The Accidental Duchess

by Jessica Benson

  I could hear Cambourne’s voice in my head: We all find ourselves at some point in an unfortunate situation not of our own making. It is up to you to decide how you go on from there. I looked at my mother looking at me. She was going to tell me what to do.

  “No,” I said firmly, and then was heartened by the fact that they all gaped at me. “I think it’s time to cut line. I want to know how you forced him to marry me.”

  “Are you defying me, Gwen?” my mother asked, with a lifted brow.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Odious, ungrateful gel!” Violetta said.

  “Yes,” I said, again. “Now tell me.”

  “You might as well, Almeria,” Violetta said, her gaze still trained on me. “The silly chit’s got the bit between her teeth and she’s never going to let go of it now.”

  “Very well,” my mother said.

  I leaned forward in my chair, and removed my father’s brandy glass from his hand. “Thank you,” I said, taking a long swallow and leaning back with the air of one waiting for an excellent tale.

  “Well, as you know, because Milburn was away,” Father said, “we did not have the banns read—”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was in possession of that piece of the puzzle.”

  “We’d assumed all along that we would need a special license. The bishop knew, of course, that we would need one, and Milburn was going to take care of that upon his return. When he didn’t return, however, and Cambourne offered to step in—” Mother broke off to glare at Father “—we offered to get the license.”

  “And that,” Violetta said, “was when the unfortunate mix-up with the names occurred.”

  “Most unfortunate,” I said. “So what you are saying is that you tricked him?”

  “Not precisely,” my father said. “I’ll grant you, your mother changed the names—” he broke off to glare at her “—but Cambourne knew it before the ceremony and still agreed to go through with it.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “An interesting choice of words. Does one suppose there was some, ah, impetus to his agreement?”

  “Oh well,” said Violetta. “As to that, who’s to say? One man’s agreement is another man’s coercion. Semantics. I make it a point never to waste time on them.”

  “I see,” I said, thinking that at last, I did. “And you somehow failed to, ah, find the correct time to mention all this to me?”

  “You know how emotional you get about every little thing, Gwen,” my mother said. “As I said at the time, Bernie, Bertie, what’s the difference? Now, it is imperative that you do not do anything to imperil the validity of your marriage to Cambourne.”

  I stared at her, not certain I was comprehending. “Oh!” I said after a moment. “Have I let Milburn consummate, do you mean?”

  Violetta nodded. “Not that that would help, of course, because Cambourne’s name is still on that license. Bed Milburn and you’re just an adulterous woman.” She looked at my mother. “The gel needs our help, Almeria.”

  “No,” I said. “I absolutely do not need your help.”

  “Of course you do!” my mother said.

  “Actually,” I said, wondering why I’d never before found the courage to stand up to her, “you’ve already helped quite a bit. And your help has been irrevocably damaging to my marriage and to my future happiness. I don’t want any more.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Violetta said.

  “Let me put it this way,” I said, leaning forward. “If you help me? Even once more? I’ll go and bed whichever of them I come across first. And you’ll never know which it is!”

  There was silence. I could hear the faint noise of a door closing somewhere in the house, the fire hissed, and I stared at the bare branches of the plane trees outside.

  “P’raps—” ventured my father, but got no further.

  “Oh, do be quiet, Axton,” Mother said. “I think she means it. Do you truly mean that?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.” I stood and gathered my pelisse. “So only remember, one wrong footfall on your part and I’ll have one of them in my bed before you can so much as blink. Could be Cambourne, but then, it could just as easily be Milburn. Do I make myself clear?”

  And then I swept out the door.

  22

  In which Bertie pays me a visit

  I was still shaking from the encounter when Giddings announced, “Lord Cambourne.”

  “It’s exhausting.” Milburn cast himself into a needlepoint chair and tugged at his cravat with a most uncharacteristic disregard as to its appearance.

  I raised my glass to him. I was on my second brandy of the day. Not bad for a girl who not too long ago had been afraid to try the stuff. “Good afternoon, er, Cambourne,” I said, waving toward the decanter. “Help yourself to refreshment.”

  “Thank you, no,” he said, glumly, and I eyed him. I wouldn’t have called him mussed, precisely, but he was lacking a certain gloss that I had come to associate with him. And I had to admit: He seemed somehow diminished without the aureole of curls. Even his hair seemed dispirited. It fell straight, as Cambourne’s did, but instead of having an appealing shine that made me want to run my fingers through it, it lay there, looking limp and dispirited. “Afternoon, is it? Feels like bloody midnight to me. I don’t know how he—anyone—can stand it.”

  I raised a questioning brow. “Stand what?”

  “This dashed miserable existence of his.” He waved an arm. “All day, it’s Corn Laws, Corn Laws, on and on, etcetera, ad nauseam. I mean, how is a fellow supposed to know what the deuced farmers are getting paid for their plaguey corn?”

  “Actually,” I said, “I believe it’s seven shillings a bushel at the moment.”

  He gave me an odd look. “That’s not the all of it.” He looked about furtively once again, and lowered his voice still further. “That Mathilde Claussen is, well, insatiable. I’m exhausted. Cambourne, it appears, don’t sleep. Me? I need my sleep.” And then he slumped back dispiritedly into his chair.

  I repressed a smile along with the delicious feeling that I really should not be participating in this conversation at all. “Perhaps she finds you more, er, pleasing,” I suggested.

  He looked taken with this suggestion, sat up straighter, and for a moment, his chest seemed to swell, but then deflated. “No. In fact—” He seemed suddenly to recall himself. “Never mind.” He slumped back once again and studied his boot in gloomy silence.

  I nodded sympathetically, since that seemed to be all that was required of me, and he continued.

  “Haven’t been to the club or out gaming since this started. Cambourne’s time—” he looked around again, and dropped his voice—“is not his own. Every evening it’s some insipid debutante’s ball or some dull supper or wretched thing like that. And did you know, I don’t—he don’t—even decide which to attend! His secretary does that. I rise at the crack of dawn, and am expected to be clothed in a quarter hour! Then I’m s’posed to drag myself out for a ride or to Jackson’s or some such. Finally return, throw down m’breakfast, already exhausted from rising at first light—digestion’s a complete shambles!” Milburn closed his eyes.

  He looked deeply pained, but once again, no response in particular seemed required of me.

  “Then, no sooner are the covers taken away, but his secretary is waiting in the library to go over his demmed ledgers. He was used to going over it at the table!” His tones were indignant. “I soon put a stop to that, you can be sure! Why, it’s positively uncivilized.”

  “I can see your point,” I murmured soothingly, since I was beginning to fear he might have some kind of attack, so patent was his indignation.

  “First we go over Cambourne’s engagements for the evening: ‘I have taken the liberty of accepting this one for you, my lord’—” Milburn did a credible imitation of an obsequious secretary—“‘It’s for Lord Sheridan’s daughter and that gentleman can be quite helpful in your attempts to introduce your motion to etcetera …,’ you know the type
of thing.” He shuddered. “Reason enough to stay away, if you ask me.”

  “I see your point,” I said.

  “But that—” he leaned closer and adopted a confiding tone—“is precisely the type of thing Cambourne does! Goes to an entertainment because it is expected.” His revulsion was apparent. “And women positively throw themselves at my, his, head. D’you know how many carriages have broken down outside Cambourne House this week alone? There’s quite the epidemic of poorly made carriage wheels in this town, I tell you that,” he said darkly. “I’m actually expected to lead out whey-faced debutantes and fetch them lemonade and such, and then to stand in corners listening to old bores prose on about parliamentary matters. And last night even some dead bore Oxford chap, antiquarian cove, telling me about how I’m funding his excavation—digging up the ruins at St. Dunstan’s, apparently! And moreover, I can’t take advantage of any of the women who want to offer, well, something else to him—me—on account of having had to cater to Mathilde’s every—er, sorry, Gwen.”

  I motioned to let him know that I was not offended, and to continue.

  “I tell you, I’m beginning to understand why the fellow was so keen to keep you after all.”

  “You really must cut line on the excessive flattery, Milburn,” I said.

  But he was undaunted. “Then it is luncheon, perhaps at White’s. And I assure you, there is no sleeping with a paper over my face there. No chance of that, oh no. No sooner do I step a barely shined boot through the door, but there’s a gaggle of people wanting to discuss this blasted parliamentary strategy. Then I am supposed to take another ride or do something else sporting—the fellow is a fanatic for punishment! And sometimes Mathilde expects servicing midday, in which case I have to go round and perform. Seemed like a dream come true at first, but now it’s like some kind of blasted nightmare. And then I go sit in the house, which drags on interminably, then some prosy old ass inevitably wants to discuss the day’s developments there, as though I paid any attention! Then home to change, out for the evening to some poisonously dull entertainment, and then if I ain’t visibly dead on my feet, it’s back to Mathilde.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, when I could get a word in edgewise.

  He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Thing is,” he ran a finger about his cravat. “Don’t know how much more of it I can take.”

  I considered this. “But you wanted it,” I reminded him.

  “Didn’t know what I was letting m’self in for,” he said, as though that explained all.

  “Talk to him,” I suggested.

  “No,” he said, and I waited for him to pout as he was used to when he was a child. “You talk to him for me.”

  “Me?” I said. “Why ever should I do that?”

  “Because you’re my wife,” he said, sounding obstinate.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I reminded him. “You chose to have your little idyll with Therèse instead of coming home and marrying me.”

  “I consider my idyll with Therèse, as you phrased it, entirely separate from my marrying you,” he said bluntly.

  “Well, it ought not be,” I pointed out.

  “Idylls and marriage are not mutually exclusive,” he said. “Y’know.”

  “When the marriage concerns me, they are,” I said, crossing my arms. “And anyway, I’m Cambourne’s wife now.”

  “You are no such thing,” Milburn said briskly.

  “It’s his name on the license,” I said.

  “It’s his name on the other license, too.”

  “What do you want, Milburn?”

  “I want to be m’self again.” He pushed out his lower lip, and for a moment I saw the seven-year-old I had once known. “He can have the titles back, but he can’t have you.”

  I leveled a long look at him. “Are you in love with me, then, Milburn?” I asked, finally.

  He leveled an equally long look back at me. “Do you want the pretty answer to that, Gwen?”

  “No,” I said, “I want the truth.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “And are you in love with me?”

  I was tempted to toss back a flippant remark, but instead I took a moment to think about his question. “No,” I said, slowly. “But I suppose I had a certain vision of marriage to you that seemed both easy and expected, somehow, and I’ve been reluctant to give it up. I am a little surprised, however,” I continued, “that you are fighting for me like a spoiled child with a toy. And come to think of it, you are behaving the same way over the titles. Forcing him to give them up for you.”

  He laughed at this. “I didn’t force him to give them up. You did.”

  “Me?” I demanded, my voice rising. “I wasn’t the one blackmailing him. And he said he was doing it for you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, quietly. “It was so he could stay with you. He loves you Gwen, and I’ve always known it. I’ve watched him watch you since you were sixteen years old.”

  I stared at him. “Really?” I whispered. “Is that the truth?”

  He nodded. “Doesn’t matter, though,” he said. “You were s’posed to be my wife. Not Cambourne’s.” He jutted out his chin.

  “Do you love Therèse?” I asked him.

  “Not hardly,” he said.

  “Where did the old Bertie Milburn go? The pleasant easygoing companion I knew?”

  “He disappeared somewhere about a year ago,” he replied. “When he started risking his hide to protect his brother’s ridiculous notions of honor. Meantime, I’d suggest you get one of your husbands to switch back with the other.”

  I eyed him. “And what would you do if I said no?”

  “That would depend,” he said, uncrossing his boot, and leaning toward me with his elbows on his knees. “I could just go right on being Cambourne. Thing is, it seems I ain’t much in the way of an estate manager, so I wanted to offer him the opportunity to have his precious land back.” He shrugged. “Plenty of blunt there, though, even if I completely ignore the estates. I could just enjoy m’self, let the estates go to hell, I s’pose, if he’s intent on hanging about as me. Only thing is, I would need him to relinquish you—”

  “But why?” I burst out. “You just admitted you don’t love me.”

  “Because he wants you, Gwen,” he said, leaning closer. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever had that Cambourne wanted and couldn’t take. Anyway, I can ruin Cambourne without even letting out his dirty little secret.”

  I suddenly felt very tired of this. “What are you saying, Bertie?”

  “S’pose it all comes down to this, Gwen: I owe Cambourne. The way I see it, he has two choices. He can choose you, or he can choose his titles. Can’t have both. If he tries, a few correctly placed words from me will put paid to that notion. Why don’t you give it a shot? See what’s worth more to ’im, you or his land.”

  “You can’t mean that,” I said.

  Bertie rose and dusted off his immaculate jacket.

  “ ’Course I do,” he said. “I’m Cambourne now, for the moment, at least. I don’t say things I don’t mean. Believe me, when it comes right to it, you’ll come a distant third to his land and his honor. Those are in his blood.” Then he flicked the tails of his jacket and stood. “You, you are just in his life,” he said, from the door. “Not his blood, not his bones, not even his bed.”

  We both fell silent for a moment, and then Milburn said, with a perceptiveness that surprised me, “Bad luck for you, old girl, that he didn’t bed you before I came back. Because you can bet on it that the noble Harry Cambourne won’t ruin you with the situation so unsettled. Tripped up by his own sense of honor, I’m afraid. You’ll never get him to bed you now.”

  After he left, I stayed, curled in my chair. Bertie might be right about a lot of things—a surprising number in fact, but not that last. Because that was precisely what I was determined to change.

  23

  In which I seduce Cambourne

  “Oof, Ber-tee.” Ther
èse gave a languid wave when I told her of his visit later that afternoon. “Pay no mind to him. He is like a little, annoying dog. One good kick and he shall come to heel, sure enough. One only has to decide wisely on when and where to administer it, the kick.”

  “But he’s right,” I said. “In that I have to get Cambourne to break this rigid sense of honor or nothing can change, I see that now. And if nothing does, we’re all of us doomed to unhappiness.”

  At this, Cecy looked up from the letter she had just sanded.

  “I tell you, honor and nobility I do not know about. I think it is all the fault of the robe”—Therèse shuddered—“Imagine attempting seduction garbed like une grandmère!”

  “Une grandmère?” Cecy repeated, looking amused.

  “I was not attempting seduction!” I felt compelled to point out. “I was breaking up an illicit rendezvous.” I glared at her repressively.

  She was unrepressed. “I would not be seen to flee a fire in a robe such as that! This time—” Therese waved a hand—“you will have Cambourne begging for the mercy!”

  Which is how I came, some time later that evening, to find myself grabbing Therèse by the elbow. To be sure, I had not intended to put our plan into action quite so soon. I had agreed to it in theory, but had somehow been under the happy, if false, impression that I would have a few days to work myself up to it in practice. But as it happened, that very evening found Therèse going to the theater with Myrtia, and Cambourne announcing his intention to retire early. A heaven-sent opportunity, if there ever was one, at least according to Therèse.

  “I’ve changed my mind. I cannot do this,” I whispered, as I grabbed her elbow.

  I was freshly bathed, not to mention creamed, emolliated, and perfumed. I had even, as per her instructions, brushed my hair dry, leaning upside down in front of the fire. My neck was stiff, but my hair looked stunning.

  “Yes,” she replied, apparently unmoved. “You can.” As though to emphasize her point, she liberated her arm and shook out the extraordinarily sheer night rail. “This is perfect. Your Madame Suzette is indeed the genius.”