His Unlikely Duchess

by Amanda McCabe

  Stella tossed a tearful look at her husband and her hand tightened even more on Lily’s. ‘Of course you would. You are such a good, scholarly girl. Papa, though, is being ridiculously obstinate.’

  ‘It’s a long way, Stella. You wouldn’t let them go when they were younger—why suddenly now? That’s all I am saying,’ Coleman Wilkins said wearily.

  ‘They were not ready before now! And England is not too far for Jennie Jerome, is it? Or Consuelo Yznaga,’ Stella cried.

  Lily saw in a flash what this was all really about and she felt like a fool for not realising immediately. It wasn’t about her grandmother, or culture or education. It was about marriage. Stella seemed to have something bigger in mind now than the Goelet money.

  Jennie Jerome was the daughter-in-law of a duke now. Consuelo Yznaga would one day be a duchess herself. Her mother wanted a coronet for the Wilkins family, too.

  Of course she did.

  Lily felt a sudden wave of fear, washing away that tiny spark of excitement. She had known she couldn’t hide in her books for ever, but—to jump into English society, a pool whose depths she could not fathom? Everyone would be watching, everyone would know why she was there in London and she was sure to disappoint her mother again. ‘Mother, I don’t know. Perhaps Papa is right, perhaps I am too young...’

  ‘You are almost twenty! And the twins are almost seventeen. They need polish so badly,’ her mother wailed. Stella collapsed on to the sofa, her face buried in her handkerchief. ‘There is no more time. If you were settled, the other girls would be safe, too. No one could touch us!’

  ‘It’s all right, Mother, I promise,’ Lily said soothingly. She reached out and rubbed her mother’s silk-covered shoulder, meeting her father’s gaze above Stella’s head. In his eyes she saw her own feelings: resignation. They would go to London. But Lily had no idea what would happen then. She only knew she couldn’t be afraid. Rose and Violet were counting on her to help them make their own choices for the future and she would never let them down.

  Chapter One

  London—the next springtime

  There were two hours, thirty-eight minutes and four seconds left before she could run away.

  Lily carefully studied the clock set high on a marble pedestal in Lady Crewe’s ballroom. It was a lovely clock, all gilt and pastel porcelain flowers lavished around enamelled numbers that kept perfect time. A lovely clock in a lovely ballroom, one of the few in the London town house, with its polished parquet floors crowded with satin slippers and patent dancing pumps, tall windows set in the blue silk walls, half-open to let in the cool breezes from Green Park, and arches of glossy greenery and fragrant hothouse gardenias. An orchestra was hidden in a gallery high above their heads, playing lively waltzes and polkas, the music blending with waves of laughter. One wall was lined with mirrors, reflecting the dancers back to themselves, and reflecting Lily in her pale pink satin gown trimmed with antique lace, her grandmother’s pearls around her neck.

  Lady Crewe’s invitations were much sought after, Lady Heath had assured Lily’s mother. She was friends with the Prince of Wales and many of his Marlborough House set. They set the style now, with their fine clothes and dashing manners. It was a great triumph to be asked there as a newcomer, an American, and Lily certainly couldn’t refuse her mother when Stella was so overcome with triumphant delight. It was what she had been working towards ever since they arrived in London and started tiptoeing carefully to tea parties and charity luncheons, meeting the right people, undergoing the closest scrutiny.

  Lily sighed, shifting on her own satin slippers as she leaned on a pillar in her hiding place behind a bank of potted palms. She’d seen so little of what she was dreaming of in London, no museums or historical buildings, just drawing rooms and park pathways, where she sipped tea and led her horses down bridle paths, trying not to hear the whispers, or see the speculative glances. Another dollar princess, come bounding over to snatch up a coronet—how much does she have, do you think?

  This ball was no different. She smiled and laughed with her sisters in their rented bedroom as they helped her dress, concealing from them how she longed to hide every time she ventured out to face that curiosity.

  She’d danced twice before she could scurry away and find this quiet spot. She peeked between the green fronds again, studying the gowns, since she had promised to tell Rose and Violet every detail. Violet longed to photograph it all, though so far she had been confined to the park with her camera. The fashions in London, except for Americans like herself who had already married their English husbands, were not as grand as in New York and Newport, not as crisp with silk and lace newness, not as bright in their colours. But the swirl of them all together along the length of the floor was lovely, like the stained-glass windows of an old church.

  Much lovelier to watch than be trapped in the middle of it all.

  The beautiful clock suddenly struck the hour, playing a tinkling little song as the porcelain cupids cavorted, startling Lily from her close studies of the dancers. She laughed as she remembered how Violet had accused her of reading fairy tales, and she had declared there were no happy endings. But did the chimes mean the coach of her dreams was suddenly going to turn into a pumpkin, like Cinderella’s did?

  She envisioned all the dancers, in their bright gowns and black suits, their old jewels, suddenly sprouting gigantic orange heads and the idea of it made her laugh harder. She pressed her gloved hand tight over her mouth, trying to hold it all back. It would never do to give away her hiding place! If Mother or Lady Heath found her...

  ‘Laughter at Lady Crewe’s ball? Shocking,’ a voice said behind her. The voice was deep, as smooth as a length of velvet, full of suppressed laughter.

  Lily whirled around, her heart beating fast, startled at being found out in her hiding place.

  For an instant, she felt quite frozen at the sight of the man who stood there, half hidden by more of the leafy palms. He was quite, quite beautiful, almost unreal, like something in one of her books, suddenly sprung into real, vivid, colourful life.

  Like all the other men in the ballroom, he wore the regulation suit of evening clothes, severely tailored black coat, white cravat pinned with a small cameo, and cream-coloured satin waistcoat, but on him it all seemed so very...different. So intriguing.

  He was taller than most of her dance partners, much taller than her own meagre five foot three, with enticingly broad shoulders and lean hips, long legs encased in close-fitting dark trousers.

  His hair was a gold-tinged brown, almost tawny as if he spent much time in the sun. Lily couldn’t see how that was possible in such a grey place as London. It gave him an enticing glow, a warmth she feared she wanted to get closer and closer to, as if he could melt the ice around her at last. Unlike the other men’s tightly pomaded coiffures, it fell in unruly waves over his brow and the velvet collar of his coat, and was enticingly soft-looking.

  He didn’t seem as if he belonged in the sparkling, artificial hothouse of the ballroom. Lily thought he should be on the deck of a ship, prowling through the sea mist, or riding a wild horse madly across the open fields, taking every fence amid joyful, unfettered laughter.

  Or grabbing a sighing, melting woman up into his arms and kissing her passionately until she swooned.

  Oh, yes. Lily could picture that all too well.

  He ran his hand through his hair, rumpling it even more, and smiled at her. Lily swayed at the brilliant sight of it and reached out to brace herself on one of Lady Crewe’s flower-covered arches. Dear heavens, but he was beautiful. She had never seen eyes so very green before, like their hostess’s emerald necklace, deep and dark, set in a lean, sculpted face touched with the gold of the sun.

  Who was he? She was quite sure she’d never seen him before, for he would have been impossible to forget. He was probably untitled, some poor younger son, and her mother would disapprove of Lily ‘wasting t
ime’ with such a man. Such a man, one she could only have imagined in a book before.

  Now here he was, dropped right in front of her, smiling down at her. Her heart pounded, drowning out the chatter, the music. She couldn’t breathe. Surely he could hear it, too, pounding through the silk and lace of her new gown?

  She glanced back over her shoulder at the ballroom, half sure she’d nodded off in her hiding place and was dreaming. She felt cold and burning up at the same time, as if she had a fever. She shivered and wrapped her arms tightly around herself as she watched the dancers. It was all exactly the same out there. But she wondered, with a daring, hopeful, fearful spark, if suddenly everything had changed.

  She closed her eyes tightly for a moment. When she opened them, he was still there. Not a dream after all, but a wonderful, wonderful reality.

  She laughed again. She just couldn’t help it.

  He was just as gorgeous on second look, with an enticing dimple set deep in his clean-shaven cheek, but now his brow was creased in a small frown. He watched her with cautious, narrowed eyes, as so many people in London did.

  Lily went cold all over again. Of course—he was Prince Charming and she was still the gauche American who didn’t know the proper thing to do, no matter how much she read and studied. At home, she was considered the careful paragon of politeness, but here she always seemed to put her foot wrong.

  It had never been of consequence before, not really. After all, no matter what her mother thought or hoped, Lily didn’t intend to marry and stay in England, not if she could help it. Not if she could find another way to set her sisters up in life. But now, with this man, it seemed to matter so very much.

  She bit her lip uncertainly. She hadn’t been introduced to this man; she knew very well it was most improper to speak to him, whether at home in New York or here in London. But she suddenly realised she’d been standing there in silence, like a veritable ninny, punctuated only by bursts of laughter. Surely he thought she was a lunatic.

  That was the last thing she wanted Prince Charming to think about her.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said at last. She felt her cheeks burn all over again when she heard how breathless she sounded. She swallowed and started again. ‘I know it’s rude to laugh and also to hide behind the decorations. I do hope you aren’t related to our hostess.’

  He smiled again and his eyes crinkled enticingly at the corners. Lily was startled once more by how very green they really were—quite unreal, in fact. It made her feel even sillier, even more giddy. ‘So that I would tattle on you for running away? That would be most hypocritical of me, since I am obviously doing the same thing.’

  Lily laughed. ‘So you are. Most wicked of you not to dance.’ She peeked towards the row of gilded chairs along the blue silk walls, where girls sat like flowers amid their white and yellow and pink skirts, whispering to each other behind their fans or watching the dancers with wistful eyes. Surely any one of them, proper pedigreed English ladies, would kill to have one dance with a man like this, untitled or not.

  But he was here with her, in their own quiet little world, and Lily found she never wanted to leave this flowery bower. Never wanted to stop looking at him.

  ‘Well, I have been gone from England for some time, so I fear my manners have become terribly barbaric,’ he said.

  Lily tilted her head to the side as she studied him again. That explained the touch of sun-gold in his hair, the warmth of his skin, the unfashionable lack of any beard. Had he been on a sunny island? The plains of remotest Africa? She longed to know more, to know everything. She had only known him for a moment, but she already wanted so, so much more.

  She had never felt that way before.

  ‘We have that in common, then,’ she said. ‘I am finding myself very slow to learn the manners here, too. As soon as I think I know them, they change on me.’

  He laughed that deep, velvety sound that seemed to slide over her skin. ‘You are American?’

  ‘How can you tell?’ she asked, chagrined. ‘I left my Stetson hat at home tonight. I was told it was not at all de rigeur.’

  He shook his head, that smile lingering. ‘Your gown is the height of fashion and could not be lovelier. It’s your accent. I spent some time in America myself.’

  He thought she looked lovely? Lily bit her lip to keep from giggling, but she couldn’t stop the warmth that flooded through her. ‘Where in America, sir?’

  ‘In Colorado, mostly. An astonishing place.’

  ‘Colorado?’ Lily was surprised. Most foreigners never went west of Boston, as indeed she herself never had, except for visits to their grandmother in Charleston. Yet she had read so much of the West, of the vast mountains and glowing deserts, and was fascinated. ‘How amazing. I’ve always wanted to see such things; they don’t seem as if they could be real in the paintings. But Mama says it would be much too dangerous in such a lawless place.’

  His smile widened, that dimple deepening, and Lily was thrilled to see he looked quite rakish. She could see him in some Western saloon, striding up some mountain. ‘And she would be absolutely right. The mountains can be frightfully dangerous. But lots of fun just the same. London isn’t much for fun, I fear.’

  Lily laughed. She was even more intrigued by him. One thing was for certain, she felt more comfortable, more alive, here with him in these few moments than she had in all the grey, English days so far. ‘I should love to see it one day. Though perhaps I should learn to shoot before I do. I’m sure lawn archery games in Newport aren’t really sufficient practice.’

  ‘I’d be happy to assist in such endeavours at any time.’ He still smiled down at her, amazingly, and showed no signs of wanting to run away from her American manners. ‘But since I can’t whisk you off to Colorado tonight, maybe I could beg for a dance instead?’

  ‘A dance?’ Lily suddenly felt the cold touch of uncertainty again. She glanced towards the dance floor. The polka was ending and a new waltz forming, couples taking their places. She glimpsed her mother standing with Lady Heath on the other side of the room, her amethyst tiara glinting fiery purple as she craned her neck, looking for someone. No doubt looking for Lily.

  ‘I fear we haven’t actually been introduced,’ she said. ‘My mother would not approve.’

  His dimple deepened and he leaned closer. He smelled delicious, too, like something spicy and clean. ‘I’m afraid it would take too long to find someone to introduce us and I’m much too impatient a man to wait for the next dance.’ He reached out and took her gloved hand in his. He bowed low over it, making her laugh. ‘How do you do? My name is Aidan and I promise I have no wicked intentions.’

  Lily pursed her lips, pretending to be doubtful. He did make her feel so very daring. Perhaps she couldn’t run away to the Colorado mountains, but she could surely dance with a man who only had a first name.

  And a lovely name it was. Aidan. She turned it over in her mind, the musical sound of it.

  She gave a little curtsy. ‘How do you do, Aidan. I am Lily.’

  ‘There, now we are introduced. Well enough for a dance, anyway. If you’ll do me the honour?’

  She could only nod, afraid she would burst into delighted laughter if she spoke. He offered her his arm and she slid her own on to it lightly. As he led her out of their hidden bower on to the dance floor, she could feel the taut strength of him under her touch. He was surely no lazy club-sitting English gentleman.

  She could hear the whispers rise up behind her as they took their place on the floor, just as they always did, but now she didn’t care at all. They could titter about her American money and American manners all they wanted, as long as she could look into Aidan’s green eyes.

  They found a space at the edge of the gathered couples and Aidan laid his hand lightly on her waist, drawing her closer. She could feel the heat and strength of it through her satin gown, her corset, and she leaned towards h
im.

  The orchestra launched into a Viennese waltz. Lily’s many, many dancing lessons, spinning around her mother’s ballroom with the funny little Italian dancing master while her sisters applauded from the musicians’ gallery, were the only thing that guided her steps now. She couldn’t think about the intricate steps, the spins and twirls, the patterns around and between the other couples. She could only think about, only see, the man who held her.

  The room blurred around her and she held tightly to his shoulder. He spun her around faster and faster, making her laugh, and his smile was all too fascinating as he looked down at her. She wanted it to go on and on.

  Only as the music wound to a stop, when the giddy whirl slowed and ceased, did she become aware of anything other than those intensely green eyes watching her, the warmth of his touch on her waist. Without the music and the swish of all those yards of silken skirts, she could hear the whispers again.

  ‘...the new American girl,’ someone nearby said with a muffled giggle. ‘Coal mines, they say. Her mother must be so proud now.’

  There were other voices, other words, all around like a fractured kaleidoscope, but somehow the titter seemed amplified in Lily’s ears. It was certainly nothing she hadn’t heard a hundred times since they arrived in London. She had learned to pretend she couldn’t hear them, that they couldn’t reach the world in her head, and usually they couldn’t.

  But that was before she met Aidan. Now, the embarrassment, the knowledge that he would hear, would know, that he might think she was here to trade dollars for titles, made her want to sink into the parquet floor. She dared to peek up at him and he smiled down at her.

  ‘Miss Wilkins, dear, there you are,’ she heard Lady Heath say, her cut-glass voice full of determined cheer. ‘I am glad to see you are enjoying yourself tonight.’

  Lily stepped back from Aidan. It felt so cold without his warm touch and the real world crept even closer. She turned to find Lady Heath, her mother’s ‘sponsor’ in London society, watching her with a bright smile. Her dark blue gown and pearls, her simple blonde hairstyle, were all in the best, quietest taste, but her dark eyes saw everything.