My Own True Duchess

by Grace Burrowes

  She had been content with so little—an embrace—and given her whole future for it. No wonder she undertook matchmaking with the solemnity of a questing knight.

  “I’m sorry,” Jonathan said. “I don’t know what else to say.” Didn’t know what to think, say, or do. She’d given her heart to a bounder, which doubtless happened all over Mayfair annually, but the result had never before struck Jonathan as a tragedy.

  “Say you will find the right duchess, Mr. Tresham, and that you will be the best duke to her you can be.”

  “I make you that promise.” Though, of course, Jonathan was the one who would benefit most from such a vow. “Shall I see you at the Gillinghams’ musicale tonight?”

  “Yes, unless my headache returns. I will arrange for Lady Canmore to introduce you to Lady Antonia.” She tidied the stack of papers on the low table and rose.

  “Lady Antonia is the Earl of Waverly’s heiress,” Jonathan said, holding the door.

  “Very good, Mr. Tresham.”

  Mrs. Haviland passed before him into the corridor, and Jonathan caught her by the wrist.

  “A moment.” He drew her back into the parlor and closed the door. “You will think I have taken leave of my senses.” He wrapped his arms around her, carefully, gently.

  An invitation. Take this, have this from me. Little enough to give when she was upending her schedule for weeks to see him comfortably settled.

  She was unbending at first, but she didn’t pull away either. Jonathan waited, feeling both surprise and indecision in her posture.

  “No toss of the dice required,” he said. “You don’t even need to shuffle the deck.”

  Her arms stole around him. She laid her cheek against his chest, he gathered her closer. The embrace was sweet, not nearly as awkward as it should have been, and comforting.

  “I miss my father,” Jonathan said, though he hadn’t intended to follow ridiculousness with true folly. “I miss having him to fight with. I hated him, detested everything he stood for, but I miss him.” He hadn’t connected the feeling with the words until that moment, and where discontent and annoyance had been, sadness settled.

  A fair trade, and the realization shifted the tenor of the embrace, from Jonathan holding a woman to indulge an impulse, to two people sheltering in each other’s arms. The experience was so unexpected that Jonathan forgot to bow on his way to the door.

  But then, Mrs. Haviland forgot to curtsey too.

  * * *

  “I must be missing someone,” Theo said, ignoring the lemon cake Bea had sliced for her guest. When Theo paid a call, the kitchen knew to cut the cake generously, for Theo would only ever permit herself a single slice, and she invariably chose the thinnest of the lot.

  Today, she hadn’t had even that one slice, though she’d been stewing and fretting over her little matchmaking project for more than half an hour.

  “Mr. Tresham is a wealthy, attractive ducal heir,” Bea said, toeing off her slippers and curling a foot onto the sofa cushions. “He can afford to be selective about his duchess.”

  “I’m the one striking possible duchesses from his list, Bea. This lady has an aunt who tipples. That one has a brother who gambles.”

  Bea chose the smallest slice of cake and bit off a corner. “My Aunt Dot can drain a flask as fast as any coachman ever did, and my brother Bert can’t pass a card table without placing a bet. You’ll have to raid a convent if your standards are that high.”

  Theo, the soul of serenity, got up to pace. “Mr. Tresham is not happy, Bea. He needs a lady who will bring him some joy. He all but admitted that to me, which had to have been difficult for him. A touch of lightheartedness, he said. His father ignored him terribly, and Mr. Tresham’s response was to become top wrangler in his class at Cambridge.”

  To a widow, a life consigned to mathematics was a dire fate. “Only a passionate scholar achieves that honor.” One with time to indulge his intellect and all the native talent to do so.

  Theo straightened a hunt scene over the mantel that had been hanging perfectly plumb. “I need to find a woman who can hold the interest of a brilliant man while bringing him some joy.”

  That Theo needed anything where Mr. Tresham was concerned was puzzling. Bea took another nibble of her lemon cake. “If a healthy young man can’t find joy in sharing his bed with a willing bride, then he’s undeserving of happiness. This lemon cake is fresh, and I can’t eat it all myself. It will go stale once sliced, so you’d best have some.”

  Theo’s concern for poor, dear, unhappy Mr. Fabulously Wealthy Gorgeously Handsome Ducal Heir had apparently obliterated even her delight in lemon cake, her favorite treat.

  She picked up a slice without even troubling over her choice. “We’ve both shared that bed with a willing man, Bea. That’s not happiness.”

  “Then Archimedes was even more hopeless than I thought.” Bea’s foul mood was Casriel’s fault. Why had he been such a dratted gentleman? Such an honest, likable gentleman?

  “Marital affection was enough for a time.” Theo tore off a bottom corner of her cake, for she always ate the icing last. “I wouldn’t trade Diana for anything, but when Archimedes made an issue of having more children, even the sanctuary of conjugal intimacies was tainted by his impecunious habits.”

  Bea wanted to shake the late, perhaps-not-lamented Archimedes and the mama who’d allowed Theo to yoke herself to him. “He was worse than you let on, in other words. I’m sorry, Theo.”

  They ate cake in a silence more sad than companionable. Bea missed her husband terribly, but he’d been equal parts friend, lover, and rascal. Bea could be fond of the rascal now that he was gone and genuinely grieve for the friend and the lover.

  Theo’s mourning was for more than a departed husband.

  “Who’s on your list?” Bea asked, debating a second slice of cake.

  Theo rattled off six names, all lovely women, all appropriate brides for a ducal heir, and not a single one of them lighthearted.

  “What about you?” Bea asked. “You’re eligible, pretty, you can bear children, and you seem to regard Mr. Tresham highly.”

  Theo rose, cake in hand. “I’ll thank you not to jest, Bea. This is a serious matter. He’s counting on me.”

  Very likely, Tresham had paid coin for Theo’s expertise, which showed he wasn’t all fine tailoring and dashing quadrilles.

  “He trusts you, then, a fine foundation for a duke’s marriage. You know everybody, you aren’t a blushing doddypoll, you already have his respect.”

  Theo bit off a nibble of cake from the side with the sugar glaze. “I respect him too. You’d think a ducal heir would have had an upbringing to envy—shaggy ponies, jolly tutors, cricket matches, a bit of Latin. He’s a mathematician to the bone, Bea. Life is an equation to him, and that attitude will not result in a happy marriage. I suspect he loves numbers as much as I hate them.”

  “Then he can do the bookkeeping. You like him for all his numerical inclinations.”

  Theo took the seat behind the desk, for they were in the study, not the formal parlor. This room had a low ceiling and only one window, which meant it was warmer than the airy parlor with French doors and bay windows.

  Like all widows, Theo had doubtless learned what a desk was for: ledgers, bills, and that tribulation known as polite correspondence. She’d likely composed her carefully worded epistles to the viscount at a desk, and she’d battled her ledgers at a desk, wielding an abacus with the same skill she’d once practiced the language of the fan.

  She looked more at home behind Roger’s desk than she’d looked on the dance floor lately.

  “I do like Mr. Tresham,” Theo said. “I resent that I like him, I try to ignore it, I hope the liking will fade, but a deep vein of kindness runs through him. His father’s bad example has made him tolerant rather than mean. He’s honorable, Bea, and he…” Theo stuffed the last of the cake into her mouth, chewing absently.

  “He has gained your notice. Why not have an affair with him?” />
  Theo choked on her cake. “I beg your—Beatitude, have you taken leave of your senses? I cannot… That is the most ridiculous… Beatitude Marie, have you been at the cordial?”

  Cordial could be a dear friend to a woman who’d lost patience with polite society. “A fine idea,” Bea said, crossing to the sideboard. “Strawberry, I think. It goes so well with the lemon cake.”

  “Not the strawberry. The Great Fire was doubtless started by your Aunt Dot’s recipe for cordial, and that fable about a bakery is merely for children’s history books.”

  “Definitely the strawberry,” Bea said, pouring two glasses. “Such a pretty drink.” She brought one to Theo and held up her glass for a toast. “To finding lightheartedness.”

  Theo touched her glass to Bea’s. “To not making a fool of myself.”

  “I did,” Bea said, resuming her seat on the sofa. “With Casriel.”

  Theo took a sip of her drink. “Do tell. He seems like a decent sort. Lovely eyes.”

  His eyes were only the start of his winning attributes, for they were kind as well as beautiful. “He was all that was gentlemanly when he saw me home, Theo. I was tempted.”

  “Ply him with a little cordial, and his clothes will miraculously start falling to your bedroom floor.”

  They shared a smile, not entirely humorous. “I don’t want to become the merry widow, Theo, but I don’t want to be the invisible widow either.”

  “We go quietly mad in our invisibility. Stitch more samplers than we have room for on our walls, do cutwork until we go blind.”

  “I could have invited Casriel in for a cup of tea,” Bea said, running her fingers over the embroidery that rioted across the sofa pillows. More red, pink, and white roses than any bouquet could hold. She had an entire hothouse worth of such over-blooming pillows.

  “But you didn’t invite him in.”

  “He might have refused, and then I’d be pathetic. He might have asked to come in for a moment.” Even a gentleman could say his good nights inside the front door, if they were brief good nights. “Share another slice of cake with me.”

  Theo left the desk and took the place beside Bea on the sofa. “You’re saying the gentleman can’t ask without risking offense, and we can’t offer without risking pity.”

  Bea passed her half a slice of cake. “What an inane system.” She dunked the other half into her cordial. “I hate it. You really ought to be on Mr. Tresham’s list, Theo. He’s a fool not to see that.”

  “I’m a poor widow whose husband died without honoring his debts.”

  Theo had said that exact sentence on more than one occasion, as if reciting a line from a play.

  “You paid those debts.”

  “I’m paying the last of them off this week. Maybe now, I won’t feel as if invisibility is my dearest friend.”

  “I thought I was your dearest friend.”

  Theo had taken only the requisite two sips of her cordial, but she was doing justice to the cake. “You are my best friend, Bea. Never doubt that. If you hadn’t watched over me after Archie’s death, I’d have been committed to Bedlam.”

  “Have an affair with Tresham if you won’t put yourself on his list. It’s time, Theo. Our husbands died, we did not.”

  Theo said nothing while she finished her half slice of cake, but Bea was encouraged. Never had Theo been tempted beyond the first serving of even her favorite treat. Jonathan Tresham was being a good influence, did he but know it.

  Perhaps Casriel might have some ideas about how to aid the cause of romance—ideas best shared over a glass of cordial.

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  One night a month, Jonathan’s rooms at The Albany became what he called The Lonely Husbands Club, though a few bachelors also joined the orphaned spouses, probably to gloat at the spectacle. Anselm’s duchess held a Ladies Card Night—no husbands allowed—and the men congregated at The Albany rather than be seen haunting their clubs out of necessity instead of choice.

  This month, Jonathan had invited his guests to join him at the Quimbey mansion, where the portrait gallery could serve as a makeshift bowling green.

  “Makes one think,” Anselm said from beneath the portrait of Quimbey and his duchess. “All the places we prohibit the ladies from going—our clubs, the floor of Parliament, Angelo’s, Jackson’s… where do they prohibit us to go?”

  “To paradise?” Casriel suggested, hefting his ball.

  “If your lady is declining to offer you her favors,” Anselm replied, “then you aren’t offering your own persuasively enough.”

  This provoked a snort from Hessian, Earl of Grampion, a connection of Casriel’s. “Or perhaps you were too persuasive eight months ago, and the dear woman needs her rest.”

  He tossed his ball in the air and caught it amid good-natured laughter. Anselm and Grampion had children in their nurseries, as did several of the others. Of all the guests, the papas seemed the happiest. They were members of a fraternity of the not merely married, but the married and… something. Something that did not lend itself to words.

  “Set the damned pins,” Casriel yelled to Grampion’s brother, Worth Kettering, who was ten yards away, near the portrait of the first Duke of Quimbey. “It’s not like Tresham will hit any of them.”

  Jonathan never played cards with his acquaintances, unless the occasion was charitable, hence the evening was turned over to fencing, ninepins, chess, or—did the husbands admit this even to their spouses?—revisiting the repertoire of collegiate glee clubs.

  And talking. Amid the bantering, drinking, and whining, interesting conversations ensued as the level of brandy in the decanters fell.

  “I’ll have the pins down before Casriel has refilled his drink,” Jonathan called.

  “Casriel never refills his drink,” Sycamore Dorning retorted. Young Sycamore was away from university on a self-declared holiday, or keeping an eye on his titled brother. University apparently bored Cam Dorning, which dangerous sentiment Jonathan had shared until he’d stumbled into his first class in trigonometry.

  “You steal my drink,” Casriel said, firing his ball at Sycamore. “Hence it’s in constant need of refreshment.”

  Sycamore caught the ball left-handed. “A thankless job, but I am nothing if not a dutiful younger brother. Let the play begin!”

  Choosing teams was a ritual Jonathan didn’t understand, though he sensed its importance, like deciding who on a crew team sat at which pair of oars. The discussion itself created a sense of team spirit, regardless of the actual arrangement agreed upon.

  “Why aren’t you off wooing some marquess’s daughter?” Anselm asked Jonathan as Sycamore and Kettering got into an argument about how many teams should be formed.

  “Because they’re all silly.”

  “My duchess frequently accuses me of silliness.”

  Must Anselm sound so smug? “And to think I once admired your sense of decorum.”

  “My duchess admires my—”

  Jonathan passed Anselm a drink. “Young Sycamore will provoke Kettering to blows.”

  “I tickle her,” Anselm went on with the imperturbable air of an uncle determined to recite inappropriate stories at a formal dinner party. “She tickles me. Will you tickle your duchess, Tresham?”

  I’ll kiss her on that secret spot beneath her ear, where her flesh is tender and scented with jasmine. “I haven’t a duchess. Mrs. Theodosia Haviland is advising me on how I might address this sorry lack.” He should double her pay. Five hundred pounds to find a man’s mate for life wasn’t enough.

  “Mrs. Haviland is an estimable lady,” Anselm said. “When I stopped browsing the debutantes and heiresses, I realized that Mayfair is full of treasures blooming in deserted windows. I did wonder if her cousin-in-law the viscount would ever tend to her situation.”

  Kettering and Sycamore were standing nose to nose, pointing and shouting. Anselm, who had four younger siblings, watched impassively. “Sycamore still hasn’t learned to control his
temper.”

  “Kettering hasn’t learned to control his mouth. Let Casriel sort them out. They’re his family. What do you mean about the viscount and Mrs. Haviland?”

  Anselm clearly wanted to intervene in the gentlemen’s spat, and he’d do it without offending anybody, or he’d offend both parties equally, which was the better choice in present company.

  Jonathan, by contrast, wanted answers. “Let’s visit the heirs, shall we?” He would not like to see Theo married to this negligent viscount cousin by marriage. She’d know she was a wife chosen out of expedience or duty, immured among the flocks of Hampshire far from her friends.

  Far from Jonathan.

  “I like this arrangement of paintings,” Anselm said. “The parents beam across the room at their offspring, the offspring beam back.”

  “I set up the portraits so that no direct sunlight strikes any painting. Uncle paid a fortune to have the artwork restored, and I don’t want my grandson having to do likewise with my own image. Tell me about the viscount.”

  Anselm sauntered over to one of the earls of Trenagle, a bewigged and powdered old gent with a spectacular hooked nose and a merry smile. He’d not become duke until he’d been in his fifties, and he’d spent the first half-century of his life setting a bad example for his younger siblings. His diary averaged two scandals per page, and Jonathan’s father had spoken of him fondly.

  “You are beginning to think like a duke if your grandson is on your mind,” Anselm said. “I account myself amazed.”

  “Those of mean intelligence enjoy nigh constant amazement. Stop stalling, Anselm, for we’re both about to be put on the same team as Kettering and Sycamore.”

  “I’ll take Kettering. You can nanny Sycamore. He’s frequenting The Coventry, isn’t he?”

  Anselm never referred openly to Jonathan’s ownership of the club, so even a passing allusion was unusual.

  “I might have seen him there. He does not wager excessively. He mostly watches.” As Jonathan had sat in the shadows at too many clubs and watched his father fritter away his fortune and respectability, night after night.