by Cheryl Bolen
“Were you a merry widow, my dear?” he said lightly.
“Not at all, I assure you. I’ve been dreadfully worried about you.”
He strolled into the room and sat down at her desk, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “You worry about everyone, my dear. It seems to be your purpose in life. If you aren’t worrying about Emily’s failing health or Twigs’s s mending leg, you’re wanting to adopt every street urchin you see. You must try not to worry so much.”
Bonny moved to the desk, placed her hands on her hips and spoke in a rising voice. “I am your wife. I am the Duchess of Radcliff, and I deserve the courtesy of you informing me when you choose not to come home. I will not live under your roof if you cannot accord me the simple consideration your wife is due.”
His eyes followed her as she stalked across the Aubusson carpet. “And I am very sorry I allowed Lord Duns ford into our house. I shall never do so again.”
He silently studied her for a moment, his face grim. Then his eyes flashed mischievously. “You look horrid, my dear.”
Bonny burst into tears.
Still angry, he restrained from going to her. Nevertheless, it wounded him considerably to watch her cry.
She started to leave the room, when he addressed her sternly. “Have you eaten today, Barbara?”
She rounded on him. “What would you care that I haven’t eaten in four days?”
“It does not please me for you to grow thin. I much preferred your body as it was when we married.”
Bonny snatched a nearby book and threw it at him, then left the room.
Radcliff chuckled and rang for Mrs. Henson to take his wife a tray. He planned to stand over her and force her to eat.
After he gave the housekeeper her instructions, he opened Bonny’s desk drawer to send a note round informing Twigs he had returned to Radcliff House. There he saw the letter with Duns ford’s name penned in his wife’s hand. He shoved the drawer back in, toppling a small Roman statue that stood at the desk.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Perhaps it was because she had been in mourning that Richard had not spent time with her, Bonny thought. If she had been free to go to the theater and balls, he might have been content to at least spend his nights with her. During her sleepless night after Richard had finally come home, she had determined to ease back into society. And what better way to begin than by ordering an entire new wardrobe?
Besides, she was still angry with him. She planned to have Madame Deveraux fashion the most positively extravagant gowns that money could buy. She would go to the milliner’s, too, and take every expensive head covering and bonnet in the shop. It was her hope that the enormity of the bills for her finery would set Richard’s heart into palpitations. He deserved a bit of discomfort for all he had put her through these past months, and especially this last week.
How tormented she had been worrying about his safety, feeling totally inadequate as his wife and bearing the private agony of imagining him in the arms of Lady Lynda Heffington.
But she had to push those thoughts from her mind and give clear instructions to the French modiste who now stood before her.
“Oh, but, your grace, the sapphire gown was made to be worn by you. You are so very lovely in it.”
Bonny stood some distance back from the looking glass and turned first to her right, then to her left. Still it was not obvious that she carried a baby in her womb. At least in this dress. Gentle gathering of the delicate sarcenet under the bodice concealed the thickening of her midsection. “I like it very much,” Bonny said decisively. “I shall have another in pink and another in lavender. But you must know I am increasing so you must allow extra room in the front.”
Madame Deveraux made the appropriate congratulations on the duchess’s announcement before ordering one of her assistants to bring in the turquoise lace gown for the duchess to try on in her private dressing chamber.
Lady Lynda Heffington had not thought to pay a call at Madame Deveraux’s today, but as she was riding her barouche to purchase ribbon, she saw a barouche bearing the Radcliff crest outside the modiste’s. Her first thought was that Radcliff was there with that young wife of his. She remembered him accompanying her own self to the shop on several occasions. He had particularly instructed Madame Deveraux to clothe his mistress in rich ivory silks and bright red lace. Her heart sank when she thought of how much she had lost to that scheming little country miss.
Then an idea occurred to her. She instructed her coachman to stop.
One of Madame Deveraux’s assistants, Miss Clopham, rushed to Lady Heffington when she entered the lavish shop. “Lady Heffington, how good to see you. Madame Deveraux has set aside a rust-colored silk she said would be most jolie for the beautiful Lady Heffington.”
Lady Heffington flashed a mischievous smile at the saleswoman. “By all means, I must try it on at this very moment.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Place me in the dressing room adjacent to the duchess’s, if you please.”
The walls between the two chambers were very thin. Lady Heffington could plainly hear Madame Deveraux complimenting the duchess’s beauty. “No other woman in London could do for this gown what you do for it, your grace,” Madame Deveraux said.
Lady Heffington fumed. The exact words she always says to me!
Of course, she did have to admit the vulgar Bonny Barbara Allan was beautiful. Damned Radcliff. Must he always possess what was the most beautiful?
Miss Clopham hung the rust-colored gown on a brass wall hook and assisted Lady Heffington into it. “How very beautiful you look, Lady Heffington.”
Lynda’s lips curved into a smile. “Yes, Miss Clopham, this will do very well. Radcliff loves me to wear this color,” she said, her voice louder than necessary. Her eyes on the looking glass, she bent forward slightly. “You do not find the neckline a bit too low cut? Radcliff does so glare when other men’s eyes alight on my endowments. He is so very jealous! I shouldn’t want to make him angry.”
Miss Clopman nervously glanced in the direction of Bonny’s dressing room and actually turned red.
Not as red as Bonny. Not only did Bonny feel as if her face were on fire, she felt as if a volcano were erupting within her body. Her worst nightmare had come true. All those nights Richard had been away from her, he had been in the arms of his former mistress.
Bonny would never know how she managed to take her leave of Madame Deveraux’s establishment without making an utter cake of herself. She held the tears in check and, immediately after overhearing Lady Heffington’s conversation, said in a shaking voice, “I will take the dress. Send this and all the others to Radcliff House and send the bills to my husband.”
As Madame Deveraux assisted her back into her black muslin dress and pelisse, she thought, At least I can call Richard my husband. Lady Heffington can never do that!
Would that she could have his heart rather than his title, she thought as she settled into her barouche and instructed the coachman to take her for a drive through Hyde Park. She would gladly exchange being his duchess for being his lover. To have his love and to share his bed.
How peculiar it was to love a man so desperately she would sink to such a life. Had she no pride? Of course she had pride. Hadn’t her pride kept her from tearfully declaring her undying love for Richard on a thousand occasions? At least she had been able to save him from such embarrassing confessions. She was glad, indeed, that she had spared him that and had held on to some semblance of dignity.
But it wasn’t dignity that she sought. It was Richard’s love. That was all she could ever want.
Yet she assumed it was Lady Heffington who had that.
Why had she ever allowed herself to marry him? Perhaps by now she could have got over this obsessive love for him.
And perhaps by now he could have happily been married to the woman he really loved. She put her head into her hands and sobbed. She had not only ruined her own life. She had ruined his.
Twigs only half listen
ed to the prattle of the pretty Miss Carlisle, who perched beside him in his curricle, riding through Hyde Park on a mild afternoon. What the deuce had come over him lately? He hardly knew himself any longer. He had given up a chance to spar with Jackson this very afternoon in order to escort Cressida for her afternoon jaunt. And last night at the Rowlanders’ ball he had very much wanted to box the ears of John Hargrove, who held Miss Carlisle much too closely while waltzing with her.
The delicate lady in question placed a pink-gloved hand on Twigs’s arm and said, “Isn’t that so, Mr. Arp?”
The silly gel had taken to calling him Mr. Arp after some character in one of those novels she always had her head poked in. Truth be known, Twigs rather fancied her calling him by a special name. “Tell me again, Miss Carlisle, about this Arp chap.”
“Oh, he’s the most dashing of heroes, I do assure you. He’s tall, as you are. And, like you, he is every inch the sportsman. Takes to the hounds, is a noted swordsman and an infamous boxer. At first he takes little notice of the heroine. He’s much too interested in his sporting pleasures.”
“What changes him?”
“Rosemary—that’s the heroine’s name—makes him jealous at a ball.”
“So then what does he do?”
“He fights a duel for her.”
Twigs gulped. “Bloody illegal, they are.”
“And glad I am of it. I would simply die if someone I cared about, someone like you, were to jeopardize his life for me.”
Twigs sat taller, flicking the ribbons with authority, tilting his head ever so slightly. “If your honor were challenged, I would, of course, have to set things to rights, no matter how great the danger to myself.”
Cressida linked her arm through Twigs’s and nearly purred with satisfaction. “You are, indeed, my Mr. Arp.”
He blushed and glanced about him. “Do wish we’d see Radcliff and Duchess. It would do her good to get out in the fresh air more.”
“It’s so very good of you to care for the duchess and not feel jealous of her for clamping your best friend in parson’s trap. But I suppose you realize it was time Radcliff and the others settle down.”
“Quite so.”
“You must be envious of the duke.”
“Can’t say that I am,” Twigs said.
“You cannot tell me you don’t envy Radcliff. He’s got a lovely wife. A fine town house instead of bachelor quarters. And an heir on the way.”
“Never thought about it—except for the part about having a little fellow. Always did want a little guy to teach the ropes.”
“A little boy! It’s the very same with me. How I would love to have a son one day.”
He slowed his pace, cast a sideways glance at Cressida and swallowed hard. “Picture you with little golden-haired girls.”
“How sweet of you. I would love to bear children of the man I love. A man like you.”
He swallowed even harder. “Awfully nice of you.”
“Have you given any thought to marriage, dear Mr. Arp?”
Not until the last five minutes, but all of a sudden, the idea of being married to the lovely Miss Cressida Carlisle seemed rather splendid. Not just the part about having a son, either. He particularly favored the idea of this pretty little creature being his wife. Fact is, he’d like to wrap his arms around her and kiss her thoroughly. He blushed again. He would like to do more than kiss her—after they were married, that is. “God’s teeth, Cressida, call me Twickingham. If you’ll do me the honor, it will be your name, too.”
“Oh, Mr. Twickingham,” she said breathlessly, “nothing could make me happier.”
“James. If you’re to be my wife, I expect you should call me James.”
“James.” She spoke the name reverently. “The name of the hero in The Secret at the Vicarage.”
He turned off the heavily traveled lane down a little-used path.
Cressida placed a possessive hand on his velvet sleeve. “Are you going to kiss me, dearest?”
He reined his horse, faced his intended and drew her to him. She felt so very tiny in his arms, he was afraid of crushing her. But he had to admit he very much liked the feel of her. He wasn’t sure if she found his lips or he hers, but he did know he found her soft lips even more to his liking.
This marriage business might just be the ticket!
In the week that followed her visit to Madame Deveraux’s, Bonny knew a despair a thousand times greater than she had experienced when her father had suddenly died and she had been bereft of the most tender love she had ever known. She could neither sleep nor eat. Her days were an agony of regrets and misery. She thought death would be a blessed relief from her wretched existence. But she was too religious to contemplate suicide. And, besides, she had to remember the baby. If she couldn’t have Richard, at least she could have his child.
She stood before the painting of Hedley Hall that hung in her husband’s library. The artist had painted it as it looked when Bonny first set eyes on it in the golden glow of the late afternoon sun. The centuries-old building presided over acres and acres of land that had been in the Moncrief family for generations. The tall fir trees recalled to her the day she and Radcliff had gone fishing, of how close they had been. If only they were back where they had been so happy, Bonny thought, longing to return to the shelter of the place where Richard had sprung to life like a desert flower after spring rains.
No renewal of her husband’s desire to travel to Kent for the birth of their child had been forthcoming. In fact, she thought grimly, he had not renewed any of the activities that had made her so happy less than a month ago. No more rides in the park. No more solicitous inquiries about her health. No more nights enfolded in his loving arms.
Though Radcliff had spent more time at Radcliff House since her scolding of him, he might as well have been in Bombay for all the company he was to her. Hardly a word had passed between them. He shut himself up in his library for hours on end. While part of her wanted to beg his forgiveness for allowing Lord Duns ford into their house, another part of her knew that Radcliff’s hostility masked something much deeper than his dislike of Duns ford. It was obvious he regretted his hasty marriage. He wanted only to be with Lady Heffington and the rakes he had run with before his marriage.
She supposed she should hate him for trifling with her heart and fathering a child on a whim and later regretting it, but she preferred to remember him when he had been loving and selfless.
It had been more than a week since her husband had mentioned the baby. It was hard for her to remember that Richard had ever been enthusiastic about her pregnancy. Judging from the way he acted now, he must regret the impending birth that—in his own words—had ruined his wife’s body.
Sickened over his shallowness in loving only her looks, Bonny patted the swell that was their baby and had no regrets. Even if his own father no longer acknowledged his offspring, Bonny knew she would love the baby. She swallowed over the thick lump in her throat. Would the baby look like Richard? Despite his deplorable conduct, she loved him with unwavering potence and would until her dying day. She would always have the child, their child, to remember the tender moments when their love for each other had burned steady and powerful.
Coming to a decision, she turned away from the painting. She had made her husband’s life miserable. For she was persuaded that his misery resulted from his loveless marriage. Of late he had talked about joining forces in the Peninsula. He would rather be dead than be married to her. The thought of him seriously injured or—much worse—dead was a blow to her heart. If he were that unhappy, there was only one recourse. She would have to leave him. To restore his freedom.
The door to the library opened and she turned to face Mandley.
“Mr. Twickingham to see you, your grace.”
“Show him in, Mandley.”
Twigs limped into the room, leaning on his silver-handled cane, his face redder than usual from the outdoors.
A wide smile on her face, Bonny took
his hand. “So very good to see you, Twigs. You haven’t come for piquet, have you?”
He nodded solemnly and sniffed. “Much as I would love it, no, Duchess. Fact is, I need your help.”
She continued to press his bony hand within hers, a look of concern on her face. “Come, let’s sit down.” She led him to a pair of cozy wing chairs near the fireplace. “Would you like a drink?”
He swallowed, accentuating his prominent Adam’s apple. “Am a bit thirsty.”
“Madeira or brandy?”
“Brandy, a capital idea.”
Bonny tugged the bellpull and, when Mandley entered, requested two glasses of brandy. “Now, how can I help you?”
“You may have noticed I spend a great deal of time with Miss Carlisle.”
“I would be blind not to have.”
“Well, Cres—Miss Carlisle has impressed upon me that one who is four and thirty needs to be settling down, and I realized if I were to settle down, who better to make an offer to than one as pretty as Cres—Miss Carlisle.”
“So you made her an offer.”
“Quite so.”
Bonny had to credit Cressida. She could skillfully manipulate Twigs.
“My...” He sniffed and cleared his throat before continuing. “My intended tells me it is my responsibility to place an announcement in the newspapers. Can’t credit it. Bound to make a big blunder. Need you to help me.”
Through all this, Bonny was able to determine the purpose of Twigs’s visit. “Would you like me to write the announcement for you?”
