To Marry the Duke (American Heiress Trilogy Book 1)

by Julianne MacLean

  Sophia—outfitted in one of her spectacular Worth gowns and the sparkling jewels her parents had given her as a wedding gift—pulled on her long white gloves and ventured out into the hall behind Mildred who, just for today, would show Sophia to the drawing room, where the family would gather before entry to the dining room.

  Sophia wished that James could have come to fetch her, but she supposed he must have had many duties to attend to, his first day back.

  She entered the drawing room, and like a ghost, Mildred quietly disappeared. Sophia stood alone inside the great arched entry, staring at her mother-in-law, who wore a modest dark gown, long-sleeved and buttoned at the neck, without jewels. Sophia touched the large emerald displayed at her low, satin neckline embroidered with pearls, and felt suddenly that everything about her attire was all wrong.

  “Good evening, Your Grace,” Sophia said.

  Her mother-in-law fired a shocked look at her, fast as a musket ball. “No, no, no! You are not to address me that way.”

  Sophia felt a whoosh of nervous butterflies in her belly at having blundered before she’d fully entered the room. “My apologies. How shall I address you?”

  “You are the duchess now,” she replied. “You are no longer a social inferior. You may address me by my Christian name.”

  Sophia cleared her throat. Should she say, Good evening, Marion, now? Or would that be redundant?

  Marion turned away and moved to the fireplace mantel, where she repositioned a small statue an inch to the left. Sophia decided it would be best to keep quiet.

  Much to her relief, Lily entered the room. “Oh, Sophia, what a stunning gown.” Lily wore a dress not unlike her mother’s. “I do so admire your sense of style.”

  “Thank you, Lily.”

  “Are you well rested? I peeked in on you a few hours ago, but you looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to wake you.”

  If only Lily could have known how much her warmth and caring meant to Sophia.

  She felt Marion’s hovering stare just then…looking on, judging. Sophia tried to tell herself that she was being overly sensitive. She felt inadequate only because she was not yet fully settled in or aware of her duties and responsibilities. Then she recalled what Marion had just said to her—‘You are the duchess now.’

  Perhaps there was some ill feeling, as she had feared there might be.

  Awkwardly, Sophia cleared her throat again. She could feel her confidence draining away into the cracks in the stone floor, as if there were a gigantic leaking hole in her shoe. She watched her mother-in-law sit down regally on the sofa and gaze out the window, then she tried to tell herself that this would get easier in time.

  Sophia realized suddenly that if she had a farthing for every time she told herself that, she’d be able to put central heating in this cold stone house before the first snowfall.

  James entered. Sophia’s whole being perked up at his arrival. Her body returned to its natural rhythm, and her reason for being in Yorkshire suddenly made sense again. What power he possessed to make everything feel worthwhile.

  He took hold of her hand and kissed it. Excitement sparked in Sophia’s bloodstream.

  “You are comfortable, I hope?” was all he said, and she nodded, then eagerly anticipated their time together in bed later, after the rest of the household retired.

  At precisely eight o’clock, they all moved into the grand dining room and sat down at a massive oak table clothed in white. James sat at one end of the table; Sophia was instructed to sit at the other. She doubted she would be able to hear him if he called out for her to pass the salt.

  Not that he would ask that. There were half a dozen servants nearby to do whatever he commanded them to do at any given moment.

  Then she noticed that she had her own silver salt and pepper shaker right in front of her, and so did everyone else. How convenient: a self-contained place setting for each and every one. No one needed to ask anything of anyone else—except the nameless servants, of course.

  Formally dressed footmen served them in the German fashion, a la Russe, and though the food was delicious, the conversation was nothing of the sort. Sophia quietly ate her soup, struggling to fit in and do what everyone else did, but to do that meant she mustn’t talk. She had to wrestle with her tongue to keep herself from asking all the questions she wanted to ask—like why Mildred had shaken her head disapprovingly when Sophia asked the footman to light a fire, and why she could not have tea at five o’clock when she’d asked, after having slept through the usual teatime at four.

  She held her tongue and decided to ask James all those questions later, when they were alone. How grateful she would be to see him walk through her bedchamber door.

  After dinner, when James rose from his chair at the table to retire to his own rooms for the night, his mother requested a private meeting in his study. He instructed a servant to go and light the lamps, and a few minutes later, he and his mother were standing on opposite sides of his monstrous oak desk, facing each other squarely.

  “What is it, Mother?” he asked without ceremony.

  The dowager cleared her throat. “I understand that the marriage settlement was quite substantial, and I would like to ask if I may have an increase in what has traditionally been the amount of my allowance.”

  James knew his mother, and he knew this could not have been easy for her, for she did not like to ask anyone for anything.

  “Of course. How much would you like?” He knew it was cruel to ask the amount, but at least he was agreeing.

  She cleared her throat again. “Well, I would like to have a large lump sum I could draw from, rather than a number of smaller monthly sums. That would give me more freedom to spend—”

  “Freedom. There’s a word I’ve not heard you use before. Has some of Sophia’s democratic fragrance rubbed off on you?”

  It was cruel and he knew it, but he would not let himself regret it. If anyone should feel regret in this room, it was not him.

  “How much?” he asked again.

  “A thousand pounds would be very generous of you, James.”

  Considerably taken aback, he regarded his mother in the lamplight. He hadn’t expected her to be quite so eager to spend their newly acquired American riches. In fact, he’d had some doubt as to whether she would even wish to soil her hands touching any of it.

  “A thousand pounds? Martin’s not in trouble again, is he?” James asked, thinking of his younger brother, who had just returned to Eton.

  “Of course not.”

  Neither of them spoke for a few seconds. “What does this concern, exactly?” he asked, probing.

  “It is simply the total of some unfortunate debts I have incurred over the past few years. Things, as you know, have been tight, and I did not want Lily to suffer.”

  “I see.” James could tell by the color of his mother’s cheeks that this was extremely vexing for her. He decided he’d tormented her enough, so he sat down. “Very well then. You will have your thousand pounds.”

  He wrote out a note to her. She took it and stuffed it into her skirt pocket, then turned and left him alone to wonder what purpose that money would serve.

  Like most things, it would probably reveal itself to him in its own due time.

  Sophia sat up in bed, waiting for her husband. It was eleven-thirty. Her candles were still burning on her dressing table, but her fire had gone out. The room was growing chillier, so she decided to snuggle under the covers to wait. She pulled the coverlet up to her ears, but her feet were ice-cold, so she leaped out of bed to retrieve a pair of stockings from her dressing table, tugged them on, then leaped back into the bed. She wished James would hurry and arrive. He would certainly keep her warm.

  It seemed like forever that she lay there, watching the door, sitting up whenever the house made knocking sounds, or the wind rattled the windowpanes. Still, he di
d not come, and she was beginning to grow frustrated. There was so much she wanted to tell him and ask him.

  She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, it was two o’clock in the morning. He had not yet come, and she wondered if he’d accidentally fallen asleep, as she had just now. It had been a busy day, after all, with their official arrival in the county, and who knew what other sorts of problems he’d come home to, after a fortnight away? Perhaps she could go to him instead.

  She slipped out of bed, pulled a woolen shawl around her shoulders and picked up the candelabra. Venturing into the corridor, she found it cloaked in darkness. There was no sign of anyone anywhere.

  Her candles were the only source of light, and as she moved quickly, the flames flickered and hissed against the air. It all seemed spooky and primitive, as if she’d stepped back into another century. Her own home in New York had all the modern conveniences—gaslights and very recently, electricity. She had central hot water heating and hot running water in a porcelain tub in her own private bathroom. Tonight, frail little maids had lugged jug after jug of water up from the kitchen to her room, and spread towels on the floor around a tin tub they had dragged in. At that moment, the grandeur of her elevated rank hadn’t seemed quite so grand.

  But that was not why she was here, she reminded herself. She was here because she loved James. If she could only find his room.

  She turned left where she thought she should, then found herself stopping in yet another unfamiliar corridor, feeling quite decidedly lost.

  Massive portraits were hung on the walls. She tiptoed closer to one of them and held up her candles. The gold marker at the bottom labeled the man as the second Duke of Wentworth—a frightening-looking person who looked more like a warlord than an aristocrat. His eyes were dark, full of menace and rage and ugly hatred. She gazed uncomfortably at those eyes, remembering the night she had seen James for the first time....

  Shaking that memory away, she returned to the task of finding his bedchamber, but all the doors looked identical.

  Feeling defeated, she knocked on a few, but each was locked. They must be guest rooms, she surmised. At last, she came to a green baize door studded with brass nails at the end of a hall and pushed through it. She entered a much narrower corridor that smelled of stale cabbage and creaked from squeaky floors. The servants’ wing. Thank goodness. Perhaps she would find someone to direct her back.

  She entered the servants’ hall—a large common room. Two massive tables filled its center and she touched the deep gouges and markings that came from decades of use; these tables were probably more than a century old. She felt the fascination of the history all around her then, and she remembered what James had said when he’d proposed—‘You wanted to see it from inside the very heart of it. Come and be part of it.’ Well, here she was, part of it, and all she felt was a lonely detachment, as if she were still on the outside, an interloper who was not even able to find her way around the house when she tried.

  She felt a lump form in her throat but refused to give in to it. She would go back to her room, forget about seeing James for tonight, get a good night’s sleep, and start again tomorrow. She turned to leave but bumped into a young maid who was hurrying into the room in her nightdress. Their candles clicked together, and both Sophia and the girl stepped back with gasps of surprise.

  The girl curtsied. “Begging your pardon, Your Grace!”

  Sophia tried to catch her breath. “Oh, it’s fine. I didn’t see you either. I’m just glad to have met someone.”

  The girl’s lips trembled as she backed up against the wall, as if to clear a path and make herself invisible. Sheer terror seemed to fix her to her spot.

  Sophia took another step closer. “Perhaps you could help me.”

  “Help you, Your Grace?”

  “Yes, I’m lost.”

  “Lost?” She contemplated that for a moment. “I should go and fetch Mrs. Bealer.” She made a move to venture deeper into the servants’ wing, but Sophia stopped her.

  “No, please, don’t. I would prefer for you to simply take me back to my room. There is no need to wake anyone.”

  “But I’m a scullery maid.”

  “That’s fine. All I need is someone who knows this house better than I do.”

  The girl glanced up and down the hall. “I don’t want to lose my position, Your Grace. There are rules about—”

  “You won’t lose your position. What is your name?”

  “Lucy.” She curtsied again.

  Sophia offered her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lucy.”

  The girl stared at Sophia’s proffered hand like it was some sort of strange foreign object, then finally offered her own hand with visible uncertainty. Sophia clasped it in hers. It was rough and scabbed.

  “Good gracious.” Sophia brought the candlelight closer so she could look at the girl’s chafed, red palm. “Your hand....”

  The girl withdrew it. “It’s nothing, Your Grace.”

  “No, it’s not nothing. How did this happen?”

  “I scrub.”

  “But....” Sophia did not know what to say. She still felt like a guest in the house and was inclined not to say anything, then she reminded herself that she was not a guest. She was in charge of this house, and if she felt that a servant was being treated unfairly, she would see to the situation.

  “Where is your home, Lucy?”

  “I live here, Your Grace.”

  “No, I mean, where does your family live?”

  “In the village.”

  “Would you like to go and stay with them for a while?”

  To Sophia’s dismay, Lucy began to cry. “I’m very sorry, Your Grace. I know I’m not supposed to be down here, but I forgot to clean something that Mrs. Dalrymple asked me to clean, and I only wanted to do my job the best I could. If you’ll only reconsider, I promise I won’t—”

  “Oh, no, dear Lucy! I’m not dismissing you. I only wish to give you a holiday so that your hands have a chance to heal. You can think about it.” She guided Lucy toward the baize door. “Now, if you’ll just help me find my way back to my room, no one even has to know we bumped into each other.”

  Looking doubtful, Lucy went with her. As soon as they set foot in the main castle, the young maid scurried along like a frantic, little mouse. She found the correct door and opened it. Relieved, Sophia entered the room. Lucy stood in the open doorway. “Is there anything else, Your Grace?”

  “No, Lucy, that’s all. Thank you.”

  Lucy curtsied and hurried away, and Sophia crawled into her cold bed, feeling not only displaced, but rejected. She had been forced to go searching for James in the dark, had failed, and here she was—alone again in this ridiculously cold room.

  Why had he not come, she wondered as she snuggled down under the sheets embroidered with coronets. She had to work hard not to read too much into his absence.

  Chapter 16

  Sophia said good morning to Marion and Lily, then helped herself to a plate of eggs and toast at the sideboard. Clumsily, she dropped a serving spoon on the floor and a footman was quick to dash forward and pick it up.

  “Thank you so much,” she said before she sat down at the table.

  Marion’s gaze bored into hers. “There is no need for that here.”

  Sophia picked up her fork. It was early and she’d barely slept a wink, her feet were numb from the cold and she was feeling quite depleted of patience when it came to being corrected at every turn. Marion had not said one nice thing to her yet, nor had she offered a smile or the slightest bit of encouragement.

  “No need for politeness?” she replied with a somewhat terse edge to her voice. She might regret it later, but it felt good now.

  Lily kept her eyes downcast.

  Marion showed no reaction. She smoothed the tablecloth beside her plate. “We don’t
thank servants here.”

  Sophia wanted to say, “Well, that’s not very nice,” but she held her tongue. She did not wish to displease her mother-in-law, who was clearly having trouble with this transition. Sophia was certain of it now. She would have to try harder to be understanding, and hope that things might soon get easier.

  “Has James eaten yet?” she asked, working to keep her voice light and not show how disappointed she had been over his failure to come to her bed the night before.

  “James does not take breakfast with the rest of the family.”

  Sophia swallowed a bite of her egg, hating that she had to press her mother-in-law for information about the man who was supposed to be the mate of her soul. “Where does he take it?”

  After an excruciatingly long hesitation, seemingly intended to torture Sophia, Marion replied, “In his own rooms.”

  “He doesn’t usually share the luncheon table with us either,” Lily added helpfully.

  Sophia continued to eat her breakfast, not wanting to ask any more questions, but she couldn’t help herself. “Will he be in his rooms now, do you think?”

  Lily gave her a look of sympathy. “He’s not here, Sophia. He left early and said he wouldn’t be back until dinner.”

  Sophia dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin and forced herself to sweep away all hopes of seeing James before then, for she did not think she could handle any more disappointments.

  “Perhaps then, after breakfast, Lily, would you be so kind as to give me a tour of the house?”

  “I would be delighted.”

  They finished eating in silence.

  James mounted his horse and trotted out of the courtyard, listening to the pleasantly predictable sound of hooves crunching over gravel. Beyond the gate, a chilly mist hung in the air and floated motionlessly over the moors. It was just like the fog of incomprehension inside his brain. He urged his horse into a steady gallop.

  He needed to decide how he was going to handle this marriage, for last night had been troublesome. No, not troublesome. It had been utterly chaotic—and he loathed chaos. He had climbed out of his bed at least a dozen times to see Sophia, walked to his door and opened it, then each time, he’d halted and stuffed himself back into his own bed, determined not to get out of it again.