by Cheryl Bolen
From the mirror on her dressing table, Bonny saw Radcliff steal into her chamber, and a quick smile lit her face. Dressed for dinner, he held a large velvet box. “That will be all, Marie,” Bonny said, her eyes fastened to her husband’s.
Marie turned to face the duke and curtsied.
“You are free the rest of the night, Marie,” Radcliff said. “The duchess will not need your assistance getting ready for bed.”
A knowing smile swept across Marie’s face as she left the room; color rose to Bonny’s cheeks.
“How very embarrassing, Richard.” Bonny tried to sound annoyed. “You might as well have told her you planned to undress me.”
He reached her in two long strides, threw her shawl to the ground and bent to gently kiss her neck. “Very well, I will next time.”
“I beg that you don’t.”
His lips moved up to her ear and he whispered, “As lovely as you look, my dear, I fear something is missing.”
She slowly swiveled to face him, her expression puzzled.
He opened the velvet box and withdrew an elaborate diamond necklace. “These. The Radcliff Jewels.”
She had never seen so many diamonds in one place. “Oh, Richard, I should be afraid to wear anything so valuable.”
He unfastened the clasp and draped the heavy necklace around Bonny’s neck. “Nonsense. They are yours. They belong to the reigning Duchess of Radcliff.”
As thoroughly as she belonged to Richard, Bonny still had a difficult time believing she was the Duchess of Radcliff. Her fingers traced the larger stones. Would the necklace pass to the wife of their son? If only she could give Radcliff a son.
After he fastened the necklace, her husband proffered his crooked arm and escorted her to dinner.
From the drawing room Stanley had a view of the foot of the main stairway. A man of excellent taste, he appreciated the magnificent grilled ironwork of the balusters. The first duke had found a Parisian artisan to create and carry out the pattern for him. While Stanley was contemplating the artistry, he heard his cousin’s voice and soft female laughter. When the duke and duchess came into view, he quite caught his breath, his eyes lifting from the soft sweep of Bonny’s breasts, up her elegant ivory neck to her incredible face. God’s teeth, but she was beautiful. He rose to his feet to meet them.
Radcliff saw him first and halted on the oriental carpet at the foot of the stairs, a puzzled look on his face. “Stanley? What a surprise to see you here.”
“Carstairs did not tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“That I came when you were out this afternoon.”
Radcliff hooked his arm around Bonny. “I regret to say I did not allow the poor fellow a chance to speak.” He gazed into Bonny’s face. “That sudden storm this afternoon drenched the duchess and me. Allow me to introduce my wife—”
“But I have met Mr. Moncrief,” Bonny said, directing a smile at her husband’s cousin.
Stanley bowed. “Your most obedient servant, your grace.”
“Come, let us eat.” Richard said. “That storm made me hungry. I daresay if my household knew you were here, they set a place for you.”
The staff had, indeed, set three places at the long table. Richard sat at the head, with his wife and cousin on either side and two footmen seeing to their every need.
“I thought from her grace’s elegant appearance that more than just the three of us would be here,” Stanley said.
“The duchess dresses thus to please me.”
Stanley’s eyes flitted from Bonny to Radcliff.
“And,” Bonny added, separating her pheasant from its skin, “we are not given to entertaining because I am in mourning.”
“Her grace’s mother died immediately after we married,” Radcliff explained.
Damn his luck, Stanley thought. If the old woman had only died a day earlier, the mourning daughter would have been forced to postpone her wedding. “How very surprised I was to learn of your marriage, which actually I did not learn of until today. The announcement in the Gazette was hard enough to believe.”
“The reason for the haste was that Barbara’s mother desired to see us marry before she died.”
So that explained the hurried ceremony, Stanley thought. “I was also surprised because I did not think you well acquainted with Miss Allan.” He held up his empty wineglass as a silent command to the nearest footman, who readily refilled it.
The duke’s knuckles whitened around his fork and he spoke defiantly. “You forget, cousin, my wife is no longer Miss Allan.”
Stanley turned on one of his dazzling smiles. “To be sure.”
Radcliff relaxed and spoke more kindly to Stanley. “What brings you to Hedley Hall?”
“There is a private matter I wish to discuss with you, and I also wanted to offer my congratulations.”
“Anything you have to say can be said in front of my wife.”
God, but he must be besotted with her to give the chit that kind of trust. Stanley only hoped it wasn’t too late. If she were with child... Well, it did not bear thinking of. One thing perfectly clear was that Richard must be in love. But what of his young bride? “I would rather not discuss it in female company. What I have to tell you could offend female sensibilities.”
“Very well,” the duke agreed. “We’ll take brandy in the salon once we have finished dining.” His eyes darted to his wife.
“I will select a book from your library while you speak with your cousin,” Bonny told her husband.
Stanley was rather proud of his ability to adjust to shattered plans. His goal now was to keep the duke and duchess apart, to do what he could to prevent conception of a sixth Duke of Radcliff, while at the same time attempting to separate the duke and duchess in a permanent way. And he had been able to think of a plan to set his scheme in motion without uttering a single lie.
In the salon after dinner, Radcliff refused to sit down but instead paced the patterned carpet, sipping brandy and smoking a cigar.
The duke’s almost hostile treatment of him angered Stanley. Richard never had liked him. Well, he would show him.
“And what is this matter that might offend my wife’s delicate sensibilities?” Radcliff spun around to glare at his cousin.
“Knowing what a particular friend, James Edward Twickingham—Twigs—is of yours, I thought you would want to know what has happened to him.”
“To Twigs?” the duke said, his eyes rounding. “He’s not—”
“No, my dear fellow, he’s not dead. At least he wasn’t when I left London.”
Radcliff’s voice when he spoke was filled with concern. “What has happened to him?”
“He has suffered a great many broken bones and is currently laid up at his town house. There are those of us who fear he is not being seen to adequately. He won’t allow his parents to know what has happened. They have been out of charity with him for quite some time, I understand.”
“Damn it, man, how did he break these bones?”
“That is the delicate subject I wish to impart to you. It seems one night Twigs and many of your crowd were rather deep in their cups and made a wager that Twigs would not swim naked in the Thames. To which Twigs bet he would.”
“In the dead of winter?”
“Just so.”
The two men exchanged amused grins.
“But that is not what caused his injuries. It seems he sustained the injuries as he got out of the water, naked as a nymph, just as the carriage bearing the Duke and Duchess of York drove by. I myself was not there, but I have been told that Twigs moved faster than one chased by a swarm of bees and leapt over a brick wall—the result of which was a broken leg, broken arm, broken rib and a multitude of bruises.”
“All of this certainly explains why he doesn’t want his parents to know.”
Stanley looked into his brandy snifter. “As I understand, his parents have been most displeased with what they consider his immaturity.”
“I am not pri
vy to his parents’ likes and dislikes.” A deep frown furrowed Radcliff’s brow. “You say he is at his London address?”
“Yes, with only his man to look in on him. From what I have heard, he is most subject to taking a dangerous infection and dying. And he is also very lonely. He does not know I am here, but I believe your presence in London is what he needs to begin the mending process.”
“By all that’s holy, I’ll move him to my place in Berkeley Square, and Barbara and I will do our damnedest to nurse him back to good health.”
A smug, satisfied smile spread across Stanley’s face. It was a start.
Bonny selected Dante’s Divine Comedy in Latin and took it to her chamber. Since her husband had told Marie not to come, she dressed herself for bed in a soft white muslin nightgown. She put the Radcliff Jewels back in the velvet case, sat at her dressing table and began to brush her long tresses, which by now had dried thoroughly.
Through her mirror, she saw her fully clothed husband enter from his dressing room. He pressed a kiss on top of her head. “I did not at all like you wearing that indecent gown tonight,” her husband said. “Why did you not at least wear a shawl?”
“You, sir, threw it off.”
“I did not know at the time another man would be raking his eyes over you.”
Bonny’s own eyes twinkled.
Richard turned his back to her, folding his hands behind him as he began to pace. “I fear we must go to London tomorrow, my love.”
She turned round to face him, frowning. She had begun to feel secure here with just the two of them. London and its myriad attractions could take her husband from her. “Why?”
“Twigs is very much in need of me. How would you perform as nursemaid, my dear?”
She swallowed. “I will do whatever you desire, sir.” He nodded absently but was not looking at her. She could tell his mind was on other matters. “Is your friend sick?”
“He has suffered many broken bones and may have taken a fever to boot.”
“Is no one looking after him?”
“Only his man.”
“Then we must go tomorrow.”
“Yes. I shall alert Evans.” He turned on his heel and left.
After he was gone, Bonny lightly smoothed perfume over her pulse and on her throat, thinking of Richard’s face buried in its scent. She daringly stroked a dab between her breasts.
When she finished at the dressing table, she brought the candle to her bedside and, climbing on the bed, began to read by its light, propping herself up on lacy pillows and draping her coal black tresses over her shoulder. She must look wide-awake when Richard came back. Kind soul that he was, he would not want to disturb her if she seemed tired.
Richard’s presence in her bed could never be unwelcome. She had grown to love their intimate encounters and waking to the heat of him beside her.
The candle burned steadily as she read words that no longer had meaning for her. Her mind was engaged with thoughts of Richard, listening for his footsteps, hungering for him.
When the candle burned out, she turned her head into the pillow, an emptiness deep within her.
He would not come tonight.
Chapter Eleven
Viewing her new town house after a long day’s travel did not diminish Bonny’s first impression of the stately home at the head of Berkeley Square. After the liveried footman assisted her from the traveling coach. Bonny stared at the white mansion illuminated by a half-dozen gaslights. It was as large for a town house as Hedley Hall was for a country home.
“All this for just one person?” she asked her husband.
He waited several seconds before answering. “Two now.” He never responded to anything without carefully developing a reply and delivering it in his most serious manner. Why couldn’t levity come more easily to her husband? Bonny wondered, gazing at the stern cut of his face, the corners of his wonderful mouth tugging southward.
“And what rooms have you had redone here, sir?” Bonny asked.
“I had thought to have yours done before we came to London, but since I decided only yesterday to travel here, your chamber remains as it was in my mother’s day.” He ushered her through the double doors.
A thousand candles in crystal chandeliers and gilded sconces around the damask walls lightened the broad hall. A flurry of impressions hit Bonny. The attentive servants in the same crimson livery as at Hedley Hall, the checkered floor of alternating black and white marble, the huge ancestral portraits staring down at her from beside the baroque staircase.
She met her husband’s steady gaze. “You sent someone ahead to announce our arrival.”
Her husband’s harsh features softened slightly. “To be sure, my dear.”
He introduced her to a whole new staff headed by Mandley, the butler, and Mrs. Henson, the housekeeper, who looked remarkably like Mrs. Green.
“I hope I don’t call you Mrs. Green,” Bonny said. “You resemble very much our housekeeper at Hedley Hall.”
The woman’s shriveled face brightened, and her faded eyes flickered with mirth. “But Sarah’s my sister, your grace.”
“Ah, lovely! If you are half as capable as your sister, I shall count myself most fortunate,” Bonny said.
“The duchess is tired from the journey,” Radcliff said. “You can show her around tomorrow, Mrs. Henson. I shall take her to her chamber. Perhaps you could send up a small repast.”
“Cook’s already taken care of that. It will be up momentarily. I also saw to it that the linens were changed in the old duchess’s chamber, and there’s a fire in the hearth.”
Upstairs, Bonny appreciatively eyed the old duchess’s room of ivory and gold. It did not at all appear to need updating. “Oh, Richard, I think it’s charming just the way it is.” She went to pull off her black pelisse, and he came to assist her, the corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly.
“But you know I prefer that you are surrounded by color, preferably the color of your eyes.”
The feel of his strong hand brushing across her shoulder had the power to make her knees cottony.
“And if you must wear that blasted mourning, we’ll have Madame Deveraux make up some for you. She is all the rage with women of fashion.”
Bonny’s stomach sank as she wondered if he had ever taken Lady Heffington to Madame Deveraux.
A soft knock sounded at her door, and she opened it to Marie, who went straight to her mistress’s portmanteau and began to unpack.
Radcliff strode toward a doorway on the other side of the room. “Like Hedley Hall, my dear, my dressing chamber connects our rooms here. I will divest myself of these riding clothes.”
The next caller at Bonny’s door proved to be Mrs. Henson bringing up a tray, which she set on a small table between two French chairs. Bonny noted with disappointment there was only one glass. Was her husband not going to join her?
When Marie finished unpacking, she helped Bonny into a nightgown, then removed the pins from her hair and brushed it out. babbling on the whole while about her excitement over London. Bonny only half listened. Her mind was on Richard. Why hadn’t he returned to her room? He had avoided her last night and had chosen to ride his horse today rather than share the coach with her. And now she was left in a strange room to eat alone.
Evans hovered around his master. “Your grace’s complexion has become unfashionably dark from spending so much time in the outdoors of late. It is most agreeable that you have returned to town life.”
Radcliff cocked an eyebrow at his valet. “I find I prefer the country life.”
“Do I understand that the country life you always found so sadly lacking now has an appeal for you?” Evans assisted Radcliff from his jacket, fashioned by Weston himself to fit the duke’s muscled torso to perfection.
“Things are different when one has a family. I am too old to continue with the young man’s pursuits that have occupied me these last dozen years.”
Evans stiffened and proceeded to brush his master
’s coat. “It is regrettable the old duchess is not here to instruct her grace in the ways of the nobility.”
“The new duchess will do admirably.” The duke took a seat and began to loosen his Hessians.
With no need for words between the two, Evans came and helped Radcliff remove the boots.
“Quite so, but her grace does seem rather young.”
Was Evans jealous of Barbara? Radcliff remembered the mornings when he would share his day’s plans with Evans, and sometimes lament the activities of the preceding night. But Barbara had usurped Evans. She had become his closest friend as well as his lover. It was she who now shared his mornings. He thought of her black hair fanning across the silken sheets, of her waking in his arms, a smile on her gentle lips. And a knot of emotion unraveled deep within him.
After Marie left, Bonny approached her husband’s dressing chamber nervously. He wasn’t there. She opened the next door—the door to his room. On a small table she saw his untouched dinner.
“Richard, I thought perhaps you could join me for din—” she announced as she walked into her husband’s chamber and confronted a stern-faced Evans, who was in front of her husband. She stood there blushing in her nightgown before she gathered up the presence of mind to turn her back to the unfriendly valet and return to her chamber.
“I’ll be there in just a moment, my dear,” her husband called.
He soon joined her, bringing his tray with him, and fell into a chair. “I’m awfully fatigued.”
“If your muscles are sore from riding Sultan all day, I am glad,” Bonny said poutingly. “Leaving me to ride in the lonely barouche.”
He tore off a chunk of the cold mutton on his tray. “So you missed my company?”
“Today—and last night.”
A crooked smile crinkled his tanned face. “I can assure you that I will not allow you to spend your first night in a strange new bed alone.”
