She had been made to feel like a celebrity. Like a star. And for those few days she had felt wondrously alive. How sad—no, pathetic—that in all her life there were no other memories half so vivid with which to regale herself when she sat alone like this, a little too weary to read. Or at night, when she lay in bed, as she sometimes did, unable to fall asleep.
They called themselves a club, the male guests who had stayed at Middlebury Park for three weeks—the Survivors’ Club. They had survived both the wars against Napoleon Bonaparte and the dreadful injuries they had suffered during them. Lady Barclay was a member too—the lady who had just married. She had not been an officer herself, of course, but her first husband had, and she had witnessed his death from torture, poor lady, after he had been captured in Portugal. Viscount Darleigh himself had been blinded. Flavian, Lord Ponsonby, Agnes’s husband, had suffered such severe head injuries that he could neither think nor speak nor understand what was said to him when he had been brought back to England. Baron Trentham and Sir Benedict Harper and the Earl of Berwick, the last of whom had inherited a dukedom since last year, had all suffered terribly as well. The Duke of Stanbrook years ago had gathered them all at his home in Cornwall and given them the time and space and care they needed to heal and recuperate. They were all now married, except the duke himself, who was an older man and a widower.
Dora wondered if they would ever again gather at Middlebury Park for one of their annual reunions. If they did, then perhaps she would be invited to join them again—maybe even to play for them again. She was, after all, Agnes’s sister, and Agnes was now married to one of them.
She picked up her cup and sipped her tea. But it had grown tepid and she pulled a face. It was entirely her own fault, of course. But she hated tea that was not piping hot.
And then a knock sounded on the outer door. Dora sighed. She was just too weary to deal with any chance caller. Her last pupil for the day had been fourteen-year-old Miranda Corley, who was as reluctant to play the pianoforte as Dora was to teach her. Miranda was utterly devoid of musical talent, poor girl, though her parents were convinced she was a prodigy. Those lessons were always a trial to them both.
Perhaps Mrs. Henry would deal with whoever was standing on her doorstep. Dora’s housekeeper knew how tired she always was after a full day of giving lessons, and guarded her privacy a bit like a mother hen. But this was not to be one of those occasions, it seemed. There was a tap on the sitting room door, and Mrs. Henry opened it and stood there for a moment, her eyes as wide as twin saucers.
“It is for you, Miss Debbins,” she said before stepping to one side.
And, as though her memories of last year had summoned him right to her sitting room, in walked the Duke of Stanbrook.
He stopped just inside the door while Mrs. Henry closed it behind him.
“Miss Debbins.” He bowed to her. “I trust I have not called at an inconvenient time?”
Any memory Dora had had of how kindly and approachable and really quite human the duke was fled without a trace, and she was every bit as smitten by awe as she had been when she met him for the first time in the drawing room at Middlebury Park. He was tall and distinguished looking, with dark hair silvered at the temples, and austere, chiseled features consisting of a straight nose, high cheekbones and rather thin lips. He bore himself with a stiff, forbidding air she could not recall from last year. He was the quintessential fashionable, aloof aristocrat from head to toe, and he seemed to fill Dora’s sitting room and deprive it of most of the breathable air.
She realized suddenly that she was still sitting and staring at him all agape, like a thunderstruck idiot. He had spoken to her in the form of a question and was regarding her with raised eyebrows in expectation of an answer. She scrambled belatedly to her feet and curtsied. She tried to remember what she was wearing and whether her garments included a cap.
“Your Grace,” she said. “No, not at all. I have given my last music lesson for the day and have been having my tea. The tea will be cold in the pot by now. Let me ask Mrs. Henry—”
But he had held up one elegant staying hand. “Pray do not concern yourself,” he said. “I have just finished taking refreshments with Vincent and Sophia.”
With Viscount and Lady Darleigh.
“I was at Middlebury Park earlier today,” she said, “giving Lady Darleigh a pianoforte lesson since she missed her regular one while she was in London for Lady Barclay’s wedding. She did not mention that you had come back with them. Not that she was obliged to do so, of course.” Her cheeks grew hot. “It was none of my business.”