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‘No, Cleo, that is not how it was. How it is,’ he said, his voice low, for her ears only. His eyes were dark with what she had come to recognise as pain. Doubtless her words had stung. ‘Cleo—’
‘Goodbye, Quin. I hope I never see you again.’
‘You appear to have won, Your Grace.’ Cleo returned to her seat as the door closed behind Quin. She poured herself a cup of tea and tried to deal with her churning emotions. She wanted to believe Quin so badly and yet her grandfather had made it clear there would be payment for her return. ‘Would you care for tea?’
‘Thank you.’ The duke sat and watched her as she prepared the cup, added a slice of lemon—surely he did not indulge in anything like sugar or milk—prepared a plate of savouries and little cakes and came and placed them on the table at his elbow.
She sat again with careful attention to her skirts and smiled her sweetest, falsest smile as she selected two morsels for herself and picked up a tiny silver fork. ‘You see—I do not drink from the saucer nor stuff food in my mouth with my hands. Perhaps I am not quite the savage you think me.’ He made an ironic inclination of the head. ‘Nor am I an idiot, Your Grace.’
‘I never thought you were, Augusta. Your father, for all his faults, is an intelligent man, within his restricted focus. Your mother was a bright young woman, until she lost her mind and eloped with him. But neither am I gullible. You will not lull me into a false sense of security by behaving meekly now, not after that little exhibition.’
‘I was deceived and I find myself, against my will, somewhere I have no wish to be. My money has been withheld. Do you expect me to murmur, Yes, Grandfather, whatever you say, Grandfather? I am angry and I am upset and I am not going to hide the fact.’
‘You wish me to admit that I was at fault? Very well. As soon as I received news of your mother’s death I should have sent agents to remove you and bring you to me. Do you wish me to apologise? I do so. I had no idea you were living the life of a drudge or had been married off to some Frenchman—again, both the result of my failure to bring you back to England and secure you a suitable husband.’
‘I would not have come. My objection, Your Grace, is not to your prior lack of attention, but to my imprisonment now. I do not wish to be here, it is as simple as that.’
‘You have no choice. Your only course of action is to make your life in England, become an English lady, behave like the granddaughter of a duke. How else can you survive? There is nowhere that you belong any more, Augusta, except here.’
I belonged with Quin, she thought, wondering at the pain that tore through her. I love him, even though he has deceived me. What can I do? The realisation that her grandfather was right, that unless he released her money to her she had no options save this one, was painfully obvious once she moved past the emotions that racked her and applied only reason to her plight.
‘Very well, but upon conditions.’ She was an adult and she would negotiate, not meekly take orders like a child. ‘My name is Cleo and I will not answer to any other. Maggie Tomkins is my maid and I will continue to employ her and she will receive the wage suitable to my closest servant. And if I have not remarried by my twenty-fifth birthday in eighteen months’ time you will give me access to my money and release me from your control.’
‘You think to negotiate with me, do you? Very well. Your maid, I agree to. Your Aunt Madeleine, who is a widow, is here and will see whether she needs any assistance to bring you up to scratch. Your name, I suppose, we must tolerate. It is at least fashionable if the new craze for all things Egyptian lasts. Your other condition is, of course, nonsense. You will make a suitable marriage to a gentleman of my choosing.
‘You may call me Grandfather and you will apply yourself to becoming a lady. You will give proper attention to every offer of marriage I approve. If you have found no one you are prepared to marry by the time you reach your twenty-fifth birthday then you will move to the country and become the companion of your Great-Aunt Millicent.’
‘But—’
‘There is no other respectable occupation for the spinster granddaughter of a duke. That is my final word.’
It was a prison sentence. But if she kept turning down suitors she had time to learn about this strange country and its ways, time to plan and accumulate money, somehow, so that when she was banished she could escape. In time, perhaps, she could forget Quin Deverall.
‘And if you show yourself unfit to learn and fail to comport yourself as a lady, then you will go to the country immediately.’
Her stomach knotted with a pang of something very like fear. How naïve to believe she could lay down terms to this man. Her grandfather meant what he said and he had the power to carry out his threats—no one was going to naysay a duke.
