The Accidental Duchess Read online

  “One would hardly have guessed politesse to be in your nature, sir, considering your conduct of a moment ago!” I said. (I did not really mean this, of course, but it seemed like something I should be taking him to task for.) “Which, incidentally, was entirely reprehensible.”

  “That is just the thing,” he agreed. “I was attempting to make amends for my reprehensible conduct—”

  I nodded with, I thought, a credible show of righteous indignation.

  His lazy grin widened. “—before I do it again,” he finished, and my throat tightened.

  “Oh.” I swallowed, and then pulled myself together. “Reverend Twigge!” I said, brightly. “Did you not think him in fine form?”

  He nodded. “I particularly enjoyed the bit in the homily about the necessity of a wife’s humility and docility of opinion in marriage.”

  “Did you?” I said. “I must have missed that part.”

  “Pity,” he replied. “Shall I invite the gentleman to tea so he can refresh you on it?”

  “I do believe it is coming back, now that you mention it,” I said, unable to completely repress a smile. “I am glad you enjoyed it. I, myself, thought it a little … lack-luster.”

  “Did you! And your brother Richard’s coat was exquisite.” And with that pronouncement, he leaned closer and brushed his gloved finger slowly down the side of my face, which action did not contribute to either my mental acuity or the steadiness of my heartbeat.

  And now I was having trouble keeping the thread of the conversation, so I just nodded.

  And the blasted man had the audacity to laugh as he straightened and, once again holding the reins in both hands, maneuvered us back into traffic. “It would be Weston, of course,” he said.

  “No doubt,” I said, vaguely, still reliving in delicious confusion how his tongue had caressed my upper lip. Bertie’s tongue had touched my lip! And I had liked it. The very idea made me want to die. Or perhaps what I really wanted was for him to do it again.

  He leveled a smile at me that left me in no doubt as to exactly how well he understood my turmoil, and leaned a little closer, his eyes still on the road. “Later. I promise,” he said very low, and I felt a tremor all the way down my spine. “But for the moment, perhaps we should dispense with trying to do the civil,” he suggested.

  To which I gratefully agreed. And so we lapsed into our mutually agreed upon silence until, a short time later, we pulled up in front of the Clarendon, which is where my story began.

  4

  In which my mother and Lady Worth set me straight

  But that was yesterday.

  Today, it was the morning following my disastrous wedding night, and the three of us—my mother, Violetta, and myself—were tête-à-tête in my mother’s drawing room. The atmosphere was, to be blunt, somewhat hostile from the start. My mother does not receive before noon. Ever. (Except for Violetta, of course, but that is usually en boudoir.) That she had made an exception this morning was being pointedly conveyed.

  “You do realize that your eyes are puffy and quite frankly, red, do you not, Gwendolyn?” After which opening sally, Mother had reclined in her chair, sipped her tea, and eyed me in a manner that made me certain that I also had something atrocious plastered to a front tooth. “That you are a trifle put out, one can certainly understand. But really,” she had continued, as I ran a surreptitious tongue over my teeth. “I fail to see that the situation can call for such dramatics. I mean, Cambourne, Milburn, Bernie, Bertie,” here she had given a languid wave of her hand. “Ask yourself: Can it really signify all that much?”

  And before I could get so much as a word in edgewise: “Far be it from me to say so, as one, of course, cannot like to meddle, and while I personally never, but never, criticize—” Violetta had begun.

  And that, anyway, was an utter lie. Even my mother, who had been Lady Worth’s closest friend at least since time began, if not previous to that event, had looked surprised at the blatant untruth of this statement.

  Lady Worth, with a minor adjustment to her purple turban, had continued, “—but it seems to me, that all things considered, what we have here is simply a question of circumstances.”

  My mother nodded her agreement. “Brought about in part, I should hardly need remind you, Gwendolyn, by the Infamous Incident at the Stainsteads’ ball!”

  Now, while I was willing to accept full culpability for the rush surrounding the wedding, I was not willing to allow that my behavior had in some way rendered me deserving of having married the wrong man. “Circumstances?” I asked, coolly. “That could possibly account for this?”

  “But it also seems to me, Almeria,” Violetta replied over my head, “that the true crux of the problem, if you will, is that you have allowed the gel an excess of sensibility!” She nodded self-righteously and continued, with an accusing glance in my direction, “I mean, in my day, our day, I should say, Almeria, a husband was a husband and a properly raised chit did not refine on who that husband might be!” She paused to inspect the ginger biscuit she held, took a large bite, and very ladylike, without so much as tilting her regally covered head, brushed the crumbs off her whiskers.

  “Violetta does have a point, darling,” my mother said in what was clearly intended to be a bracing tone. “You are making rather much of this, don’t you think?”

  “I do not—” I began heatedly, only to be cut off by Mother.

  “Because it seems to me,” she said, “that it all comes down to a question of disciplining the mind!”

  Violetta nodded her vigorous agreement, and then snaked her tea spoon beneath her turban to scratch her head.

  “So,” Mama continued in firm tones, “as such, it—marrying the wrong man—can hardly constitute a reason for such a fuss, really!” And then she leaned back, looking very pleased with this pronouncement.

  Violetta nodded her agreement as she added more sugar to her tea with that very same spoon, ignoring the silver tongs that had been provided for just that purpose. “The difference is entirely in your head,” she said.

  “How can you say that?” I demanded.

  Mother gave vent to a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose you are quite certain that you do have the wrong one, darling?” she asked, smoothing her already perfectly smoothed morning dress. “Well, what I mean is, their names are awfully similar, and if you are mistaken, after all—”

  “Both the same enough in the dark, you may trust me on that, my gel,” Violetta said bluntly, taking up a ginger biscuit. “Enough kerfuffle. Cambourne’s the earl, ain’t he? No need to be missish,” she said in response to my mother’s pained expression. “Once Winfell has the sense to stick his spoon in the wall, Cambourne’ll be a duke.”

  “Perhaps. But the fact remains that he’s not Bertie—Milburn,” I pointed out.

  “No he ain’t,” Violetta said, before adding, succinctly, “Head over arse in love with Milburn, who you hadn’t laid eyes on in donkey’s years, then, were you, gel?”

  I had to admit she had me there. I was fond of him, of course. But was I in love with him? Certainly not.

  And well Violetta knew it. “Didn’t think so,” she boomed, pointing the infamous spoon at me once again. “Only think! You’ll be a duchess!”

  I closed my eyes. “But I don’t want to be a duchess,” I replied heatedly, and then stopped. Well, truth to tell, I didn’t have any particular objection to being a duchess, in and of itself. And it would serve to take the wind out of Priscilla Fanshaw’s sails. She’s been babbling on practically our entire lives about being promised to a marquis and the difficulties faced by one with such a weighty position to uphold (and that is an exact quote). Hah! Let her Your Grace me a few times.

  “What you want is entirely beside the point, darling,” my mother said, sipping her tea. “You have been raised to be a lady. And a true lady, you can be sure, when faced with a small spot of discomfiture, such as having accidentally wed the wrong man, simply picks herself up, dusts herself off, and goes on.”r />
  That accidentally had enough emphasis to have tipped over her chair. I was about to point this out, but Violetta inserted herself.

  “If only Ursula was not such a pea-wit, she would have had those twins marked,” was her contribution. “An infant, you can be certain, barely notices a quick branding. Anyway, she likely mixed them up on the first day, and one shudders to imagine how many times hence, and no one knows who’s who anymore, least of all them, so there’s absolutely no point in your raising a fuss, Gwendolyn. And that,” she added darkly, and very much as though the blame for this lay at the twins’ door, “is what you get for having a French mama!”

  I declined to pursue this. “I know which one is which, and I’m married to Cambourne,” I said. “Although,” I reminded them, “it seems he’s very much intent on being Milburn for the moment.”

  They both stared at me as if I had mentioned that I was thinking about performing at Astley’s Amphitheatre. “What I mean is that in public he wants to be his brother. Not to say that he actually wants to be his brother, of course. Who would want to be Milburn who actually wasn’t? Nobody.” I knew I was babbling, but continued anyway. “Still and all he’s insistent upon pretending to be Bertie. Er, Milburn. But I don’t know why,” I wound up. “What I want to know is, why?”

  Violetta chewed noisily. I forged ahead. “When I asked him how I could have come to have married him, he said—Do you know what he said?” I waited, feeling that the answer to this question would have more effect were it not taken as rhetorical.

  “No, darling, but I am assuming you are determined to tell us, so if I may speak for both of us, we are simply agog to find out,” Mother said, sounding completely uninterested.

  “He said,” I paused for maximum effect before repeating the incendiary phrase, “Perhaps you’d best ask your parents.”

  “Did he?” Mother sounded even less interested than she had a moment ago.

  “Yes,” I managed to say before being interrupted by Violetta.

  “You are a married woman now, Gwendolyn,” she said. “You’ve lessons to learn. And the first is: You make the decisions.”

  Mother nodded. “It’s time to shorten the leading rein is what Violetta means.”

  “Tighten the girth,” Violetta said.

  “Hold the leash,” Mother supplied gaily.

  As I looked back and forth between the two of them, Violetta guffawed and then added, “Truss the chicken.”

  I really had to interrupt before there was even a possibility of there being another suggestion added to this list. “But I don’t want to do any of those things. I just—”

  “Don’t be obtuse, dear,” Mother said. “It doesn’t matter what he wants. It’s only what he thinks he wants, anyway. He wants to be called Cambourne in private and Milburn in public?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, surely you do see that that will never do? And that is where the wife comes in. You have to tell him what he wants, but without actually telling him, if you understand me.”

  This seemed a rather lengthy digression from the real topic. “Indeed I do not.”

  Mother sighed. “It’s quite simple, really. You say, yes dear, and go right ahead doing as you please—address him in whatever manner you see fit.”

  I raised a brow. “Such as brother-in-law, perhaps? Because that’s what I see fit.”

  “No, darling,” Mother said in her most patient tones. “Such as Cambourne.”

  “Ah yes.” I nodded. “You meant how you see fit. Well, when I do find Milburn—” I started to say, but Violetta piped up.

  “Think he’s going to ride to your rescue, do you, gel? Not likely when you could be pregnant with his very own nephew as we speak.” She looked quite taken with this thought. “You always have been a demmed stubborn little chit, Gwendolyn,” she continued. “But hear this: On the topic of this marriage, your mama shall brook none of your recalcitrant ways.”

  “Ah, but you see,” I said with, I admit, a degree of relish, “I cannot possibly be pregnant with my own, er, I mean, Milburn’s nephew, as we speak, because we did not, ah, well …”

  My ploy to embarrass them failed miserably. “No need for missishness here. Plainspeaking is best, I always say. He didn’t bed you? Is that what you mean?” Violetta demanded.

  My face flamed. “Er—”

  “Well? Did he, gel? Speak up! Because if he did, the question of whether he’s the right one or not is moot. No point in going mealymouthed now.” She pinned me with her basilisk glare.

  “No,” I mumbled to the rug.

  “Oh dear,” Mother said, then, “Do you mean to say that that lovely trousseau has gone to waste? Those fabulous night rails of Madame Suzette’s?” Now she sounded distraught.

  “Suzette does do an exquisite night rail,” Violetta said to her.

  “Would it be considered forward of me to suggest that we perhaps return to enlightening me as to exactly how I came to be married to the wrong man?” I inquired.

  Mother said to Violetta, “Did you see that jonquil silk she got in last week? It was—”

  I tapped my foot.

  “Suzette’s night rails cost a packet, you ungrateful gel. Now,” Violetta said, eyes narrowed, “do you mean to say that Cambourne, or whatever he’s calling himself at the moment, who stood up there at the altar looking as though he’d just as soon devour you on the spot as say a civil ‘I do,’—and who rushed you out of the wedding breakfast like his breeches was on fire—failed to get the job done?” she demanded.

  “Well he—I—we, were hardly disposed to—”

  “In my day,” Violetta said, ominously, “men did not choose to refine upon female sensibilities to such a high degree. They were not, I assure you, subject to such a softness of character so as not to bed their wife because of a little skittishness on the girl’s part! No, indeed! They were men. And a good thing it was, too.”

  And I was suddenly beset by the most awful vision of Violetta’s husband, Rodney, the Marquess of Worth, who was approximately half her girth and a good six inches shorter, throwing her down on their Egyptian settee, purple turban and all, and having his way with her.

  “So you do mean that you are not really … That you did not …” Mother trailed off.

  “No,” I said, staring boldly back at her. “We did not. So I think an annulment—”

  “An annulment?” Mama squeaked.

  “An annulment!” Violetta boomed. “No. That, I can assure you, is quite, entirely, out of the question.”

  I was about to ask exactly who she was to make that decision, when Mama said, “Absolutely. There can be no question of that.”

  “How can that be?” I demanded.

  “Well, to begin with,” Violetta replied, “there is no way for anyone to be certain that you’re not pregnant with that nephew. We’ve only your word to go on.”

  “But Cambourne—” I started to say.

  “He ain’t going to apply for an annulment,” Violetta said. “You do know the necessary grounds for that? Do you not?”

  “That the marriage is unconsummated,” I said with confidence, only to have it shattered.

  “Oh no,” Violetta said with relish. “That he could not. Not did not, mind you. Could not. You do understand the difference, Gwendolyn?” And then she smiled. “Now, can you truly imagine Cambourne standing up and explaining to Parliament that he couldn’t get the job done?”

  And the answer was no, to be honest. I closed my eyes as, for just a second, I recalled, against my better judgment, just exactly how very adeptly he had begun the job—a job, I reminded myself firmly, that he had absolutely no business having undertaken in the first place. Nonetheless, the memory of his hands on my body and his voice in my ear made my toes curl in my boots and I could feel the heat flood into my face. When I forced my eyes open they were both staring at me.

  “You are quite certain he didn’t bed you?” Violetta said, directing a suspicious look at me, which had the effect of snappin
g me out of my reverie.

  “Of course,” I said briskly. “It hardly seems to be the type of thing one would forget.”

  “So one would hope,” Violetta said, still staring assessingly at me. “Although one, quite frankly, does not know what to think about a chit foolish enough to have stepped out for a breath of air with that loose fish, Trafford.”

  I glared at her and then said to my mother, “Very well. If you are not disposed to help, I shall simply have to seek out Father.”

  “Well, I can hardly stop you if you insist upon such a selfish course of action,” Mother said, sounding exasperated. “But I shouldn’t advise taking it up with him today. We’ve thirty expected to dine this evening. And your father has an important speech to deliver before the Board of Control tomorrow, which Violetta and I have not finished writing as we have not yet completely formulated his opinions. Which task we had planned to undertake this morning, you see.”

  Yes, I did see, indeed. But I was determined to try, nonetheless. Just as I was about to rise, declare my intention, and bid them what I deemed a suitably chilly farewell, however, I heard a voice emanating from the front hall. An earnest voice. A reedy, long-winded voice. And one that I had, as it turned out, rather ill-advisedly summoned with my hastily scrawled note sent posthaste this morning.

  The voice of the very man who had conducted my farce of a marriage ceremony.

  5

  In which we take tea with the Reverend Mr. Twigge and I learn some most surprising things

  “Oh dear me! I quite understand that Her Ladyship is not receiving this morning. Most understandable, indeed! But I, you may rest assured, my dear fellow, can only be a desired visitor, coming as I do to offer spiritual consolation in this, what must be her hour of blackness—”

  “If you could just allow me a moment, sir,” Ladimer, my mother’s butler, suggested pointedly to the Reverend Mr. Twigge from what sounded to be very nearly outside the door, “I shall ascertain whether Her Ladyship is able to receive.”