The Accidental Duchess Read online

  “I meant here,” I said, thinking that if I’d had a gun to hand at this moment I’d likely have shot him myself.

  Therèse returned his smile as the tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lips. That charm was obviously working.

  “Ahem,” I said.

  “Then this is all right,” Therèse said decisively to Cambourne, after but a moment’s consideration. “You will do very nicely, instead. Since you married Ber-tee’s leetle Gwen—” (I ground my teeth at this) “—and Ber-tee married me, we can switch, no? Ber-tee, he is very sweet. But he is too meek. Myself, I like a stronger man.”

  “Exactly what are you suggesting?” I demanded loudly.

  “Actually,” Milburn said, “Therèse has hit on the perfect solution! She and Cambourne move back to Cambourne House. You and I remain here.”

  I glared at him. “Now you want me?” I demanded. “After dawdling around Therèse’s father’s barn? And missing our wedding? You just think you can show up here and have me?”

  “You’re missing the point, Gwen,” Milburn replied. “It’s not to do with what I want. It’s to do with what I have coming to me.”

  I opened my mouth, but before I could respond, Cambourne spoke. He was looking at me very intently, having apparently managed to tear his gaze from Therèse’s many charms, but, as usual, it was impossible to tell what was going on in his head. “Do you have marriage lines with Therèse?” he said to Milburn, although his gaze was still on me.

  “Of course,” Milburn replied, and then he smiled as he added, “Pack of French folderol, of course, but marriage lines all the same. They’re in your name, and, don’t worry, I made certain to sign them in a signature precisely like yours, brother.”

  “I see,” Cambourne replied. “Then it seems we’ve a problem. Because I made very certain to sign mine precisely like mine, too.”

  “You put your own name on my marriage license?” said Milburn, looking almost as indignant as when he’d discovered the crushed waistcoat.

  “Ignorant of your newly developed passion for pastoral architecture as I was, I thought I was doing what I needed to in order to help you. Not to mention quite possibly save your life,” Cambourne said tightly, and my heart squeezed.

  I had known, of course, that it had likely been something like that that had propelled him into marrying me, but it stabbed, nonetheless, to hear him say it.

  “Did you know that you were marrying him and not me, Gwen?” Milburn demanded.

  “No,” I whispered. “Not at first.”

  “Well, well. This does indeed add a new dimension to our discussions. The earl is a bigamist, it would seem,” said Milburn, his eyes sharpening further. “What do you know?”

  “What do you want, Milburn?” Cambourne asked, quietly.

  “Annul your marriage to Gwen,” Milburn replied. “And take Therèse. It shouldn’t be difficult. Here on this sceptered isle, I would imagine fraudulent identity constitutes just cause.”

  Cambourne stood and walked to the mantel. I do not think I have ever done, or will ever do, anything more difficult than waiting out those few moments. My heart thundered so hard against my ribs, I had to glance surreptitiously about to see if anyone else could hear it, while I waited to see if Cambourne was going to give me up, just like that. Trade me for the beauteous Therèse, like a horse.

  But a small part of me was thinking, I don’t have to simply wait for him.

  “But how does that help anything?” Cambourne asked Milburn, at last.

  “Because then I can marry Gwen,” he replied. “Ain’t as if I’m in a position to complain overmuch even if you did sample her. I certainly took care of things with Therèse.”

  I am not helpless here, I reminded myself, and opened my mouth to issue a retort, but Cambourne spoke first. “I’d watch myself, were I you, Bertie,” he said, “unless you’re interested in finding yourself choosing seconds.”

  Milburn held up a placating hand. “No need for that, surely,” he said. “And, anyway,” he said, brightening, “I’ve a better idea.”

  I leaned forward, reminding myself that I was no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, biddable. As of today.

  Cambourne raised a brow. “Yes?”

  Milburn got up and paced to the window. “Annulling the marriage to Gwen would be a public disgrace, would it not? And correct me if I’m wrong, brother, but avoiding the blackening of the mighty names of Cambourne and Winfell has driven your entire life, has it not?”

  Cambourne went pale, but inclined his head in a civil manner. “What are you saying, Milburn?”

  “It’s simple, really.” Milburn looked very pleased with himself. “I’ll become you, and then Gwen can just come along with me, no annulment necessary!”

  “That makes no sense!” I burst out. “I might be legally married to him, but the entire world thinks I am married to you, Bertie. That’s been half of this entire disastrous charade. Your brother has been mincing around town like a veritable macaroni in an effort to convince people that he’s you.”

  “I am confident,” Milburn replied, “that we can come up with something that will please the world at large. Or at least Cambourne can. He’s quite the expert, you see, at finding ways to serve his own ends.”

  I would have issued a retort, but Cambourne spoke first, his level tones halting our exchange. “Do I understand, Bertie,” he said, “that you are offering a deal? To put it bluntly: that you will refrain from publicly humiliating the family in exchange for the titles and Gwen?”

  Oh, he can offer, I thought, but that does not mean it will happen.

  “No need to make it sound so cold, brother,” said Milburn, sounding offended. “You make me appear a blackmailer!”

  “You are,” I pointed out.

  “I am only looking for some clarity,” Cambourne said. He had recovered his sangfroid and, in that way of his, seemed completely at his ease. He sat down again and leaned back, his legs sprawled out in front of him. “That is what this comes to, then, that you want to be earl?”

  “As I said before, I want what’s mine. What I have coming to me,” Milburn said.

  I looked hard at him, thinking that he really had changed. The easygoing, lazy charm was gone, replaced by something hard and angry. And that’s when I reached my breaking point.

  “I am not yours!” I said, almost surprising myself with my own vehemence as I rose to my feet. “And I am not what you have coming to you. Not by any stretch of the imagination.”

  They all looked at me. Therèse’s coolly raised brow conveyed her doubt that it was normal to be victim to such excess of emotion, but I didn’t care. Once more I was not going to do as I was told.

  My legs were surprisingly steady beneath me. “Oh no,” I said. “I’ve been married and almost seduced once already in the middle of this business, and I am through, absolutely finished, with being a pawn.”

  Milburn sputtered, but Cambourne said, very coolly, “Do I take it you are placing a counterproposal to Milburn’s little … offer on the table, Gwen?”

  Despite his coolness, there was something almost encouraging in the way he was looking at me. “Yes,” I said. “I am. And it’s a demand, not a proposal.” I tilted my chin up. “Whoever stays here, as Milburn, I stay too. Until you two figure out this business, whatever it might be, between you, I am not budging.” And then I sat, and crossed my arms. “Not so much as an inch.”

  “I see,” said Cambourne, his gaze on my face. “You seem most determined in that.”

  “I am,” I said. “I’ve been pulled about enough. Now it’s up to you two. Only you might, as I’ve already mentioned, want to bear in mind that as far as I know, the entire city of London believes me to be married to Milburn, and it might just cause the stir you are looking to avoid if I suddenly turn up married to Cambourne.”

  Milburn glowered at me, while Cambourne spoke again. “So all this,” he said, turning to Milburn, “it’s really about Winfell? About the dukedom?”

>   “Of course it’s about Winfell,” said Milburn, his tone sharpening. “Isn’t everything always about Winfell?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cambourne. “You tell me.”

  “Seems to me the answer is yes, always yes,” said Milburn. “That we’d do anything to protect the hallowed names of Cambourne and Winfell. Marry someone under false pretenses. Risk lives, either our own or someone else’s will do.”

  “Although, as it turns out,” said Cambourne pointedly, “we’d also do that to save the lives of those nearest and dearest us if we believed them in danger.”

  “Cambourne?” I said.

  “Yes, Gwen?”

  “It’s becoming downright unchivalrous, the way you keep reminding us all that you only married me to save Milburn’s bacon. Also, all things considered, that fact might have been best brought up before you tried introducing me to the library rug.”

  And then, the mighty Earl of Cambourne blushed. Actually blushed! I tell you, the feeling of power was going to my head. “My apologies, of course,” he said, but in a way that was not altogether convincing, and then ruined it (and my feeling of power) entirely, by adding, “And I will refrain from telling you that that piece of information is a veritable love poem compared with what I have not told you.”

  I was fairly certain my mouth was hanging open.

  “It was you and your willingness to do anything to protect your damned name that put me in danger in the first place,” Milburn said, “to move things away from the library rug, of course.”

  “I cannot give you the titles, Milburn.” Cambourne’s head was bowed now, so we could not see the expression on his face. “You know that I would do most anything for you, but I cannot do that.”

  “Oh,” said Milburn, slowly and deliberately, “but I think you can, you see. And you will. Think hard, brother, very hard.”

  Cambourne raised his head and the two of them stared at one another. “I see,” Cambourne said, after a moment. There was a long silence, and then, finally he said, “Very well, then, take them.”

  I burst out, “You can’t mean it, Cambourne!”

  “I don’t see that I’ve a choice,” he said, tightly, still looking at Milburn.

  “But it’s not the way it works,” I replied, which seemed inadequate. “You can’t give up your titles for me!”

  “Oh, it’s not for you,” he said easily. “It’s for Bertie, here.”

  I stared at him.

  He shrugged, and said, “He’s intent on it, it seems. And, anyway, I actually like being him.” A light came into his eyes. He had the almost frightening intensity of a long-imprisoned man glimpsing freedom. “No endless debates in Parliament,” he said. “Just think: no hours spent discussing sheep, and breeding stock, and new roofs and drains. No interviewing candidates for the schoolmaster position. No females trying every conceivable tactic available to snare a future duke. No reading the lesson in church on Sunday, no tea with the vicar!”

  “I am glad you can see the advantages, brother,” Milburn said, not looking quite so pleased as he had a moment ago.

  “Oh, I do!” Cambourne said to Milburn. “I, well, you, really have plenty of blunt. I like living in this house instead of that great rattling mausoleum—it’s actually warm. I’ll have a word with my men of business and the stewards, tell them to bring you current. No yellow trousers, though. No peacock brocade. No quizzing glasses, fobs, rings, or brooches.”

  “Very well, then.” Milburn squared his shoulders. “I have what it takes, Cambourne, even if you don’t.” He took a manful breath. “I can give them up. But you—” he held up the crumpled waistcoat he had picked up from the floor of the library—“can you wear them like a man?”

  “Watch me,” Cambourne said, folding his arms.

  Somehow, this scene was not unfolding the way I would have liked, which was, well … come to think of it, I was not entirely sure. Not this way, though!

  “Curl papers,” Milburn specified. “Every night. Even though—” his eyes raked over Cambourne with disdain“your hair will never hold a decent curl.”

  “Every man must have his cross to bear,” said Cambourne equably.

  “Fobs, seals, rings, snuff boxes. Every time you go out.”

  “I’ll be so heavily loaded with trinkets, I’ll barely be able to stagger around town.”

  I could not believe he was doing this!

  “Champagne in the boot blacking,” Milburn pressed.

  “Fine,” said Cambourne, crossing his arms. “Call me Milburn. Again.”

  20

  In which I attempt to break up an assignation

  “Ishall tell you, I was waiting for them to simply drop their breeches and compare the sizes right then and there in the drawing room, no?” Therèse said.

  We all laughed, and then Myrtia said, “And then what happened?”

  It was the fifth day after the switch had occurred, and Cecy had called a Council of War. She said that it would take her mind off the problems in her own household. What the precise dimensions of these problems might be at the moment was anybody’s guess, as the only fact Cecy had been willing to share was that Barings had returned, saying, “Either your mother goes or I go.”

  “But I cannot simply turn her out in a delicate condition,” Cecy had argued.

  “So do I understand that you are prepared to sit idly by and allow her to ruin your life completely this time?” Barings had said, after which he had thrown some books and a few clothes into a portmanteau and departed.

  Cecy was now, as far as Myrtia and I could tell, throwing herself into discussing my problems with a feverish air of gaiety. She particularly seemed to be fascinated by Therèse, almost as if Therèse was a new device I had come up with solely to provide entertainment for her. And unlikely as it sounds, Therèse just seemed to fit in, and we three had become four. Don’t misunderstand, I’d have greatly preferred it had she not so clearly had designs on my husband, but aside from that she was a highly enjoyable companion.

  “Did you suggest it?” Cecy asked Therèse. “That they simply compare?”

  Therèse shook her head. “I was afraid that they really would do so and that my leetle cousin, Gwen"—she patted my knee—"she would completely expire from the mortification.”

  Ah, yes, her leetle cousin, Gwen.

  Somehow the outcome of the entire scene was that Milburn was off to become Cambourne. Cambourne was staying to be Milburn. I was staying put at Milburn’s house with Cambourne, and yet I had gained temporary custodial responsibility over Therèse.

  There had been some disagreement over this, but in the end it was decided, rather high-handedly by Cambourne, who was still behaving in a markedly future-dukelike fashion that Therèse would be introduced as a distant cousin on their mama’s side (fortunately, their mother was the person least likely to grasp the fact that Therèse was not a relation of hers that she had simply forgot about).

  When Milburn caviled, I did suggest that perhaps the twins’ great-aunt Laetitia could be tracked down somewhere and summoned as a chaperon. Since Great-Aunt Laetitia was well into her eighth decade, and known for three things—her fondness for weeklong hikes across barren moors, the more inclement the weather, the better; her tendency to prod people with her walking stick if they were judged to be too slow in their hiking or talking either much or too little; and her habit of leaving her wooden teeth about in some very unlikely places—Milburn did not appear in any kind of hurry to accept this offer.

  During the discussion, Therèse had pouted a good deal, which procedure I watched with fascination. She’d pushed out her lower lip, but just enough to make it look even more attractive. Her eyes had swum with just a suggestion of luminous, unshed tears, and her already impressive bosom had heaved with emotion. I admired this display greatly. I was not certain that I possessed the requisite agility (or, for that matter, the bosom) to put all of this in train at once, but resolved to try at least one or two of these maneuvers in front of my mirror.


  A very small corner of my mind began to wonder how much of Cambourne’s insistence that Therèse remain with us might be due to wanting to keep her in the same house as he was. And he was very insistent on that point.

  So Therèse had said, with a knowing glance out of her exotically tilted eyes, “I shall simply have to stay, I think, with my leetle cousin, Gwen, and try to make my best of it, then,” and smiled, slowly, at Cambourne in such a way as to make one think that her best would be very good indeed. I had narrowed my eyes as he smiled at her in return and told her that he admired her fortitude in the face of such a trying situation.

  How, I wondered gloomily, had I been reduced in the blink of an eye from having the two brothers fighting over me to playing duenna to my husband and his sister-in-law? I decided then and there to be sure Mrs. Harbison assigned Therèse a bedchamber close enough to mine that I would be aware of any nocturnal comings and goings. Unfortunately, I thought it might be considered a little off to suggest a large lock be installed on the outside of her door.

  Which is all a rather long way of arriving at explaining how it was that I’d ended up sneaking into Cambourne’s bedchamber last night.

  I had come home yesterday from bringing Therèse on a visit to Madame Suzette’s establishment to find Cambourne, bedecked in regalia fit to make Milburn weep with envy. His hair was still holding a curl. Sparkling lace spilled over at his collar and cuffs, perfectly emphasizing the buttercup yellow of his waistcoat and the deep maroon velvet of his jacket. His stockinet breeches fit like a second skin, and one might have been forgiven for thinking his boots were liquid, so glossy was the shine.

  “ ’Allo, Milburn,” Therèse had said, flashing that smile of hers.

  “Cousin Therèse,” he said, adopting that irritating Milburn drawl, and rising to bow over her hand. This accomplished, he paused, momentarily distracted, it seemed, by a wayward curl he had glimpsed in the mirror in the hall. He smoothed it back.

  “I think I’ll go and rest,” I said, hastily. “I’m feeling a bit fatigued.” (Translation: nauseated.)