The Accidental Duchess Read online

  I was half afraid to know, but at the same time, I had to.

  Saturday, 17 January

  Was wed this morning.

  That was it? From a man who had recorded such details as that he had partaken of midmorning coffee with Atherton? I wanted to die from irritation. I also desperately wanted to read further, but I didn’t dare. I closed the book and put it back on the table. And not a moment too soon, for no sooner had I done so, but Mrs. Harbison tapped on the door to inquire as to whether I would be taking supper at home this evening.

  After she had gone, I took a deep, shaking breath, and stood. My heart was pounding now as I went out to the stairs and hurried up them. At the top, I stood irresolute for a moment, before heading for Cambourne’s bedchamber. Once inside, I closed the door softly behind myself and thought to thank some unseen force that no servants were there, going about their business.

  The fire had been lit; a lamp burned low beside the enormous bed. The covers had been turned down, but showed no signs of having been occupied; the bed curtains of ivory damask stood open. A couple of comfortablelooking chairs sat facing the fire, and a table between them held a pile of books and a decanter. It was the first time I had ever been in his bedchamber. It felt calm, and peaceful and masculine. I leaned against the door that I had pulled shut behind me, and again breathed deeply. At last I was rewarded. This room smelled like him: clean linen with just a trace of Mrs. Harbison’s soap.

  And the longing was so fierce that I drew in a very long breath, as I stood, trying to understand the way I was feeling.

  He was inscrutable and secretive and arrogant and demanding and beautiful, and his journal was possibly the most frustrating item I had ever come across, for any number of reasons, and I was completely turned upside down as to what I wanted. I wanted Milburn to come back. Certainly I wanted him to be safe, and yet, I was beginning to entertain an almost frightening desire for his brother. And I well understood the underlying point of Cecy and Myrtia’s little list-making exercise; there is more than one way to look at any situation. For example, what I had seen as stubborn, they had seen as having the courage to stand up for his convictions. And, yes, up to me.

  And the very devil of it was that here I was. Cambourne was mine for the taking, but they were right; it would never be a comfortable marriage. In fact, were his brother to walk through the door this very instant, it would still be much the easiest thing to go to him. To the undemanding, quiet marriage I had always thought to have. And were I to do that, would I be giving up something precious? Or saving myself?

  I walked to the window to peer at the sodden street below. Where was Cambourne? The treacherous thought that came to mind, of course, was: tucked up in another cozy bedchamber driving Mathilde and himself delirious with pleasure. Unfortunately, the picture of this possibility was all too clear in my mind. And, I told myself brutally, he had every right to be there, doing that.

  Which was quite reasonable of me, considering that the very idea of it made me burn with fury. Could I really, I wondered, considering the idea seriously for the first time, seduce him? Or partially seduce him, anyway? And if I did, would it really be for information, or would there be another motive?

  What I had said to Myrtia earlier about never having thought about what choices might be open to me other than marriage was true. Marriage—marriage to Milburn, anyway—was what I had been brought up for and what I knew how to do. At any gathering I could tell you the precedence of who should lead whom to table. I could arrange the seating at the trickiest supper. I could assess the household books and the quality of the linens. I could plan a menu. I could arrange a country house party with my eyes closed. I could organize a ball or a charity fête with equal ease. I could dance, converse in French, arrange flowers, play the piano, embroider, and watercolor. Not, in short, accomplishments that added up to anything more than wife. But was that it? All I was?

  For one wild moment I debated undressing and crawling between the sheets to wait for Cambourne. Logic, though, made an appearance and pointed out that one, he had said he would not be back until the day after tomorrow, which would be quite a long wait, and two, if he was in fact coming from the arms of another woman, he might not be precisely overjoyed to see me there.

  And anyway, offering myself up for the taking hardly seemed to go toward teaching him that dashed good lesson that Cecy had recommended. I perched on the edge and thought about this. After a minute or two, I could not resist stretching out and burying my face in his pillows. Which, as it turned out, was my lucky—or unlucky, I suppose, depending on your viewpoint—moment. For there, on the night table, was the note in a very florid feminine hand.

  I very much look forward to seeing you at the Arbuthnots’, although I cannot plead equal enthusiasm for the music. M.

  So he is playing this at both ends, I realized with a flash of outrage. Sending out seductive little signals here at home, to get me to play his game, and consorting with his mistress on the side.

  I sat up. It looked like I would be going to hear Caro sing tomorrow night, after all.

  And, just perhaps, I’d be teaching Cambourne that dashed good lesson at the same time.

  13

  The best laid plans and all that, part one—In which I attend a party after all

  Cambourne did not return home that night. The next morning, I went shopping for a few things with Myrtia, and then, when she went home to ready herself for her weekly afternoon at the Soldiers’ Hospital, went round to Cecy’s. I knew her mother’s visit was weighing heavily on her. And I thought to offer her whatever support could be had from my presence.

  I found her in situ, taking tea with her mama. Rather to my surprise, Barings was absent. It is true that he often resorted to burying his nose in some musty book when one of Cecy’s parents descended, but he knew how trying they were for her, and generally tried to help head off some of the worst skirmishes.

  “Gwen!” exclaimed Lady Wainwright upon my arrival. “How lovely to see you! Your parents are well?”

  “Yes, thank you,” I replied.

  Her eyes had a hectic glitter to them. “Perhaps you can join me in convincing my shockingly staid daughter that no harm can come from a little libation of a slightly stronger nature than this pap.” She waved her teacup gaily at me.

  I took in her high color—I thought it quite likely she had already partaken of something stronger—and Cecy’s contrasting pallor, and regretted my decision to call. I was just now recalling how very much Lady Wainwright seemed to thrive on an audience. “I’m sure Cecy is only—” I said, sounding awkward to my own ears.

  “Nonsense!” Lady Wainwright interrupted, her voice rising. “Cecy is not only anything. She is bound and determined to ensure that all those around her are as miserable as she is—”

  She rose, along with the timbre of her voice, and my eyebrows almost followed suit at the transparency of her gown. One had to admit that Lady Wainwright was still possessed of an admirable figure, and was clearly determined that all should be aware of that fact.

  “—in her prudish existence.” Cecy looked alarmingly closer to tears with each word. “With her prudish husband who—” Lady Wainwright paused and her eyes gleamed as she said, triumphantly—“does not even share her bed!”

  “Not now that you’re here,” said Cecy in a low voice.

  Her mother arched a brow. “If he really wanted you, surely you don’t think a paltry little thing like my arrival would send him scurrying, do you, my little innocent?”

  I took Cecy’s cold hand in mine. “And what do you plan to do during your visit, Lady Wainwright?” I asked, attempting to put things onto a footing more appropriate for a social call.

  “Not have much fun, apparently,” she said, coldly. “As I am, thanks to my husband’s both profligate and penurious ways—and the frightful old letch, by the by, is currently too busy bedding the downstairs parlormaid to notice I’m gone—insolvent at the current moment. And my Methodist daughter h
as told me that I am not welcome to stay.”

  “I am not a Methodist,” Cecy said through tight lips, and I squeezed her hand in encouragement. She continued, sounding firmer, “And I offered you money.”

  “Ah, but I do not want only money,” her mother said with all the grace of a three-year-old denied an ice. “I want a visit to London.”

  “But you have been here only one night!” Cecy cried. “And already you have upset my household beyond recognition: Barings has removed to his club and the butler and housekeeper are both furious and threatening to resign because you attempted to seduce a footman.”

  “An overwhelming need for a well-ordered household, Cecily,” said Lady Wainwright, airily, “is a sign of a small mind. Were you open to the world around you—” she spread her arms—“to love, to gaiety, to ideas (ah yes, ideas: the true food of the soul); you would not care so about such a paltry thing as order.”

  “I do not understand,” Cecy said bluntly, “how this sudden passion of yours for ideas translates into seducing the footman.”

  “That is because you do not understand the first thing about embracing life,” said her mother. “And furthermore,” she continued in considerably less lofty tones, “if the old goat can sport with parlormaids, I can do the same with your footman.”

  Cecy closed her eyes for a moment and then sat up straighter. “Fine,” she said, disengaging her hand from mine and folding her arms across her chest. “Dally all you want. Embrace life. But not with my footmen, and not in my house.”

  “Are you jealous, darling?” asked Lady Wainwright in dulcet tones. “Did you want Thomas for yourself? I daresay you might now that Barings has abandoned the conjugal bed. And I dare you, Cecily, I dare you to throw me out. We both know you have not got the backbone.” And then, smiling, Lady Wainwright drank her tea after all.

  Her brief flare of spirits seemed to have passed, and Cecy deflated against the sofa. I hated to see her this way.

  “Is that what you think, Lady Wainwright?” I asked, “that Cecy doesn’t have the backbone to throw you out?” I was aware that they were both looking at me in surprise. I thought of Cambourne’s words. Because you always do what you’re told. Hah!

  “Because I can assure you she does,” I continued. “And if she won’t, and you continue to make her unhappy … well, I will. And now, if you will excuse me” I stood. “I must be on my way to … to catch my husband out at meeting his mistress. I will call on you tomorrow, Cecily.”

  And then I left.

  I was feeling nearly fond of my mother as I returned home in the carriage. By the time I arrived, however, I had progressed to recalling a few of her choicest sayings, and my warm feelings of familial affection had faded.

  Cambourne, as it transpired, had still not returned. Feeling rather heady over having rebuked Lady Wainwright, I contemplated paying a visit to Mathilde Claussen. I am pleased to be able to say, however, that I had enough sense to discard this idea promptly, recognizing it as a very poor one. I would wait until tonight.

  I once again prowled around the house for a while. By the time I had envisioned, for about the thousandth time, my infuriating husband tumbling a laughing Mathilde onto a soft, warm bed, I suppose it would be fair to say that I was working myself into something approaching a lather. I then went upstairs to rest and tell Crewes to please ready a bath and my shot-green silk evening frock.

  Cecy was correct; if that gown, with its slender column and shoulder-baring décolleté didn’t raise my spirits, nothing would, and that was a fact.

  Some hours later, I stood in front of the mirror, and was forced to acknowledge that it was almost worth putting up with Crewes’s disposition: She was, as Mother had insisted, a genius with hair. I went down the stairs, feeling the brush of a loose tendril against my bared shoulders. I was also realizing that I was not entirely certain of what was required of me as a married woman. As an unwed girl, it was taken as fact that I would never set out for an evening of this nature on my own. I would have been with my parents, or friends, or, at the very least, a maid.

  I was conscious, though, that there were very few rules of etiquette to guide one in my position: a woman, publicly married to one man, living with another, truly married to neither, and about to confront one of those men consorting publicly with his mistress while pretending to be his own brother. How, I wondered, idly, had he explained to Mathilde that he was now Milburn?

  However he had chosen to approach it, I only hoped that my appearance would shock that damned (and I told myself with great pleasure that I could use that word, even if only in my own mind, since I was now a married woman) inscrutable, self-possessed, expression right off Cambourne’s arrogant face.

  I took a deep breath and settled into the carriage across from Crewes. “It promises to be a frightful evening,” I said, brightly, as the carriage pulled away from the house.

  “If the company is refined, the evening can only be pleasing,” she replied dampeningly.

  “One can only assume that you have never before heard Caro Arbuthnot sing,” I said.

  “The countess,” she replied, “finds it ill-bred to note flaws in those of gentle birth.”

  I mulled this for a moment, and then concluded that the countess also had obviously never heard Caro sing. After that, the rest of the short carriage ride passed in silence. I pressed my face against the window, and Crewes, thankfully, did not offer any opinions as to how the countess would have regarded such behavior. The rain still streaked down—I thought the odds were high that it would never end—and the lights of Mayfair were blurred. Looking at the warmly lit windows, I wondered how many of these people were truly happy in their great houses.

  Surely not all of them had had their marriages and their lives turn out the way they had planned? Many must have suffered the losses and disappointments that are inevitable in a life: children who did not survive; financial reversals; loveless marriages; illness. Surely, at some point, these things touch almost everyone, but how rarely I had thought about it.

  Even merry, irrepressible Cecy had clouds across her sun, it seemed. And Myrtia—who was perhaps one of the most serene persons I had ever known—was she happy? She had her causes and her societies, in short, the purpose that I so lacked. But had she wanted more? She and Mr. Robert Wickersham had looked to make a match a few years back. We had all assumed an announcement was forthcoming, but then, Mr. Wickersham had left for the Continent, where he was said to be acquitting himself remarkably as one of the officers in the Seventh Hussars. Myrtia had certainly not appeared heartbroken, and said, simply, that they were old and dear friends and she had never had any expectations in that direction. But now I wondered.

  I truly was blue-deviled tonight, I decided, as we arrived at the Arbuthnots’. There was no other explanation for my melancholy turn of mind. Footmen were waiting on the steps, and two ran down with umbrellas to cover Crewes and myself.

  “Lady Gwen!” Caro and her parents were greeting their guests. “Or”—Caro frowned—“are you going by Lady Bertie?”

  “Any of them are fine, Caro,” I said, hugging her with genuine warmth, for she really was a delightful girl, aside from her unfortunate propensity to believe she could sing. “How wonderful to see you. I can’t tell you how I am looking forward to your masque!” Which, I told myself, was no lie, since indeed, I could not tell her.

  Her parents also greeted me warmly as Caro looked behind me, with a slight frown. “And where is Milburn?” she wanted to know, naturally enough.

  Swallowing, and thinking that I had best get used to it, I told them that he was at the moment entertaining an old friend from Cambridge who had stopped with us unexpectedly, but that he might join me later.

  So much for a sad turnout, I thought as I entered the ballroom. Despite all the snide comments about Caro’s singing, the place was an absolute crush. I edged my way into the room, greeting acquaintances and, with increasing confidence, making Milburn’s excuses. All things considered, I w
as almost relieved to be waved over by Priscilla Fanshaw. “Naturally, Ravenhurst would never do such a thing as to send me out on my own,” she said, eyes as guileless as she could make them. “He sticks by my side like a limpet. But then, a marquis must be more concerned than another gentleman with what might befall his bride.”

  “Yes,” I said, looking conspicuously about for Ravenhurst, who was nowhere to be seen. “I can see that. And you, particularly, are such a precious little thing.” Which little piece of nastiness went unrewarded, because she missed my sarcasm entirely, and looked pleased.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Nevertheless, Gwen, you have done quite well for yourself. I shouldn’t refine overly on Milburn’s lack of a title, were I you.”

  “No,” I said. “You would be surprised by how little I think of that.”

  Finally, I saw Myrtia across the room. Unfortunately, I also saw both Violetta and my brother Richard. And unlike Myrtia, they had spied me, and Richard was already making his way over. Violetta, I was relieved to note, did not follow suit. She was talking about me, though—every head in her little group suddenly swiveled in my direction. Mrs. Trompington even raised a pair of opera glasses and studied me through them.

  I debated pretending that I hadn’t seen Richard, though he knew I had, and anyway, the crush around me was too thick to allow for escape. “Gwen!” he bellowed, waving.

  “Was wondering if you two was ever going to show your faces again.” He arrived at my side and looked around. “Where’s Milburn?” and without waiting for an answer, rushed on: “Never mind that. You’ll never guess who’s here!”

  “Likely not,” I said drily. “Since everyone seems to be.”

  And then, contrary to Richard’s assertion, I did know: Cambourne. As himself. And even though I had known that would be the case, the reality of it still managed to crash into me with a cold wave of shock. I could see him across the room, in his stark evening black-and-white, his hair gleaming in the candlelight, laughing at something. The room started to swim.