My Last Duchess

by James, Eloisa

  “If you were my duchess, you needn’t be embarrassed either,” Hugo said, exhibiting a nimble ability to turn the conversation to his advantage. “Duchesses set the fashion; they don’t follow it.”

  “I have no wish to set fashion,” Ophelia stated.

  “Your dress last night was very elegant, and so was your carriage.”

  “I ordered both because I enjoyed the designs, not because I wanted them copied by others.”

  “You are already a duchess,” Hugo murmured, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “Would you be offended if I mentioned that I haven’t had a cockstand this long for years? Since I was a young man.”

  Cockstand? Ophelia tried out the word in her head and decided it was useful. “Is that a compliment?”

  “Of a sort.”

  “Would you like me to return to my bedchamber? It’s just next door, to be frank.”

  “Absolutely not. Unless you wish to go.”

  Ophelia thought about that for a moment. This was a night stolen out of time, in a way. She had decided not to marry the duke, and he wouldn’t bed her without that promise. So they were at an impasse.

  But perhaps . . .

  “We could be friends,” she said, blurting it out.

  “What?”

  “We can’t be spouses, because I don’t wish to marry you. We can’t be lovers, because you don’t want to bed me without a wedding ring.”

  “Oh, I want to,” the duke growled.

  Ophelia waved her hand, ignoring the fact that her body clenched at the rough desire in his voice. “You know what I mean.”

  “Not lovers, not spouses.” His voice was mournful. “Friends? I don’t want to be your friend, Ophelia.”

  That stung, but why would he want to be friends? She had been at risk, for just a moment, of forgetting the real reason he had singled her out: because she was a good mother. Because he had children whom he didn’t know, by the sound of it.

  “I understand,” she said, keeping her expression absolutely even. She’d learned that trick during her marriage, because of Peter’s dislike of disapproval. She’d practiced in a glass until she knew the exact arrangement of her features that portrayed benign interest without judgment.

  Without the flash of real anger that she felt inside. She was good enough to kiss and fondle, good enough to marry, but not good enough to be friends with?

  “I didn’t say that correctly,” Hugo said.

  “I think your point is an excellent one,” Ophelia said. “Men and women are rarely friends, as I understand it.”

  “I am friends with my twin sister.”

  “Marvelous,” Ophelia said, another stab of resentment going through her.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I am wondering why a man who has so much has any need of a wife. You have all those children, and a sister to boot.” She colored and looked at the expression in his eyes. “Besides that, I mean.”

  “I am lucky,” he offered.

  “Yes.”

  “I think it’s very interesting that you narrow my assets to my family.”

  Ophelia forced a smile. This had been pleasurable, and startling, but now she wanted to be alone. A bone-deep melancholy was building up in her heart: a feeling of missing Peter. That was the problem with being widowed: Grief wasn’t something one got over with a year of mourning, or even two.

  “I think perhaps we should sleep alone,” she said.

  “Most women think that the duchy of Lindow is my greatest asset,” Hugo said, taking her right hand and bringing it to his lips. “Power equals money, after all. The holder of a dukedom is all-powerful in a society like ours.”

  Ophelia tugged her hand free. “You seem to me an excellent representative of power and money.” She swung her legs over the bed, reached over, and picked up her dressing gown. She didn’t mind sitting in bed without clothing, but she wasn’t going to stand up naked. The light cotton brushed over her nipples, sending a thrill of feeling down her body.

  “I’ve mucked it up, haven’t I?” Hugo said, moving off his side of the bed.

  “There was nothing to muck up,” Ophelia replied. “I have much enjoyed our time together. I truly have.” She reached out and caught his hands in hers. “This has been a pleasure.”

  “Ophelia,” the duke said.

  She shook her head. “I do not wish to be a duchess, Your Grace.”

  “May I stay tomorrow?”

  “I think not.” She kept her voice even, without a hint of what was really in her mind. There was no reason to spend time together if they couldn’t even be friends.

  “Please?”

  “Your Grace.” She struck just the right tone. Her voice was firm, reproving but not overly proud.

  He shook his head. “Phee, do you know how many people say no to me?”

  “If you give your two-year-old a chance, I expect she will startle you in that respect,” Ophelia told him. “Good night, Your Grace.”

  She left before he could answer.

  Chapter Eight

  Hugo fell back onto the bed, feeling as if he’d been struck—not for the first time that evening.

  She’d said no.

  Ophelia meant it too.

  Marie had flirted with him, but from the moment they met, she’d been as interested as he. After that, it was a matter of mating. He’d flaunted his dukedom and his body, just the way Fitzy, the young peacock at Lindow Castle, spread his tail. Marie had pretended to run away, enjoying every moment of the game.

  They had been young and beautiful. He had already inherited the title, feeling no true grief for the father he had barely known. She had been the treasured eldest child of a marquess, and had excelled at everything she chose to do—including marriage.

  Marie had been amazingly precious to him, partly because she was so direct, so uncomplicated. She was a child of laughter and joy who loved him, and loved their children.

  Ophelia was far more complex. She had grieved and was still mourning, unless he was wrong. She had faced life alone—in more than one way. She and her husband had been partners, but not soul mates. Not the way he and Marie had been.

  That thought made his heart ache for her.

  But she didn’t need or want his pity.

  Somewhere in that conversation he’d gone badly wrong. He was banished from the house, and his chance of winning her hand had diminished.

  Think as hard as he might, he couldn’t put his finger on what he had said wrong.

  In the morning, the young footman returned his clothing, immaculately cleaned and pressed. His sword made an appearance as well, and Hugo buckled it on without inquiring how the coachman explained possession of the duke’s weapon.

  Fiddle ushered him into a charming breakfast room and informed him that Her Ladyship always broke bread with her daughter in the morning. One of Lady Astley’s carriages was at his disposal, and Fiddle would order it to return His Grace to the Lindow townhouse after the meal.

  Ophelia must be in the nursery. Hugo would be damned if he’d leave without saying goodbye.

  He finished the meal without haste, talking to Fiddle of this and that, learning far more of the household than the butler imagined he had revealed. Ophelia’s eggs were brought from her country house, as was her meat, “and as much produce as Lady Astley deems practical,” the butler said, more than a hint of pride in his voice.

  Fiddle was brother to Ophelia’s coachman in that: Bisquet had made it clear that he was proud to serve his mistress, and he would lay down his life to protect her.

  Hugo’s servants were loyal too. His butler, Prism, was devoted to the duchy and his position as head butler of several estates. In fact, most of the servants were proud of being part of the duchy. They enjoyed wearing his livery.

  Ophelia was not only complicated; she had built a life for herself that he would be hard-pressed to match. No one knew better than he that the life of a duke or duchess could be a tedious, even lonely one.

  Everything
he did was considered interesting. If he went to chapel, by the time the service ended, there would be a throng of people outside, waiting for him to throw alms, or simply gawking at his clothing.

  At his carriage.

  At his children.

  Could he subject Ophelia to that much scrutiny? He looked around him. The breakfast room was painted pale green, and plaster arabesques covered the ceiling. Every piece of furniture was exquisite, and each spoke to Ophelia’s taste.

  In contrast, Lindow Castle was a hodgepodge, a huge, sprawling mélange of towers and wings, with secret passageways, suits of armor, dusty tapestries, endless staircases.

  A stuffed alligator resided in the drawing room, and the family peacock screamed warnings at any time of day or night.

  Marie had been raised to be a member of the peerage. She hadn’t blinked an eye at miles of bookshelves, tottering retainers grown old in service to the duchy, fourteen sets of china.

  But Ophelia?

  She had created a home for her daughter: a beautiful, graceful place.

  His heart settled like a stone. He couldn’t do this to her. She might come to blame him, perhaps even to hate him. He had been spoiled by the fact that Marie had instantly responded to his proposal with enthusiasm—but also by the fact that she had been raised to be a duchess.

  Her mother had accompanied her to the castle and lived there for the first six months of their married life, making certain that her daughter successfully took over the household. Marie had dived into everything with joy and was never happier than when she announced she was carrying a child a month after their wedding (in truth, she must have carried Horatius up the aisle, which spoke to their mutual enthusiasm about the marriage).

  By contrast, Ophelia was enthusiastic about bedding, but not about him. He frowned, not sure what happened . . . Hadn’t they discussed being friends? He didn’t want to be friends with her.

  He wanted to be her husband.

  But now he had the idea that she didn’t even wish to be friends.

  In the end, he didn’t storm the nursery. He sent his gratitude by way of her butler, accepting Fiddle’s explanation that Lady Astley never received callers before noon.

  He returned to his townhouse and fell blindly into the work involved in running one of the largest duchies in all England. He went to the House of Lords. He went to court, registering that Ophelia would probably loathe such pomp and circumstance. Or would she? He hardly knew her. He went to the opera at Covent Garden, noticing how every member of the audience swiveled his or her head when he entered the Lindow box.

  He put on his pink suit and went to another ball. He danced with an eligible daughter of a marquess, who giggled and told him that she loved kittens more than life itself. He translated kittens into children, bowed, and walked off without another glance.

  Next he danced with the Dowager Countess of Webbel, who told him, in so many words, that she was too old for children. She cast condescending looks in all directions when he danced with her for the second time, and then made the fatal error of asking, in a sweetly poisonous tone, about the whereabouts of his sister, Lady Knowe.

  His twin was part of his household; the children thought of her as their mother. He would divorce again before he wedded a woman who would drive her away.

  The following day he went back to court, and Her Highness graciously introduced him to one of her ladies-in-waiting, Lady Woolhastings, a dowager marchioness. Edith had to be fifty, far older than he.

  But she didn’t look fifty; she might easily pass for forty in candlelight. She had kept her figure, and her bodices displayed her bosom’s girlish shape.

  What’s more, she knew how to manage a noble household. She met his eyes with understanding of his situation; she could and would usher his daughters through the Season. Her own two daughters were happily married.

  She was even nice.

  She was perfect.

  He wrote his sister with the news that he’d found precisely the woman whom she bade him to marry.

  He escorted Edith to a concert at St. Paul’s, since she was fond of orchestral music. He wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. He met her daughters, who were unexceptional, well-mannered young women.

  She suggested that he send his daughters to an elite seminary in London. “Children,” she said, “thrive in groups, and the idea that children of the nobility do best with a governess is an old-fashioned idea.” He agreed, thinking that Betsy, in particular, would enjoy school.

  He decided to ask her to marry him.

  He couldn’t have Ophelia, and the lady was nice enough.

  Chapter Nine

  When the duke sent a note the afternoon following their snowy adventure, accompanied by a bunch of exquisite hothouse posies, Ophelia asked Fiddle to have them put in a vase in the morning room, then changed her mind and brought them to her bedchamber.

  Of course, Hugo wouldn’t pay her a call. It would be a waste of his time. She had refused him, roundly and without hesitation.

  He needed a wife.

  Still, when the snow was cleared away and Maddie appeared a few days later, full of news about the duke’s exploits around London, she felt unaccountably disappointed.

  It was absurd—as absurd as the fact that she still found herself lying awake at night, her light nightdress feeling like a wool blanket, her body prickling with unusual and unwelcome desire.

  After three weeks had passed, it became clear that His Grace had found his next duchess.

  “Lady Woolhastings,” Maddie reported, wrinkling her nose. “Really, I would have thought he could do better. She’s so old. And so . . . Well, I do think it’s sad when a woman won’t accept her age, don’t you think? She has to be fifty-two if she’s a day and she plans to marry a man at least a decade younger.”

  “May I give you another cup of tea?” Ophelia asked. She was horridly shaken, but determined not to show it. Hugo was nothing to her.

  One night, one silly night.

  Thank goodness, no one knew of it.

  “Yes, please, with sugar,” Maddie said. “My husband says that His Grace is making certain there won’t be any more children, and God knows, that is a good idea. I know Lindow is rich as Croesus, but establishing all those sons, not counting the heir, and dowrying two daughters would bankrupt anyone.”

  “That seems mercenary, but I suppose . . .” Ophelia’s voice died away. Hugo had been willing to marry her, unless he was fooling, but she didn’t think he had been. Hard thinking in the middle of the night had convinced her that her initial impressions were correct: He had looked at her as no man ever had before.

  But she had sent him away.

  And he had stayed away.

  “It’s too bad,” Maddie said, putting more sugar into her tea. “He was quite taken with you. If you hadn’t left the ball so suddenly, you might have bewitched him and become a duchess.”

  “You yourself told me that he was too much for me,” Ophelia pointed out.

  “I changed my mind once I spoke to him,” Maddie said. “One of us should have taken him, and he didn’t want me.”

  “If he hadn’t been looking for a nanny, he might well have fallen for your charms,” Ophelia said, rather hollowly. And then she added, “Although your husband would not have been happy.”

  “Who cares what Penshallow thinks?” Maddie said, hunching up a shoulder. “Yesterday I received the most horrid, ill-written note that you can imagine, informing me that my husband had been making children’s stockings.”

  “What?”

  “I was confused too, but it seems that he’s gotten his mistress—one of his mistresses—with child. I made him tell me all.”

  “Oh, Maddie.” Ophelia reached out and covered her cousin’s hand with hers. “I’m so sorry. What shall you do?”

  “What can I do?”

  But Ophelia had known Maddie for all of her life, so she just waited.

  “I told that ungrateful wretch that I’d raise his child,” Maddie bu
rst out. “Oh! He’s so dreadful. First I accosted him with the news, and he pretended to know nothing. Then he admitted to giving the woman ten pounds so that she could bring the child to the Foundling Hospital when it was born.”

  “One has to pay the Foundling Hospital?” Ophelia asked. She poured more tea, because in moments of crisis, tea helped.

  Maddie added a great amount of sugar. “If you want the child to be apprenticed, yes. Penshallow had the nerve to boast that he took his responsibilities seriously! And then—oh, Phee, I can barely say this aloud, and only to you, obviously . . .”

  “What is it?”

  Maddie took a deep breath. “Then he suggested that if the child is a boy, we take him in and pretend that he’s mine. Because Penshallow needs an heir, obviously. And I don’t want to bed him ever again. I refuse.” Her voice rose.

  Marriage was a terrible coil. Hugo’s unfaithful duchess came into Ophelia’s mind—and she pushed the thought away.

  She was practicing a strict regimen of not thinking of the duke except in the dark of night, in her own bed, where she didn’t seem to be able to control herself.

  “I think you should do it,” she said. “The child is Penshallow’s, after all, or he believes as much.”

  “He says it is.” Maddie looked up, and Ophelia saw to her horror that her brave, plucky cousin was starting to cry. “The poor woman hadn’t known a man before him.”

  “But he didn’t . . .”

  Maddie shook her head. “Apparently, she is very beautiful and wants to take another protector and put this behind her.” She gave Ophelia a lopsided smile. “I think that my husband may have been roundly told off, for all he’s protesting that he was the one to end the liaison.”

  “The baby exists, and it’s his,” Ophelia said. “Maddie, darling, I think this child may answer many problems, if it turns out to be male. If not, Viola will have a girl cousin, and you know how much I would love her to have more family.”

  “She could have had any number of siblings, if only you hadn’t fled the ball so early,” Maddie said, sniffling as she pulled out a handkerchief.