Heir to the Duke (The Duke's Sons #1)

by Jane Ashford

  Nathaniel enjoyed Violet’s excitement at the prospect of seaside society. How often had he watched one of his brothers throw himself into a new interest or pursuit? Watching her examine their new surroundings and make plans, he felt a familiar warmth, and concern. His brothers’ enthusiasms sometimes led to difficulties, and appeals for help, which of course he gave. They relied on him when they didn’t wish to go to their parents. Not that they had ever done anything very bad, but no young man wished to appear foolish before elders as assured and capable as the duke and duchess. From the news in recent letters, Nathaniel feared some such problems might be looming.

  Violet’s first wish, her burning desire, was to visit a dressmaker, and finding a good one in Brighton was quite easy. Several of the finest London modistes set up shop in the seaside town in the summer, following their customers to the shore. Indeed, one she had marked down as particularly skilled at the sort of dashing styles she wanted was in town. Violet lost no time in making an appointment to see her.

  While still at the manor she had written to London about a new lady’s maid, and the agency sent three candidates to see her in their first days at Brighton. All of them were eminently qualified, but one seemed perfect to Violet. Miss Catherine Furness had previously served a lady known to be in the first stare of fashion who had died unexpectedly. The maid had an impressive list of skills and sterling references. And she was about Violet’s age, which definitely appealed. Indeed, when the woman let slip that several of her former mistress’s friends had expressed interest in employing her, Violet exerted herself to lure her in. By the end of the interview, she almost felt like a petitioner rather than an employer. She emphasized that she wished to make a splash in society and offered a very good salary, and finally Miss Furness accepted the position. Even a blistering letter from her grandmother about Renshaw’s dismissal didn’t dent Violet’s triumph over this, though she did tremble a bit when she first read it. Then she put it away and didn’t look at it again.

  With these two things accomplished, Violet’s preparations to attend their first major outing in Brighton, a ball at the Castle Inn, were quite different from any earlier in her life. For one thing, the dress shimmering on the bed was a vision of sapphire silk. For another, her maid was determined to make her look beautiful, not relentlessly dowdy. “When one’s hair is not a striking color, it requires an arresting style,” Furness declared. She was wielding a curling iron like a magician’s wand, and transforming Violet’s sandy locks into a profusion of curls.

  “Will they stay in?” she wondered.

  “For the evening, my lady,” was the confident reply. Furness finished and put the last iron with its fellows on the hearth, then proceeded to thread a deep blue ribbon through Violet’s tresses. “And I think just a touch of color,” she added.

  “Oh.” Despite her errant imaginings, Violet drew back at the sight of the little pot of rouge, her grandmother’s blistering comments echoing in her head. “I don’t think I can—”

  “Your grandparents painted their faces,” Furness pointed out. “Men as well. All sorts of powder and patch. They wouldn’t venture out of their dressing rooms without it.”

  Surely the dowager hadn’t been among them, Violet thought. Yet it had been the fashion in her youth. She tried to imagine Grandmamma in such a toilette, and failed. “Yes, but now people consider it quite—”

  “No one will know it’s there. Let me just try a bit, my lady, and if you don’t like it, we’ll wash it right off.”

  And so Violet did. And found she looked so much better with Furness’s touch of color that she was sorely tempted. Even with her grandmother’s cries of horror echoing in her brain, she admired the woman looking back at her from the mirror. She had a polish, a sophistication, that fulfilled Violet’s secret dreams. That woman might be as daring as Violet had often wished to be. No, she wasn’t going to wash it off.

  When Nathaniel knocked at the door a bit later and was invited to enter, he was dazzled by his wife’s transformation. Violet wore a gown that glinted in the candlelight. Its scooped neckline and clinging cut flattered her form more than any ensemble he had ever seen her wear. Her hair looked different as well, and her cheeks glowed. The new lady’s maid stood beside her, somehow looking like an artist revealing her masterwork despite her bent head and folded hands. Indeed, under the sidelong glance of this slender, dark-haired servant, Nathaniel almost questioned his own appearance. Yet he knew Cates had turned him out in his customary style. “You look lovely,” he said.

  Violet smiled. Her gray eyes sparkled. When she took his proffered arm, she looked so happy that Nathaniel was again glad that he’d given in to her wishes and brought her to the seaside.

  They arrived at the inn as the dancing was beginning, and their entrance attracted a good deal of notice. Nathaniel didn’t care for the stares and murmurs, and he hoped that Violet wasn’t too uncomfortable, as most eyes seemed to be on her. When he looked down at her, however, ready to shield or reassure, she was positively glowing.

  They were greeted by a variety of acquaintances as they moved deeper into the room, though Nathaniel didn’t encounter any of his close friends. Most of them had gone into the country, either to attend to their own estates or join house parties.

  “Oh, there’s Marianne,” said Violet.

  She tugged at his arm and led him toward the far corner of the chamber, to a group that included an attractive young woman Nathaniel recognized as one of her friends. “You look stunning,” she said to his wife when they reached her.

  Violet couldn’t help but preen a little. She and Marianne Fanshawe—now Marianne Norton, Lady Granchester—had been friends since they were presented in the same year. People often wondered at it, she knew, because the contrasts between them seemed far greater than the similarities. Marianne had married following her first season, contracting a brilliant match to one of the Marriage Mart’s most eligible bachelors, while Violet remained a spinster. Marianne was strikingly beautiful, with red-gold hair instead of sandy, eyes of a vibrant blue instead of gray, and classic features. She had been a little thin, but motherhood had remedied that. Violet had actually overheard acquaintances wondering why Violet would spend time with a female who was so much prettier than she. Despite passing pangs of envy, she did it because Marianne was also intelligent and understanding and funny.

  “You’re doing it,” Marianne said to her. “Breaking out at last.”

  Violet leaned closer and murmured, “I dismissed Renshaw.”

  “You didn’t!” When Violet nodded, Marianne added, “Good for you.” They had often discussed Renshaw’s tyrannical ways.

  Her friend looked a bit tired, Violet thought, and there was a discontented droop to her full lips. She looked around the room for Marianne’s husband, Anthony, but didn’t see him.

  Violet was aware that she had confided more deeply in Marianne than vice versa. She hoped that might change now that she was also a married woman, and thus no longer to be “shielded” from the realities of life. She’d gathered from a few hints that Marianne’s marriage was not a happy one, and she would have been glad to help her in any way she could. Violet drew her away from Nathaniel, who obligingly began to chat with others in the group. “Are you all right?” Violet asked.

  “Of course,” replied Marianne.

  The words sounded automatic. Violet examined her friend’s pretty face. You did not tell someone you cared for that she looked fatigued and sad in the middle of a ball. “Is Anthony here?” she ventured.

  Marianne laughed without humor. “As he much prefers, he is at the pavilion, playing whist with the Regent and the Duke of York.”

  Even Violet had heard of these high-stakes games. Cronies of the Prince Regent won and lost sizable sums over whiskey and cards. She hadn’t realized that Granchester formed part of that set. He was fifteen years older than Marianne, but still a good deal younger than the Regent. “I didn’t know he was fond of cards,” she said, and at once felt th
e remark to be silly.

  Marianne shrugged. “Fond?” Her gaze drifted off over Violet’s shoulder. She eyed the crowd as if they were an unbearably tedious sight.

  Violet puzzled over what she had meant by that one sarcastic word, and over what she might say to comfort her friend. And then, all at once, Marianne’s face changed. The fatigue lifted. Her lips turned up. Her blue eyes lit with their former allure. The alteration was so marked that Violet turned to discover what had sparked it. But she saw only chattering groups of partygoers and the dancers beyond.

  “There is someone I must speak to,” Marianne said. She slipped past two nearby gentlemen and around a cluster of young ladies. In a moment, she had disappeared into the crowd. Though she craned her neck, Violet couldn’t see where she went.

  “The next dance is a waltz,” Nathaniel said behind her. “May I have the honor?”

  Violet turned to find him looking down at her with warmth in his eyes. He held out a hand. Violet took it, and set aside the question of Marianne’s odd behavior for another time.

  They joined the other dancers as the music began. Nathaniel held her closer than he had when they’d danced before, and she let her fingers caress the nape of his neck. All else fell away as her consciousness of his body, inches away from hers, demanded her total attention. His hand on her waist seemed to radiate heat through the silk of her gown. His smile bewitched her. The dance steps felt like floating. Violet’s pulse accelerated with the sheer bliss of knowing that here at last was the freedom she’d yearned for—in her glorious dress, with a forbidden touch of color in her cheeks, enclosed in the embrace of her handsome husband. She’d done it! She’d escaped into a new life. She was the sovereign of all she surveyed. Looking around the ballroom as they spun through a turn, she became aware of eyes on her from every direction, and she reveled in it. The glances were surprised, admiring, speculative; a few were sour and spiteful. But Violet didn’t even care about those. Whatever their attitudes, the onlookers were not seeing a dowdy, missish female without style or wit. She had unmistakably declared her liberation from her grandmother’s rule.

  During the remainder of the evening, Violet received more invitations to dance than she had during the last two seasons in London. She put it down to the improvements in her appearance, and it was true that they had a great influence. But the happiness and assurance radiating from her added an element that mere prettiness could not provide, and drew the interest of men and women alike.

  Nathaniel made sure he had Violet’s hand for the set before the interval, and they went in to supper together. He looked around for her friend Marianne, to ask her to join them, but he saw no sign of her. So he steered his wife to a table occupied by three couples they knew, and they were warmly welcomed to the remaining chairs.

  “The men must fetch us food,” said one of the ladies, fanning her glowing cheeks. “I declare, these new shoes pinch my feet like medieval instruments of torture.”

  “You must be the mighty hunters of the buffet tables,” another said with a laugh. “And bring us what we most desire or—”

  “Or?” replied one of the gentlemen with a raised eyebrow.

  “Or suffer dire consequences,” was the arch reply.

  “Champagne,” said the third lady.

  “Oh, yes!” said Violet. “We must have bottles and bottles of champagne.”

  Her enthusiasm drew amused looks.

  “I was never allo…” She faltered, briefly embarrassed, and then hurried on. “I love champagne!”

  Nathaniel met her eyes. Memories of their first night together drifted in their locked gaze.

  “Oh, lud, we’re in the presence of newlyweds,” said the first lady.

  There were smirks and even a giggle. All three of these couples, like most people their age, had been married for some years. Nathaniel moved to shield Violet. “Shall we go in search of sustenance?” he asked, and led the men off to raid the buffet.

  They ate lobster patties and luscious cakes and lemon ices. Whenever the champagne bottle was offered, Violet held out her glass.

  “You may regret that tomorrow,” Nathaniel murmured in her ear with the fourth.

  “Have you never been foxed?” Violet replied, a bit too loudly.

  “Well, I—”

  “Thoroughly foxed? Bosky, dipping deep? Drunk as a wheelbarrow?”

  The others were listening now, greatly diverted. Nathaniel winced inwardly at their amused looks. “I have, but not very oft—”

  “And why a wheelbarrow?” Violet wondered more loudly. “What do wheelbarrows have to do with it?”

  “It’s what you load your drunken friends into to get them home, my innocent,” said the man who had been most assiduous in filling her glass.

  “I am not an innocent,” declared Violet. She drained her glass and held it out for more, which she was promptly given.

  She wasn’t the age of an innocent, Nathaniel thought. But her grandmother’s iron hand had left her seeming far younger than twenty-six. And tonight was making it abundantly clear that it had also left her champing at the bit to break free. He hadn’t bargained on that.

  Nathaniel surveyed their companions. Their amusement was good-natured. Indeed, two of the women seemed benevolently delighted by Violet’s antics. One of the gentlemen caught his gaze and offered a comradely grin. Clearly, they liked this new Violet. But Nathaniel remained off-balance, all too aware of the many other eyes upon them. Of course there was no harm in a few glasses of champagne. It was just—this wasn’t the sort of behavior he’d expected from his utterly suitable future duchess.

  After supper, during their second waltz, Violet missed a step. He caught her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I’m wonderful!” was the reply. She gave a joyous little skip that nearly jostled them into a nearby couple. “Don’t be stodgy, Nathaniel. I can’t bear stodgy.”

  A bit insulted, he guided her through a turn. He was not, and never had been, stodgy. It was not stodgy to worry about her. That was the function of greater experience. If she would drink far more champagne than she was used to and then dance… A fine spectacle it would be if the new Viscountess Hightower fell down drunk at a Brighton ball.

  Nathaniel caught himself, wondering at the tone of that last thought. It was not so bad as that.

  But his concern for his wife added a measure of tension to the rest of the ball. As he watched her go down the line of a country-dance with another partner, he thought he saw her wobble. He didn’t believe anyone else noticed, but his fears for her made it difficult to engage in light conversation or invite other ladies to stand up with him.

  He suddenly remembered an evening during his brother Robert’s first season in town. Robert, just nineteen, had insisted upon joining one of the high-stakes tables—peopled by much older, hardened players—at a card party. With no way to remove him without humiliation, Nathaniel had been forced to watch Robert lose a large sum of money. His anxiety tonight was quite similar—a queasy feeling of teetering on the edge of disaster.

  Fortunately, none occurred. But Nathaniel was glad when the evening ended, and relieved that his town carriage had arrived, brought in easy stages from London. For although it wasn’t far to their lodgings, he judged that Violet was too…tired to walk.

  She was laughing as he handed her into the carriage, and the carefree lilt of it lifted his spirits. “You enjoyed the ball?”

  “Tremendously!” As he sat beside her and the horses started up, Violet threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. “It was beyond anything.” She kissed him again.

  His arms full of enthusiastic wife, Nathaniel responded in kind now that they were alone. Heat rose in his veins. He scarcely noticed when the carriage stopped after their short journey. Only the driver’s eventual query of, “My lord?” from the box restored him to his surroundings. Quickly, he untangled himself. “We’re back,” he said to Violet. “We must go in.” And up to the bedroom, he added silently, as soon as may be
.

  “Back?” Violet gave a great sigh. She stretched, which did marvelous things to the thin silk of her gown.

  “At our lodgings. Come.” He opened the carriage door and stepped down, turning to offer her a hand.

  Violet blinked and gave him a dazzling smile. She took his hand and joined him on the street. When he opened the door, she practically danced up the stairs. Once in their parlor, she threw out her arms and whirled round and round, sapphire silk belling out, and said, “Oh, Nathaniel, life is going to be glorious from now on!”

  He caught her as she reeled past and waltzed her around the sofa, down the big room and then up again. Violet giggled as he steered them through the doorway and into her bedchamber.

  Five

  Rather than waking, Violet crawled back up to consciousness the next morning. She was ill. Someone seemed to have filled her head with hot coals, and the heat was boiling her eyes in their sockets. Though she hadn’t moved from her bed, her pulse was pounding. Her mouth was dry as dust, her stomach roiling. The narrow beams of light escaping the closed draperies seemed like actual spears, lancing through her. When she struggled to sit up, she felt briefly dizzy.

  Oh.

  This was what Nathaniel had meant when he said she would regret drinking so much champagne. This was “paying the price” for overindulgence. She’d heard the condition spoken about, but knowledge of its existence was not the same as experiencing it. Not at all. Not in the least. The actuality was perfectly wretched.