Anything But a Duke Read online

  Turning back to face her, Nick added, “I won’t be investing today.”

  “The product is fascinating. A capital idea.” Huntley slouched slightly in his chair and tapped his lower lip with his forefinger. “Shame we couldn’t see it in working order.”

  “Indeed it is, my lord.” Though she spoke to Huntley, she might as well have called Aidan out by name. Instead, she simply branded him with another pointed glare.

  “I regret that your model was damaged, Miss Ashby,” he told her, speaking less forcefully and only to her.

  “Perhaps you could return when your scale model is in working order,” Huntley offered with almost breathless enthusiasm.

  “That would be setting a new precedent,” Nick put in. “We’ve never allowed inventors to return to the Den.”

  He was right. Aidan winced at the notion of inviting some of the past inventors whose presentations had gone pear-shaped to return. Some of the ideas had been truly dreadful once they were fully described, and the Den already had a waiting list.

  “I understand the hesitation to alter your rules, gentlemen. You’ve heard what my invention can do, how it could change and simplify sanitation for London’s households. Surely every inventor cannot present a working model.” She pointed at Nick. “You recently invested in a suspension bridge, Your Grace. And you”—one long, elegant finger jutted in Aidan’s direction—“are known for investing in engineering feats that can never become more than sketches on paper until they are funded.”

  When she’d finished, a hush fell over the room. Nick, who’d been taking notes, stilled his pen. Even Huntley managed to hold his tongue.

  Her brother whispered something and she began to back away, gathering her papers from the table beside her. “Thank you for the opportunity, gentlemen.”

  She pivoted and started for the door in long, determined strides.

  Aidan had the unaccountable desire to call her back and offer his funding for her invention. A household pneumatic cleaning system was nothing that interested him in the least. Miss Ashby was right about his predilections. He invested in large-scale industrial projects, engineering designs that were bold and pushed the limits of what had ever been achieved in transport and civil engineering.

  He still found himself standing up from his chair, but it was too late.

  She and her brother stepped across the threshold and the doors slid shut behind them.

  The entire room seemed dimmer.

  “Mr. Kenworthy is next,” Nick read from the document balanced on his knees. “Do you want to go and call him?”

  Huntley, restless by nature, enjoyed the task of escorting each inventor into the Den. He stretched his arms above his head as he rose from his seat and headed for the threshold.

  Aidan stared at the closed door and realized he was holding his breath. Hoping foolishly that a certain tall, dark-haired lady would step back through.

  The thought of never seeing Diana Ashby again disturbed him almost as much as the notion that he would.

  He stood up and followed Huntley out the door.

  A familiar tickle fluttered in his stomach, like the tug of a knotted rope around his waist. Instinct and impulse drew him toward the entrance of the club.

  “Miss Ashby.” He called down to where she stood waiting as her brother climbed into a hansom cab.

  When she turned, the afternoon sun gilded her face, her hair. Some small, soft voice inside told him to turn back. But the way she looked at him, her expression open and eager, made it impossible not to draw closer.

  “Have you changed your mind?” She looked so hopeful.

  He suddenly hated himself for giving in to foolish impulse.

  “Possibly.” He didn’t want to fund her invention for any reason other than its viability. Because he believed it could succeed. He never wished to give any inventor false hope. “I’ll speak to the others.”

  “Why?” Her frown was like a cloud obscuring the sun. “Surely you can invest on your own. You were the only investor in Mr. McAdam’s road paving substance just last month, and before you became co-owner of Lyon’s Gentlemen’s Club, you built a reputation on the success of projects in which you were the sole investor.”

  Aidan grinned. “You gathered information about me before coming to the Den.”

  “About all of you, Mr. Iverson.”

  “I admire your preparation.”

  “I am always prepared, Mr. Iverson. I don’t like surprises.”

  “Not every event can be anticipated.” Aidan glanced down at the box in her hands.

  “No. Not every one.”

  She was speaking of that night. Aidan took a step closer, and she didn’t retreat. “You do remember, then?”

  “I remember,” she whispered.

  They were so close he felt the heat of her breath against his face. She glanced inside the carriage at her brother, and when she turned back, the warmth between them had chilled.

  “I believe I tore your coat.”

  It wasn’t an apology. Aidan sensed she wouldn’t give him anything. Why would she?

  “My coat is easily mended. I hope the same is true for your scale model.”

  Miss Ashby turned her back on him and handed the box up to her brother. Aidan could read irritation in every line of her body—the hard clench of her jaw and square set of her shoulders.

  “You should fund my device, Mr. Iverson.” She faced him again and took one step closer. “My idea is sound and my device works beautifully. If I could fund several prototypes, the public might see their usefulness. I know I could return any investment offered.” She leaned in to emphasize her point, drawing so near that for the briefest moment her bodice brushed the fabric of his waistcoat.

  Aidan resisted the mad urge to reach out and touch her as he’d done that night in Belgravia. But he didn’t have the excuse of a bruised head and dizziness now.

  “You’ll regret not taking this opportunity, Mr. Iverson.”

  In that moment, with her rosewater scent all around him and her chin quivering beneath the plushest lips he’d ever seen, he had several regrets, but none of them had to do with investments.

  He reminded himself that he was on the hunt for a wife and needed a lady of good breeding, noble blood, and domestic inclinations. A bride completely unlike the woman standing so close that he could see the splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

  Would he regret refusing her? Possibly, but the opportunity he wanted had nothing to do with Miss Ashby’s device and everything to do with the woman herself.

  Chapter Six

  Being a twin was an odd business.

  Diana had never been able to hide emotions from her brother. Even when she tried, the connection between them allowed Dominick to sense her feelings.

  Thankfully, whatever his instincts about her mood, he did a brilliant job of not mentioning the debacle at Lyon’s on their carriage ride home. Of course, he ruined it all five minutes later as they approached the front door.

  “I’m sorry, Di,” he said with a sad smile.

  “There will be more opportunities. And next time things will go differently.” She wasn’t ready to give up, and the last thing she wanted were words of pity or platitudes.

  “I’m proud of you.” He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. “I may not tell you enough. Actually, I may never tell you at all.” He frowned thoughtfully. “You are a brilliant inventor.”

  Diana squinted into the sunlight casting a halo above her brother’s head. “I suspected you imbibed too much last night, but now I’m wondering if at some point you stumbled and knocked your head.”

  He smiled in reply and she tried too, though her face felt tight and everything in her rebelled. Disappointment was still too fresh.

  Besides, she and Dom had never been the sort of siblings to offer compliments. They bickered and brawled and challenged each other. That was how it had always been. But she soaked up his words and let them sink in. There was comfort in knowing that
he believed in her. She didn’t wish to think of those moments before the Duke’s Den when it had all fallen apart.

  That mortification was too much to swallow all at once. She’d ponder the disaster of it all later, when she was alone.

  “I know it didn’t come together as you wished, but going was terribly brave. You were the first.”

  A sigh escaped from a place so deep in the center of her chest that the exhale burned. “Perhaps I’ll be the last.”

  “Then they’re fools.” Dom stepped closer, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Don’t even think of giving up on your inventions. Father never stopped believing in his.”

  Diana bit back the reply that rushed up. “He was tenacious.”

  Dom had always idolized their late father, looking up to him despite his many failures. What she didn’t mention was what her brother chose to ignore. Their father’s tenacity had bankrupted their family.

  At times, Diana feared she was like her father. Bullheaded, impractical, too devoted to her own ambitions to consider the needs of others. Few of his inventions had been useful and half hadn’t functioned at all.

  No, she wasn’t like him. Tenacity they might share, but not the rest. Her inventions were practical. All of her ideas could help others. If she could find success with just a single one, the influx of funds would help her family too.

  “Ready to face Mama?”

  “I didn’t tell her where I was going this morning, so at least I won’t have to bear her disappointment.”

  Dom winked. “What Mama doesn’t know is for the best.”

  Di followed her brother through the front door. No servants greeted them. They’d let one of their maids go the previous month to economize, and the cook and housekeeper were no doubt busy below stairs.

  Their mother’s voice, along with several others, echoed from the front drawing room. Diana exchanged a raised-brow glance with her brother.

  “I’m not going in there. I’ll face her later,” he said with a foot on the first step that led to the upstairs bedrooms. “First, I need to sleep.”

  Diana waited for him to ascend the stairs and straightened her spine before entering the drawing room. Her jaw dropped at the scene before her.

  Three of her friends, young women she hadn’t seen in nearly a year, sat clustered on the settee. Lady Sophronia Bales squealed when she spotted Diana in the doorway. Miss Grace Grinstead and Lady Elizabeth Thorndyke smiled warmly at her.

  Her mother offered an inscrutable expression and raised her arms in welcome. “Diana, dear. You’re finally home.” She came forward, gripped Diana’s shoulders, and planted a quick kiss on each cheek. “The note you left was rather cryptic,” she whispered.

  “Not cryptic, Mama. Just incomplete.”

  “I insist you tell me all about your morning promenade later. First, come and say hello to your friends.”

  Each lady stood and they exchanged hugs and cheek kisses before Diana took a seat on an overstuffed chair nearby.

  “My goodness, it’s good to see all of you.” She let her gaze rest on each friend’s face, remembering the adventures they’d gotten up to together at Bexley Finishing School. “What brings you for a visit?”

  The Season, she guessed, would draw all of them to London. Of the group she’d studied with at Bexley, only a handful had yet to secure a betrothal. Those whose families could bear the expense had a fresh Season year after year, ever determined to make a fortuitous match.

  “We hadn’t heard from you, Di,” Lady Sophie said in her high-pitched voice. “We were worried you hadn’t received our invitation.” She beamed at her companions on either side of her on the settee. “So we decided to come and invite you in person.”

  Diana frowned. “To what exactly?” A quiver of nervousness chased across her skin.

  When she was working on an invention, her habit was to turn down invites to dinners and soirees, not that she received many. Just the notion of a ball made her queasy. Dancing had been an accomplishment at which she’d never excelled.

  “Your classmates are planning a reunion, Diana,” her mother put in before any of her friends could answer. “Apparently your invitation went astray.”

  “Do say you’ll come.” Lady Elizabeth was the most earnest of the lot. Emotional and prone to fancy, she was also one of Diana’s kindest friends.

  “We’ve brought a new invitation.” Grace dipped a hand into her reticule and pulled out a cream-colored rectangle with Diana’s name printed on the front in bold, swirling letters. “All the details are inside.”

  “My parents have agreed to host the event.” Lady Elizabeth leaned forward and smiled. “Would it be very rude of me to insist you come? It will be a wonderful way to start the Season and Mama has promised to devote herself to matchmaking for all of us.”

  Diana fretted endlessly over her family’s financial struggles, but she’d never been disappointed that she’d been spared the rituals of a Season, or matchmaking.

  “Sophie and I are doing much of the planning,” Elizabeth continued. “We thought we’d start with a luncheon, some games in the garden, and then a dance in the evening.”

  “In other words, a ball.” Diana tried to hide a shudder at the prospect.

  “Say you’ll come. A Bexley reunion wouldn’t be complete without you.”

  Di sensed her mother’s gaze on her, searching and intense. Rather than face the question in her eyes, she stared at the empty patch of wall over the fireplace. A landscape painting had hung in the spot for years, but the previous week their mother had sold it to an art dealer in order to fill their coffers and pay the rent.

  They’d already lost so much. Not merely furnishings and housemaids but dignity. The Ashbys had once been a proud lot. Her grandfather had been a respected leader in society, a philosopher who’d written volumes on man’s essential nature. Her grandmother had busied herself raising six children, including four daughters, all of whom went on to marry higher than they’d been born.

  It was a hope Diana’s mother had long nursed for her too.

  She understood her mother’s wishes. If she or Dom married well, their mother could reside with one of them. Their house might be sold or let. How could she blame her mother for wishing to see her children settled and to find a bit of security in her dotage?

  “Your invitation,” Grace said with a smile, offering up a small buff-colored envelope sealed with a daub of wax.

  Diana glanced at her mother and reluctantly took the envelope. Inside, she found an invitation to the reunion, which was to be held in a few weeks.

  Diana pressed the envelope to her lap as a wave of nostalgia made her throat burn. She’d kept herself so busy that she’d neglected the few friendships she valued. Being matched with an eligible suitor didn’t interest her in the least, but she was touched by her friends’ kindness and encouragement.

  “Will you attend, Diana?” Grace, who’d shared her dormitory at finishing school, met her gaze squarely. She was a young woman who could hide her own feelings well, but always seemed to suss out others’ quickly.

  “I’ll come to the reunion.” As soon as she’d agreed, Diana felt a strange mixture of dread and eagerness.

  “Hurrah!” Sophie bounced in place on the settee, clapping her gloved hands and squealing with excitement.

  “Will you stay for luncheon, ladies?” her mother asked cheerfully.

  Diana’s brow winged up. They hadn’t hosted visitors at their home in ages, and she wondered if their cook could rustle up something better than a few cups of tea on such short notice.

  “We should go,” Elizabeth said. She offered Diana a nod and a soft smile, as if she was pleased with the outcome of their visit. “But while we’re all in town, we should see each other more.”

  “I’d like that.” Diana kept her own company too much. Time spent working on her inventions allayed most of her loneliness, but not all.

  After lingering good-byes and promises to meet again for a stroll through the park
or a visit to a museum, Diana waved until their carriage had rolled out of sight, and returned to the drawing room.

  Before saying a word, her mother rang for tea and seated herself on her favorite chair as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

  “Are you going to tell me where you were this morning?” she finally asked.

  When Diana didn’t immediately offer an answer, her mother patted the arm of the settee. “Have a seat, my dear. We must talk.”

  Dreaded words. A little shiver danced down Diana’s spine.

  When she sat, her lower back twinged, a reminder of her collision with a tall, muscled man. She’d been so certain Iverson or Huntley might invest in her idea, and yet all of them had disappointed her.

  “I’m not angry with you, Diana.” Eloise Ashby could lie to a parson, charm a naysayer, and spoke freely but rarely said exactly what was on her mind.

  Yet Diana could sense this was different. Her mother wore no false smile, and she’d settled back against the cushions of her chair as if the morning had already worn her out.

  Weakness was nothing Diana was familiar with in her mother. She was never ill, never anything but cheerful about facing a new day.

  Her mother’s gaze settled on the empty patch of plaster above the fireplace.

  “Your father gave that painting to me after an argument.” A small smile teased at the edges of her mouth and she glanced at a portrait of him on the far wall. “I accepted the watercolor because it was a gift. But I require no dreadful landscape to remind me of him.”

  To Diana, her father’s legacy was the poverty and indebtedness her family had struggled to overcome since his passing.

  “I see your father in you and your brother every day.”

  “There is an unmistakable resemblance.” An agreeable tone was all Diana could manage. Today, when she needed a bit of her mother’s sunny disposition most, she felt numb. Disappointment had dimmed everything else.

  “You took your invention away with you this morning. I saw you departing with your box.”

  Diana cast her mother a rueful look. Her father might have possessed a prodigiously creative mind, but her mother’s powers of observation were impressive too. She and Dom were fools to think anything slipped her notice.