by Mary Balogh
The Duke of Bridgwater’s hand closed about the handle of his quizzing glass, and he raised it to his eye, pursing his lips as he did so.
“Ah,” he said, “then you have been proved wrong, Louise, have you not? You and George both.”
But she only laughed merrily. “Oh, do put the glass down,” she said. “You cannot cow me with it, Alistair. Henry can imitate you to perfection, you know. He can have us in stitches with laughter.”
The duke lowered his glass and raised his eyebrows. His eleven-year-old nephew was growing into too impudent a wag for his own good. And George and Louise were encouraging him in such insubordination? So much for favorite nephews and the gratitude they owed a doting uncle.
The ladies settled into a dull and cozy chat about children. Among the three younger ladies, there were enough children to provide topics of conversation to last a week or longer. But they were not content with just their own.
“Cora is in town with Lord Francis and the children,” the countess said. “Did you know, Mama? I was delighted beyond anything when she called yesterday. Do you remember the Season when she stayed here with us and you brought her out? The year Charles and I became betrothed? The year she married Lord Francis? And what a famous heroine she was?” She laughed at her memories even before the others began discussing them.
“Dear Lady Francis,” Lady George said fondly. “She saved Henry’s life. How could I ever forget her? How are her children, Jane? Four, are there not?”
But Bridgwater was no longer listening. He had crossed the room to the window and stood looking down on the square below, waiting for the appearance of another carriage.
In his mind’s eye he could see her rather tall, slender figure. He could see her auburn hair thick and wavy like a cloud about her head and shoulders, as it had been that first night, which he had expected to spend with her. He knew that her eyes were hazel with golden flecks. He remembered that she had a dimple in one cheek—the left?—and very white teeth. He remembered that her smile lit up her face. He knew that she was pretty.
But he could not for the life of him put the pieces together in his mind in order to form a clear image of her. He even wondered foolishly if he would recognize her when he saw her this afternoon.
It had been ten days.
Ten days since he had fallen into his great madness. It seemed unreal, looking back. It was hard to believe that it had actually happened—all of it. That strange journey south with a bright bird of plumage, whom he had mistaken for a ladybird with a vivid imagination. His insistence on seeing the adventure through to its end so that he might enjoy her discomfiture when all her lies were finally exposed for what they were. His sudden realization, after they had arrived, that everything she had told him was true, and the accompanying realization that he had hopelessly compromised a lady. His offer. His insistence that she accept it.
Yes, he had insisted. She had tried more than once to refuse. She had quite categorically released him from any sense of obligation he might feel. She would not have been ruined if she had. The other occupants of the house would have kept their mouths shut—even Sir Peter Griffin. Yes, he especially. He would have kept his mouth shut in the hope of marrying her himself.
And yet the insistence. And her final acceptance.
He had not even corrected her on the assumption that had seemed to be at the heart of her acceptance. She had assumed that he had behaved throughout their acquaintance with the utmost gallantry. She had called him kind. She had thought his decision to take her all the way to Sindon had proceeded from his concern for her safety. She had said he had been the only person to treat her with respect for who she really was since she had acquired those atrocious garments. Lord, if only she knew!
He had not disabused her. It had seemed unmannerly to do so. It would have hurt her. Besides—dared he admit it?—she would have thought the worse of him if she had known.
He felt a little guilty for not admitting he was not quite the hero she thought him.
Yes, it was hard to believe that it was all true. Except that the memories of shocked disbelief among his family were very fresh indeed and very real. His mother, who now appeared to have accepted the inevitable, had been worst of all. He could not possibly so disgrace his name. She would not believe it of him. But she had believed eventually and had decided to stand by him.
And now the female members of his family were gathered behind him, waiting to meet his betrothed. The announcement was ready to go into tomorrow’s papers, and St. George’s had already been booked for the wedding in one month’s time.
He watched almost dispassionately as a plain carriage entered the square and drew to a halt before the doors of his mother’s house. He watched the steps being put down and two ladies being helped to the pavement—one middle-aged, one young. Neither looked up. Both ascended the steps of the house and disappeared inside.
He had intended calling on them yesterday or this morning. Yet, when he had made inquiries late yesterday afternoon, they had still not arrived at the Pulteney. This morning Mrs. Cavendish had sent a card to his mother, and his mother had sent word to him. He was to come here this afternoon, she had written. Mrs. Cavendish and Miss Gray were coming to tea. And so he had waited for the afternoon. He wished now that he had made arrangements to call for them and to escort them here.
He had been very firmly head of his family for longer than ten years. No one, least of all he, had been in doubt about that. But today he felt like a boy again, unsure of himself, subject to his mother’s will. He drew a deep breath and let it out on a silent sigh. The door had opened behind him, and his mother’s butler was making the expected announcement. He turned. All the ladies were rising to their feet.
He stood at the window like a spectator. She and her cousin both curtsied. His mother hurried toward them, greeted the older lady courteously, and then held her hands out to the younger, who took them.
“Miss Gray,” his mother was saying graciously, “what a pleasure it is to meet you. The past week has seemed interminable. I do hope you had a comfortable journey up from the country and that your hotel is to your taste? You must tell us all about it. Allow me to present you to my daughters and my daughter-in-law.”
They buzzed. They talked. They laughed. Mrs. Cavendish buzzed and talked and laughed back.
And then his mother turned to him, a smile on her face. “Alistair?” she said.
He came forward at last. “Ma’am?” he said to Mrs. Cavendish, bowing over her hand. “Miss Gray?” He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. It was cold, even a little clammy.
Her dress was pale blue rather than gray. Her hair, dressed in a simple knot behind, was slightly flattened from the bonnet she had left downstairs. Her face was pale, her eyes slightly shadowed. There was not a glimmering of a sign of her dimple or her white teeth.
“Your Grace,” she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.
She looked every inch a governess.
He felt the nervous urge to laugh. Where were the fuchsia cloak and the plumed bonnet? Without them she seemed to be robbed of identity.
“Alistair,” his mother was saying, “you will show Miss Gray to a chair? Mrs. Cavendish, do take the seat beside Lady George. Here is the tea tray.”
He seated her on a love seat. He should have taken the place beside her. The occasion called for it. He should have engaged her in a tête-à-tête conversation, as far as politeness would allow. It would be expected of him. Instead, he walked to the fireplace a short distance away and stood with his back to it, his hands behind him.
She was a stranger. She was a clergyman’s daughter, a governess. He did not think of her as his social inferior—just as his social opposite. He was a duke. There was a whole way of life his duchess would be expected to fit into with grace and ease. This woman just would not be able to do it. She already looked like the proverbial fish out of water.
By insisting that she marry him, he had ensured her unhappin
ess—and his own. He pursed his lips and set himself to being sociable, the perfect host. The role was second nature to him.
* * *
COUSIN BERTHA AND Cousin Horace had fawned upon her for longer than a week. Unkind as the word was, Stephanie could think of no more suitable one.
She was to marry a duke, the Duke of Bridgwater. They did not seem to tire of exclaiming over the fact and reminding her of her good fortune. How provident it was that they and Mr. Watkins and Sir Peter Griffin had all been at Sindon to witness her arrival with His Grace. Had there been no one but servants at home at the time, he would doubtless have withdrawn quietly and dear Cousin Stephanie might never have netted him. But he had seen how disconcerted they were, of course—how could they help but be outraged even if he was a duke and everyone knew that members of the aristocracy were a law unto themselves? For very decency’s sake he had been forced to offer for dear Cousin Stephanie. She had done very nicely indeed for herself.
They had a week to get Cousin Stephanie ready to go to town and show herself worthy of being a duke’s bride. Everything about her needed transforming. Gracious heavens, what must His Grace have thought of her in that dreadful cloak and bonnet? And in the even more dreadful gray dress? She needed new clothes, she needed to dress her hair differently, she needed to learn how to curtsy and how to converse in polite society. She needed to learn to impress people. How were they ever to be ready in time?
The village seamstress was brought to Sindon Park and kept a virtual prisoner in an attic room until she had produced a number of new clothes, which would have to do until Cousin Bertha had a chance to take Cousin Stephanie to a more fashionable modiste in London. A former ladies’ maid, who had a reputation as an artistic dresser of hair, was engaged and set to work to show what she could do with Cousin Stephanie’s unfortunately red and unfortunately unruly hair.
All the dresses except one—the one Stephanie had insisted upon for day wear—were so bedecked with ribbons and frills and flounces at Cousin Bertha’s insistence that Stephanie swore privately she would never wear any of them. They made her look as if she were masquerading as a sixteen-year-old—a sixteen-year-old without any taste whatsoever. And the curls and ringlets with which her new maid loaded and decorated her head made her look so grotesque that she always brushed them out as soon as she was able and knotted her hair in its usual comfortable style.
“You have no idea how to go on, my love,” Cousin Bertha said in despair the day before they left for town. “You will appear a veritable bumpkin to His Grace. I would not doubt he will quietly dissolve the betrothal. You look like a governess.”
Perhaps he really would dissolve the betrothal, Stephanie thought. Surely he would. He must have had second thoughts—and third and fourth thoughts—by now. He must have realized what a dreadful mistake he had made. As had she.
She could no longer remember what he looked like. She had only disturbing and vague memories of a tall, handsome, rather arrogant figure. The memories terrified her as did the knowledge that he was a duke. Was a duke not next to a prince in rank? Above earls and marquesses and barons? How could she enter that world? Just a couple of weeks ago she had been a governess.
Several times—usually during the nights, when she awoke from disturbing dreams—she was on the verge of writing to him, telling him that she had changed her mind, telling him that she would release him from his promise, so hastily and rashly given. He would be as relieved as she, she told herself.
But always before she could write the letter—though once she actually started it—she remembered how little time she had. Less than four months during which to find a husband. Or else she must go back to being a governess. Sometimes the prospect of that familiar and drab life was less daunting than the one that actually faced her.
And now suddenly—it all seemed to have happened to her without her exercising any control at all over events—here she was. In London. At the Duchess of Bridgwater’s house. Feeling numb and terrified all at the same time.
They were almost late. When she had gazed at her image in the glass at the Pulteney Hotel, and Cousin Bertha and her new maid had stood behind her, exclaiming on what a pretty picture she made, she had been almost paralyzed with horror. She looked grotesque! Despite the protests of her maid and the cries of dismay from Cousin Bertha, she had almost torn off the pink dress in her haste, and she had dragged a brush through her hair until tears stood in her eyes. And so at least she felt comfortable—oh, no, she did not!—in her plain blue dress and with her hair dressed as she had always worn it at the Burnabys’.
The Duchess of Bridgwater, his mother, was an elegant, gracious lady. She looked like a duchess. The ladies with her—his sisters?—all had illustrious-sounding titles. She felt overwhelmed, totally out of her depth. Suddenly, she was almost grateful for the six years of frequent humiliations she had been made to suffer. Those years had taught her always to be calm and dignified, never to crumble in a nasty situation.
She could not even remember the names of the ladies after the duchess had finished presenting her. Yet they were to be her sisters-in-law. The idea was so ludicrous that she almost laughed in her nervousness.
And then he was there before her—she had not even noticed him until that moment—taking her hand in his, bowing over it, kissing it. And she remembered in a rush that, yes, of course, this was how he looked. He was tall and elegant. His face was handsome and proud. He was not smiling. His pale gray eyes seemed cold. He had been kind to her, she thought desperately. For three days she had talked to him and felt at ease with him. But the thought was crowded out by the knowledge that he was a duke. This grand house belonged to his mother. These ladies—she seemed to remember that one of them was a marchioness, and all of them had titles—were his sisters.
She was his betrothed. No, it was impossible. As she allowed him to lead her toward a love seat, as she seated herself, she felt that the room was without sufficient air. She wanted nothing more than to jump to her feet and race from the room, down the stairs, and out the front door. She wanted to run and run and run. But where? Back to the Pulteney? There was nowhere else to run. London was bewilderingly strange and new to her. At the Pulteney she would have to wait for Cousin Bertha’s return. Reality would have to be faced eventually.
Better to face it now.
Cousin Bertha had launched into loud speech. She was telling her audience about the expenses of their journey, about the high cost of rooms at the Pulteney and the exorbitant cost of meals there. She was telling them that she had brought her own bedsheets with her because one could never trust inns and hotels to have changed the linen after the last guests—not to mention the possibility of damp.
“One can never be too sure,” she said, dropping her voice confidentially, as if whole armies of hotel servants might be standing with their ears pressed to the drawing room door to hear themselves maligned. “And I thought His Grace would thank me for protecting dear Stephanie from chills and fevers. He would not want to have a bride with the sneezes and a red nose on her wedding night, would he?” She simpered.
Someone had placed a cup and saucer in Stephanie’s hand. She did not know quite how they had got there. The cup was filled with tea. She touched the handle with the fingers of one hand, but she knew that she would not be able to lift the cup successfully to her lips. The duke was commending Cousin Bertha on her careful nature and reminding her that the Czar of Russia had stayed at the Pulteney a few years ago.
“Miss Gray.” One of the younger ladies—not the marchioness—was smiling at her. She had spoken up determinedly before Cousin Bertha could open her mouth again. “I understand from Alistair that you inherited Sindon Park only very recently and saw it for the first time less than two weeks ago. That must have been exciting. Are you pleased with the property?”
“Yes, thank you,” Stephanie said. There was an expectant pause, during which everyone’s eyes were on her, including his. There must be more to say. She could not think of
a single thing.
“Of course she is pleased with it,” Cousin Bertha said. “Are you not, my love? She is rather shy, you know. But how could she not be pleased? The furnishings and draperies alone are enough to pay a king’s ransom.”
“I understand that the park is somewhat celebrated,” the duchess said. “Do you admire it, Miss Gray? How would you describe it?”
The park. For one moment she could not bring a single image of it to mind, though she had spent hours every day for a week strolling about it, drinking in the wonder and the beauty and the peace of it all.
“It is very pretty,” she said. And then she remembered what she had missed. “Your Grace.”
“The rhododendrons were planted there at great expense,” Cousin Bertha said. “And the roses must have cost a minor fortune, I declare. There are two large rose arbors, Your Grace. Not one, but two. But then money is not lacking for such extravagant shows at Sindon. Mr. Cavendish always says that the visitors who come by the dozens every year to view the park should be charged for the privilege. But I always declare that those who are wealthy should be willing to share a little of their wealth free of charge. Would you not agree?” She smiled about at the ladies and at the duke.
The Duke of Bridgwater gravely agreed and mentioned the lime avenue at Sindon as a feature of the park he had particularly admired.
“Miss Gray,” one of the younger ladies said—also not the marchioness, “do have a cake. Let me set your cup and saucer on this little table beside you so that your hands will be free.” She smiled warmly.
“Thank you,” Stephanie said, relinquishing the cup and saucer with some relief. And then the plate of cakes was offered. “No, thank you.”
She had used to visit in the parish with her mother—and alone after her mother’s passing. She had even visited frequently at the big house, where Squire Reaves had six daughters as well as a son, some of them older than she, some of them younger. She had never had problems conversing with people of any age or social level. Visiting had always been one of her greatest pleasures. Even during her years as a governess she had occasionally taken the children visiting or received visitors in the nursery. She had always accomplished both with the greatest of ease.
