“But,” the silver-haired man continued, “seeing as you are Miss Izzy Goodnight, and so fond of a story, perhaps I could tell you a tale about . . . an entirely different man.”
“Oh, yes.” She straightened in her chair, trying not to betray her excitement. “A fictional man. One who isn’t Rothbury at all. I would so love to hear a story like that.”
The valet cast a wary glance around the room.
“I won’t tell anyone, I swear it,” she whispered. “Here, I’ll even start. Once there was a young nobleman named . . . Bransom Fayne, the Duke of Mothfairy.”
“Mothfairy?”
She shrugged. “Did you have something better?”
He set the kettle on the hob. “He can never hear of this.”
“Of course not,” she said. “How could he? This man we’re discussing doesn’t exist. But this is the tale of his tragic past. In his youth, the nonexistent Duke of Mothfairy . . .”
“Was alone. A great deal. His mother died in childbirth.”
She nodded. This much, she’d learned from the man himself.
“And his father might as well have died the same day. The old duke shut himself off from the world to grieve, and he treated his son very coldly. Once this ‘Bransom’ was old enough, he frequently sought out . . . company.” The valet’s face contorted as he searched for words. “The female kind of company.”
“He sewed his wild oats, you mean.”
“Entire plantations of them. Good heavens. He made oat-sewing an industry.”
Izzy could believe it. She’d seen the accounts.
“But at the age of thirty, he finally settled down to the principal obligation of his title. Which was, of course, to produce the next Duke of . . .”
“Mothfairy,” she supplied.
“Yes.” Duncan cleared his throat. “He singled out the most sought-after debutante of the London season and declared his intentions to court her. The two were engaged soon thereafter.”
Izzy’s jaw dropped. “Ransom was engaged?”
Now she understood why he’d panicked at her foolish utterance of the word “marriage” earlier.
“No.” Duncan threw her a stern look. “Bransom was engaged. The Duke Who Doesn’t Exist. He was engaged to a young lady by the name of Lady Emi-” A distressed look crossed his face. “Lady Shemily.”
“Lady Shemily?” Izzy smiled to herself. He was getting into the spirit now.
“Yes. Lady Shemily Liverpail. Daughter of an earl.” The valet returned to his work. He uncapped a small bottle of something that scented strongly of lemon. “When the engagement was announced, the duke’s long-suffering servants were delighted. Some of the house staff had served the family for thirty years without a duchess. They were eager for a new lady of the house.”
“Including his trusty and distinguished valet?” she guessed. “Who went by the name of . . . Dinkins?”
“Especially his trusty and distinguished valet. Dinkins was looking forward to removing fewer remnants of rouge from the duke’s garments. Devilish tricky to remove, rouge.”
“I can imagine.” Izzy wondered what kind of woman could tempt the duke away from all that debauchery. “This Lady Shemily Liverpail . . . What was she like?”
“What you’d imagine a successful debutante to be. Beautiful, accomplished, well connected. And young. Just nineteen years old.”
Izzy suppressed a plaintive sigh. Of course. Of course Lady Shemily would be all those things.
“What went wrong?” she asked.
He hesitated.
“Fictionally. In this completely fabricated story that you’re only concocting to amuse me because you know how I love a tale of star-crossed love.”
“Everything was arranged,” he said. “Wedding, honeymoon, a well-appointed suite for the new duchess. And then, less than a fortnight before the wedding date, the bride-to-be vanished.”
“Vanished?”
“Yes. She disappeared from her bedchamber in the middle of the night.”