his exquisite French wife who had promised herself to him heart and soul. He’d been so young, barely seventeen when they met, and only just eighteen when they married against his parents’ wishes, in Belgium. They had been blissfully happy for nearly a decade, and then, just before the battle of Vitoria, it was discovered that Marianne had been passing secrets to the French for years.

  It was, of course, the end of Gabriel’s political career. The scandal was tremendous. Marianne managed to flee the country before being arrested. Months later he heard that she’d been hanged for spying by the Prussians. It had been five years since that day, and Gabriel had come through his grief and betrayal, but it had left him cold inside.

  Gabriel sighed. Maybe this trip would be good for him. Maybe it was time to get out of his cave and back into the world.

  When he finally reached Greylings, it was late. He was shown to his rooms and told that Lady de Grey would see him at breakfast. It was just as well. He was tired and irritable after the long trip, and a restful sleep would put him much more in the mood to be sociable.

  Unfortunately no one came to wake him, and when he finally went downstairs the next morning, he was told that Lady de Gray was with the builders and would see him at lunch. He skipped the dregs of breakfast, taking only a cup of tea, and then took a stroll around the house.

  It had been years since he’d been here, before Lord de Grey had passed on certainly. He had forgotten the Jacobean beauty of the place with its carved paneling and high beamed ceilings. Upon marrying, Lady de Grey had undertaken a wholesale brightening of the house with lighter paint and fabric, and more graceful furniture. She had made Greylings into a more contemporary setting, though still elegant, and it was widely said that Clarice de Grey had a perfect eye for color and style.

  He paused at the French doors that led out to the gardens. They were ajar, though not fully open since the morning was quite cool and misty. He stepped out onto the promenade and looked down to where leaves were only just beginning to turn. Some late summer fruit remained and the autumn-blooming flowers brightened a tired landscape. There was a mist lying in the low areas, but that would burn off quickly if the sun showed itself. Still, there was a ghostly beauty to the vista that Gabriel appreciated. The full-blown reckless beauty of summer had its charms, but he loved autumn best of all.

  He walked along the promenade, enjoying the crisp cool air until he came upon another open door. It led to the library- a place he’d loved as a boy visiting with his mother and grandmother. The de Grey library was legendary, stretching across their homes in Normandy, Nuremberg, and just outside Florence. But this one at Greylings was the finest of them all, with thousands of volumes stretching up two stories.

  Gabriel recalled hiding in here with an atlas or books on natural history. There was a perfect hiding place, he recalled, along the north wall, a kind of cubbyhole with a small tattered sofa. He had spent many an afternoon holed up on that sofa. Lord de Grey had never minded and had never sent anyone to bother Gabriel until dinner time when attendance was mandatory. Lord de Grey had been a kind man.

  Gabriel strolled through the stacks, thinking to snag a book and again spend a pleasant hour or two on that sofa. His tastes ran more to history now, or the occasional novel, but for old time’s sake he picked up Haddington’s Butterflies of Britannia before turning north.

  He rounded the last corner and was brought up short by the sight of a young woman sitting on the floor surrounded by stacks of books. Even the sofa was covered with books. She held a lap desk on her lap and was clearly cataloging the contents of the library because she would pick up a volume, inspect it, and then write something on the paper before before putting it back down into a different stack.

  Gabriel was transfixed by the sight of tendrils of dark, silken hair spilling down onto the nape of her neck and around her ears. He watched in silence as volume after volume moved from one stack to another, but when she reached up and scratched her head with what looked like a pencil, he laughed out loud.

  The girl’s head jerked up in surprise. “Sir!”

  “I am sorry,” he said, charmed by her expression of annoyance. “I did not wish to disturb you while you were at your task. May I ask what it is you’re doing?”

  She looked as if she wasn’t sure if she should tell him anything.

  “I am an old friend of Lady de Grey. Gabriel Howard?”

  “Oh! My Lord,
I knew you were due here but not that you’d arrived.” She put the lap desk on the floor and got to her feet. “And I expected…” She stopped and smoothed her smudged apron. Even in the shadow Gabriel could see the pinkness of her cheeks.

  “Expected what?”

  “A much older gentleman.”

  She made him laugh again. “Yes, I imagine so, Miss…”

  “Dwyer. Evaline Dwyer, sir. I’ve been engaged by Lady de Grey to make a catalog of the de Grey library.”

  “Good lord, you’ll be working here when you’re ninety,” he said. “Lady de Grey never mentioned this project.”

  “It was an impulse,” Miss Dwyer said as she began to gather up books.

  “May I help?”

  “Um… thank you.” She shoved a stack at him. “Down at the other end of the wall,” she said, nodding.

  “I’ll follow.”

  She slipped past him and Gabriel caught the elusive scent of roses. “Put those on the shelf in exactly that order,” she told him. It hadn’t taken her long to get used to ordering him around as if he was a footman instead of a duke, though Gabriel didn’t really mind. He only ever stood on ceremony with people he didn’t like. And he rather liked this blossom with her rose scent and pale pink gown. He wondered where Clarice had found her.

  He heard the chime for luncheon and realized how hungry he was. “I should go,” he said.

  “I’ll come with you. I need to wash my hands before we eat.”

  So, Miss Dwyer ate in the dining room with Clarice. The girl wasn’t a servant. In truth it didn’t surprise Gabriel, she didn’t behave like a servant.

  “I’ll be down in a few minutes,” she assured him. “Please let Lady de Grey know.”

  “Your servant, ma’am.”

  She gaped at him and then laughed out loud.

  Clarice was at the table when he arrived in the dining room. “My dear, at last. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to greet you this morning.”

  He kissed both cheeks and both hands. “It’s nothing. We have plenty of time to catch up. Oh, and Miss Dwyer will be along presently.”

  “So you’ve met her?”

  “I stumbled into the library and thought to pass some time in my old corner, but she was occupying it. Where on earth did you find her?”

  “She’s the daughter of Liam Dwyer.”

  “The painter?”

  Clarice nodded. “I don’t know if you know the story of Mr. Dwyer’s rise and fall?”

  Gabriel nodded. “Rumors mostly.”

  “Well he was immensely talented, that much is true. And in fact Robert and I purchased several of his paintings. Robert was quite good to him, and provided an introduction to the Count and Countess Mormont.”

  “Oh,” Gabriel breathed. The elopement of the countess with a painter had actually taken some of the attention away from Marianne’s crimes. Gabriel had been grateful, but had never known exactly who had seduced the woman. “I didn’t realize it was Dwyer.”

  “Oh yes. Robert never forgave him, of course, and turned him away when he came begging for money. The countess left him, and he made his way to Germany where his work was quite well thought of, and was employed by Prince Rudolf Weissensee-Bernauer just outside of Weimar. I was at our home near Nuremberg when Dwyer died, and I heard that his daughter was now alone and penniless. What could I do, Gabriel? I couldn’t let the girl starve. I had her come to me and discovered how clever she is, and during a conversation one night about books, she said something I’d been thinking about since Robert died. She asked me why we had not had someone catalog the books.”

  “I always thought they were.”

  “You looked at them with a child’s eyes. They’re all higgledy-piggledy, and even Robert never knew what he had. Evy, who speaks flawless German and French, by the way, managed to find a stack of duplicates in the Nuremberg library before we came back to England. I offered her the job and she accepted. She’s been working here ever since.”

  “And very grateful she is.” Miss Dwyer entered the room looking fresh and pretty. “How could I be happier? I live and work at Greylings, I have been befriended by one of the kindest women I have ever known, and I love my work. To be honest, I would sit and read every book as I cataloged it if I could.”

  “As I recall, Gabriel has read most of them.”

  “Not even a small percentage,” he said. “I had a few favorites as a child.”

  “Gabriel, his mother and grandmother were welcome guests at Greylings.”

  “And I hid in the library, reading, for hours at a time.”

  “What were your favorites?”

  “Atlases and natural histories. I wished to be an explorer.”

  “A remarkable aspiration,” Miss Dwyer said, her eyes bright with pleasure. She was not beautiful in the way Marianne had been, not a full-blown rose, but rather a rosebud, tender and filled with promise. She could not have been more than three-and-twenty, he thought. Her eyes were green, flecked with gold, and her hair a golden brown and in much disarray. The effect was artless and enchanting.

  “I wished to be a painter, like my father, but my mother informed me that I would be a wife and like it. Fate seems to have fooled both of us, for I will be neither,” she said, and sipped her wine.

  “Surely there is time yet for both,” Lady de Grey said to her.

  “Time, perhaps, were I to find a husband who thinks that a bit of maturity is what is wanted in a wife. Money, no.”

  “Not all men choose wives for their dowries,” Gabriel told her.

  “Would you choose for love?”

  “I did. It was a bad bargain, and I will not repeat it, but yes, I would do it again were I inclined to marry.”

  “Unhappy then, the clever poor girls of England, that you are set in your bachelorhood. But perhaps one day you will find one who has charm enough to make you change your mind. As for myself, if I have books to read, a roof over my head and a few good friends, I am content to be a spinster.”

  A girl as fine looking as Miss Dwyer need never go wanting for a husband, Gabriel decided-though many men would be put off by her intelligence. He would own that his sex had an abiding fear of clever women, but he had never understood why. Why would a man not wish for a clever wife? But then he’d been raised by intelligent women, had befriended them, enjoyed their company. Perhaps men simply needed to spend more time with women who could hold their own in conversation.

  “Gabriel is planning on a trip to the continent after he leaves Greylings. Surely you could recommend some places of interest in the German states?” Lady de Grey said.

  “Oh…” Miss Dwyer looked perplexed. “But surely Lord Howard is familiar with the country? The Howards are well known in Weimar.”

  “My father and grandfather both had diplomatic postings there quite a few years ago.” Gabriel told her. “They both had the privilege of coming to know the great Goethe and of being part of his circle, which may account for the familiarity of the Howard name in Weimar. I have been to Prussia only once, with my parents when I was quite young. Lady de Grey told me that you had lived there for a time. Did you enjoy it?”

  “Very much, though the circumstances were not felicitous. I had gone there to be with my father after my mother’s death. I lived there for three years, during which time my father became so ill, I could not bring him home to England. It was fortunate for us both that the prince is a kind man. He allowed us to remain in my father’s apartment until his death.”

  “That was very thoughtful,” Clarice agreed.

  “And then you came to my rescue. I am grateful every day for your kind invitation, and for the employment.”

  “Nonsense, it’s a small thing I did, my dear, and I’m getting this behemoth of a library organized at last. I’m better off for our association.”

  The two women smiled at each other and Gabriel thought it a shame that the de Greys had never had children. Clarice would have been a wonderful mother.

  After lunch, Miss Dwy
er returned to her work, and Gabriel and Lady de Grey took a stroll through the rose garden. “Of course my pretties are all blown now, and the hips are starting to come in. You really should come in June and see them in bloom, Gabriel.”

  “Perhaps one day I will. Miss Dwyer, has she no family?”

  Clarice gave him a sidelong look. “None to speak of. Why?”

  “No reason, though it does seem hard for a lovely young woman with such wit to resign herself to a life of spinsterhood at her age. She cannot be more than three-and-twenty.”

  “Plus five.”

  Gabriel was surprised. He had thought Evaline to be little more than just past girlhood.

  “She spent her youth on her parents, first her mother, a bitter woman, though with good reason. I’d warrant that Dwyer’s faithlessness went beyond the countess.”

  “One hears stories.”

  “Indeed. And then the father who probably showed her little enough gratitude. I recall Liam Dwyer well. I never understood why Robert found him so appealing, though I will say his work is quite good. And you know how much store Robert put into his artists and writers.”

  “And musicians. I recall a soprano.”

  “The only soprano I ever allowed at Greylings. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Robert was a good man, but so led by his enthusiasms.”

  “Miss Marinetti aroused the enthusiasm of many gentlemen if memory serves.”

  Clarice laughed. “Robert was so devastated to discover that the woman was not the Madonna he wished her to be. Well, rude awakenings come to each of us.”

  That was no more than the truth,” Gabriel thought ruefully. Some were ruder than others. As if she was reading his mind, Lady de Grey said, “Gabriel, are you truly set upon this ridiculous course of remaining single?”

  He didn’t want to argue, but he was also not willing to be swayed. “I am. Please do not attempt to dissuade me.”

  “You know me too well to think that I won’t do everything in my power to see you happily married. Dear boy, people make mistakes all the time; they don’t stop living because of them.”’