Duke Du Jour Excerpt

 

[To set up this excerpt, Jared Langley, present-day thirteenth Duke of Reston, has taken a tumble into a dilapidated fountain in an overgrown section of his ancestral estate and awakens in 1816.]

 

     Jared's lungs had seized up, and he coughed hard to get some air.

     "Back are ye? Ye should have tol' someone, Yer Grace," a feminine voice squealed.

     He stared up at the oddly dressed stranger addressing him. "You know me?"

     "Know ye? I've knowed ye so long, I walked ye on leading strings a time or two when nurse got too deep in her cups."

     Oh good Lord. That couldn't possibly be true.

     "Of course, you are Miss–"    

     "Miss?" She cackled. "Ye always were a charmer. Look at ye now, calling old Cook a miss!"

     The woman's clothes appeared worn—a long flowered skirt with a white blouse and a vest of sorts and a white mobcap on her head. She looked a couple hundred years out of place. He grinned sheepishly and shifted to glance around. He still sat on the low fountain wall in the secluded back garden, but he must have blacked out from the headache. Only–

     He frowned. Everything in the little garden looked immaculate—no weeds—and tiny hedgerows separated groups of delicate-looking plants.

     "Are ye feelin' all right, Master Jared? And what be ye doin' back here in me herb garden and wif yer head all wet? Did ye dunk yer head in the fountain?"

     Herb garden? He smoothed damp hair back from his face for a better look. His hair was indeed soaked, as were his clothes. What the hell had happened to him? And who was this person called Cook? Had Everston hired someone without telling him? That would be the last time his estate manager did so.

     "Blimey, did ye fall in the fountain?" The odd woman frowned down at his wet clothes, her hands at her generous hips. "Ha' ye been drinkin' again, Master Jared? And what strange clothes be those now? Some sort of Frenchie's clothes? Good thing His old Grace cocked up his toes, or he would take a strip off yer hide, showin' up drunk here at Haverly and lookin' like that."

    "His old Grace?"

     "Yer pa," she said, frowning a bit.

     Was the woman some kind of ghost? And what the hell had happened to the weed patch he had stumbled through? He could not have been out more than a minute or so, and that was if he fainted—which he never did. Ever.

    "Where do you live?" he asked suddenly, in case this was a joke played on him by his reprobate friends, Halworth and Bertleven—Viscount and Earl of, respectively.

     She did not answer. She marched over, or rather rumbled over, and pressed a gnarled, greasy hand to his forehead, which he fought the urge to swat away.

     "No fever," she said and grinned, which immediately forced Jared to look away.

     The sight of her teeth and gums close up would make him faint for real. Her breath unfortunately could not be avoided, for it lingered in the air and forced him to his feet. The sudden movement had him swaying unsteadily. Had he struck his head? Could he have a concussion and merely be hallucinating?

     "See 'ere," she said and grabbed his arm to steady him. "I'd best get ye into the kitchen and get ye a bite to eat. That is prob'ly what's wrong. Drinkin' and no eatin'."

     She tugged him through the arbor gate toward the main garden and then up a side path toward the back kitchen door. She certainly knew her way around his manor for him never having seen her before.

     "I knows things are bad 'ere, Master Jared, but I'd not leave ye high and dry without old Cook. I still lives here, I do. Though I would not mind ye payin' me the last six months of wages ye owes me."

     "Six months!" he exclaimed and stopped dead in his tracks, which almost jerked her backward as she still had a firm grip on his arm. He grabbed her mushy arm to keep her upright, not totally sure he could heave her bulk up off the ground if she fell. "Steady."

     "I didn't mean to startle ye." She tugged at his arm again. "Come along."

     He resisted. "Are you telling me you have not been paid in six months? And you are an employee here?"

    She looked at him as if he had grown an extra head. "I am a servant 'ere," she said warily.

     "That is impossible! We have never made our employees wait for salary."

     "I s'pose not," she said. "No one would wait for celery. Leastways not me."

     "Not celery. Salary," he almost shouted.

     She stared.

     "Pay." He tried again. "Wages. We have never made anyone wait for wages."

     "Maybe nots when ye're here, but ye're off in London all the time," she pointed out calmly.

     "Well, of course I am. I live in London, and I have investments to manage."

     She raised her brows, and he bristled. "Come inside. I will give you a check right now for your wages."

     He was twelve steps down the path before he realized he was alone. The woman called Cook stood where he had left her.

     "What?" he said impatiently.

     "A check?" The ebullient, oversized woman finally frowned. "Ye want to check on me before payin' me wages?"

     Had he fallen down the rabbit hole? He stalked back. "No, not check on you—give you a check."

     "Gimme a check?" she echoed.

     "Yes!"

     Was the woman daft? Everston would certainly get an earful. Forgetting to tell Jared about this Cook woman is probably how her wages were overlooked in the first place. But for so long? Why had she not complained before now? Which he promptly asked her.

     She smiled. "I weren't about to complain about me wages iffn ye were havin' a bit of a bad spell. I weren't leavin' no how. Why I have known ye since ye were a babe."

     He finally understood her leading strings remark, and he stared hard at the woman. No, he had never seen her before.       "You must mean my father."

     "Him, too."

     He sighed. "Come along. Let's get your check."

     "If it's all the same to ye, Master Jared, I'll be waiting till ye can pay me gold sovereigns like always. I don't know about no check."

     "Sover– "

     They were almost at the kitchen door, and the sidewall of the house caught his eye. The thick coating of moss had recently been cleaned off, and the ancient bricks looked almost—not ancient. Well, at least Everston had paid for upkeep.

     "Look, Cook," he said, since that was the only name she had given, "I am not having financial problems, and I can and will pay you. Today."

     She grinned, and he winced.

     "Sovereigns?"

     "I do not–"

     The sound of hoof beats and wheels churning came from the path to the old stone stable. Seconds later, what looked to be a perfectly restored nineteenth-century curricle pulled up with a magnificent pair of spirited blacks in harness. The young man driving tied off the reins and jumped down, and Jared could only stare in stunned disbelief.

     Curricle Man matched Jared's height and build and wore scuffed knee-high boots, what appeared to be knickers, and a wool vest over a loose, long-sleeved white shirt with a linen scarf stuffed in the collar. A wave of dizziness struck Jared again. Curricle Man strode over and bowed.

     Bowed? 

     "Chappy said you were back, Master Jared. So, I took the liberty of bringing round your curricle, so you could take straight off to see Lady Wilder."

     This tableau had quickly turned into a nightmare.

     "I do this often," Jared said. The words came out sounding like a question, and he received two incredulous looks.

     "As soon as you arrive, Mast– uh, Your Grace. At least, you did on the last few visits before you left for the continent," Curricle Man offered. "I only thought–"

     "Well, do not think. Maybe this visit I choose to be different. I can change."

     Jared got the you-must-be-daft look again. Truth be told, he felt a bit daft since he had not known he owned a curricle and had no intention of driving this one until he learned how. Sulkies he knew. Restored curricles, not at all.

     "Begging your pardon, Your Grace," Curricle Man persisted, "but you always said if you did not go there, Lady Wilder would come here. And you hate that." The man gave him a wary stare. "Of course, that was more than two years ago."

     Jared's head pounded in earnest, and he fought off a wave of nausea brought on by the accompanying dizziness. He did not know these people, he had no idea what or whom they were talking about, and he feared a climactic ending to this delusional scene.

     "Yes, but this year is–" He had meant to say different, but Cook—who had been strangely silent throughout their discourse—beat him to the punch.

     "–1816 of course," she said, looking worried. "Are ye sure ye did not hit yer head back at the fountain, Master Jared?"

     "1816?" he asked weakly.

     "Right," the two strangers agreed in unison.

     Oh dear Lord in heaven! I am not just named after Jared Langley. I am Jared Langley, seventh Duke of Reston.

     Then everything went black.

 

 

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

     Jared awoke in a less-than-comfortable bed, in a room that looked familiar. Appropriately enough, his family had always referred to this room as the Georgian bedroom with its Hepplewhite armoire and dressers. He struggled to a sitting position in the middle of the four-poster bed only to have an oddly dressed woman surge forward. No, wait, she was dressed normally. He was the one oddly attired. He let loose a groan.

     “Ye’ve got a nasty bump on the back of yer head. Lie back, Master Jared. The doctor stepped out for only a minute. He will be right back, and ye do not want to move the little buggers.”

     “What little buggers?” He followed her gaze to his arms. “Gaah! Get them off!” he shouted. “Get them off!”

     He clawed at the brown leeches stuck to his arms and noticed his pants rolled to his knees and more of the insidious creatures clinging to his calves and shins. He switched back and forth between scraping at his forearms and scraping at his shins.

     “See here!” a deep voice boomed. “Leave those on.”

     A white-haired man in a tailored jacket and trousers came running and forced him back down in the bed.

     Jared shoved the man backward several feet in his panic. “Get off me!”

     He resumed clawing at the slimy invertebrates anchored to his skin. He scraped with his nails and managed to pull free one end of a rather large blob, only to have the sucker reattach when he picked at the opposite end.

     “Get them off!” he roared at the jacketed man, and then, with a sudden blast of insight, “I command you this instant!”

     That got the man’s attention. That and Jared’s ticked-off glare that sent normal men scurrying for cover–some genetic effrontery he must have inherited from autocratic ancestors, though the glare often came in handy.

     “Dr. Padwick, should ye be removing them?” the woman asked timidly. “Cook says the master hit his head, and he might not be right. And look at them clothes.”

     Jared turned his genetic glare on her, and she clamped her lips shut.

     The doctor hesitated, and Jared barked, “Off! Now!”

     The man resumed scraping the indolent creatures from Jared’s arm with some type of spatula, which left angry red welts in their wake.

     “They were not even on long enough to break the skin,” the quack Padwick muttered.

     “Thank God for small favors.” The comment earned Jared a frown. “Padwick, you say?”

     The man paused to stare. “You have known me the whole of your life, Your Grace.” He reached out to feel Jared’s forehead for fever.

     He jerked away. “I’m fine. Keep picking.”

     With a resigned sigh, Padwick returned the last of the miscreants to their traveling jars, and Jared exhaled hard. He had read about the depraved medical practice of using leeches to cure everything from a cold to a stab wound in this century, but suffering the application firsthand shed new light on the imbecilic theory. How could anyone think removing blood from your body could heal you? And with germ-covered leeches, no less? Even if part of the blood was truly tainted, there was no guarantee the leeches would suck out the right corpuscles.

     “You honestly believe sticking those slabs of slime on my skin would truly cure a headache?” he asked, affronted.

     “A headache, no. That would need willow-bark tea. A bad bump on the head needs leeches to reduce the swelling inside your skull,” the so-called doctor clarified.

     “And if my headache and the nasty bump on my head should go away on their own?”

     The doctor drew himself up to his full, though average, height. “Luck.”

     Jared felt for a lump. Sure enough, an egg-sized bump had risen at the back of his skull.

     “How many fingers am I holding up?” the quack asked, waving two in front of his face.

     Jared did a mental eye roll. “Two.”

     “And what year is it?”

     He hesitated, then answered, “Eighteen sixteen.”

     The doctor looked satisfied, and a wave of dizziness swept over Jared again. He had to be dreaming! How the devil had he arrived back in the nineteenth century? Time travel was impossible except in motion pictures.

     He pinched himself to check whether he was dreaming and noticed the round pink blotches on his arm. The damned leeches had been real enough. All his problems had started with that blasted fountain in the back garden. One minute he was in the twenty-first century, the next he was back with King George and Napoleon.

     The woman and the idiot doctor were staring warily at him. He had obviously been acting strangely in their eyes, and dressed as he was, he had no doubt caused a stir there as well. He wanted to know who the woman attending him was–hell, he wanted to know who everyone here was. Without modern appliances, Duke Seven probably retained a small army of servants to care for the manor.

     These people obviously all knew him, but if he kept asking strange questions, they could have him shipped off to Bedlam, the real Bedlam, or rather the old Bethlem Royal Hospital, where he would never be seen or heard from again. Thank God–and he had been doing a lot of that today–for the historical research he had done on his ancestors and their respective periods in history. Would that not be a kick in the arse? To be stuck in the nineteenth century and committed? Hell, he would never get back to the future.

     An idea struck–pure genius.

     “Er, Dr. Padwick?”

     The old doctor shifted his disapproving stare from his jars of horror back to Jared. “Yes, Your Grace?” he responded with all the professional hauteur he could manage.

     “Could one lose part of one’s memory with a sufficient blow to the head?”

     A gamble, sure, but Jared could not gain the necessary information by waiting around. He certainly could not tell these people the truth, or he would be strapped into the first carriage to Bedlam.

     Padwick’s shoulders slumped with relief. “Why, yes, Master Jared, I believe that is entirely possible.”

     The quack felt back in charge, and Jared had obviously been forgiven as he was back to being Master Jared.

     “Are you having memory lapses?” Padwick asked, his tone rhetorical to the point of smug.

     “I believe I am. I mean, look at how I’m dressed. Where on earth would I get these clothes?”

     “Er, the continent?” Padwick offered. “I’m told you fought at Waterloo. Maybe you received a head injury there and aggravated it today?”

     “Yes, possibly. Would you happen to know how old I am?”

     Padwick looked incredulous. “Well, you have been gone two years, so that would make you thirty years of age according to my records.”

     Good Lord, that really is my age!

     “I know who I am, but I do not remember you or―” He looked pointedly at the older woman.

     “Heddy,” the woman said, brightening. “Heddy Demarr. I have been yer housekeeper for almost thirty years.”

     “Heddy,” he repeated and smiled.

     She bobbed her head.

     “How many servants do I have?”

     “Not nearly enough,” said Curricle Man, who had just strolled in.

     Padwick had his back turned as he busily packed the traveling leech circus into his doctor bag. Jared inclined his head at the quack and gave Curricle Man a not-in-front-of-him look.

     “Well, there’s Cook and Chappy and us,” Heddy said and smiled at Curricle Man. “Then there’s Shirley Duckett, the upstairs maid, and Ella, her older sister, is the downstairs maid.” She began ticking off her fingers. “Wiggs, your valet.” Another finger. “Thomas, the gardener.” Touched a pinkie. “Tish and Beulah, the scullery maids.” Then a thumb. “Dart and Wink, who works the stables. And–”

     “That’s all right. I only asked how many. I do not require all their names right now.”

     “Of course, Master Jared.”

     “Let me check that bump again, Your Grace,” Padwick said, suddenly all interest and concern.

     Jared winced when the not-doctor swiped two fingers over the lump. “How long will my memory lapse?” he asked, for good measure.

      “No more than a week or two,” Padwick proclaimed confidently.

     Pompous ass. The quack had no idea. Small wonder anyone survived in this century.

     A young boy, about twelve or thirteen years old, suddenly burst into the room. “She’s coming up the lane!” he exclaimed.

     The present occupants all stared. The poor boy shifted from one foot to the other. “She’s coming,” he repeated and gave Curricle Man a pointed look that was obviously supposed to mean something.

     Jared glanced at Curricle Man, and then he raised his brows at Heddy.

     “That is Bullen,” she said.

     Curricle Man gaped. “You didn’t know me?”

     “Not your name until this moment, no.”

     “Memory loss,” Padwick added peremptorily.

     “Oh,” Bullen said, making the word into several phonetic syllables.

     Jared suppressed yet another eye roll. He would make his head ache worse if he did not cease. “And who is coming?”

     Bullen’s eyes almost bugged out of his head.            “Lady Ariana,” he wheezed, like someone was choking him.

     Jared’s gaze shot to Heddy, and Bullen clapped a palm to his forehead.

     “Lady Ariana Hart, the Earl of Wakefield’s daughter,” she said primly and added, “Yer playmate as a child though ye were a might older.”

     Bullen groaned. “It is too late to run now. She’s probably pulled up to the steps already.”

     Jared threw his legs over the side of the bed. “Surely, you did not expect me to run.”

     Heddy leaned in and whispered, “I’m Heddy. Shirley’s the upstairs maid.”

     Jared blinked at her, considered explaining his adverb use, and thought better of it.

     “Remember, I told ye?” Heddy repeated slowly.

     “Right. So, why would I run?”

     Bullen and Heddy exchanged glances, and both gave a minuscule nod toward Padwick, who watched the exchange with interest.

     Jared caught on. “If you are through, Dr. Padwick, you may go. I will send word if I further require your services,” he said dismissively.

     The doctor gave one imperious sniff, snatched up his black bag of medicinal anomalies, and stalked for the door.

     The moment the door shut behind him, Jared turned to Bullen. “Now, why would I not want to see Lady Ariana if she was my childhood playmate?”

     Bullen swallowed hard and shot a worried glance at Heddy.

     “Do not look at her. Answer me.”

     “Well,” Bullen said slowly, keeping his eyes on the counterpane on Jared’s bed, “because of the way you had gotten to be those last couple of years before you left for the continent.”

     Jared narrowed his gaze. “And how is that?”

     Bullen swallowed hard a second time. “You know . . . dissolute.”

     Jared stared in shock. Mostly because Bullen knew the word. Nineteenth-century servants were not all that well educated. He also felt insulted, though common sense told him no, since he wasn’t really the seventh Duke of Reston. He thought of the smirk on Seven’s face in Jared’s portrait gallery.

     “Terribly dissolute?”

     Bullen blinked. “Pretty much.”

     “Ye’re a rake and a drunk,” Heddy added helpfully.

     “Well, ye are. Gossip is ye’ve slept wi’ half the married ladies in London and all the widows. Not yer fault though. Ye’ve a face like an angel,” she offered indulgently, “so the ladies flock to ye.”

     Bullen nodded. “You’re a looker, and you know it.” The man finally made eye contact and looked sad about his divulgence.

     Bloody hell. I am an arrogant, lecherous drunk, and I have only just arrived.

     “Do you always speak so openly to your duke?”

     Bullen looked as though Jared had just planted him a facer.

     Heddy answered for him. “Ye two grew up together, Master Jared. The old duke even let Bullen be tutored wi’ ye till ye went off to Eton. Ye always treated Bullen as more friend than servant. Ye even made him yer stable master. Things is different wi’ yer people out here in the country. Not like yer hoity-toity servants back in London.”

     “Hoity-toity, are they? I cannot remember.” He rubbed his head for effect.

     “Ye poor dear.” Heddy dunked the cloth and wrung it out. She came toward him. “Ye should lie back down, Master Jared.”

     He held up a hand. “I am fine. I just need your help remembering.” To Bullen, he said, “I thought you said my visitor would be Lady Wilder if I didn’t go to see her first.”

     Heddy gasped and glared at Bullen, who looked sheepish.

     “What?” Jared stared at his housekeeper.

     “She’s a fast one, that lady,” Heddy said, making lady sound like a curse word.

     He wanted to ask whether Lady Wilder was a looker too. Fast wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in his mind. He settled for “Does she come here often?”

     “No!” Heddy gasped again. “And it’s not proper for her to come here atall. Ladies do not do that sort of thing.

     “Right.” If he were stuck here for any length of time, he would have to bone up on the societal rules of the Georgian era.

     “Of course she does, bein’ a widow and all,” Heddy lumbered on.

     “A widow, you say.”

     “Aye. She was married to the Baron Wilder for only a year afore he passed.” Heddy gave Bullen a pointed look as though he should explain.

     “Ahem.” The stable master cleared his throat. “Some say she wore him out, if you will.”

     Jared felt his brows rise to his hairline.

     “Wilder was thirty years her senior,” Bullen quickly added, as though that explained everything.

     He could only stare. Things were getting curiouser and curiouser.

     “You always try to head her off at the pass,” Bullen pointed out. “That’s why I brought your curricle round.”

     His curricle. He bloody well intended to try out that cart. Then he remembered he had no idea how to drive a curricle. It could not be too much different from the sulkies he raced at Bertleven’s stables. If he was right, he would remember to thank Bertleven for his love of trotters when Jared returned to the future.

     “I may need your help there, too, Bullen.” He tapped his forehead.

     Bullen nodded knowingly. Thank God, these people knew something of memory loss.

     A knock sounded at the bedchamber door.

     Jared pulled himself to his feet and fought off another bout of dizziness. “Enter.”

     His butler appeared in the doorway.

     “Chapson,” Heddy hissed from behind Jared, and he gave her a slight nod.

     “An uppity one,” she whispered low enough only Jared could hear her, and he stifled a grin. “We call him Chappy.”

     “You have a guest, Your Grace,” the barrel-chested Chapson proclaimed in a sonorous tone. “I have placed her in the morning room.”

     Jared raised his brows in question.

     “Lady Wilder.”

     “Bloody hell! She’s beaten Lady Ariana here,” Bullen said and headed for the door. “You’re on your own.”

     Jared followed in his wake, and Chapson eyed him up and down.

     “What?”

     “Your attire, Your Grace?”

     “Bullen, wait!” Jared called. “Where’s my valet?”

     “I don’t know,” Bullen hollered back, halfway to the stairs. “London, maybe?”

     Jared glanced at Heddy.

     She looked horrified. “Don’t look at me! I haven’t dressed ye in over twenty years.”

     “I don’t want your assistance,” Jared groused. “Where are my clothes?”

     “Oh.” She pointed at a doorway to the far right of the bed. “Yer dressing room and wash room are through there. And all yer clothes.”

     He stalked past an incredulous Chapson, pulled the door wide, and stepped into a large square chamber that had been renovated into a master bath decades before the now-breathing Jared’s birth.

     A claw-footed white porcelain tub–too small for him to recline–and a washstand perched along one wall. The doors stood open on the twin walk-in closets he remembered. He stuck his head in the doorway of the first closet and found the necessary, more like a chamber pot with a seat. The second closet bore a row of large brass hooks down the left wall, each bearing a jacket of blue-gray or black, an enormous armoire against the back wall, and floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with folded clothes covered the right wall. A row of boots lined up like soldiers beneath the jackets. He pulled down a neatly folded pair of close-fitting wool pants shaped to the leg–pantaloons in this period–and shook them out.

     He grimaced. No way would he try to squeeze into these for the first time with a crowd waiting outside. To say nothing of finding a waistcoat, shirt, and jacket that actually fit. He needed to get downstairs, get rid of his company, get back to the fountain, and return home as speedily as possible.

     “Devil take it,” he muttered, tossed the breeches onto the chair inside the closet, and stalked back to the bedchamber, where Heddy thankfully held out his shoes and socks. She eyed them curiously. No time for history lessons. Chapson had already left, hopefully to attend the infamous Lady Wilder.

     Jared donned his footwear and headed for the door. He noticed Bullen had waited at the landing.

     “Are you coming?” Jared asked him as he started down the stairs.

     His stable master grinned wide. “Wouldn’t miss it.”