Three Weeks With Lady X

  All that nobility at one table meant that Geordie, in particular, had trouble shaping a single word until Villiers’s butler took pity on them and brought tankards of ale to the table.

  Thorn grinned at his father, who fastidiously declined the ale; his stepmother, who not only accepted it, but was drinking it with every sign of enjoyment; his closest friend, who had accepted defeat with utmost grace; and finally at the woman who would soon be his wife.

  Earlier that afternoon the archbishop had reluctantly given Thorn’s solicitor yet another special license—this one not blank but specifying the union of Mr. Tobias Dautry to Lady Xenobia India St. Clair.

  They would be married in the morning, the ceremony witnessed by a duke and duchess, and three members of the fraternity of mudlarks. Evander Brody, heir to the Duke of Pindar, would stand as Thorn’s best man, even though he was laughingly offering the bride a last chance to become a duchess.

  “Never,” Thorn growled, pulling his fiancée close in an entirely improper manner and bending his head to drop a kiss on a neck that glittered with diamonds . . . restored through Mr. Farthingale’s expert ministrations.

  “Those joowels looked like rubbish when Bink fished them up,” Dusso told the Duke of Villiers. “I’d never know they was the same, now they’re cleaned up.”

  Dusso grinned, and so did Bink and Geordie. They’d been in the Thames, and it hadn’t conquered them.

  Thorn felt the same. The river had almost killed him, but it had brought him India, and that was worth everything. If he hadn’t been a mudlark, he never would have become the man whom India wanted.

  He held her hand tightly under the table.

  With a wicked little smile playing around his mouth, the Duke of Villiers began telling India about why he’d sent Thorn off to Piggleston. “I thought that Tobias needed to be made to understand how much he loved you.” He raised his heavy-lidded eyes and glanced at his own wife. “He is my son, after all. We’re fools when it comes to women.”

  Eleanor bent near, her hair brushing the duke’s magnificently clad shoulder. “My husband was playing Cupid,” she said. “He likes to do that.”

  India laughed, and Thorn thought, once again, that he could spend his life listening to this woman, this particular woman, laugh.

  The night he’d waited in Piggleston, believing India had been on the eve of marrying Vander, had scored him to the heart. But his father wasn’t wrong: it had also taught him what he most wanted.

  Not just what he wanted, but the only thing that was important in life.

  Under the table, he tightened his hand around India’s. Then he remembered that he wasn’t a gentleman—he was a mudlark, sitting at a table with three other mudlarks.

  He caught India’s face in both his hands and kissed her. Her arms wound around his neck.

  It was scandalous.

  Outrageous.

  Just right.

  Epilogue

  May 12, 1807

  From Miss Adelaide Dautry at Starberry Court,

  to her parents at 40 Hanover Square, London

  Dear Papa,

  I miss you very much. When are you and Mama coming home? Rose has been perfectly horrid to me all day. She says that now she’s 14, she shan’t play with me any longer. She hurt my feelings, and I did something bad, and now Mr. Twink says I have to write to you and confess. I want to say first that I’m not sorry, because she should have read me a story when I asked, and besides, she doesn’t play with Antigone anymore.

  I cut a little bit of Antigone’s hair.

  Please come home now. You’ve been gone for years.

  Adelaide

  From Miss Rose Summers at Starberry Court, to her guardians at 40 Hanover Square, London

  Dear India,

  I know you left only two days ago, but we’ve descended to the level of animals here, and civilization is but a dim memory. Remember when we visited Italy, and Papa read aloud The Inferno? That’s what Starberry Court is like at the moment. I know you will say that Addie inherited her temper from you, but there is no excuse for this: She cut Antigone’s hair short in the front! You know how I feel about Antigone. And now my poor dear has shorn hair and looks like a fever victim.

  How can you both spend so much time at Starberry Court? I am positively dying of ennui. I have finished my study of Heraclitus and Xenophanes, but Twink can scarcely have a philosophical conversation when he’s busy chasing after Addie. I truly think she should have a governess, as should Peter. For myself, I am counting the days until I can return to school.

  Please arrange for the baby to be born tomorrow, as I should like to share a birthday.

  Love,

  Rose

  From Master Peter Dautry at Starberry Court,

  to his parents at 40 Hanover Square, London

  Dear Mama,

  Mister Twink says I shud rite but I don’t like riting.

  Peter

  From Mr. Dautry at 40 Hanover Square, London to his butler at Starberry Court

  Fred,

  Thank you for sending on the children’s letters. Please inform our irritating offspring that babies arrive on their own schedule, and their mama and I will return to Starberry Court just as soon as their new sister or brother chooses to make an appearance.

  Dautry

  Daybreak

  Margot is perfect,” India whispered, one finger tracing her newborn daughter’s winged eyebrows. “And she’s so calm! I suspect she will be a better sleeper than Addie or Peter. Rember how Peter bawled?” The infant had opened her eyes just long enough to reveal that they were gray, like her father’s, and had promptly fallen to sleep again.

  “I wouldn’t count on it.” Thorn was measuring one of the baby’s tiny feet against his thumb. “I suppose Peter and Addie were once this small, but it doesn’t seem possible. Rose is almost at my shoulder, and yet fourteen years ago her feet must have been this size.”

  “But she was already reading,” India reminded Thorn with a choke of laughter. It had become a family joke that Rose claimed to have been reading “ever since I was born.”

  “Margot, do you already know how to read?” her father asked the baby.

  Margot would have said yes (she passionately wanted to be like her oldest sister in everything), but instead she slept on, even when her father pretended to bite her toes, when he put her foot down and kissed her mother, when she was in danger of being smothered as they whispered to each other.

  She slept the dreamless sleep of an infant who would never be hungry, who would never scavenge in the Thames, who would grow up in the arms of a family so loving that even after the children had grown and left home, Starberry Court would remain their fulcrum, drawing them back with their spouses, and then their children, and, later still, their grandchildren.

  In time, a new wing would be built, at least in part to house the overflow of books (mostly Rose’s, though Margot contributed quite a few as well). The kitchen would acquire new iron stoves, the water closets would be replaced by bathrooms with ceramic bathtubs, and the house would be the first in the county to be electrified. Peter’s grandson would proudly drive one of the very first automobiles into the courtyard.

  No matter the modernizations that Starberry Court underwent, it remained the glowing, comfortable home that India created in 1799: the heart of her family and her descendants, where they learned to laugh, to dance (for the pink ballroom became famous through three counties), to love . . . in short, to live.

  And even two hundred years later, the chandelier that India had found in Venice on their first trip to Italy still hung in a place of honor in a dining room decorated with swallows.

  A Note about Toy Shops, Stethoscopes, and Rubber Balls

  I must confess that I toyed—pun intended—with history at several points in this novel. Three Weeks with Lady X takes place in 1799, a date predetermined by the fact that Thorn first appears as a mudlark—Juby/Tobias—in two of my earlier novels, This Duchess of Mine and A Duke of
Her Own. I envisioned the boy, once grown, as a man whose years as a mudlark led him to recognize value in materials others had discarded, and at some point I became stubbornly attached to the idea that Thorn and India between them would rescue a failing rubber factory. Rubber’s early uses in England included making it into a kind of string, which was then incorporated into fabric, creating a gathered look called “shirring.” The problem? The rubber threads melted in the heat, making a shirred bodice a risky proposition.

  Unfortunately, the first rubber factory in England wasn’t established until 1811, and it wasn’t until 1844 that Charles Goodyear patented the vulcanizing process, which stabilized rubber. India’s “rubber band” first appeared with that usage in 1849. By 1850, many stores were selling India rubber toys, such as balls (and yes, the various puns on names—India rubber, as well as Rose and Thorn, were deliberate). Obviously, I played fast and loose with the dates of vulcanization in England: in my defense, other methods of curing rubber have been dated to prehistoric times. Indigenous peoples, for example, amazed Columbus’s crew with rubber balls.

  I also took liberties with Dr. Hatfield’s “ear trumpet,” which was a simple device at the time, without articulated joints. His trumpet is an early version of the stethoscope, which wouldn’t be invented until 1816.

  Lest you think that everything in the book was made up by me, the toy shop that supplied Rose with her wonderful doll, Antigone, was indeed called Noah’s Ark. It was opened in 1760 by Mr. Hamley in Holborn, London. The bookshop that provided Thorn with fourteen Bibles for Starberry Court’s library was the Temple of the Muses bookshop in Finsbury Square. The owner, Mr. James Lackington, specialized in buying entire libraries from grand houses.

  Don’t miss the next delicious installment . . .

  Pre-order

  Four Nights With the Duke

  now!

  Were you intrigued by Thorn’s father, the arrogant, witty Duke of Villiers?

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at

  New York Times bestseller

  A Duke of Her Own

  Available now in print and e-book!

  London’s Roman Baths

  Duchess of Beaumont’s ball to benefit the Baths

  June 14, 1784

  The duke must be here somewhere,” said Mrs. Bouchon, née Lady Anne Lindel, tugging her older sister along like a child with a wheeled toy.

  “And therefore we have to act like hunting dogs?” Lady Eleanor replied through clenched teeth.

  “I’m worried that Villiers will leave before we find him. I can’t let you waste another evening chatting with dowagers.”

  “Lord Killigrew would dislike being identified as a dowager,” Eleanor protested. “Slow down, Anne!”

  “Killigrew’s not eligible either, is he? His daughter is at least your age.” Her sister turned a corner and peered at a group of noblemen. “Villiers won’t be in that nest of Whigs. He doesn’t seem the type.” She set off in the opposite direction.

  Lord Thrush called after them, but Anne didn’t even pause. Eleanor waved helplessly.

  “Everyone knows that Villiers came to this benefit specifically to meet you,” Anne said. “I heard it from at least three people in the last half hour, so he might have been civil enough to remain in the open where he could be easily found.”

  “That would deny most of London the pleasure of realizing just how desperate I am to meet him,” Eleanor snapped.

  “No one will think that, not given what you’re wearing,” her sister said over her shoulder. “Rest assured: I would be surprised if you attained the label interested, let alone desperate.”

  Eleanor jerked her hand from her sister’s. “If you don’t like my gown, just say so. There’s no need to be so rude.”

  Anne swung around, hands on her hips. “I consider myself blunt, rather than rude. It would be rude if I pointed out that at first glance any reasonable gentleman would characterize you as a bacon-faced beldam, rather than a marriageable lady.”

  Eleanor clenched her hands so that she didn’t inadvertently engage in violence. “Whereas you,” she retorted, “look as close to a courtesan as Mother would allow.”

  “May I point out that my recent marriage suggests that a more tempting style might be in order? Your sleeves are elbow-length—with flounces,” Anne added in disgust. “No one has worn that style for at least four years. Not to mention that togas are de rigueur, since your hostess requested the costume.”

  “I am not wearing a toga because I am not a trained spaniel,” Eleanor said. “And if you think that one-shoulder style is any more flattering to you than my flounces are to me, you are sadly mistaken.”

  “This isn’t about me. It’s about you. You. You and the question of whether you’re going to spend the rest of your life in dowdy clothing simply because you were spurned in love. And if that sentence sounds like a cliché, Eleanor, it’s because your life is turning into one.”

  “My life is a cliché?” Despite herself, Eleanor felt a tightness in the back of her throat that signaled tears. She and Anne had amused themselves for years with blistering fights, but she must be out of practice. Anne had been married for a whole two weeks, after all. With their youngest sister still in the nursery, there was no one to torment her on a daily basis.

  Anne’s face softened. “Just look at yourself, Eleanor. You’re beautiful. Or at least you used to be beautiful, before—”

  “Don’t,” Eleanor interrupted. “Just don’t.”

  “Did you take a good look at your hair this evening?”

  Of course she had. True, she had been reading while her maid worked, but she certainly glanced in the mirror before she left her chamber. “Rackfort worked very hard on these curls,” Eleanor said, gingerly patting the plump curls suspended before her ears.

  “Those curls make your cheeks round, Eleanor. Round, as in fat.”

  “I’m not fat,” Eleanor said, taking a calming breath. “A moment ago you were insisting that I’m out of fashion, but these curls are the very newest mode.”

  “They might be among the older set,” Anne said, poking at them. “But Rackfort’s inadequate use of powder makes them anything but. For goodness sake, didn’t you notice that she was using light brown curls, even though your hair is chestnut? It’s oddly patchy where the powder has worn off. One might even say mangy. No one would think that you are the more beautiful of the two of us. Or that you’re more beautiful than Mother ever was, for that matter.”

  “Not true!”

  “True,” her sister said indomitably. “I’ve begun to wonder why our mother, so very proud of her glorious past, allows you to dress like a dowager.”

  “Is this sourness the effect of marriage?” Eleanor said, staring at her sister. “You wed barely a fortnight ago. If this is the consequence of wedded bliss, I might do best to avoid it.”

  “Marriage gives me time to think.” Anne smirked. “In bed.”

  “I feel truly sorry for you if your bedtime activities involve consideration of my wardrobe, not to mention Rackfort’s lackluster hairdressing,” Eleanor said tartly.

  Anne broke into laughter. “I just don’t understand why you dress like a prissy dowd when underneath you are quite the opposite.”

  “I am not—” Eleanor flashed, and caught herself. “And I don’t understand why you are wasting time fussing over me when you have the very handsome Mr. Jeremy Bouchon claiming your attention.”

  “In fact, Jeremy and I discussed you. In a slow moment, as it were.”

  “You didn’t!”

  “We both agree that men don’t look past your dowdy clothing. Jeremy says he never even considered the possibility of courting you. He thought you an eccentric, too pious and haughty even to take notice of him. You, Eleanor! He thought that of you. How ridiculous!”

  Eleanor managed to bite back her opinion of her brother-in-law. “We’re in the middle of a ball,” she pointed out. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable sharing Jeremy’s charming com
mentary later, in private?”

  “No woman here has eyes like yours, Eleanor,” her sister said, ignoring her comment entirely. “That dark blue is most unusual. I wish I had it. And they turn up at the corners. Don’t you remember all those absurd poems Gideon wrote comparing your eyes to stormy seas and buttercups?”

  “Not buttercups,” Eleanor said. “Bluebells, though I don’t see how this is relevant.”

  “Your mouth is just as lovely as it was years ago. Back before the buttercup king himself left for greener pastures.”

  “I don’t like to talk about Gideon.”

  “I’ve obeyed you for three, almost four, years, but I’m tired of it,” Anne replied, raising her voice again. “I’m a married woman now and you can’t tell me what to do. Granted, you fell in love—”

  “Please,” Eleanor implored. “Keep your voice down, Anne!”

  “You fell in love with a man who turned out to be a bad hat,” her sister said, albeit a bit more quietly. “But what I don’t understand is why Gideon’s rejection has resulted in your becoming a squabby old maid. Do you really intend to wither into your grave mourning that man? Will you have no children, no marriage, no household of your own, nothing, all because Gideon left you?”

  Eleanor felt as if the air actually burned her lungs. “I shall probably—”

  “Just when are you planning to marry? At age twenty-five, or thirty? Who will marry you when you’re that old, Eleanor? You may be beautiful, but if you don’t make an effort, no one will notice. In my experience, men are not terribly perceptive.” She leaned forward, peering. “You aren’t wearing even a touch of face paint, are you?”