An Ideal Duchess (9 page)

             
“And how long has it been in your family, my dear duke?” Her mother looked bright-eyed and appealing beneath her modish blue hat.

             
“Since Henry the Eighth, Mrs. Vandewater,” The duke replied, glancing behind them to the golden brick edifice of Bledington Park glittering in the sunlight. “Though what you see now has only been in existence since the 1860s, when the seventh Duke of Malvern had the old Cotswold manor pulled down and this Jacobean house erected in its place.”

             
“That must have been deuced expensive, eh?” Her father said, and Amanda groaned inwardly at her father’s gaffe when the duke’s expression stiffened.

             
“There are account books in the steward’s room if you would like to see them…” The duke said with a tense smile.

             
“Tell us more about the house, Your Grace,” Amanda placed a hand on the duke’s arm to bring his attention back to her.

             
And back to her it came, his eyes darkening as they lowered to the hand she placed on his arm and then rose, lingering on her mouth; she wet her lips involuntarily. The muscles in his arm bunched beneath the fabric of his jacket and then relaxed, and she slowly released a breath she hadn’t been aware she’d held. She took another breath to still the fluttering in her stomach and removed her hand, hoping that would further quell her reaction to him.

             
“A-A tour, perhaps,” She said lightly. “Since we haven’t yet seen inside Bledington.”

             
He continued to stare at her, his face so close she could count the freckles scattered across his golden skin. He lifted his shoulders and finally broke eye contact to look at her parents.

             
“Why not?”

*          *          *

              Bron felt strangely vulnerable leading the Vandewaters around his home. He seemed to finally notice the shabby carpets and velvet drapes covering the windows, the cracked Ming vase a careless housemaid had overturned while dusting in the large drawing room, the age-darkened portraits adorning the walls, and worse, the water damage to the stenciled ceilings of the library and dining room. He walked awkwardly across the Saloon, eyeing the dirty Gobelin tapestries covering the walls, as Mr. and Mrs. Vandewater trailed into the music room after their daughter. He stepped inside after them just as Miss Vandewater opened the lid of the grand piano, sat on the bench, and pressed three polished ivory keys. The discordant sound of someone with absolutely zero musical talent met his ears, and he winced.

             
“Do you play, Your Grace?” Mrs. Vandewater gave him an expectant look.

             
Miss Vandewater merely raised a brow in question.

             
“Tolerably well,” He said, walking towards her. “I haven’t in years.”

             
Miss Vandewater peered at the sheet music stacked neatly on the music rack and then smiled slyly at him.

             
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You aren’t going to ask me to play, are you?”

             
“I don’t mean to inconvenience you…”

             
“Rot!” He laughed. “You will make me feel like a heel for demurring, even with a bad arm.”

             
“Then you shall play?” Miss Vandewater’s grin was infectious, causing him to respond with a grin of his own. “Papa, Mother, His Grace is going to play for us!”

             
His grin faltered when her parents sat on the chairs facing the piano with an expectant look.  He could not get around this without seeming bad-tempered and rude, and he moved to the piano as Miss Vandewater shifted over to give him room. He sat beside her and grew aware of her delicious scent, the fragrance of rosewater and vetivert tickling his nose. Her full skirt brushed his skin where it coursed over his legs and covered his feet as he felt for the pedals, and he stiffened when she leaned against his shoulder, reaching across him to choose the piece of music he was to play.

             
He forced his eyes to the sheet music, to the black notes dancing up and down the black lines instead of the soft pink whorl of her ear and the wisps of her tawny hair escaping from beneath her upswept coiffure.  She had removed her hat and he noticed it sitting on top of the piano, almost as though she had marked her place.

             
He glanced over to the chairs where her parents had settled. Mr. Vandewater’s disarming and benign bulk masked the heart of a man who grasped what he wanted, and what he wanted, Bron realized, as Mr. Vandewater cast a covetous glance about the music room, was Bledington. He grimaced and then turned his attention back to the piano, gingerly sliding his arm out of the sling. The pain had mostly subsided, though Dr. Satterthwaite refused to remove his splint, and Bron wriggled his fingers to stretch the unused muscles. He glanced at the piece Miss Vandewater had chosen and was taken aback to find it one of the simpler pieces, chosen in obvious awareness of his injury.

             
He smiled awkwardly at her, unsettled and pleased by this small, almost insignificant favor, and then bent his head to the ivory and black keyboard. His fingers curved lightly on the keys as he began to play number four of Liszt’s Consolation in D flat major. He stumbled a bit over the beginning, his playing rusty and his hands unused to the movements, but he fell easily back into his old, passable talent at the piano. He stumbled again when Miss Vandewater reached over to turn the page and her breasts brushed against his arm, and grimaced at the sudden awareness of her nearness.

             
He stopped abruptly when the door opened, flushing slightly as he stared at his hands, feeling as though he’d been caught in the act of doing something embarrassing.

             
“Oh, I’m sorry, Your Grace. I wasn’t aware you were entertaining guests,” The nervous young woman began backing out of the music room.

             
“No, we were leaving, Miss Snowden.” He said hastily, rising from the piano bench. 

             
“Lady Beryl can have her lessons later if you need to use—”

             
“No, no,” He interrupted. “You are welcome to the piano, Miss Snowden.”

             
“Yes, Your Grace,” She curtseyed and stepped out of the room.

             
“My sister’s governess,” He explained to the Vandewaters. “Shall we return to the party?”

             
He led them back through the Saloon and out of the back door leading to the South Lawn. He would have left them to make their way back to the tents and chairs, but Mr. Vandewater halted him as Miss Vandewater and her mother began descending the short flight of stairs down to the lawn.

             
“I’m a businessman, Your Grace, and on Wall Street we speak plainly,” The American tycoon’s bushy eyebrows rose. “I’ve seen the way you look at my girl, and she isn’t indifferent to you, am I right?”

             
“I’m not sure I understand your meaning, Mr. Vandewater,” Bron glanced at the man down his nose.

             
“I’d like to bottle that ducal hauteur; it would sell a million,” Mr. Vandewater smirked. “All I am suggesting is that if you’d like to take a second look at my daughter, come to Newport next summer and see her in her own element.”

             
“Are we done, here, Mr. Vandewater?” He said coldly, looking away with deliberate disinterest.

             
This did not appear to faze the American millionaire either.

             
“Good boy,” Mr. Vandewater patted his arm and followed after his wife and daughter.

             
Bron couldn’t even scowl at the man, for he had urged his mother to invite Amanda Vandewater for the express purpose of showing off himself and what he had to offer. Vandewater’s bluntness had stripped his interaction with Miss Vandewater of its relative innocence, and had twisted his surprisingly enjoyable time seated beside her at the piano into something ugly and underhanded. He slid his left arm back into its sling and cursed Americans and their dollars, and cursed himself; he had a duty to Bledington, which Miss Vandewater and her millions would fulfill, and he caught up with the Vandewaters, taking Amanda’s elbow to steer her towards his mother.

             
Miss Vandewater looked startled by their contact, but she gave him a dazzling smile and her astonishing transparency struck him anew. He was afraid to trust that it was genuine, that she could truly be attracted to him, and his mood took a sharp downturn by the uncomfortable and disturbing thought that his title and rank would always stand between them. Would she have flouted proprieties to pursue him had he not been the Duke of Malvern? The ermine-trimmed mantle of his title still fell awkwardly over his shoulders, ill-fitting and ill-begotten, and he felt too inadequate to fill the role left to him by his father’s death…by Alex’s death—Alex, who had been trained from birth to be duke.
He
would have had little scruples in casting his marital net over the day’s biggest catch: an American heiress.

             
Bron removed his hand from Miss Vandewater’s elbow. Her smile faltered , and he turned away to look towards his mother, who sat beneath a white tent sipping lemonade, with Viola and the Bledington spaniels ever at attendance. Viola lifted her violet eyes to his, and he felt his stomach do a queer flip at the expression of despair that briefly crossed her face. His mother handed Viola her cold-frosted glass at their approach, and Bron attempted to quell his anxiety to do the introductions, finding that he grew even more anxious as his mother scrutinized Miss Vandewater.

             
“Albany, you say?” His mother drawled. “I must say you’ve come a long way for a simple garden party—or do they not have them in America?”

             
“We don’t have garden parties held on such grand estates, or hosted by such venerable hostesses such as yourself, Your Grace,” Miss Vandewater smiled prettily. “We were ever so pleased you thought to include us in your festivities.”

             
Bron stifled the urge to roll his eyes—his mother visibly warmed to Miss Vandewater’s immediate compliments and deferment to her status.

             
“I do like to keep an open house,” His mother replied languidly. “It does the county good to have a glimpse of gracious living on a regular basis. I help to maintain the standards.”

             
“And they remain unparalleled,” Miss Vandewater continued. “His Grace was kind enough to give my parents and me a small tour of your beautiful home.”

             
“Do have a seat, Miss Vandewater,” His mother gestured towards one of the two chairs nearest her seat. “Viola, fetch another chair for her parents.”

             
Bron lowered his eyes uncomfortably when Viola bobbed a curtsey like a servant—which, he supposed she was—and went on to do his mother’s bidding. To her credit, Miss Vandewater frowned slightly after Viola’s rapidly retreating figure, and protested against the need for another chair: she would stand.

             
“Nonsense,” His mother said sharply. “She is my companion and you are my guest; I insist you and your parents sit.”

             
“Surely, His Grace would also prefer to sit—”

             
“I’d prefer to stand,” He said hastily as Viola returned with an extra folding chair, which she tugged open and set down firmly beside the chairs his mother indicated Miss Vandewater and her mother should take.

             
“Thank you, Miss Townsend,” Miss Vandewater touched Vi’s arm when she passed.

             
Two spots of color bloomed on Vi’s normally equable complexion.

             
“Fetch us some lemonade, Viola,” His mother interrupted.

             
“Yes, of course, Your Grace,” Viola replied dully and walked stiffly towards the refreshments.

             
Bron could feel Viola’s resentment radiating from her in cold waves, but short of his declaring…what exactly? That he would sweep Viola from her feet like some sort of wretched, impoverished Prince Charming? It was what she expected, he knew, but he could not. To his surprise, Miss Vandewater jumped to her feet, startling his mother and her infernal dogs.

             
“You don’t mind if I help fetch those glasses of lemonade, do you, Your Grace?”

             
She was after Viola before his mother could respond, and Bron lifted his boater from his head to run an exasperated hand through his hair as Miss Vandewater linked her arm through Viola’s stiff one.

             
“My daughter has always been anxious to help those in need,” Mrs. Vandewater said in her soft, cultured tones.

             
“There’s always a time and place for it, I always say,” Mr. Vandewater removed his straw boater to fan his reddening face. “Eh, Your Grace?”