by Norma Darcy
“Now Louisa―”
“Sophie was to marry him, not me, and I do not see why I have to marry him when she did not.”
“Because your family expects it.”
“I won’t,” cried Louisa. “I have nothing in common with him at all. We speak of nothing but history because it’s all he cares about.”
“He is certainly very knowledgeable, but it is ridiculous to say that history is all he cares about.”
“It is all he cares about. You were not there last week at the museum. He spoke to me as if I were the very greenest schoolroom miss who had no knowledge of the world. I nearly bludgeoned him over the head with the Rosetta Stone.”
Lady Garbey could not help but smile at that. “Really, Louisa, you should not speak of his grace in such a disrespectful manner.”
“Then you marry him,” flashed her niece.
“Louisa…”
“No Aunt. I will not be persuaded to marry a man who will more than likely give me lessons in the schoolroom rather than…well, rather than make love to me.”
Lady Garbey gasped, her fish-like expression pronounced. “What do you know of making love?”
“At present, nothing, but that, ma’am and not history, is what I wish to learn from my husband.”
Her aunt clapped her hands over her ears. “I will not listen to such language. Where have you heard such things? Surely not in my house?”
“I may be an innocent, but I am not ignorant. And I wish that you and Malvern and Papa would stop treating me as if I am. I want more than a history tutor for my husband.”
There was a sharp silence.
“Well, if you are determined to refuse him,” said Lady Garbey, shifting her ample bosom disapprovingly with the crook of one arm.
“I am.”
“I do not know how my dear brother will take this news.”
“I think we both know exactly how Papa will take the news,” contradicted Louisa wryly.
“And how did Malvern take your refusal?”
“He didn’t.”
Lady Garbey blinked at her niece.
“Oh yes, I gave him an answer, but I am a young child, you know, and do not yet know my own mind,” replied Louisa, her eyes kindling once again at the memory. “I am to have a month to make up my poor simpleton’s mind.”
“Now Louisa, don’t fly into a miff…”
“I am not in a miff,” replied her niece, casting herself onto a chair and fingering the velvet on the arm of it.
“You are in a miff. You always start destroying my furniture when you are cross.”
Louisa stood up instead and walked to the window. She could see the Duke’s broad back retreating down the street.
“What has he done to deserve your anger this time?” demanded Lady Garbey. “Last week, the poor man only had to mention Edward the Confessor and you accused him of patronising you―”
“He was patronising me!”
“Louisa, do you not think you are overreacting?”
“He treats me like a child,” replied the young woman.
“You think he treats you like a child and therefore you look for it in everything he says to you. Even when he is just trying to find out what interests you.”
“He knows what interests me,” flashed her niece. “We have known each other since I was a child. He knows that I am a vain, silly girl; shopping, pretty gowns and a handsome man in a red coat are all I think about, are they not? Everyone knows me to be uninterested in anything of a serious nature. After all, I am nothing but a pretty widgeon to him―that’s what he called me and you needn’t deny he said it for you heard him with your own ears.”
“Are you ever going to forgive him for that remark?” demanded her ladyship, rolling her eyes. “You know that he didn’t mean it.”
“He did mean it,” insisted Louisa. “He believes it.”
“He said it in a moment of anger.”
“Anger?” repeated her niece. “Since when have you ever seen Malvern angry? He said it because he knew that it would upset me.”
Her ladyship cast her eyes to heaven for divine help. “Why are you so sensitive to a throw away remark that he made in the heat of an argument, when you know full well that you goaded him into it―?”
“Yes, I did!” agreed Louisa, reddening. “Because I wished to see him let go of his fine manners and his propriety. I wished to see him without that perfect façade he wears to keep the entire world, including me, at a safe distance.”
Lady Garbey gave up.
Heaven knows what would happen when her brother heard the news. Refuse the Duke of Malvern? Refuse The Nonpareil? Good Lord, she would end up in Bedlam.
She went away immediately to write to her brother. Maybe the Earl could talk some sense into his daughter.
Chapter 2
Lady Louisa tilted her head on one side the better to view the painting.
There was no getting away from it; the lady was, however one chose to view it, significantly under clothed.
The woman rendered beautifully in oils stared unapologetically out of the canvas as she lay upon her bed, the sheets pulled up just short of the height needed to cover her modesty. Two rosy and erect nipples stood proud of her creamy skin, her dark eyes invited the viewer to come nearer, and Louisa began to seriously regret asking the Duke to accompany her to the Royal Academy Exhibition.
Louisa’s arm was looped through his as they walked through the lofty gallery rooms together, and her conversation, which had been at that moment about a particularly beautiful sculpture she had seen the week before, halted mid-flow at the sight of the painting. She wondered why the exhibition room was so hot all of a sudden. She took out her fan and began vigorously wafting cool air at her overheated cheeks. Really, it was too bad of them. It felt as if a furnace had started pumping out heat from under the floor. She was burning up with it.
They stood before the painting, his grace looking as if he were trying not to smile.
“Good composition,” he commented after they had stood for a long moment in silence.
“Isn’t it?” she agreed, grateful for a subject of conversation―any subject.
“Marvellous brushwork.”
“Yes, indeed. The subtlety of colour is really quite remarkable.”
“A most lovingly taken portrait.”
“The artist has most certainly taken an interest in his subject,” Louisa said.
“I think we can safely assume a healthy interest, yes,” the Duke murmured.
Louisa was not altogether sure of her companion’s meaning and thought it wise to ignore his comment. “How I do wish I could paint and draw half so well! She must have been a very patient model to sit for such a time. Do you think the artist spent many hours in serious study, sir?”
“He spent many hours doing something, of that we can be sure,” returned his grace dryly.
“I do not understand you, your grace.”
“Hours of objective drawing, is what I meant,” he said, correcting himself hastily.
Louisa put a hand to her chin, thinking. “What do you think the painting represents?”
His grace, the Duke of Malvern, did a huge double take. Was she really asking him to explain the meaning behind an erotic painting? The Duke fervently hoped the lady’s question was rhetorical and that she wasn’t seriously expecting him to offer any other sort of explanation as to why the bare breasted young beauty was exposing herself so knowingly to her audience. A man of the world he might be, and no stranger to physical intimacy at that, but he would be damned if he would stand there and explain to an innocent young woman the finer points of lovemaking.
“Would you care for some refreshment, my lady? We could go to Günters’ for ices,” he said, in a vain attempt to steer the conversation to safer waters.
But his companion was having none of it and remained intent on the picture before them. “She looks at us so confidently, does she not? She is almost trying to send us a message.”
&n
bsp; “Where is your aunt? I last saw her talking to her friend but I am not even sure she has come into this room yet.”
Lady Louisa turned her eyes upon him. “What’s wrong?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you not wish to discuss art with me?”
“Of course,” he replied a trifle stiffly.
“Then why do you look as if you wish to run away? Do you not admire the painting?”
“It is…er…most stimulating.”
“Are you going to buy it?”
He blinked. “Buy it?”
“Yes. You were admiring the brushwork, were you not? And it is indeed a most arresting piece.”
The Duke ran a finger between his cravat and his neck. “Most arresting. And my mother would hang me from the nearest tree,” he muttered under his breath.
“You could hang it above the fireplace in the drawing room.”
“Or the bedroom of a brothel,” he murmured. “Isn’t that Dick Hawton over by the door? I haven’t seen him in Town for an age.”
“I wonder who she is,” mused her ladyship, her finger against her lips.
His grace cast his eyes towards the ceiling to ask for divine intervention.
“Shall we move on to the next piece?”
“Do you think she’s in love?” asked Louisa, still staring at the painting.
“In love?” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“Er, no…she’s cold.”
“Cold?”
“Yes…she’s just woken up and is extremely cold…it’s a warning to all young women to wear a nightshift to bed.” Then the Duke turned his face away and grimaced, ruefully thinking to himself that she was never going to swallow that explanation.
“Are you sure?” asked Louisa, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t think so.”
“Shall I offer her my coat?” he quipped. “I’m sure she would feel the benefit.”
“I should rather think she must be too hot rather than too cold. Why else would she wear her nightshift down so low?”
An infinitesimal pause greeted this question and the Duke was hard put to it not to smile. He turned away and murmured something that she didn’t quite catch.
She finally met his eyes. “I beg your pardon? You spoke so softly that I did not hear you.”
He cleared his throat. “I said I’d like to show you…the next room. And then we shall find your aunt and find some refreshment.”
“You are laughing at me.”
“Not at all.”
“You are. I can tell by your eyes.”
He smiled but returned no answer.
“It is a great deal too bad of you to tease me, your grace.”
“My apologies,” he replied clicking his heels together as he made her a bow. “You may punish me as you choose.”
She tapped a finger against her lips, her head on one side like a curious bird, thinking. “A forfeit? Oh I like that idea.”
“I thought you might,” he murmured. “Well then, what is it to be? Don’t, I beg of you, make me read Byron.”
She gasped as she took his proffered arm. “How can you talk so? Do you not know that half the women of my acquaintance are as much in love with his prose as they are with his person?”
The Duke pulled a face. “Including you?”
“But of course. I like romantic poetry as much as the next woman. After all, I am a pretty pea goose, am I not, my lord Duke?”
“I know that you like to think that I have that opinion of you,” he agreed as they paused to examine a marble sculpture, two lovers entwined under a tree, strategically draped material over their most intimate parts.
“Oh how beautiful!” she exclaimed.
“I do hope you are not going to ask me to explain the meaning behind this one.”
She giggled. “Oh, there is no need; I understand.”
“You do?” he said. “Then perhaps you’d best explain it to me instead.”
She blushed. “No.”
He laughed softly. “No? That is hardly charitable of you, now is it?” he complained. “When I struggled so helplessly to explain to you the meaning of that wretched painting and tied myself in knots trying to attempt it.”
“You know perfectly well what it means and you are just trying to push me to the blush.”
“Is it working?” he enquired, looking down with amusement at her averted profile.
“Am I the only person who finds these rooms intolerably hot?”
“How subtly she changes the subject,” he murmured.
“Now that is two forfeits, my lord Duke.”
“Two?” he protested. “You are cruel, my lady.”
“You deserve it for being so provoking,” she retorted.
“Was I being provoking? I was only expressing an interest in the sculpture. And indeed, I wondered at the capacity of material to cling so conveniently in certain places. Really, it quite defies gravity.”
She struggled to hide a smile. “I think it would be rather indecent without the material, sir.”
“In think it indecent with the material,” he replied.
“But rather material than fig leaves.”
“Yes, indeed. In my experience a fig leaf is quite inadequate. But they do seem to be made of equally miracle like stuff in its ability to stay put without the need of buttons and braces.”
She choked on a laugh. “I meant that the material is aesthetically more pleasing.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Malvern, will you stop?”
His lips twitched but he spread his hands in an expression of innocence. “What have I done?”
“Three forfeits,” she declared, taking his arm once again.
“Three? Oh dear.”
“You are quite disgraceful.”
“I know,” he agreed woefully. “I am quite ready to admit to it. I need a wife to tell me how to go on in the world.”
She blushed and looked away. “Where is my aunt?”
“Over there by the door. You can see that bonnet coming from a distance of twenty yards.”
She laughed. “It is horrid, is it not? I did try to hint that she might buy the other one instead, but she was insistent.”
“It does rather assault the eye.”
They stood in front of the sculpture, the form perfectly rendered and unblemished.
“What shall we do now?” Louisa asked, unconsciously reaching out a hand to touch the marble of the statue. The man’s perfect muscular back was cold under her fingertips and as smooth as glass. She marvelled at the skill needed to produce such perfect form. Her hand strayed along the curve of his back in a long, lingering caress and then fell away.
“My lord Duke?”
He blinked at her, tearing his gaze away from her hand.
“You seem distracted, sir.”
He swallowed. “Let us find your aunt. I feel an immediate need for ices.”
* * *
“I have made a momentous discovery,” remarked Lady Louisa some time later as they sat in the Duke’s barouche, eating sorbet outside Günters’ in Berkeley Square. She looked across at him with a coy, knowing smile, her face dappled with shade cast by the maple trees overhead.
“And what is that, my lady?” he enquired as he helped himself to a scoop of the punch water ice they shared between them.
“You have a fault, your grace. You are not the epitome of masculine perfection after all.”
The Duke pulled a face. “I did not think that I was. What a vain creature you must think me, to be sure.”
“Louisa!” cried Lady Garbey from the seat opposite, her mouth showing signs of the chocolate ice cream she had recently demolished. “Where are your manners, child?”
Her niece blushed. “Well, everyone says that he is―perfect, I mean―not vain.”
“Very well,” asked the Duke, “and what is this fault of mine?”
“Your singing. You are quite tone deaf, you know.”
“This from the lad
y whose dulcet tones inspires sparrows to hurl themselves from the trees and dogs to set up such a howling as to wake the dead,” he replied.
“Well said, your grace,” Lady Garbey chuckled.
Louisa smiled and arched a brow at him. “How un-gentlemanly of you to mention it. But we were not discussing me, we were discussing you.”
“And why are we discussing me?” he enquired.
“Because you, Malvern, need a wife,” she declared, blushing ever so slightly. “I am going to find you a suitable match, and I believe that the lady needs to be tone deaf for you to deal well with her.”
Lady Garbey gasped. The Duke stared hard at her for a moment and then looked away.
“And why do I need you to find me a wife?” he asked, the question directed at his next spoonful of sorbet.
“Because your sister will see you married to Miss Bedgerton and she sings like an angel. Your marriage would be doomed to failure within weeks. Besides, I could not bear to see you throw yourself away on such a haughty creature,” she replied.
Lady Garbey tried to catch her niece’s eye and failed miserably.
“My sister may arrange a match for me with whomsoever she chooses,” replied his grace, “but I am old enough to be able to make up my own mind.”
“But you haven’t looked about you. Your ties to my family have meant that you have not had the opportunity to find a lady who would make you happy. I know you very well, and I think I am better placed than Lady Jane to know what would suit.”
“I see,” said the Duke, suddenly losing interest in his water ice.
“I think we should make a list,” announced Louisa.
“A list?” squeaked Lady Garbey from behind her handkerchief, only imagining the wrath of Louisa’s father to this current turn of events. And she knew perfectly well who would get the blame for mismanaging the whole affair. A chit barely out of the schoolroom, to play matchmaker for one of the richest and most powerful men in the country? She really would end up in Bedlam.
“Yes,” continued Louisa, oblivious to her aunt’s disturbing thoughts. “We will write down a list of requirements and then we will find a lady to match them.”
A short silence greeted this pronouncement, her ladyship looking with some sympathy at the gentleman seated opposite.
