The Desirable Duchess

by M C Beaton

  Sir Gerald sobered on the spot. “Who?” he demanded, and then listened eagerly. When they had finished, he lay back in his chair, his eyes half-closed, and thought hard. He had led a rackety life abroad and had become greedy for money to satisfy his desires of high living and gambling. He had almost run through the generous amount of money paid to him by Alice’s parents to stay away. Alice must have changed. She was no longer a virgin… and it was well known that unhappy wives in London society took lovers. If he could enjoy her favors and then somehow let Mr. and Mrs. Lacey know about it, perhaps they might pay him again.

  The following day, Sir Gerald waited across the road from the duke’s town house until he saw him driving out. Then straightening his beaver hat, he strode across the road.

  A haughty butler opened the door. Sir Gerald confidently presented his card and asked for an audience with the duchess. The butler put the card on a silver salver and mounted the stairs. Gerald waited eagerly. After what seemed too long a time, the butler came back. “Her Grace is not at home,” he said.

  Gerald could not believe she would not see him. “When will she return?” he asked.

  “I do not know,” said the butler stonily.

  There was nothing else for Gerald to do but take his leave.

  He went to a coffeehouse in Pall Mall, wondering what to do next. Then he thought of this Lady Macdonald. Would it be possible to get her to help him? By asking about among his friends, he secured her address and went there.

  He was told that Lady Macdonald did not rise until four in the afternoon. Gerald looked at his pocket watch. It was quarter past three.

  “I will wait,” he said grimly.

  He was shown into a saloon on the ground floor, a little-used saloon from the look of it, the sort of room where doubtful callers were placed instead of being taken upstairs to one of the less public rooms.

  There was a French clock on the mantelpiece. He watched impatiently as the minutes ticked by. Finally at four o’clock exactly the door opened and the butler said, “If you would be so good as to follow me, sir.”

  For one short moment before he mounted the stairs, Gerald remembered a younger, cleaner, more hopeful Gerald who, for a brief, heady time, had been deeply and sweetly in love with Alice Lacey. But debts and social snubs had crept in between, souring his disposition, making him feel like a spoiled child whose glittering toys had been snatched away from him by a cruel fate.

  His eyes gleamed when he saw Lady Loretta Macdonald. She was in her undress, a lacy wrapper over a lacy nightdress. Her flaming hair, thick and shining with oil, cascaded down on her white shoulders.

  “Such beauty,” murmured Gerald, kissing her hand.

  “Charmed,” she said in her throaty voice. “I do not think we are acquainted. State the reason for your call.”

  “I will be brutally frank,” said Sir Gerald, flipping up the long tails of his coat and sinking down into an armchair opposite her. “I am in love with Alice, Duchess of Ferrant.”

  “So!” Her eyes widened slightly. “I have heard gossip about you, that the little duchess’s pet bird cried out your name on the day of her wedding. But what is that to me?”

  “I have heard that the Duke of Ferrant is courting you.”

  “Indeed. Many men court me, Sir Gerald.”

  “Of course, of course. But do you hope to marry Ferrant?”

  “That is my business, not yours.”

  “I think you could do with my help.”

  “Sir Gerald, I find you impertinent.”

  “Alas, it is my love for Alice… I mean the duchess, that has made me so bold.”

  She studied him in silence for a moment. Then she said slowly, “And how could you help?”

  “I am sure I could reanimate the duchess’s affections toward me. I met the lady at Vauxhall last night.” He kissed his fingertips. “What a welcome! Ferrant is a proud man. It is all right for him to be unfaithful, but what duke would tolerate similar behavior in his own wife?”

  “And yet such things go on,” murmured Lady Macdonald.

  “In a couple so newly wed and without the heir to the dukedom being secured?”

  “And all you want in return is the love of the duchess?”

  “As to that,” he said awkwardly, “I find myself sadly short of the readies… and that is a certain barrier to courting the duchess.”

  She threw back her head and laughed. Then she looked at him, her eyes glittering with amusement. “A man after my own heart. So we are talking business, hey?”

  Gerald spread his hands in a deprecatory gesture.

  “Well, I shall look on it as an investment,” said Lady Macdonald. “But see you do your work well. I make a bad enemy.” She rose and crossed to a desk, then sat down and began to write busily.

  Then she rose and handed him a slip of paper. “That is a draft on my bank.” Gerald blinked at the large sum. “Now, shall we discuss strategy? It is time your little duchess saw me with Ferrant again. Miss Taylor is to have her come-out ball tomorrow night. Although the family is not bon ton, Ferrant has agreed to go because the father is an old army friend. He is taking me. It is up to us to see the duchess goes. I myself will engineer an invitation for you, and I will tell Mr. Taylor that it is Ferrant’s wish that his wife should accept an invitation. I believe Taylor discreetly did not send her one. You play your part and I will play mine.”

  Alice duly received a pressing invitation from Mr. Taylor to attend his daughter’s ball. In his letter he said he was an old friend of her husband’s. Alice showed the letter to Mrs. Duggan, along with the accompanying invitation card. “Very strange,” said Mrs. Duggan. “I myself have an invitation, but then, I have known the Taylors this age. Had you anything else planned for this evening?”

  Alice shook her head. “I planned to go to bed early. Madame Duval is going to spend most of this afternoon fitting me for all sorts of ensembles.”

  “But nothing ready yet? No? Then she had better refurbish something for this evening, for it is my belief you should go.”

  “What if Ferrant is there with Lady Macdonald?”

  “All to the better. To arrive escorting one’s mistress when one’s wife is present is just not done.”

  “What if Sir Gerald Warby is there?”

  Mrs. Duggan looked at her thoughtfully. She wanted to say that such as Sir Gerald was not a patch on Ferrant, but she said instead, “He is not invited anywhere much.” Mrs. Duggan had been making inquiries. “But Lord Dunfear and young Donnelly are to attend. I suggest they escort us. You will therefore have two safe partners, and one of them will escort you to supper.”

  The butler entered. “Lord Werford and his son, the Honorable Percy Burke,” he announced.

  “I do not think I know them,” said Alice.

  “If it pleases Your Grace, Lord Werford is His Grace’s second cousin.”

  ‘In that case, I had better see them. Is His Grace not at home?”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  “Then you may show them in.”

  The duke’s relative was older than the duke by at least twenty years. He was a small, swarthy man with a yellowish complexion, which could mean either that he had spent some time in India, or, what was more likely, there was something up with his liver. He had heavy eyebrows, bulging eyes, and a yapping voice. His son was also small but very neat—neat little features, neat little figure, finicky, precise movements.

  “You must excuse my bad memory,” said Alice. “I do not remember you at the wedding.”

  “Traveling abroad,” barked Lord Werford. “Both of us. Grand Tour. Boy’s education. Important.”

  “Quite. May I present Mrs. Duggan. Mrs. Duggan, Lord Werford and the Honorable Percy Burke.”

  Lord Werford bowed jerkily, but the Honorable Percy swept out a huge silk handkerchief and waved it in the air in a series of descending swoops, bowing as he did so, until his nose almost reached the floor. And then he stayed motionless, doubled up.

  “
Do rise, sir,” said Alice, stifling a giggle. “I am not the queen.”

  “But you are the queen of beauty,” said Percy, straightening up. “One glance from your eyes has pierced my heart.”

  “I don’t like you,” said Oracle suddenly, from his cage in the corner of the drawing room. “I don’t like you at all.”

  Alice blushed guiltily. She had been talking to the bird recently about Lady Macdonald, ending up by crying, “I don’t like you at all, my lady.” Oracle had omitted the “my lady,” and so it sounded uncannily as if the bird had taken a dislike to the guests.

  “Do excuse my pet,” she said. “He parrots odd phrases that mean nothing.”

  “If that were my bird,” said Lord Werford, puffing out his cheeks in anger, “I would have him shot. Shot on the spot, ma’am.”

  The mynah began to laugh, swinging backward and forward on its perch, a devilish laugh, a laugh from hell. Oh, dear, thought Alice, who now knew all the members of her husband’s large staff. That must be Evans. Evans was one of the housemaids, quick and efficient at her work but possessed of a really evil laugh. Alice had heard that laugh once-sounding up from the servants’ quarters—and had asked the butler, Hoskins, who on earth was possessed of a laugh like that.

  Lord Werford strutted up to the cage. “Be quiet,” he roared.

  “Shan’t, shan’t, shan’t,” shouted the mynah. Lord Werford backed away and crossed himself.

  Mrs. Tembil’s spoiled brat of a child, thought Alice, remembering a painful visit by a society matron. “The bird is not speaking to you, Lord Werford. It is merely stringing together odd phrases. Now may I offer you some refreshment?”

  Oracle fell mercifully silent while Alice entertained Lord Werford and his son with cakes and wine. Mrs. Duggan chattered on about this and that and Alice was glad of it, as father and son studied her the whole time in an unnerving way; she was glad when the couple at last rose to leave.

  Percy asked her to go driving with him and, when Alice explained that the afternoon was going to be taken up with fittings, he made a very long and embarrassing speech about the folly of gilding the lily, until his father edged him toward the door.

  “Goodness!” said Alice when they had left. “The next time they call, I hope Ferrant is at home.”

  The duke paused on his way out that evening. “Hoskins,” he said, “have there been any callers on the duchess today?”

  “Yes, Your Grace. Lord Werford and the Honorable Percy.”

  “The deuce! What did that old fool want?”

  “His Lordship wished to present his compliments to the duchess.”

  “Indeed! Anyone else?”

  “Mrs. Duggan and then the dressmaker, Madame Duval.”

  “And that is all?”

  “All that Her Grace would receive.”

  “You interest me. Whom would she not receive?”

  “Sir Gerald Warby, Your Grace.”

  “Thank you, Hoskins. That will be all.”

  So, thought the duke as he walked out to his carriage, his little bride was behaving just as she ought. He thought of the evening ahead and felt uncomfortable. He had enjoyed his light flirtation with Lady Macdonald, had even, just recently, toyed with the idea of divorcing Alice and marrying her instead. But at the opera, Lady Macdonald had begun to assume a proprietorial air that he did not like.

  He had to admit that the wantonness of her dress, which had so charmed him, had begun to appear vulgar. And yet when he called at her home to escort her to the ball, the very respectability of her gown on this occasion alarmed him. Lady Macdonald was already beginning to behave as if she were the duchess, rather than Alice. Instead of feeling in control of things, instead of feeling he was punishing Alice, he felt very much in the wrong, very much like just another London roué hell-bent on shaming his wife. But none of these disturbing thoughts showed through the polite mask of his face.

  He reflected bitterly that since he had become a duke, he had become used to thinking that everything that he did was above censure, and he had been helped in that, he thought, by London society, who toadied to him quite dreadfully. And so he was taking his mistress to an old friend’s daughter’s ball, and, up until that moment, had not thought much about the enormity of his behavior. He had been so hurt by Alice, so humiliated. He had treated her like glass during their engagement, never pressing kisses or embraces on her. Edward and Lucy were to be at the Taylors this evening—Edward, who had asked him not to do anything so tactless as to introduce Lady Macdonald to Lucy, “for she’s in a delicate condition,” he had said awkwardly, “and I do not want to do anything to upset her.”

  The fact that the duke was in a very bad mood, indeed, did not communicate itself to Lady Macdonald, who was so narcissistic that her pleasure in her own beauty had armored her effectively from the feelings of others. To spend an evening in her company, she judged, was an event of such high order than no man could fail to be delighted.

  It was perhaps unfortunate that the Taylors had decided to enlarge the appearance of their saloon, where the ball was being held, by having long sheets of looking glass along the walls.

  Alice was performing the quadrille with Mr. Donnelly. She was facing one of these sheets of mirror when Lady Macdonald entered, and so the duke had a perfect reflection of himself and Lady Macdonald—and also of Alice and Mr. Donnelly. Lady Macdonald’s reflected face wore an uncharacteristic look of sour uneasiness. Alice was smiling at Mr. Donnelly, the thin folds of yet another gauze overdress, this one spangled with gold, floating out from her body. Her hair was soft and gleaming and held in place with two delicate stems of gold corn. She looked very fresh and lovely. Mr. Donnelly, with his black curls and merry blue eyes, was, the duke judged, as young as Alice. He felt old and dirty.

  His eyes turned back to where Mr. Taylor was standing at the door with his wife, and Mr. Taylor mouthed ruefully, “Not my fault.”

  And then to add to the duke’s sourness, Sir Gerald Warby was announced.

  The gossips were having a field day. Fans were raised over painted faces and voices hissed and whispered while Alice and the reflected Alice danced on, apparently without a care in the world.

  Alice saw the duke, but her steps did not falter. She had also seen Sir Gerald Warby. “Sure, we’ll not be letting the fellow near you,” murmured Mr. Donnelly.

  Left to her own devices, Alice would have found it hard to avoid Sir Gerald. He was persistent in trying to secure a dance with her. But anytime he tried to approach her, she always managed to elude him by accepting the hand of the nearest gentleman who asked her to dance. Across the room, he saw Lady Macdonald sending him a gimlet look.

  The duke heartily wished the evening over. He could not help noticing the deft way Alice avoided Sir Gerald, or the way Mrs. Duggan directed those two Irishmen, Donnelly and Dunfear, to Alice’s side when it looked as if Sir Gerald were about to come too close to her. He should have been the one to protect his own wife.

  While Lady Macdonald was dancing with a dazed-looking youth, he took the opportunity to ask Mr. Taylor, “Why did you ask my wife?”

  “Demme, that was Lady Macdonald’s idea. Loretta said you wanted your wife to have an invitation. I thought that Loretta did not mean to attend. I did not know she was mischief-making.”

  “Nor I.”

  He waited until Lady Macdonald had finished dancing and then approached her. “We are leaving,” he said abruptly.

  “So soon?” The eyes that looked into his were searching and wary.

  He forced himself to smile. He did not want to have a scene with her in the ballroom. “I would be private with you,” he murmured.

  She gave a slow smile of triumph. Her moment had arrived. She would have him in her bed… and then at the altar.

  But no sooner were they seated in the privacy of his carriage than the duke said, “What prompted you to tell Taylor to insist on my wife’s attendance?”

  “As to that, Sir Gerald Warby is back in Town, and it is
known your little wife is enamored of him. Do not look so!” Lady Macdonald studied his grim face anxiously in the bobbing light of the carriage lamp. “Surely what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Everyone in society accepts us as a couple.”

  “I have behaved very badly,” he said. “To you, and to my wife. It must stop.” His lips curved in a bitter smile. “If I have led you to believe that my intentions were other than dishonorable, then I beg you to forgive me for that, too.”

  “What is this?” she demanded, fanning herself vigorously. “The great Duke of Ferrant is content to be cuckolded by his own wife?”

  “You go too far. My wife was indeed at one time in love with Sir Gerald. I would not have married her at all had her parents not misled me as to the nature of her affections. Loretta, all this is very painful. You should never have interfered. To have managed to get both my wife and Warby—yes, I am sure you were behind his invitation as well—to this ball was a cruel trick on all concerned, and the person who is perhaps going to be most hurt by the outcome is you yourself.”

  “Ferrant, forgive me. What was I to do? You showed all you preferred me to your milksop of a wife. What else could I think? I thought if you saw her together with Sir Gerald, it might prompt you to action, to divorce.”

  “It did not work,” he said heavily. “I behaved disgracefully… and my wife behaved just as she ought.”

  “Damn her.” Lady Macdonald clutched the fan in her hand so hard that the ivory sticks snapped.

  “We have not been lovers,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “We can still be friends despite the trick you have played on me.”

  She forced herself to smile. The game was not over so long as she still had access to him.

  “I thank you,” she said. “Your friendship is of great value to me.”

  Alice had noticed him leave with Lady Macdonald, had noticed the triumphant smile on that lady’s face, and had found herself hard put to remain apparently cheerful. She was half tempted to escape from her guard and talk to Sir Gerald. Sir Gerald had loved her. But somehow she could not recapture the soft memories of that first love. Sir Gerald had spent some time in the card room, gambling and drinking, once he had seen there was no hope of getting near her. He had just come back to the ballroom. He looked much older and harder, and, with a little feeling of emotional treachery, she could not help noticing that he was a trifle short in the leg.