Anything But a Duke Read online

  “I went to speak to potential investors, Mama.”

  “And what did they say?” Her mother learned forward in her chair.

  “Nothing for certain.” Diana’s throat burned. “They will give me their final decision via letter. By the end of the week.”

  “Why could they make no determination today?”

  “There were three of them. Perhaps they need time to consider.”

  “Which invention did you take? Not one of your outlandish ones, I hope.”

  “Invention is supposed to be outlandish, Mama. Beyond what anyone else has ever conceived.”

  Despite how passionately she made the argument, Diana feared her mother was right. Some of her early inventions had been rather . . . unusual. But she’d learned through trial and error. Now she strove for practicality. That was the one quality her father never understood.

  “I’ve designed a cleaning apparatus.”

  “Pardon?” After a brief glance around the dusty drawing room that their single housemaid hadn’t yet gotten to, her mother gave Diana an affronted look.

  “I have a prototype in my workshop if you’d like to see.”

  “I do love the creative spark you inherited from your father.” Her mother reached out and laid a hand gently on Diana’s.

  “I wish to succeed where he failed.” Diana worked to keep her voice calm. Such conversations were familiar. Her mother made no secret of the distaste she harbored for her daughter’s “pastime.”

  More often than not, she urged Diana to marry well, to do what she’d been born for, but Diana couldn’t bear more talk of husband hunting.

  “I want to find funding for this invention.” Shoulders back, hands clasped tightly in her lap, she added, “I know that once people use it, they’ll understand its value. Mama, I can triumph as no lady inventor ever has.”

  “Always full of fine ideas and so much zeal.” Her mother’s face softened and her mouth curved in a gentle smile. She reached out and cupped Diana’s chin in her palm. “I hope you will continue to have both after you’re wed.”

  Diana pulled away and rose from the settee. She approached the window, wishing she was sketching in the park across the square or visiting with a friend at the coffeehouse nearby. She longed to escape to her workshop. Why revisit an argument she and her mother had repeated a hundred times?

  There was no way to win. Diana couldn’t satisfy her mother without forfeiting everything. Yet her mother didn’t seem to understand the essential point.

  “If I could turn a profit with one of my inventions, our troubles would come to an end. The money I could bring in—”

  “I will not have my daughter earning wages like an office clerk.”

  Diana wheeled around to face her mother. “Then who will, Mama? Dom? You?”

  Returning to the settee, Diana perched on the edge and folded her hands in her lap. “Just one opportunity. That’s all I need. The system I’ve designed isn’t frivolous. It’s something everyone could use, whether household servants in Belgravia or a bachelor who works in the City and can’t afford a maid of his own.”

  After a moment, her mother let out a raspy breath. Her shoulders sagged and Diana clamored for any explanation that might make her understand.

  “But the investors did not see merit in your device.” Her mother’s words landed as sharply as she intended.

  “I don’t know that for certain.” Diana tugged nervously at the edge of her sleeve and felt the delicate lace trim give way. “They have not made a final decision.”

  “But they could have agreed today, could they not?”

  Diana looked up. Her mother’s gaze was too intense, too knowing.

  “You’ve pursued your pastime long enough,” her mother said tightly. She nudged her chin toward the invitation discarded on a table nearby. “Go to the reunion and the Merton’s ball. Allow Lady Elizabeth’s mother to take you under her wing.”

  Diana reached for the invitation and her hands shook as she fumbled to return the cream square to its elegantly printed linen envelope.

  “Don’t waste any more time, Diana.”

  So many hours. Days. Years of attempting to engineer a success. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see sunlight glinting on the gilded edge of her father’s portrait.

  She didn’t wish to be like him. Wasting her days. Disappointing her family and herself.

  The furniture creaked as her mother rose and came to stand behind her, wafting her familiar perfume, tapping gently at the floor with her cane. She only used it at home, where no one else might see.

  “Give me the month, Mama.”

  “And then?”

  “If I haven’t found an investor for my device—” The words stuck on her tongue like the gum arabic she used as adhesive in her workshop. “I will attend the ball and let my friends play matchmaker.”

  Just speaking the words made her dizzy. Blood rushed in her ears. The urge to take it back was so strong, she clenched her teeth to keep from speaking.

  “Thank you, my dear.” Her mother let out a long sigh of relief and laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re a clever young lady. I knew your good sense would win out.” She barely paused for breath before adding, “We should contact a modiste.”

  “Mama. There’s no money for new dresses.”

  Her mother squeezed her shoulder gently. “I’ve put some pounds aside. We must be prepared.”

  “I intend to find the money to fund my device, Mama. Please know that I’m hoping I won’t be going to the ball.”

  After a moment her mother nodded, a taut smile stretching her lips. “We shall see.”

  Diana placed a kiss on her mother’s cheek and strode to the room the family used as an office and library. She cut a square from a piece of foolscap, dipped a nib pen in the ink pot, and scratched out a note, not bothering with the precise penmanship she’d been taught at finishing school.

  This move was a bold one. A risk, to be sure, but what did she have to lose?

  When she’d finished and blown the ink dry, she folded her letter and slid it into an envelope, then added an address.

  Aidan Iverson

  c/o The Duke’s Den

  St. James Street, London

  She stared down at the words and dragged in a shaky breath.

  Her knowledge of games of chance was limited to rounds of whist with her brother. Dom was the inveterate gambler in the family.

  Diana prayed, in this gamble, her luck would be far better than his.

  Chapter Seven

  The woman was late.

  Hours after his clash with Diana Ashby at the Duke’s Den, Aidan stood shrouded in darkness and watched for any movement beyond the windowpanes of the Earl of Wyndham’s St. James town house. Clouds hung low in the sky, blotting out the light of the moon and coating every surface in a steady drizzle.

  But it wasn’t the cold or rain that caused a muscle to tick at the edge of his jaw. It was the waiting. Wasting minutes. He hated nothing so much as squandering time.

  After flicking rain from his coat collar and lifting the fabric to shield his neck and face, he returned his gaze to the back garden of Wyndham House.

  He couldn’t shake the sense of déjà vu and turned his head to glance down the row of houses, half expecting two thugs to materialize out of the fog.

  His private inquiry agent had arranged the clandestine meeting with the earl’s housekeeper, but Aidan insisted on questioning the woman himself. Whatever information she possessed, it was his alone. No one else’s.

  This time he’d come prepared. He gave his coat pocket a pat and felt the reassuring outline of a revolver. No thieving ruffians would spoil his plans this evening.

  After the attack, he’d returned to Belgravia a week later and confronted Lord Talmudge, only to discover that the Mariah “Mary” Iverson who’d worked for him had been an aged widow who’d served briefly as governess. Far too old to have been the woman who’d given birth to two children during the period when
Aidan and his sister were born.

  So he’d hired more investigators and their work had led him here. Waiting, once again, in the dark outside an aristocrat’s back garden.

  He clenched his hands into fists for warmth and considered battering the kitchen door. It was far more notice than he wished to attract and yet he had no desire to waste the evening in a pointless vigil either.

  In business, he traded in commodities—iron and steel, textiles and grain. But he’d learned long ago that time was the most precious commodity.

  Of late, it felt as if his time was running out. Or at least that his past was catching up. Guilt gnawed with teeth that were sharper each day.

  Perhaps it was the prospect of wedlock that spurred the need. The thought of children and the legacy he’d leave behind ironically made him look backward. If he didn’t face his past now, he sensed it would forever haunt his future.

  Light shifted behind curtains in the kitchen windows, and the squeak of a door hinge indicated someone had emerged from the house. Aidan could make out nothing through the drizzle until the glow of a single lantern lit the darkness, a circle of light that bobbed and swayed as the old woman approached.

  “Mrs. Tuttle?”

  “That I am, sir.” She came close and held up her lamp as she gaped at him. “You must be Iverson.”

  Even in the dim light, she seemed determined to see him. To study him.

  A flare of hope burned behind his ribs. He held his breath.

  “You reckon you’re Mary’s son, sir?”

  “Investigator Reeves said you knew her. And her children.” Aidan scanned the woman’s face as eagerly as she examined his, but it was futile. Even if they’d met long ago, he’d been but a boy.

  “Knew Mary well, I did. Met the boy twice. Held the youngest child when she was just a babe.”

  “Where did you meet them?” Aidan leaned closer and the woman stepped back in alarm. “Any details you have, Mrs. Tuttle, I’m willing to pay.” Sliding a hand inside his overcoat, he withdrew a pile of banknotes far enough for her to see the white of the paper.

  “Detective Reeves said you’re a rich man.” The old woman fluttered a hand at the high neck of her black servant’s uniform. “But there’s more to consider than coin.”

  “How much do you want?” Aidan understood negotiation, but there was no time for flimflam now. He’d pay the old woman a fortune if it meant he could learn the truth and find some measure of peace.

  “She left the earl’s employ in 1817. Took a room in Lambeth.”

  “Lambeth?” The same riverside district where he’d spent his childhood. “And she said her surname was Iverson? You’re certain?”

  Aidan had no clear memories of his parents. His first and ugliest memories were of his days in a workhouse. Of that time, there were only a few good reminiscences. Sharp, precious recollections of his younger sister.

  “I’ll never forget Mary Iverson, sir. She was like kin to me.”

  “Then you must tell me all you knew of her. Reeves said you had documents. Letters. A journal.” Aidan’s fingers itched. He was half ready to reach out and dig through the woman’s pockets. He’d been searching so long for any clue, any trace of his parents.

  “I’ve nothing for you tonight, sir.” The old woman sniffed and cast a glance back toward the Wyndham town house. “Wanted to have a look at you. Discover whether I could trust you. Whether you looked aught like Mary’s boy.”

  Aidan flinched. He hated the rush of longing that came, the need to have the emptiness inside him filled. How long had he sought belonging?

  But he sensed impatience wouldn’t do with Mrs. Tuttle. In his businesslike voice, he asked, “And what is the verdict?” He allowed no eagerness to seep into his tone. “Do I look like her?”

  Mrs. Tuttle shuffled closer and raised her lantern again. Her perusal came like the rough press of fingertips. Aidan half expected her to reach out and grab his jaw to hold him steady.

  “You do, sir.”

  Breath whooshed out of him. Relief expanded his chest, filling his lungs with a chilling gulp of damp air.

  “Then you must give me something. If you’ve no information, why agree to this meeting? You understand what I wish to know.”

  The housekeeper began nodding her head but said nothing.

  Aidan pulled out a five-pound note and held it in front of her. “There’s much more where this came from. But you’ll need to provide me with something tangible in return. Are there letters?”

  “Perhaps, a few.”

  He began to shiver. Not from the cold, but from desperation. Answers had eluded him for too long.

  “You shouldn’t return here, Mr. Iverson. There will be too many questions if you do. May I call on you?”

  “Soon, Mrs. Tuttle.” Before all good sense fled and he stormed Wyndham House and turned the place over brick by brick. He lifted a calling card from his waistcoat pocket.

  She hesitated for what felt like an hour, her gaze darting from the card to his eyes, his nose, his chin. The paper of his card began to grow soggy between his fingers.

  “Aye, you’re her boy,” she finally said. “I’m sure of it the more I look.”

  “Then assist me.”

  With trembling fingers, she reached for the card and the money, but she didn’t immediately pull away. Her hand came down on his and she held him for a moment before letting go.

  “Mary did love her children.”

  Then why did she send us to hell?

  “Next week, Mrs. Tuttle?”

  The woman shook her head vehemently. “I must request permission for a half holiday and wait for the mistress to grant the time.”

  “As soon as you can.” Aidan tipped a meaningful gaze down to where she clutched his card and five-pound note. “Good evening to you.”

  He watched her return to the house, her lamp flame guttering in the evening breeze. Then, just at the threshold, she turned back.

  “Mr. Iverson? You might check the lodging house in Lambeth. Close on the river. Off the Belvedere Road. Number fourteen, if memory recalls.”

  “When would she have been there?”

  In the lantern glow, he saw the woman’s mouth tilt.

  “How old are you, young man? She brought you into this world in that lodging house and I held her hand the whole long night. Three decades past?”

  “Eight and twenty years.” Long enough for the lodging house to have changed owners or to have been demolished completely. Likely too long for whoever had known his mother to remember her or anything about her fate.

  “I shall visit you soon, Mr. Iverson.”

  “Bring everything you have, Mrs. Tuttle. And hurry. I’m not a patient man.”

  Chapter Eight

  Aidan arrived at the office early the next day. He’d hoped to find word from Mrs. Tuttle that she’d received her half holiday and would soon be on her way to him with his mother’s journals and letters.

  But there’d been no messages. Only a diary full of appointments, a day filled with talk of new business projects, and the impending weight of marriage.

  Now, as the clock on the wall ticked toward six in the early evening, he found himself shifting in his chair, desperate to find a comfortable position from which to engage in the most uncomfortable of activities.

  Asking others for help fit him like an ill-tailored suit, pinching here, squeezing there. But the past months had proven that this decision was necessary. His own attempts at meeting and wooing a noblewoman ranged from ineffectual to downright comical.

  He’d decided to defer to an expert.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Iverson.” Professional matchmaker Mrs. Bertha Trellaway offered a loose handshake before seating herself in front of his desk.

  She was older than he expected. Prim, petite, and nervous, judging by the way her fingers danced back and forth across the edge of the leather folio in her lap.

  He’d worked off his own share of nervous energy by pacing his office befo
re her arrival, but he was better at masking unease. It was a gambler’s skill he’d honed over many years of practice.

  “I appreciate that you arrived so promptly, Mrs. Trellaway.” He smiled, but the lady didn’t seem to take any notice.

  She was a curious sort. He waited as she took in his office, scanning the items on his desk, the bookcase in the corner, a row of ledgers on a high shelf at his back. There wasn’t a great deal to see. He kept the space free of anything that might distract him from work.

  He didn’t mind her perusal. It gave him an opportunity to assess her in return.

  Aidan quite liked that she was a woman of advanced years. Age could prove an advantage. Years implied experience, and, in this matter, he needed all the help he could get. With no formal education, he often felt himself a step behind, especially when it came to etiquette and the dictates of polite society.

  Three months after telling his friends he required no help to catch the notice of some eligible noblewoman at a round of social functions, he’d decided to take Huntley’s advice.

  Heaven help him.

  Huntley had given him Mrs. Trellaway’s name and insisted she’d engineered matches between the most eligible ladies and gentlemen of the ton.

  “I have a few questions, if I may,” she finally began. With a single tug, the matchmaker released a fan of papers from her folder.

  The muscle under Aidan’s eye began to twitch.

  “What is it that you wish to know?” Aidan tugged at the knot of his tie and felt the thrum of his pulse beating against his fingertips.

  He had secrets to keep and a past mostly punctuated by mysteries.

  “Tell me about your people, Mr. Iverson.”

  “My people?” He attempted to swallow the stone that had lodged itself at the back of his throat. “I’d prefer we not tread there.”

  “I see.” The lady’s eyes bulged behind her spectacles and she shuffled the papers balanced on her knees. “Well, let’s save that for later. I understand you seek a highborn noblewoman for a bride. A lady of excellent breeding and accomplishments. Dowry unnecessary?”