Forever My Duke--Unlikely Duchesses

by Olivia Drake

  Remington grinned. “The war may have been of vital importance to the Americans, but to us Brits it was a minor skirmish. We’ve bigger conflicts going on, most notably with the French.”

  With that, he introduced her to another of Hadrian’s friends. It was soon apparent the duke had arranged for her not to be left standing awkwardly alone in a sea of strangers. She had no lack of partners during the evening, including her grandfather and Lizzy’s husband. She also danced with her cousin Giles, who blushed when he trod on her foot. Despite his lack of fortune, he seemed a decent young man, so she agreed to his request to make him known to Lady Ellen, who was much taken with his dark Romany looks.

  Now and then, Natalie caught a glimpse of Hadrian squiring a succession of dewy-eyed debutantes and elegant grande dames. She knew him well enough to detect a hint of jaded ennui in his polite expression, a fact that perversely pleased her. Then, after one dance, she spied Lady Godwin sitting with a gaggle of equally sour-faced matrons. They were glowering in her direction in a way that cast a pall over her blithe spirits.

  “She may be my kin,” a familiar voice murmured, “but I never did like that woman.”

  Natalie turned to smile at Lizzy. “Lady Godwin? I fear she may be spreading gossip about me.”

  “Bah, what can she say? Everyone already knows you’re an American.”

  Natalie hesitated, then admitted, “Back at Oak Knoll, she accused me of being a swindler trying to pass off my own son as the earl’s grandson.”

  Lizzy pursed her lips. “What a nasty woman! Pray be assured, no one will heed her but a handful of her cronies. What matters to society is that Hadrian and Mama and I have given you our seal of approval.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “There’s no perhaps about it.” Glancing into the crowded ballroom, Lizzy absently rubbed her pregnant belly. “Ah, there’s Wrenbury. I suppose I must go and placate him. He fears I’m overtaxing myself, but I have no intention of leaving early and missing the lobster patties at supper.” She squeezed Natalie’s hand. “By the way, the best revenge on those chinwags is to be happy and enjoy yourself. Let people see that you don’t care what they think.”

  As Lizzy vanished into the throng, Natalie felt cheered to have the support of a friend. She reminded herself there were good and bad people everywhere in the world, not just in an English ballroom. It was liberating not to care what a few naysayers might think of her.

  During a break in the sets, she joined the duchess and Sir Basil, who were seated near one of the lush garden displays. As she quenched her thirst with champagne and rested her feet for a few minutes, a buzz swept through the multitude. The disturbance seemed centered on the doorway.

  “Can you look, my dear?” the duchess asked, lounging in her gilded chair while waving a dainty ivory fan at her face. “Oh, it is a plague to be so short.”

  Natalie arose to peer through the crowd. “There’s a party of newcomers. One of them is quite corpulent, and he’s wearing a blue cape with epaulets.”

  Sir Basil stood up to look, too. “Why, Millie. I didn’t know you’d invited Prinny.”

  The duchess’s eyes widened as she pushed to her feet, dropping the fan in her haste. “Oh no! I didn’t invite him. This is dreadful!”

  “Who is Prinny?” Natalie asked in confusion.

  “The Prince Regent. He was left off the guest list on purpose. I thought it wise to do so, for your sake.” Her manner agitated, she clutched Natalie’s arm. “My dear, I realize it goes against your principles, but I implore you to make an exception this once. You simply must curtsy to the prince.”

  Chapter 25

  Before Natalie could do more than blink, Hadrian joined them. “Forgive me, but I must disagree.”

  The duchess gazed beseechingly at him. “But you know His Highness sets great store on obeisance. If he takes it into his mind to cause trouble, it will create an unpleasant scene and ruin the ball. Natalie may be ostracized.”

  He listened gravely to his mother, then turned his attention to Natalie. As he lifted her hand and brought it to his lips, his keen eyes seemed to penetrate her very soul. “Never mind all that,” he said softly. “You may do as you wish. I’ll protect your good name.”

  His staunch willingness to defend her, even against a royal prince, held Natalie captivated. Under his unwavering gaze, she felt a rush of deep emotion that warmed her from head to toe. The truth came to her, not in a blinding flash, but with soft, steadfast certainty.

  She loved him. She loved Hadrian.

  Her heart overflowed with the richness of fervor. How could she have been so blind? These past weeks, she had been so distracted by her fixed views about the aristocracy that she had failed to heed what was most important. She had focused on his rank instead of on his character, his integrity, his honor.

  But did he love her? He’d never said so, not even when he’d astonished her with his stated wish for them to become husband and wife. In the past weeks, she’d had the sense that he kept a part of himself closed off.

  Was he drawn to her as a novelty because the ladies of society bored him? If she were to wed Hadrian, would he find the marriage less than exciting once the newness wore off? Would he turn to other women, then, as noblemen were wont to do?

  Her heart urged her to trust in him. Yet her long-held beliefs made her cautious. Infidelity was the one sin she could never abide.

  A sudden stir behind him interrupted her musings. Hadrian turned, keeping her at his side, as the throngs of people parted. Gentlemen bowed and ladies curtsied as the prince’s party strolled toward the duke and duchess.

  Despite her antipathy toward the monarchy, Natalie watched Prinny’s advance with a sort of awed fascination. Though she had not known his nickname, tales of his lavish expenditures and many love affairs had reached even the shores of America. Parliament, she knew, had made him regent in his father’s place ever since old King George III had been declared incurably mad.

  The prince’s features had a distinction that suggested he must have been a handsome man in his youth, though now his skin had a puffy, florid look. His dark locks must surely be dyed since he appeared to be past fifty. As a further sop to vanity, the feathery strands were brushed forward as if to conceal a receding hairline. His fancy blue cape revealed an overfed form in a black coat and white knee breeches, his cravat tied so absurdly high it surely must choke him. She suspected the style was meant to conceal multiple chins.

  The duchess sank into a deep curtsy. “Your Royal Highness! My son and I are honored by your attendance.”

  Prinny regarded her rather dolefully. “That is a relief, Duchess, as I’d greatly feared you might not welcome the royal presence at your ball. One does so dislike presuming to go where one has not been invited.”

  “I understood you to be in Brighton this week,” Hadrian said with a respectful bow. “It would have been presumptuous to make you feel obliged to return early to London. Dare we hope your health is much improved?”

  The prince appeared mollified by the smooth explanation and eager to expound on his illness. “It’s these horrid bouts of dyspepsia, they’ll be the death of me! The doctor thought a bit of sea air might be refreshing. But it was so frightfully cold that I was in constant alarm of contracting a lung fever, so here I am. Besides, there was an intriguing rumor that you’ve a houseguest from the wilds of America. Might I presume her to be this lovely young lady?”

  “Indeed,” Hadrian said. “Your Royal Highness, if I may present Miss Fanshawe, lately of Philadelphia, and granddaughter to Sir Basil Fanshawe.”

  Natalie found herself the subject of that royal stare, his eyes gray like Hadrian’s but far more fishlike. In the few short minutes since he’d come into her orbit, she had measured the Prince Regent to be a vain man coddled and flattered by his subjects, a blue blood who had been raised to believe himself superior to all others. But strangely, she found herself pitying him, for without the fine garb and the high position, he would be j
ust a middle-aged man preoccupied with his own mortality.

  The duchess watched them with an anxious expression. His Highness sets great store on obeisance, she’d said. Though Hadrian looked unperturbed, ready to shield her from any trouble, Natalie felt loath to ruin the ball, especially for his mother who had put her heart and soul into planning it. One exception could not be too much to ask after all they had done for her and Leo.

  She sank into the first curtsy of her life and hoped it was adequately graceful. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Your Highness. May I add that I’ve been much impressed by the welcoming nature of the British people, yourself in particular.”

  The prince’s expression warmed to a look of flirtatious charm that surely hearkened back to his glory days. “I daresay my father should have fought harder to quash the rebellion in the colonies and keep such beauty as yours within our empire. Clayton, you must bring Miss Fanshawe to Carleton House very soon.”

  “We’ll look forward to it, sir,” Hadrian said, with a formalness that made Natalie think he didn’t really mean it.

  Prinny and his companions took their leave and strolled through the ballroom so that he might accept more adulations from the hordes. There was a noticeable sense of relief in the air, emanating largely from the duchess.

  She hastened to Natalie. “My dear, how brilliantly you charmed him!”

  “Naturally,” Sir Basil said. “She is a Fanshawe, after all.”

  Hadrian chuckled. “But now we’re doomed to sit through a twenty-course dinner in tropical heat, for Prinny is known for his dislike of the cold.”

  “He won’t really invite me, will he?” Natalie asked dubiously. “Surely he was just being polite.”

  “I wouldn’t be so certain. The prince has an eye for pretty ladies, so I had best stake my claim on you before it’s too late.”

  With that, Hadrian whisked her off to the dance floor, where the first lilting notes of a waltz had begun. He took her hand in his, placing his other at the back of her waist. As they joined the couples whirling around the floor, she felt a heady rush of exhilaration at being in his arms again. The dance steps might be relatively new to her, learned and practiced only this week, but they were the perfect expression for her soaring happiness.

  When she tilted up her chin to smile dazzlingly at Hadrian, she found him gazing at her with mystified warmth. “Why did you do it?” he asked. “I’d have staved off any unpleasantness.”

  “Are you sorry you lost your chance to play knight-errant?”

  Cocking an eyebrow, he guided her in a perfect twirl. “You mustn’t feel compelled to act against your principles, Natalie. Failing to curtsy wouldn’t have been a tragedy. It’s just that my mother still remembers a time when she was snubbed as a young debutante for being a commoner.”

  That did explain the duchess’s anxiety. Still, tonight something had changed in Natalie, something liberating and intoxicating. The issue of what society thought of her, or what she thought of society, no longer seemed so very important. Only Hadrian mattered.

  “No one compelled me,” she assured him. “One can stay true to one’s ideals while occasionally doing what best suits the occasion. When in Rome, you once told me.”

  An ironic smile tilted one corner of his mouth. “We were on our way to Oak Knoll. I’d offered you and Leo a ride without realizing that my cool hauteur was about to undergo a momentous shake-up.”

  He sounded perfectly content with that, and Natalie marveled that she could have such a positive effect on this strong, powerful man. Hadrian wanted her as his wife, and she burned to tell him that she wanted that, too.

  If only she could be certain of his love. If only she could rid herself of a niggling impression that he had not opened all of himself to her.

  As the music ended, he maneuvered her toward the open doors and out onto the large balcony. A full moon cast a silvery mantle over the couples who were strolling here to escape the warmth of the ballroom—or perhaps a chaperone’s watchful eyes. Lighted lanterns were placed at regular intervals on the stone balustrade that overlooked the garden below.

  Hadrian took advantage of the near-darkness to trail his fingers down her back and across her arm, causing a shiver in her that had nothing to do with the coolness of the night air. “It’s nearly time for supper,” he murmured. “But I confess to having a different sort of appetite.”

  Passion radiated from him, the same desire that pulsed hotly in her blood. A pity they had an audience, for she yearned desperately to be alone with him. “Will you come upstairs with me for a moment?” she asked. “I promised Leo that I’d leave him a slice of cake on his bedside table.”

  His hand stilled on her back, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “Wait here. I’ll fetch him a plate.”

  She smiled to see the swiftness of his steps as he headed back into the ballroom. They couldn’t disappear for long, or people would talk. Nevertheless, anticipation fired her veins at the notion of having Hadrian all to herself, if only for a short while.

  He returned bearing two glasses of champagne and a plate piled with tarts and cake. “It’s best we’re not seen,” he said in low tone. “Follow me.”

  Hadrian led her toward an outside staircase that descended to the darkened garden. No one appeared to notice them since the other guests were heading inside for supper. With the steps in semidarkness, lit only by a few scattered lanterns, she was glad he’d gone first.

  They had just reached the bottom when a man came hurrying out of the gloomy depths of the garden. He spied them and stopped dead, glancing furtively behind him. The moonlight made a pale cap of his wheat-gold hair and washed out his stark, startled features.

  “Wymark,” Hadrian said. “Why the devil are you prowling out here in the dark?”

  “I—I wanted a breath of fresh air. No different from you and Miss Fanshawe. Excuse me.”

  Seeming anxious to avoid further questions, the viscount brushed past them and bounded up the stairs to rejoin the ball.

  “His cravat looked disheveled,” she said as Hadrian guided her to a door on the ground floor. “Do you suppose he was meeting a woman?”

  “Well, the fool did look behind him. Perhaps he told her to wait so they weren’t seen returning together.” Deftly balancing the two flutes and the plate in one hand, he opened the door. “A true gentleman would have sent her back to the ball first.”

  He waved Natalie ahead of him, and she stepped into a corridor lit by candles in sconces set at intervals along the walls. “You don’t see your cousin as a gentleman?”

  “Richard is a weak-willed libertine who was spoiled by his mother.”

  “How odd that you were both raised by the same man, yet turned out so very differently.”

  “The first Lady Godwin set great store on proper behavior. By the time the earl married the present countess, I was away at school. Richard used to brag that she always intervened whenever Godwin tried to discipline him.”

  He ushered Natalie into a study lit only by an ethereal glow from the bank of windows that overlooked the moonlit garden. A rich leather scent came from the bound ledgers that lined the shelves behind the large desk. Despite its spaciousness, the shadowy room had a cozy aura with several seating areas and framed paintings on the walls.

  Hadrian set down the plate and handed her one of the flutes. “But I didn’t bring you here to talk about my kinfolk.”

  She took a sip of champagne, the bubbles tickling her tongue and filling her with an effervescence of spirit. The glint of his eyes in the semidarkness made her blood surge. “Oh?” she said flirtatiously. “What other possible reason could you have for luring me into your den, sir?”

  His low chuckle sounded deliciously dangerous. “Saucy wench. You know perfectly well.”

  Without taking his gaze from her, he put down his glass, did the same with her flute, and then gathered her into his arms. Their mouths joined in a deep kiss that flared like wildfire through her veins. The magic of th
e moment surpassed the entirety of the ball, thrilling her far more than dancing, drinking champagne, and even meeting a prince.

  Her arms wreathed around his neck, she arched to Hadrian, craving the pressure of his hard body against her softness. The urgent caress of his hands on her face and back suffused her with intense joy. She was exactly where she belonged, in the embrace of the man she loved. How strange to think that little more than a month ago, she hadn’t even known he existed. Now it had become difficult to imagine her life without him.

  He broke the contact to glide his lips over her cheek. “My God. I’ve been wanting to do this all night.”

  “Mm. I’ve been wanting to do it for the past two weeks. Especially this.” She swirled her hips against him.

  His chest vibrated in a choked laugh. “You know why we mustn’t … unless you’ve changed your mind about us.” Just like that, the ambience grew serious as he cupped her face in his hands. “Have you, Natalie? Have I convinced you to accept my offer of marriage?”

  Aware of his watchful gaze in the shadows, she ached to say yes. They could spend the rest of their lives together, raise a family, enjoy that rapturous intimacy again and again. After tonight, she felt confident that she could fit into his world without having to relinquish her core beliefs. Even her attachment to America held far less sway over her heart than he did. Yet she could not commit herself without laying to rest one niggling doubt.

  “Do you love me, Hadrian?”

  His fingers tensed around her cheeks; then he dropped his hands to her shoulders. Much to her dismay, he seemed uncomfortable with the question. “Of course I care for you. I wouldn’t want you as my wife otherwise.”

  Care seemed a pale shadow of true, abiding love. “There can be many reasons why you find me appealing that have little to do with love,” she said, forcing herself to enumerate them. “Perhaps conquering me is a challenge, or perhaps I’m an antidote to the shallow ladies of society. Perhaps what you feel for me is merely an intense passion. But that isn’t enough. Without love as the bedrock in our marriage, you may tire of me eventually and turn your eyes to other women.”