A Duchess in Name

by Amanda Weaver

  “What are you doing?”

  “Kissing my wife.”

  “Someone might see.”

  “Let them look.” He’d been so patient, never pushing her for affection outside the bedroom. He was a patient man, but they were at a crossroads and this time, he intended to choose the right path, the one with her at his side. His eyes stared into hers, challenging, coaxing. A war played out in those emerald eyes, but finally, the muscles in her neck relaxed. She wasn’t reaching for him yet, but she was allowing him to reach for her.

  He did, drawing her in and kissing her, slowly, gently. He took his time, savoring her sweetness, the warmth of her tongue, the intoxicating lethargy that stole over his senses when he kissed her. Perhaps if he tried hard enough, he could imprint himself on her with kisses like these.

  At the sound of footsteps rustling through the grass, he reluctantly ended the kiss. Victoria sat up and made a futile attempt to tidy her hair, scowling at him when he laughed at her. He supposed it wouldn’t do to let the footman approaching find the lord of the manor accosting the lady of the manor in a most inappropriate manner.

  “Your Grace, a telegram has arrived.”

  He was giddy with optimism he reached for it. They’d talked, open and honestly. She’d let him kiss her. He had hope. More than hope. “Thank you, Wilson.”

  He unfolded the thin paper from its envelope and read the typed message. Have discovered entrance to tomb. Seals intact. Will not proceed without you. Come at once.

  Randolph Asher.

  * * *

  Borne had his luggage secured on the coach by the time Andrew reached the bottom of the stairs. Of course he did. Damn the man and his ruthless efficiency. There was no excuse to linger now.

  Victoria waited in the entry hall with Louisa and Emma, as elegant as she ever was in a gown of gray faille. Someone who didn’t know her might think her completely unconcerned. He might have thought so once, too. But now a thousand little details about her stood out: the way her eyebrows drew in ever so slightly, the way the corners of her mouth tightened, the way her knuckles grew white as she clenched her handkerchief.

  “Will you be back before we have to leave for school again?” Emma asked, clinging to his hand.

  “I don’t know, Emma,” he answered, deciding to be frank with her. Emma was far more perceptive than he’d ever guessed. She deserved honest dealing, not lies pawned off by an uncaring adult. “It depends on what we find,” he explained. “While I hope the tomb is everything we expect, that means it might keep me away for a long time.”

  He leaned down, cradling her face in his hands and looking her straight in the eye. “But you will come home to Briarwood for Christmas, and I’ll be here, too. We’ll all be together again, as a family.”

  Emma’s solemn eyes welled with tears. “Do you promise?”

  “I swear it,” he said, looking at Louisa over her shoulder, silently promising her, as well. He wouldn’t fail his sisters again.

  Louisa wrapped an arm around Emma’s shoulders. “Come, Emma. Let’s let Andrew say goodbye to Victoria in private.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Come home soon.”

  He watched her lead Emma away, marveling at how mature Louisa had become. In no time, she’d be leaving his family to make her own. His heart clenched at the thought. And there was still Victoria to say goodbye to. He turned to face her, looking so self-sufficient, so brave. How had he walked away from her before?

  I’ll think about you every moment I’m away.

  I won’t be able to sleep without you lying next to me.

  I’m leaving my heart here with you.

  There were a million poetic things he might say, but instead, he simply said, “I’ll come back as soon as I can.” It was the truth. Entirely insufficient, but the absolute truth.

  “I know you will. We’ll be fine.”

  “Will you?”

  “Of course. Our staff is nothing if not competent. And you know I don’t rest as long as there’s a task set before me.”

  “Just leave time in the day to write to me.”

  “You want me to write?”

  “I do. Constantly. And I promise to answer all of them.”

  He wished there’d been more time. They were on the edge of something momentous and he feared everything that had been thawing between them would freeze solid again during this separation. He gazed steadily at her, willing her to believe him, to have faith in him.

  She finally broke, giving him a tremulous smile. He supposed it would have to be enough for now. “You’d better go or you’ll miss the train.”

  “I’m half-wishing I would.”

  He cupped her face in his palm and pressed a kiss, hard and brief, against her lips before she could protest. She didn’t seem like she wanted to.

  Then it was time to go. He made it out onto the stone landing and down the steps to the waiting coach. At the door, one foot on the step, he looked back. Victoria, Louisa and Emma had come out on the steps to see him off, clustered like the family she’d made them into. Victoria stood in the open doorway, Briarwood framing her perfectly, as if it had existed for hundreds of years, waiting for her to arrive and take command of it. As he’d existed, frozen in his anger and resentment, only waiting for her to arrive and bring him to life. He let her image burn into his brain. She was now all that was home and happiness to him, and he would hold her face in his mind and heart until he stood on this spot again, arriving instead of leaving. Home for good.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The noted dressmaker, Mrs. Keating, kept a studio in Piccadilly Square. Fashionable society ladies spent as much time gossiping in her parlor as they did being fit for elegant ball gowns and smart walking dresses. It was there that Victoria took Louisa and Emma when it came time to buy new clothes for school. The great lady might have been less than enthusiastic about the prospect of kitting out two young ladies for boarding school in Scotland, but the fact that the young ladies were the sisters of the newly elevated Duke of Waring, and that the elusive new Duchess of Waring had accompanied them herself to the studio, ensured they had the famous dressmaker’s undivided attention.

  Everyone knew the young and beautiful new Duchess of Waring had spent the year and a half since her marriage ensconced in Hampshire, not setting so much as a toe in a London ballroom. Her sudden application to Mrs. Keating had set off something of a frenzy in the dressmaker’s studio. If the Duchess of Waring meant to return to London and take up her place in society, she could well become the most notable young woman in town. Society might have ignored her as a crass American heiress, but no one would dare snub a duchess. Everything she wore would be breathlessly reported by the press and London’s elite would scramble to emulate her. It was well worth Mrs. Keating’s time to make a good impression on the young duchess.

  The duchess wasn’t shopping for herself this trip, only for her young sisters-in-law, but Mrs. Keating wasn’t one to squander an opportunity. The entire staff was busy catering to Louisa and Emma. Mrs. Keating herself held a swath of cerise faille in front of Louisa, who clutched at it in delight.

  “Your Grace, note how well this shade sets off Lady Louisa’s skin and hair.”

  Victoria narrowed her eyes slightly. “It does. I’m not sure a red dress is quite the thing. Remember Louisa is only fifteen.”

  “Of course, Your Grace. But this shade can change dramatically depending on what it’s paired with. If I were to make it up for you, I’d trim it with jet and then indeed it would be a red dress fitting a woman of your rank. But I thought to trim it with this ivory French lace for Lady Louisa. See how the color softens with a different trim?”

  * * *

  The genius dressmaker was right, Victoria had to admit. The color seemed to shift to a rich pink with the addition of the delicate cream lace. When she gl
anced up, she found Louisa’s pleading eyes fixed on her.

  “Very well,” she conceded with a smile. “But use lots of lace and give it a modest neckline. No scandalous red dresses until you’re seventeen at the very least. And you can’t wear it until your year of mourning is fully complete.”

  “Oh, thank you, Victoria! I promise, I won’t wear it until the winter break. Won’t it be perfect for Christmas?”

  “Now, what about Emma?” Victoria asked. “Shall we have one made up for her, too?”

  Emma, who was sitting quietly in a chair to the side reading a book, glanced up in surprise. “But I don’t get new dresses. We cut Louisa’s old ones down for me.”

  Victoria scowled and Mrs. Keating gasped in horror.

  “Oh, no!” Mrs. Keating cried, sweeping down on a stunned Emma. “Lady Louisa’s dresses will never do for you. Your coloring is not at all the same. That cerise wouldn’t do a thing for this lovely hair you’ve got.”

  Victoria’s breath caught at the mention of the girls’ different appearances, but Mrs. Keating seemed to mean nothing more by it than a bit of flattery. The dressmaker’s fingers skimmed over a stack of fabric bolts, finally finding the one she sought. Unfurling a length of dark copper bombazine, she held it under Emma’s chin.

  “Yes, much better. With chocolate braiding, it will be the perfect thing for a traveling suit. Copper, dark green, amber, these are your colors, Lady Emma. They set off your lovely hair and this peaches-and-cream skin.”

  Emma smiled in delight. Victoria couldn’t help but smile, too. The poor thing. Even as the daughter of a duke, she’d been an afterthought, forgotten by her parents, never given anything but her older sister’s hand-me-downs.

  “Mrs. Keating,” she said quietly. “I believe Emma will need a full wardrobe.”

  Mrs. Keating’s eyes lit up as she mentally tallied the bill. “Of course, Your Grace. Annie, Mary, come see to the measurements at once.”

  A team of seamstresses arrived to whisk Louisa and Emma into the dressing room. Victoria watched them go before turning to flip idly through a book of French fashion plates. Mrs. Keating’s was crowded, with several other ladies being made to wait as the Waring ladies were seen to. Casting a glance back over her shoulder, she recognized a face or two from the ballrooms before her marriage, the well-born young English ladies who’d had nothing but contempt for an upstart American heiress. Let them wait.

  “Victoria,” Louisa called. “Come tell me which blue you prefer.”

  She left the crowded front room and entered the curtained-off anteroom leading to the fitting rooms. Emma was behind one closed door being measured, but Louisa had hers open and was showing her two swatches of fabric. “The paler one? Do you think it makes me look too washed out? Is the cornflower better?”

  “Yes, it is. The darker one is much better with your coloring.”

  Louisa gave her another dazzling smile. “What would I do without you?”

  She ducked back into her fitting room and Victoria turned to go back out front.

  “With all that money, she should be doing something about her own wardrobe, not blathering on over his sisters. All that black. It’s so dull.”

  Katherine Ponsoy. Of course that nasty comment had come from her. Victoria paused with her hand on the dividing curtain. Listening to Katherine’s conversation was wrong. But Kitty Ponsoy had always been horrid to her, then fell all over herself to greet her warmly today, only to insult her the moment her back was turned. Kitty didn’t deserve her discretion. So she didn’t move a muscle as the quiet conversation in the front room continued.

  “Kitty!” her mother, Lady Watting, hissed in warning. “She’s still in mourning for the seventh duke. He was her father-in-law.”

  Katherine gave an undignified snort. “As if the seventh duke would ever have acknowledged her but for her money. She’s a duchess and she’s not even English!”

  “She’s got the new duke in name only, Kitty.”

  Margaret Whidby, another debutante from Victoria’s coming-out year. Another girl who’d snubbed her on the social scene.

  “She’s still got him,” Katherine hissed. “Andrew Hargrave is a duke now and she snatched him up before anyone else had a shot at him. It’s not fair.”

  “Do you know what I heard about him, Kitty?”

  “What? Tell me!”

  “Margaret, it isn’t polite to gossip,” Lady Watting said halfheartedly, although it sounded like she wanted to hear as badly as Kitty did.

  “Well, Tony Batchelder told me he heard Waring keeps a mistress in Italy. He’s been with her since he moved there. He lives there with her as if she was his wife. So you see, Kitty? All she got of him was his name.”

  Whatever reply Kitty or Lady Watting made was lost in the roar of Victoria’s pulse thrumming in her ears. Her hand gripped the edge of the velvet dividing curtain. Her heart beat hard in her chest, as if desperately trying to escape the truth Victoria herself couldn’t bear to face.

  As if she was his wife...

  She pressed her trembling fingers against her lips. Pain lashed through her, cutting a raw swath through emotions she’d only just begun to acknowledge.

  Since he moved there...

  Well before they’d married. And she’d never known. He’d come home determined to win her over, but all the while, there was another woman in Italy and the home he kept with her. As if she were his wife. Dear God, was he in love with her?

  It made sense now, his hatred of her when they first married. She’d always felt there was more to his animosity, but she hadn’t known the reason for it. Now she did. There was someone else he wanted, someone he couldn’t be with because of this duty to marry her and her fortune. And fool that she was, she’d felt sorry for him and his miserable childhood, and offered her home to him. As if he’d needed it. He’d already made a home for himself, years ago. Stupid, stupid girl.

  Her knees went weak and a cold sweat broke out across the back of her neck.

  “Your Grace? Are you unwell?” Mrs. Keating asked in a low voice behind her.

  Never in her life had it been so hard to maintain a steady, calm facade as it was in this moment when everything was disintegrating inside of her.

  “I’m a little tired, Mrs. Keating. Would you be so kind as to call for our coach? I’m feeling a bit ill.”

  Mrs. Keating dropped into a curtsy. “At once, Your Grace. And please, do sit down. I’ll send a cup of tea.”

  Thankfully, the woman didn’t hover. Releasing her grip on the curtain, Victoria stumbled back to the low settee in the anteroom. She couldn’t go out front again and face Kitty and Margaret, smug in their secret knowledge of her husband’s other life. And if they knew, how fast would the news spread? All of London would know.

  She certainly wasn’t the first woman to discover her husband kept a mistress, but that was cold comfort. It might have happened countless times in the past, but her burn of betrayal was no easier to bear.

  Why? Why did he come back here and fight to win her over when that was where his heart lay? She’d moved on from him, made her peace with their estrangement. Then he’d come home and made her love him. If she’d found this out a year ago, she might have been able to pick up and carry on, but now...

  Long ago, she’d made herself content with the moon, and then he’d had the audacity to tempt her with the sun. She knew the truth, though. She’d always known it, even if she’d almost forgotten it this summer. She wasn’t meant for the sun. And now that she’d reached for it, all she’d gotten was burned.

  Chapter Twenty

  September 1896

  Andrew’s latest letter lay unopened on her untouched breakfast tray. There was no facing the food or the letter. In the two weeks since she’d discovered his secret life, his letters had continued to arrive full of a
ll sorts of news from the dig and tender claims of missing her.

  At first, in the early shock of betrayal, she’d been at a loss to understand how he could act the way he had with her when there was another woman to whom he’d apparently given his heart. She’d made herself sick, obsessing over every moment of their time together this summer. In the end, she realized he’d done it for his sisters. He’d arrived right after she’d sent the letter informing him the girls would spend the summer with her. If he continued to hold her at arm’s length, it would have been hard on the girls, and whatever she might think of him, she could never deny that he loved Louisa and Emma. She wanted to provide a home for them and to be a family. He wanted the same thing. For that to happen, he needed to declare peace with his wife. What had seemed the blossoming of real love had only been a cease-fire in their untenable war.

  Looking back on events, she realized he’d as much as told her it was duty driving him that day in the library. He’d mentioned giving up archaeology and moving back to England because the estate and the girls needed him. Not for her. It was never for her, no matter how much it felt like it had been. God, she’d been a fool. Again.

  How stupid she’d been. For a moment there, she’d almost believed she’d found her very own happy ending. She’d known better at ten years old. And now at twenty, all it took was a little seduction from her handsome husband and she’d given over her heart. Well, she knew better now. Girls like her weren’t meant for happy endings. They were meant to put on a good face for the world and do their duty, which was exactly what she intended to do.

  Today that would be hard to manage. Her head hurt with the beginnings of a headache. Her stomach hurt, too, cramping in a way that meant her courses would soon be upon her. She’d always been irregular, so when she didn’t bleed as expected after Andrew’s departure, she hadn’t immediately assumed anything. But a week turned into two, and she began to hope. Her discovery of the truth had taken the glow off her hope, but the possibility of a baby gave her something happy to cling to in the darkest days. She could still salvage her dream, even if she now suspected it would never fulfill her as she’d once hoped.