My Dear Duchess

by M C Beaton

  “For our first entertainment?” he exclaimed in some surprise. “Very well, my dear. As you wish.”

  Mrs. Sayers opened her mouth to protest but encountered a long, cool look from Clarissa and closed it again. Frederica blinked a little of her triumph and it was some few moments before she realized that she did not really want to have a masquerade party after all.

  Frederica had hoped for a few words in private with her husband before they retired for the night but the visitors followed them as far as their rooms, sticking close to the newly-weds with the tenacity of cupping glasses.

  As she closed her door, Frederica heard Clarissa trill, “Oh, Henry, did I tell you of the latest on-dit?” Her voice dropped to a seductive murmur and Frederica stood rigid, her tiny hands clenched into fists. To go back and join them as they lingered in the corridor seemed over-possessive. Ignoring the questioning look from her maid, she allowed herself to be undressed and went to bed with one pleasant thought among the other troubled and nasty ones—that Jack Ferrand at least seemed an unexceptionable young man.

  The Duke kept early hours for breakfast so she was at least sure of his company for part of the morning. But her face dropped miserably as she entered the breakfast room on the following morning to find Mrs. Sayers, Clarissa and Jack Ferrand already there and making plans for the day. It was with no little relief that she heard her husband explain that he would have to leave them to their own devices that afternoon as he meant to drive Frederica to call on the tenants. He gave his wife his singularly sweet and heart-twisting smile and she smiled back, their eyes meeting and holding each other’s gaze for a second. Jack Ferrand caught the exchange of looks.

  He said, “If you can spare your wife this morning, Duke, I should appreciate her escort round the grounds.”

  The Duke readily agreed and said in that case he would, for his part, show Clarissa and her mother round the house. Frederica noticed Clarissa’s radiant smile of assent and only hoped that Mrs. Sayers would not plead the headache as she often did when she wished to allow Clarissa ample freedom to demonstrate her charms.

  Jack Ferrand turned out to be a cheerful and amusing companion, exclaiming with wonder and appreciation at the wide vistas and smooth lawns. Innocent Frederica did not realize that each chatty remark was carefully planned to drip poison into her heart. Jack Ferrand teased her about her marriage. She knew of course that her husband had been labelled as a rakehell and a heart-breaker, he said with such a happy laugh that Frederica felt she could not possibly be so missish as to take offence, especially when he gallantly added that it was obvious that Frederica had indeed captured the Duke’s fickle heart. And, he added, she must not be annoyed by all the malicious gossip that the Duke had married on the rebound. People were simply jealous. Poor Frederica! She had not been long enough out in the world to know that gentlemen did not talk with young matrons with such freedom. Her eyes began to mist over with tears and she desperately cast her eyes around the grounds for something to point to in order to change this heart-breaking conversation.

  “What is that door built into the hillside?” she asked, pointing with the ivory end of her parasol to a sturdy embossed door beside the lake.

  “How intriguing!” cried Jack Ferrand. “Let us explore.”

  Frederica hesitated. “Have we time? The sun is high in the sky and we do not want to be late. I wouldn’t want Harry to leave on his rounds without me.”

  “Now, how could he possibly leave such a pretty bride?” teased Jack Ferrand. He grasped the handle of the door and gave it an energetic pull. It swung smoothly open, showing a long, low cavernous passage. A candle and tinderbox were placed on a ledge at the entrance which he lit, sending mysterious shadows dancing up the low brick walls. Then he paused. “Wait a bit. I think I hear someone calling. Go ahead and explore and I will be back directly.”

  Frederica picked up the candle and moved slowly down the corridor. The air became chillier and chillier and she began to shiver. The passage ended in a great vault piled high with glistening blocks of ice and straw. Ice! She was in an ice house. She remembered tales of such places as these on country estates where the blocks of ice were drawn from the lake in winter and stored in the depths of the vault to supply ice for the great houses in summer.

  She held her candle high above her head noticing long stalactite forms hanging from the roof. Suddenly these grew masses of red eyes blinking in the wavering candlelight and Frederica heard the slow rasping sound of leathery wings. Bats! She gave a faint scream and turned about. The daylight at the end of the corridor seemed very far away and just as she made towards it, the door slammed closed with a tremendous bang. The disturbed bats wheeled and squeaked and she crouched down on the floor of the corridor, wondering if she would faint from fright.

  The Duke’s barouche was waiting outside the abbey, the horses pawing at the gravelled drive. The Duke paced up and down the steps and then turned to question Jack Ferrand for what seemed to be the hundredth time. “And you say you have no idea of where my wife might be?”

  Jack Ferrand shook his head. “We were strolling in the grounds and I went off a little way because I thought I heard someone calling and when I came back, she had gone.”

  Clarissa fluttered out on to the steps, carrying her bonnet and parasol. “Could you take me instead, dear Henry?” she begged. “Mama has gone to sleep and it is such a beautiful afternoon.”

  The Duke hesitated. He was very angry with Frederica. She should have realized how important this visit was to the tenants. He was still distrustful of Clarissa but she looked so enchanting and so guileless that he decided to let her come with him.

  The barouche swung down the drive under the long line of elms and Jack Ferrand watched it until it was out of sight. He thought momentarily of Frederica imprisoned in the ice house and shrugged. He would let her out at the precise time when he judged the Duke to be still angry and not yet worried.

  * * *

  Frederica crouched on the floor of her ice prison and shivered uncontrollably from cold and fright. She pressed herself against the outer door, hearing the faint sounds of summer filtering through as if from another world. She dared not move for fear of arousing the sleeping bats. She began to wonder about Jack Ferrand. Had he deliberately shut her in here? But why? Perhaps the door had simply swung shut and he had assumed that she had left. But her husband would surely not leave without her. That was the only comforting thought she had, but even that began to fade as the long afternoon wore on and gradually the faint light from the crack under the door grew dimmer. “He will come. Oh, please God make him come,” prayed Frederica. As if in mocking reply, the candle gave a final spurt and went out. Then the slow, sinister rustling of the bats began again.

  Frederica began to cry hopelessly. Her husband did not even care enough to have the grounds searched. She had heard no voices calling, no sounds of hurrying feet.

  Suddenly, almost noiselessly, the door of the ice house swung open to reveal the moonlight shining on the lake. With legs that could barely carry her, she pulled herself up from the floor and staggered outside. There was no one there, nothing but the sound of wildfowl rustling in the reeds and the occasional plop of a leaping fish.

  Wearily she dragged herself across the lawns and towards the great house. The long drawing room windows were ablaze with lights. Moved by a sudden impulse, Frederica mounted the wide stone steps to the terrace and looked inside.

  Her husband was standing on the hearthrug talking to Clarissa while Jack Ferrand and Mrs. Sayers lounged in opposite chairs and indulgently looked on. Diamonds sparkled on Clarissa’s white bosom and at her ears, and winked from the intricate embroidery of her high bodice. On a lesser beauty, the effect would have been ostentatious and vulgar, but Clarissa looked magnificent. She was laughing at something the Duke said and playfully reached up her hands to straighten his cravat.

  He did not care! She had been missing nearly all day and he did not care! With her heart like lead, Frederica
trailed along the terrace and entered her bedroom by way of the French windows. She had neither the heart nor the courage to join the party. Without summoning her maid, she slowly undressed and crawled into bed, listening with anguish to the faraway sounds of laughter from the drawing room.

  After what seemed an age, she heard her bedroom door being gently opened. The face of her husband seemed to swim above her in the flickering candlelight. “Well, my lady wife,” he said grimly, “next time you have the headache and choose to retire to your room for the day, please inform me in time. It was well that your stepsister offered to act for you, and to my relief, she behaved very prettily. The tenants were charmed.”

  All Frederica’s misery fled before a wave of suffocating fury.

  “For your information, I have spent the most hideous day of my life locked in the ice house.”

  He looked at her skeptically. “And who let you out?”

  Frederica faltered. “The door simply swung open on its own accord.”

  “Then why did you not come to the drawing room to let me know of your safe return?” he demanded in a cynical voice.

  Frederica bit her lip. How could she tell him of her watching them from the terrace? How could she tell him of her heartache?

  “I will tell you what I think happened,” he said grimly. “You could not be bothered to visit our tenants and stayed away until I had left. You became angry because Clarissa had gone instead of you so you decided to stay in your rooms and sulk like the child you are!”

  Before she quite knew what had happened, Frederica had picked up the pillow from behind her head and thrown it straight in her husband’s face.

  “How dare you!” she screamed. “I spent horrid long hours, frightened out of my wits, half frozen to death and all you cared about was flirting with Clarissa.”

  He straightened his cravat and remarked unforgivably, “You are a jealous little cat!”

  Never in her much-bullied life had Frederica been so angry. She flew from her bed to her dressing table and began to hurl everything and anything she could get her hands on at her equally-furious husband who slowly edged his way towards her despite an onslaught of pins, lotions, scents, and curling tongs.

  He seized her by the wrists and twisted her arms behind her back staring down into her infuriated face. “I have a good mind to give you the thrashing you deserve,” he said grimly, glaring down at her. “As my wife, you will have to learn how to behave. As my wife!”

  A wicked gleam began to appear in his eyes and he forced her backwards toward the bed. “I know of one very good way to school you, Miss Frederica.” He bent his head and his firm, cool lips clamped down ruthlessly over her own. Then raising his head and looking down at her with a dawning surprise, he deftly picked her up and threw her on the bed and before she could move, hurled himself on top of her, driving the breath from her body. He caught her flailing arms and pinned them behind her and bent his head again, forcing her back into the pillows with long, slow insulting kisses. As she tried to free her hands he dug his nails into her wrists. She let out a long scream of pain. Immediately he rolled off her and reached for the candle. “You are hurt,” he said anxiously holding up the light. She mutely held up her battered, bruised and bleeding hands. “Did I do that?” he asked in a whisper.

  She shook her head and said in a shaking voice, “It was the ice house door. I… I hurt them pounding on the ice house door.”

  “Oh, my dear,” he said. “Tell me very slowly what happened.”

  In a faltering voice, she related her walk in the grounds with Jack Ferrand, telling him how the ice house door had mysteriously closed and then opened again in the evening.

  “I cannot understand this,” he said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “Oh, I believe you, my dear. Do you think Ferrand locked you in? He told me some story that he thought he had heard someone calling and went to investigate and when he returned, you had gone.”

  “He did go to investigate,” said Frederica, “but did he not mention anything about the ice house?”

  The Duke shook his head. “Then I began to wonder aloud where you might be and Clarissa said that one of the servants had mentioned that the Duchess had retired to her rooms suffering from the headache and did not wish to be disturbed.”

  “But none of the servants saw me…” Frederica began.

  “Don’t trouble your mind about it at this moment,” said the Duke, gently interrupting her. “I shall get someone to bandage your hands and then I would like to have a few words with Mr. Ferrand.” He reached his hand toward the bell pull and then hesitated. “I owe you an apology, Frederica. I am afraid I have a devil of a temper.”

  She gave a shaky laugh. “I have just discovered that I have one myself.” She began to giggle helplessly. “You… you do smell so. I must have thrown a whole bottle of scent over you.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “The whole room smells like a Covent Garden brothel.”

  Frederica looked at him wearily, all the laughter gone from her face. “And how, my lord Duke,” she demanded coldly, “do you know how a Covent Garden brothel smells?”

  He ruffled her curls. “Keep your claws in, my kitten. It is just an expression, nothing more. And one that I should not use in front of any lady. Please forgive me.”

  He smiled into her eyes and Frederica thought that when he smiled like that she could forgive him anything.

  He pulled the bell and gave her a sudden quick kiss on the cheek as the maid came hurrying into the room. He left Benson exclaiming in horror over the damage to her mistress’s hands and went in search of Jack Ferrand. He found him alone in the small billiard room, and in the split second before Mr. Ferrand leapt to his feet, the Duke had an uneasy feeling that his visit was not unexpected.

  “Your Grace!” cried Jack boyishly. “This is damn fine claret your old relative laid down. Care for a glass?” The Duke shook his head and leaned his broad shoulders against the mantleshelf and surveyed his guest. Jack Ferrand’s light blue eyes looked ingenuously up into the Duke’s. He radiated friendliness and good humor. The Duke took him step by step through his walk with Frederica and then stopped him when he described their arriving at the ice house. Jack Ferrand clapped his hand to his brow. How could he have forgotten to mention the ice house? But he had heard someone calling, he had returned, and seeing the door closed, assumed Her Grace had left. Good God! It made him sick to think of it.

  Watching his face closely, the Duke noticed that it had indeed gone very white and strained. He realized he had misjudged his guest and forgave him for his error of omission. He would have to look elsewhere for the culprit. With a courteous bow, His Grace left the billiard room… and Jack Ferrand with his hands shaking.

  For his face had indeed gone white during the Duke’s interrogation but not with fear for Frederica. It was because the Duke, looking down at him from his great height, and icily putting his questions with that damned haughty drawl of his, had looked every inch a Duke. And Ferrand’s jealousy burned so deep, he thought he might die from it. He poured himself another glass of claret and drank it with a gulp. By the time he had finished the decanter, hope had risen anew. Such a guileless pair as the new Duke and Duchess could be easily duped. One only had to find the right time and the right place. Of course he hadn’t meant to kill the girl, but only to scare her and give Clarissa a chance to ingratiate herself with the Duke. Although, Lord knows, murdering Frederica would be easier than trapping a rabbit.

  But next morning, after he was roused by the commotion in the great hall below, and had hurriedly dressed to see what was afoot, he no longer felt so sure of the vulnerability of Frederica.

  It was an almost medieval scene which met his eyes as he emerged onto the first landing of the great staircase. The lights from the arched mullioned windows shone down on the servants assembled below. Clarissa and Mrs. Sayers were standing open-mouthed at the entrance to the breakfast room. The Duke stood half way up the stairs facing his staff.

  He rai
sed an imperious hand and the assembly shuffled into silence. “My wife was locked in the ice house yesterday,” declared the Duke. “I am unable to find the culprit but mark my words… my wife has to be guarded from harm at any hour of the day. Should any harm befall her like the happening of yesterday, the heads of the household staff will be instantly dismissed. That is all.”

  The servants scurried off. Clarissa looked up and saw Jack Ferrand looking down at her and she turned hurriedly away.

  Despite her dislike for Frederica, she suddenly found the news that the girl was to be guarded at all times immeasurably comforting.

  The Duke had questioned her closely about her story that Frederica had retired with a headache. Which servant was it? Man or woman? Could she identify the servant?

  Clarissa had taken refuge in rudeness. Stifling a yawn, she had said that, really, all the servants looked alike to her and if her dear brother-in-law bombarded her with any more questions, why, she declared she would have a bad case of the headache herself!

  Chapter Seven

  It lacked but two days to the great event of Frederica’s masquerade and already the great house was abustle with preparations.

  Emily and Mrs. Cholmley, complete with her holy interpreter in the form of Stafford, had arrived, much to Frederica’s delight. At first Emily had been sulky and despondent, declaring the masquerade party to be a great bore, but the arrival of Lord Archie Hefford put an end to her moping and she became as frantically interested in the subject of costumes as any other lady there.

  Everyone was overcome with the desire to surprise the others and kept the subject of his costume a closely-guarded secret.

  Frederica had seen little of her husband since the night of her escape from the ice house. He had taken hurried meals in his study and then spent the days riding over his land with his steward, seemingly immersed in the intricacies of agriculture. For once, Frederica had surprisingly little difficulty in arranging the great evening’s menu with Mrs. Lawton. She did not know that Mrs. Lawton feared that if she did not comply with Her Grace’s wishes, then Her Grace’s formidable and vulgar mother would be down on her like a ton of bricks.