My Last Duchess

by James, Eloisa

  “Excellent,” Ophelia said, pushing aside a sudden thought that Viola would be happy in a pack of children running and shrieking on the ice. Eight children, to be precise. “Please let Fiddle know that I intend to take Viola to the Frost Fair this morning.”

  Her maid nodded, and hurried through the door to talk to the butler.

  Viola was nestled against Ophelia’s side, busily making patterns in melted butter on the silver tray. “Come on, love,” Ophelia said. “I’ll show you the patterns that Jack Frost made on our windows last night.”

  Out of bed, she propped her daughter on her hip and took her over to the window. “Aren’t they beautiful ferns?” she asked. Viola touched the cold windowpane and squealed.

  The duke’s children would be mothered by Lady Woolhastings, who would never show them frost on a windowpane. Or take them to a Frost Fair, for that matter. Lady Woolhastings was the sort of woman who didn’t stir from her fireplace unless it was to enter her carriage and be transferred to another warm fireside.

  Ophelia stared out the window while Viola used her plump fingertips to melt the ferny patterns. The duke’s eight children weren’t her problem.

  After a while, her nursery maid, Betty, entered. “May I take Miss Viola to her bath, madam?”

  Ophelia nodded. “Yes, thank you. Please put Viola in wool stockings and her warmest clothing. We are going to the Frost Fair.”

  Viola shrieked when she realized that Betty had arrived to take her away, but Ophelia kissed her forehead. “Let me bathe and dress, poppet, and we’ll go somewhere marvelous.”

  “Snow?” Viola asked.

  “Another word!” Ophelia broke into a huge grin and dismissed the idea that any children could be more wonderful than the one she had. “You have a new word!”

  “Go, snow,” Viola said obligingly, showing her few pearly teeth.

  “That’s a sentence!”

  “She’s a bright child,” Betty said cheerfully. “Now come along, dearie. You’ll need your furry pelisse because it’s nippy out there.”

  “Nip-pe!” Viola cried.

  “Did she show you her new trick, madam?” Betty asked.

  Ophelia shook her head, smiling.

  “Hurrah!” Betty cried, clapping.

  Viola began clumsily patting her hands together. “Ray! Ray!”

  “That’s three new words in as many moments,” Ophelia said. “Not to mention the fact that you learned how to clap, Viola. Brava!”

  By the time Ophelia’s carriage—not the elegant one with the broken axle, but the sturdy, family-sized barouche—reached the Frost Fair, Viola had at least twenty words and counting.

  “How is this possible?” Ophelia said aloud, laughing. “You went to bed with the same two words you’ve had for weeks: ‘No’ and ‘Mama.’ You woke up a different person. Not a different person, but with different skills.”

  “Pills,” Viola offered, and patted Ophelia’s cheek.

  Ophelia was fighting off one of those urges known to widows and widowers, a moment in which one desperately wishes to talk to a person who is no longer there.

  She pushed away the image of the Duke of Lindow as an alternative to Peter. “He’s getting married!” she told herself, aloud.

  “Mawied,” Viola said, nodding.

  “And not to me,” Ophelia told her. “He moved on directly, didn’t he? I said no, and he didn’t even try to change my mind. He strode into another ballroom and picked out a different woman to mother his children.”

  Somehow that made her more furious than the fact he was planning to marry again.

  He had replaced her with Lady Woolhastings, who was not old, exactly, but she wasn’t young either. Her daughters were frightfully well-behaved and rather dull.

  Hugo . . . He couldn’t be planning to bed her. Not the way he offered to make love to Ophelia. He couldn’t.

  But he had said that he was looking for a woman uninterested in bedding him.

  The problem with having red hair was that it proverbially goes along with a temper, and in Ophelia’s case, it did go along with that temper. To this point, she’d been feeling disconsolate about the fact that the duke had so easily thrown her aside and snatched up another available lady.

  But now a flame of anger began to burn in her chest. He had said things to her and she believed them. He had implied that he was falling in love. He had refused to make love to her unless she married him.

  He had made her feel special, as if bedding him was an admission ticket to a wonderful life.

  But even furious as she was, she couldn’t imagine that Lady Woolhastings had paid the price of admission. But then . . .

  To be a duchess?

  Who wouldn’t sleep with a handsome, younger man in order to be a duchess? It was just so . . .

  So what?

  She turned him down. She had no right to decide that he was making a horrible mistake, that he was an idiot who should have come back the next day and pleaded with Ophelia. Begged her.

  The fact of the matter was that he hadn’t wanted her enough to do that.

  She hadn’t paid the price of admission, and if that made the duke a despicable person, so be it. He hadn’t meant the kind things he said, so she’d had a very lucky escape.

  “Lucky,” Viola said, which was the moment when Ophelia realized that she was so angry that she had said the last sentence aloud, and fiercely too.

  “He’s made his choice,” Ophelia told Viola, kissing her. “You and I will go to the Frost Fair and have a wonderful time. We’ll buy gingerbread, and his children will be home in the nursery. Perhaps he’ll greet them, if he finds time.” She shook her head. “I don’t want that for your father.”

  The thought steadied her. It wasn’t just a matter of her mothering the eight orphans; the duke would become Viola’s father as well.

  “She won’t take them to the Frost Fair,” Ophelia said. Somehow it felt like vindication. He was choosing Lady Woolhastings because she was related to royalty, and uninterested in bedding him. But there was more to being a mother than the name alone.

  By the time they reached the edge of the Frost Fair, a great frozen expanse of the Thames, the sun was out, albeit in a chilly way. Ophelia climbed out of the carriage and took a look, her coachman standing at her shoulder.

  It was as if Bartholomew Fair had set up shop on the ice with drinking booths, games to play, food for sale, a bowling alley open to the sky, a skating rink. Red-cheeked Londoners were scrambling about on wooden skates or sliding in their boots, laughing and shouting. Strings of paper lanterns in bright colors were draped between the little shops, or strung between the poles marking the skating rink.

  “There’ll be some ruffians in the mix,” Bisquet said. “I’ll send a groom with you to hold your purse, madam. The carriage will be here waiting for you. I’ve brought along blankets for the horses and nice warm mash in case we’re here more than an hour or two.”

  “We’ll be more than an hour,” Ophelia said happily. In front of her, a line of small wooden shops wove their way across the ice, creating a curvy road. Bright flags were flying from the roofs, and a lovely smell of mingled pig roast and mulled wine drifted their way.

  “On this side, there’s a road for carriages,” Bisquet pointed out. “There are sleigh rides as well, going all the way from Temple to Southwark.”

  The ice was dotted everywhere with glowing bonfires constructed inside great metal burners, around which people stood warming their hands. Some burners were outfitted with elaborate spits and one even held an entire roasting pig.

  “Aren’t they afraid the fires will melt the ice?” Ophelia asked, turning back to the carriage to pick up a very excited Viola.

  “Oh, goodness, no,” Bisquet said comfortably. “I heard as the ice is twenty fathoms deep. Look over there, madam, a horse and six, just as safe as if they were going down the cobblestone of our own street.”

  “Where are the sleighs?”

  “Beyond the ice-carving p
alladium,” her coachman said. “There, where you see the crimson awning? Supposedly the finest ice carvers in the kingdom are at work, and the king himself will judge them on Friday . . . if the ice lasts. Yet people are saying it might last two months, just as in the cold snap of ’40.”

  Viola was waving her red-mittened hands. “Snow!” she crowed.

  Behind them, the horses were stamping their feet.

  Followed by Peters, the groom, Ophelia walked down the gentle slope and stepped onto the ice. It was covered by a trampled layer of snow, so it wasn’t slippery, and they set out happily for the row of stores.

  They stopped at every stall, Viola clapping at the sight of hot cider, carved wooden horses, gingerbread men . . . Whatever was for sale, she applauded. Since she was an extremely pretty little girl, her sweet face encircled with a halo of white rabbit fur, even the most hard-bitten of London merchants found himself smiling at her and offering free samples.

  Ophelia couldn’t allow people to give away their wares for free, so she kept nodding to Peters, following her with a purse. Before long he was festooned with string bags containing everything from apples to a carved dolly and, over his shoulder, a hobbyhorse with a red ribbon.

  Now and then Ophelia and Viola met people whom they knew: the vicar and his wife, cheerily walking arm-in-arm; one of her cousins somewhat-removed who told her that he’d just eaten the best roast beef of his life; one of Peter’s school friends, Lord Melton.

  He was a robust man with a neatly trimmed beard that turned his chin into an exclamation mark.

  He greeted Ophelia with a smile and bow, while she racked her brain trying to remember whether he was married or not. She certainly didn’t want to be courted by Lord Melton. All the same, her arm was beginning to ache, and when he offered to carry Viola, she gratefully agreed.

  Viola cheerfully went to him, patting his cheek with her red-mittened hands by way of greeting.

  They strolled over together to sample a hot chocolate drink imported from the continent, and then headed toward the ice-carving pavilion. Lord Melton was so obviously admiring that Ophelia felt her spirits, dented by Maddie’s news about the Duke of Lindow, rise.

  She might not have been desirable enough to ensnare the Duke of Lindow for more than one heady night, but Lord Melton was showing every sign of considering himself ensnared.

  Once they reached the ice-carving pavilion, they began walking about, admiring the carvings taking shape under the busy chisels of master carvers. She rounded a six-foot lump of ice—destined to be a reproduction of St. Paul’s Tower, or so the carver informed them—and ran straight into the Duke of Lindow.

  Not just the duke either, but Lady Woolhastings beside him, looking remarkably elegant in a sable-lined pelisse with exquisite butter-yellow gloves with long fringes at the wrist. No one would say that Lady Woolhastings was beautiful, but anyone from the Queen to a scullery maid would have known she was a lady with impeccable bloodlines. Her long face and limpid eyes had the unmistakable stamp of the peerage.

  Ophelia realized instantly that her unpowdered hair had freed itself from the braided knot her maid had fixed in the morning. Red curls were waving around her eyes. Her rabbit fur hood, while warm and certainly economical, was hardly fashionable.

  Edith Woolhastings’s eyes passed over it and then over Viola’s little face, framed in the same fur. She didn’t sneer; she was far too well-bred for that. But she looked indifferent, which was somehow even worse. “Is this your daughter, Lady Astley?” she inquired, as politeness compelled her to say something. “She has the look of your late husband, Sir Peter.”

  Ophelia registered that Lady Woolhastings likely considered her final remark to be a compliment. She dropped a curtsy, noticing in turn that the lady graced her with no more than a nod of the head. Well, Lady Woolhastings was a lady-in-waiting to the queen, and likely took her position very seriously. Ophelia suddenly remembered Peter describing the lady as vexed by a joke, as is often the case with someone who has no sense of humor.

  How terrible to marry someone with no sense of humor.

  She turned to the Duke of Lindow, but he bowed abruptly and their eyes didn’t meet.

  “We’re on our way to a sleigh ride,” Lady Woolhastings said languidly. “Lindow has arranged everything so that we will take sleighs up to the Thames to my house. Aren’t you tired, holding that child?” she asked Lord Melton. “Perhaps Lady Astley’s groom should return her to the carriage.”

  “Not a bit of it,” Lord Melton said, bouncing Viola in his arms so that she crowed with delight.

  “I came to show her the fair,” Ophelia said mildly. “I can hardly do that if she is tucked away in the carriage.”

  “So this is your daughter,” Hugo said. “Viola, am I right?”

  Viola gave him her cheerful grin and clapped her hands.

  Ophelia met his eyes, ready to kick him in the shins if he gave Viola an indifferent look, the way Lady Woolhastings had.

  But he was smiling at Viola as if she was quite marvelous. Ophelia’s heart gave a thump. It was one thing to be courted—albeit briefly—by a deliciously handsome duke. It was different when that duke smiled at her best beloved, as if he recognized how wonderful she was.

  Viola liked his smile too, because she held out her mittened hands and leaned toward him. When Ophelia nodded, Lord Melton gave her up, and the duke tucked Viola into his left arm as if he was used to carrying children.

  “I expect that Viola would love a sleigh ride,” he said. “Your groom could bring your purchases back to your carriage and then meet us at Lady Woolhastings’s house.”

  “You have bought a great many things,” Lady Woolhastings said, clearly pained. “I distinctly smell mince pies; Lady Astley, you must discard those, or send them to be consumed in the servants’ hall. One never knows what a mince pie bought in a fair might contain.”

  Ophelia paused, not certain what to do, but Viola was happily babbling to the duke, interspersing her new words amid a language of her own. She probably would like a sleigh ride.

  “Mince is extremely fattening,” Lady Woolhastings added.

  Hugo met Ophelia’s eyes. “Do join us.”

  It was a good thing that she wasn’t marrying him, because she had the feeling that it would be hard to refuse anything he asked, if he had that expression in his eyes. She actually glanced at Lady Woolhastings to see if she caught it but the lady looked quite indifferent.

  In fact, that seemed to be her expression most of the time.

  Once Ophelia’s groom had set off for her carriage, they began walking again, Lady Woolhastings strolling beside Ophelia, and the two men just behind.

  “A respectable match,” Lady Woolhastings drawled, in her high, well-bred voice.

  “I’m sorry?” Ophelia said. She was listening as hard as she could to Viola and the duke, who were having a lively exchange that consisted of a stream of words from Viola, all the new ones she’d learned today jumbled in any order. His Grace was laughing, and supplying a word here or there, which Viola would instantly repeat.

  “Lord Melton,” Lady Woolhastings prompted. “Very appropriate. A nice estate and good blood. Not of the highest degree, but then you didn’t come from those ranks, did you?”

  Viola stopped babbling just at the wrong moment, and Ophelia felt a prickling embarrassment in her shoulders. She didn’t dare glance about, not sure whom she was more embarrassed about: Hugo or poor Lord Melton, who had accidentally encountered her and found himself virtually married off a half hour later.

  Of course, the fact that he had been carrying Viola did make it seem as if they were quite familiar.

  She cleared her throat. “Lord Melton is a mere acquaintance, Lady Woolhastings.”

  “You could do much worse,” the lady remarked.

  And I could do much better, Ophelia thought to herself. I could have done the duke. Which was such an improper thought that she found herself turning pink.

  Lady Woolhastings glanced o
ver and her brows drew together. “Perhaps you should return to your carriage,” she said, in a warmer tone than she had used before. “This cold is inadvisable for the complexion and I see yours is responding to this chill wind. I applied four layers of protective cream this morning.”

  “Ah,” Ophelia said. They were nearing three large sleighs, lavishly picked out with blue paint and gold leaf. A mass of children of all ages were darting between the sleighs and horses, shouting with glee and risking being kicked by an irritable mount.

  Lady Woolhastings stopped and lifted her hand. “Your Grace.”

  “Yes, Lady Woolhastings?” Hugo strode to stand at Ophelia’s right shoulder. Viola was sucking her thumb, her head nestled on his shoulder. He had tucked her inside his greatcoat, so she must be toasty warm.

  Viola blinked at Ophelia and said, “Snow,” before she closed her eyes.

  “I ought to bring my daughter home,” Ophelia said, shoving away a keen pulse of regret. She knew that Hugo had the instincts of a good father; he was shopping for a third duchess for just that reason.

  The fact that Viola looked so blissfully comfortable should not make her, Ophelia, feel prickly and sad. That was absurd.

  “Your groom will have already instructed the carriage to meet you further up the Thames,” the duke said, his voice kind, but absolute. “Moreover, you and Viola cannot traverse the fair by yourselves.”

  Ophelia turned to look for Lord Melton and realized that he was nowhere to be seen.

  “Lord Melton remembered that he had another engagement and asked me to convey his regrets,” the duke said.

  Ophelia felt herself turning red again. Likely, Lord Melton heard what Lady Woolhastings had said about marrying her and fled in horror. It was hard to tell whether that was more embarrassing than the duke’s quick defection.

  Hugo apparently read her mind. “No,” he stated.

  Lady Woolhastings was frowning at the crowd of noisy children and not paying attention.

  “Lord Melton had temporarily forgotten that he was betrothed,” Hugo said. His eyes didn’t stray from hers but his voice dropped a register. “You can do that to a man.”