Playing the Duke's Fiancée--A Victorian Historical Romance

by Amanda McCabe

  She swayed, as if she would fall, and he lifted her up to press her against the wall. His lips trailed from hers, over the arch of her throat, to touch the tiny hollow where her pulse pounded with raw need for him.

  ‘Violet...’ he whispered heavily, his breath ragged against her.

  ‘I—I know,’ she answered, and something in those words frightened her. She pulled away and ran, running from him—or maybe from herself and the feelings she never wanted to acknowledge.

  Chapter Eleven

  Those ladies-in-waiting had been quite right, Violet thought as she stared up at the Winter Palace as their sleigh drew up in the cobbled courtyard below the towering, carved front doors. The Neues Palais was nothing compared to the overpowering splendour of St Petersburg.

  She had been in awe and uncharacteristically quiet ever since they had left the train and even as they were driven through the icy streets. They rode past bridges that arced in lacy patterns over the river and canals, past pastel-coloured mansions and glittering shop windows.

  But this palace—no, she could not believe it was real. It was a giant, blue and white and gold chocolate box, glittering with hundreds of windows.

  Yet it was real. Footmen with powdered hair and gold-encrusted livery, the Tsar’s cipher on their coats, reached up to help her and Lily from their sleigh, and the stones were quite solid and un-dreamlike under her feet. She was actually there.

  She took a deep breath and smelled pine and woodsmoke on the icy breeze. She shivered and tucked her hands deeper into her sable muff.

  An impossibly stately butler in black came forward with a low bow. ‘Your Grace, la Duchesse?’ he said in accented English. ‘Your rooms are quite prepared. Her Highness the Grand Duchess asks if you will join her for tea after you have rested? There shall be a small dinner this evening.’

  ‘Small?’ Violet squeaked. She couldn’t imagine that.

  He gave her a slightly disapproving glance and another bow. ‘Only one hundred and fifty, I believe. You are Mademoiselle Wilkins?’

  Violet nodded, astonished that he could know that. Did he know everyone’s name who visited the palace? She was sure he must. She felt so small next to all—that. William, though, she was sure was right at home. He seemed at home wherever he went.

  ‘If you will follow me. Your luggage will be waiting.’

  He led them through the doors and up a flight of stairs lined with yet more footmen. Violet hurried after her sister, trying to emulate Lily’s serene smile and not stare at everything. They went through a long gallery, their footsteps muffled by a thick carpet woven with flowers and ribbons, a Rastrelli fresco high above their heads, and passed under an arch to face a staircase. It was the famous Ambassador’s Stairs, all pink and white marble. Violet stumbled slightly on the low steps and quickly righted herself, pretending nothing had happened.

  At the top of the stairs, a row of blue marble columns stretched off to the right, like a gleaming forest, and tall windows draped in blue velvet looked down to the frozen river on the left. Ahead, open doors guarded by more footmen revealed an enfilade of staterooms spilling like a pirate’s treasure chest, all elaborate parquet floors, green malachite, silver standing candelabras, crystal and silver, Venetian glass chandeliers, brocade and satin. Endless halls of it.

  At the end of yet another corridor, he opened a set of doors and led them into a sitting room. Though ‘sitting room’ seemed like a paltry thing to call such a space. It glowed with light from the windows, pastel satins and alabaster tables dotted over a pink-and-white carpet, landscapes and flower scenes on the pink walls.

  Three more doors opened off the sitting room and Violet glimpsed a small army of maids hurrying about, unpacking their trunks. The bedchambers were just as pretty, all done up in pink and blue and pale green like candies, warm and cosy with crackling fires in all the marble grates. A silver tea tray sat on a malachite table next to one of the brocade-draped windows, looking down at the courtyard.

  ‘Please ring if you require anything else at all, Your Grace...mademoiselle,’ the butler said, bowing his way out.

  ‘Good heavens! I shall get quite spoiled here,’ Lily cried, throwing herself into a deep, satin armchair. ‘I must redecorate as soon as we return to London! Look at that ceiling.’

  Violet looked up to find a fresco high above their heads, gods and cupids peering down at them from blue and white billows of clouds. ‘Amazing.’ She wandered around the room as if on a cloud herself, looking at the paintings on the pale blue walls, the tiny silver snuffboxes and alabaster vases on every table, the view of the river beyond the courtyard. She popped a salmon sandwich from the silver tray into her mouth. ‘What must the Tsar’s rooms look like, if this is just a little guest suite? How many chambers do you think there are altogether?’

  ‘Fifteen hundred,’ Aidan said, bursting into the room eagerly, his handsome face glowing with delight to see his wife. ‘And one thousand, seven hundred and eighty-six doors.’

  ‘Aidan, my darling,’ Lily cried, leaping up to throw her arms around him. As they held on to each other, it looked as if they were all alone in that one perfect moment, just the two of them. Violet looked away with her cheeks turning warm, leaving them to their greetings as she reached for another sandwich.

  She stopped chewing for an instant as she noticed a familiar figure hurrying across the courtyard, his coat very dark against the icy cobbles. William. She raised her hand to wave, then felt very silly, for surely he couldn’t see her. Wouldn’t be looking for her.

  ‘And Violet,’ Aidan said, kissing her cheek. ‘I’m so overjoyed you’re both here now. How was your journey? How dull Berlin must have been.’

  ‘It was a long journey,’ Lily said. She rested her head on his shoulder with a happy sigh and he pressed a tender kiss to her hair. Violet wondered if anyone would ever be so happy to just be with her? To just sit with her like that? ‘But I did find Princess Vicky and her home so interesting. Violet was a great success with the royals! The Princess expressly asked to see some of her photographs while we were on the train.’

  ‘Of course she was a success.’ Aidan laughed. ‘No one can resist a Wilkins girl! Charteris is very lucky.’

  Violet smiled, but a touch of icy discomfort made her look away. They didn’t know this was all unreal; she worried she was beginning to forget that herself. That she was becoming rather enamoured of her play-fiancé. The more she discovered about him, the more intrigued she was, and that was dangerous.

  ‘But this place! How very, very grand,’ Lily said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It makes Buckingham Palace seem positively shabby.’

  ‘And wait until you see the staterooms,’ Aidan said. ‘The Gold Drawing Room, the Nicholas Chamber, the Malachite Room...’

  ‘All fifteen hundred of them!’ Violet said.

  ‘I doubt you’ll be expected to see them all. It would take a decade,’ Aidan answered. ‘But, tell me, Lily my darling—how are you really feeling?’

  Violet smiled and went into her bedchamber to leave them alone.

  So this is how a duchess could live, she thought, gazing around the room filled to the brim with brocade and gilt and ivory; her life would be visiting royalty, bathing in marble tubs, beauty all around for inspiration. She trailed her fingertips over the satin cushion of a chair, wondering what that would be like. Would she ever fit in amid such things?

  She turned away to sit on the edge of the towering, velvet-draped bed, which was so high she had to climb a set of carpeted steps. She leaned back on the cool silk of the embroidered comforter. It was very beautiful. She had to admit that. Yet she thought of the little Swiss chalet playhouse cottage, where princesses boiled eggs. That would be the really extraordinary place, a quiet, pretty little house to be alone with William. Just the two of them, Will and Vi, sipping tea by their little fireplace, laughing over simple jokes.

 
; But that was not how it was. He was a duke, with obligations and duties. He had to live his life in places like this. She ran her fingers over the ocean of blue silk and stared up at yet another fresco, this time of rather disappointed-looking goddesses in their chariots on clouds that she wished could carry her and William away...

  * * *

  Violet sipped from her cup of tea, a wonderfully smoky lapsang, and studied the scene over the gilded rim of the translucent china. They’d been told this was a ‘small family drawing room’, not one of the staterooms, but she wasn’t sure she believed that. The soaring, frescoed ceiling, the malachite-panelled walls, the green-and-white-striped satin chairs, it all seemed too fancy for family life. Even the cup in her hand was a work of art, porcelain so pale the light shone through it, delicate as a moonbeam to touch.

  It would make such a lovely photograph, she thought, with the bright white sunshine streaming from the tall windows making all that splendour glow. All the Grand Dukes, sons and brothers of the Tsar, were gathered around their parents, Tsar Alexander with his jowly face and elaborate, white-dusted moustache, the Tsarina pale and small in white and blue lace ruffles, a sad little smile on her colourless lips. Princess Alexandra whispered with her sister, the Tsarevna Marie—called Minnie, Violet had heard—while Prince Bertie twirled a cigar nearby.

  And then there was the bride, who was sitting beside her mother and father in a dark green gown that frothed with pleated ruffles and bows. Prince Alfred had been right; she was not beautiful, with her round face. But she fairly vibrated with interest and animation and energy. She looked as if she could jump up and fly off at any moment, unable to sit still any longer. Yes, she would make a very interesting portrait study.

  William left Princess Vicky and came to sit next to Violet at the edge of the floral and beribboned sea of Aubusson carpet. He gave her that smile she loved so much, that small, secret smile that said they were in some intimate moment, just the two of them. ‘Well, Violet, what do you think of it all?’

  ‘It’s terribly elaborate. I feel quite shrunken next to it all,’ she admitted. ‘If this is their small family parlour, I shudder to think how I’ll feel in a dining room or state hall. I’m bound to forget all my proper manners. Does one even know the proper manners for a place like this?’

  William laughed. ‘I don’t see how that’s possible. Manners are the same everywhere, aren’t they? But maybe if you slid down the banister of the Ambassador’s Stairs it would lighten the mood a bit. Trying to converse here is a bit like pulling teeth, if a person can even hear us. The acoustics of such high ceilings and so much marble are dreadful.’

  Violet studied the royal party gathered on the brocade chairs and chaises and hassocks a little more closely. ‘Hmm. The bride and groom look happy enough, I think, if not exactly set afire with joy. And Princess Alexandra is definitely glad to be with her sister. But everyone else does look a bit as if they’re on their way to a funeral rather than a wedding. Prince Bertie is trying to jolly them along, though.’

  ‘I’m not sure even his famous charm will do the trick.’ William leaned closer, so close his sleeve brushed her arm, making her shiver through the thin muslin of her dress. He whispered, ‘The Tsarina is not well and she and the Tsar don’t often find themselves in the same room any longer. This seems to have stretched their acting skills to the limit, entertaining so many important guests, saying goodbye to their only daughter. And she was a German princess, you know. Their acting ability is not great at the best of times.’

  Violet tilted her head, studying the Tsarina’s sad, pale face and noting the way she held on to her daughter’s hand as if she would not let it go. ‘But why are they never together now? Surely so many royal couples are not exactly lovebirds, but they muddle along.’ In exactly the way her own parents did—and the way she never wanted to do with any husband of hers.

  His dark brow arched. ‘I fear a certain countess lives in apartments above the Tsarina’s, with her three little children. The Tsar’s children.’

  Violet felt her cheeks burn. ‘Oh. I see.’ No, she definitely did not want a grand marriage like that. She thought of her dreams of the little cottage, the man next to her by her side, and felt them disintegrate like clouds.

  ‘It’s the way of some of these royal marriages, I suppose, but one does feel sorry for her,’ he said quietly and his eyes did indeed look dark and rather sad as he looked at the Tsarina. ‘She usually escapes by going to German spas with her daughter, but for this time she’s trapped here.’

  ‘And soon her daughter will be far away in England,’ Violet murmured. ‘Do arranged ducal marriages go the same way, then?’

  His lips compressed slightly, the only hint of emotion behind his handsome face. ‘They can. My own parents were often apart. They didn’t have much in common besides their estate and me. My father enjoyed London life and my mother preferred the quiet of Bourne.’

  ‘But they married anyway?’

  ‘She was an earl’s daughter and her dowry included a large tract of land right next to Bourne that allowed the home farm to expand considerably.’

  Violet felt so very sorry for William, for the child he had been, to have such distant parents on a huge estate. At least her own parents had once loved each other, and she’d always had her sisters. ‘And is that what they wanted for you, when it was time for you to marry?’

  He smiled ruefully. ‘Maybe once, but times have changed. Even royals can expect a bit of romance along with their practicality. I dare say the Grand Duchess and the Prince will be happier than her parents.’

  ‘I do hope so.’ She looked at the engaged couple over the edge of her cup again, watching as they smiled together. She remembered that they had been wanting to become engaged for years, and now the wedding day was near. Maybe there could be a bit of happiness in gilded halls after all. ‘Did everyone in your family marry for land? Before the romantic times, that is.’

  He looked away. ‘No, not all. There was my wild uncle Edward.’

  ‘Ooh, a wild uncle!’ she said in delight. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He had been engaged twice in his younger years, once to a goddaughter of the Queen, but the marriages never came off. Everyone imagined he loved all ladies too much to settle on one. As perhaps Prince Bertie would have been, given his preference. But then my uncle eloped with a young lady in her first Season, almost thirty years younger than him.’

  ‘Did he really?’ she gasped. ‘Good heavens! Struck by Cupid’s arrow?’

  ‘He must have been. It was the scandal of the year.’

  ‘Was it? But why? I mean, it sounds quite surprising, and, yes, maybe not the done thing, but men marry younger ladies all the time.’ She thought of Mr Rogers, who was her father’s age, and shuddered.

  ‘That is very true. But before she eloped with my uncle, Miss Dennison was engaged to me.’

  Violet’s mouth fell open in shock. She put her teacup down on an alabaster table with a sharp click and turned to face William. He still looked just the same, his cool, ducal mask in place. ‘You—were engaged?’

  ‘I was young and foolish, I admit. Oh, don’t look like that, Violet. Yes—even I was young once. And Daisy was very beautiful and sweet, the deb of the Season. A great prize.’

  ‘And your uncle snatched her away?’

  His brow arched again, making her wish that the mask would fall away, that she could see how he had really felt about it all. That he would let her in. ‘Cupid’s dart, right?’

  ‘Did you love her a great deal?’ Violet asked. She didn’t think she really wanted to know the answer.

  ‘Perhaps I thought I did. She seemed to care for me. But not as much as she did for my uncle.’

  ‘So you never wanted to wed again.’

  ‘You needn’t look at me with your beautiful eyes like a sad rainstorm. As I said, I was young. I had a romantic streak back th
en. I saw Daisy with dazzled hopes.’

  ‘And you have no romantic streak now?’

  He firmly shook his head. ‘None. It would be of no use.’

  ‘Oh, William,’ she said quietly. She did indeed feel rather like a sad rainstorm to hear of the crushing of his youthful hopes, the closing of his heart. ‘What happened to them? Do you still see them?’

  He reached for a fresh cup of tea and took a long sip. ‘No. They died of a fever in Naples, where they went to live. It was all a long time ago.’ He gave her a small smile. ‘So, you see, Violet, a practical marriage may not be so bad after all. Everyone goes in knowing the truth, able to make their own decisions.’

  ‘Perhaps. But what a dull business it sounds!’

  ‘Life is often dull, I fear. But not when you’re near, Violet Wilkins.’

  She laughed. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘You are like—life itself. Like the sun. All warmth and change.’

  She studied him carefully, half wondering if he was teasing her, half hoping he truly meant what he said. But he looked at her with such seriousness. Such steadiness. She glanced away, blushing. ‘But some people think I just burn.’

  ‘And so you do, sometimes.’ He looked at her solemnly, carefully. So closely. ‘But if a man is freezing—’

  He broke off and turned away from her as the drawing room doors opened and more guests arrived in a flurry of laughter. Violet tried to smile, to pretend that nothing had changed, that nothing had shifted between them. She would need all those acting skills the Tsarina did not possess. She longed so much to pull him close to her again, to tell him that he made her feel as if she burned, too. But she knew she couldn’t say any of that, not ever.

  Chapter Twelve

  William appeared promptly as the palace clocks were chiming to escort Violet to dinner, looking quite heart-achingly handsome in his perfectly cut black evening coat and snowy-white cravat, with his cream satin waistcoat. The vivid blue ribbon across his chest, fastened with a diamond-and-ruby badge of the Order of the Garter, made him look terribly important as well as gorgeous. But his green eyes were as dark as a winter forest, solemn and watchful as he took her hand.