Devotion (47 page)

The duchess raised her head a bit stiffly and regarded Dunsworthy. Her lips were pressed, her brow furrowed. For an instant she looked on the verge of blurting out the truth—that the man sitting across from
Dunsworthy's
daughter was not the Duke of Salterdon. The Duke of Salterdon was holed up in his room like some hermetic lunatic—or so she thought. In truth, known only to Maria and Basingstoke, Trey Hawthorne, the Duke of Salterdon, was astride his high-prancing Arabian stud, riding hell-bound for leather over the downs, drinking in the wind.
Living wildly.
Freely.
Thumbing his nose at everything his grandmother represented.

Finally, the duchess said, "And how many guests did you have in mind, Lord Dunsworthy, to attend this . . . gathering here at Thorn Rose?"

"A hundred.
Perhaps two hundred."

Basingstoke coughed into his hand, flashed the duchess a speaking glance, and shifted in his chair. His face grew darker, if that were possible.

"The invitations are being written even as we speak, Your Grace. I feel a week from today should give us sufficient time to make arrangements for their arrival. I'll handle everything, of course. Your Grace need only worry about your health and doing your best to grow stronger the next days."

The duchess sighed. "Were that all I had to worry about, my dear Dunsworthy, I would be a most incredibly healthy woman."

Dusk had come late due to the clearing of the clouds and the casting of sunlight across the rain-kissed downs. Having searched for her master the better part of an hour, both at the house then at the stables (she had promised Basingstoke that she would speak to him once more and try to convince him of the folly of his continued rebelliousness), Maria made her way back up the path, her walk made shorter as she cut through an ash tree covert. The little light that intruded there seemed to spring up from the ground, strewn with an occasional blanket of last year's foliage and the
lichened
claws of chalky twigs.

"Maria," called a voice softly from behind a fall of brown ivy.

Stopping short, Maria peered through the shadows, her mind still occupied by thoughts of Salterdon and when she would see him again—and hold him, and pretend no one else in the world existed. "Lady Dunsworthy?" she replied, surprised to find her master's
fiancée
hidden behind a tangle of vegetation.

Laura stepped onto the path. Her pale hair was partially fallen and her frock was touched with wet where she had brushed against the damp leaves. The dress was bright, rich and sumptuous. Her eyes were dark as the forest and troubled. "I had hoped to see you," the girl said.

Maria looked around for Laura's companion.

"She's not here," Laura informed her. "I plead guilty of subterfuge, I fear. I told her I intended to nap. Occasionally I find the company of a companion dreadfully tedious—oh, I'm sorry. I tend to forget you companion His Grace. You don't seem like a nurse."

"No? What do I seem like,
m'lady
?"

"A . . . friend."

Maria looked away, her face suddenly burning.

"I don't often get the opportunity to visit with girls my age," said Laura. "Will you
come
sit with me for a while?"

A thousand excuses flashed through her mind, all enabling her to escape quickly, to avoid facing the woman Salterdon would eventually marry—with whom he would share his life, and children. Dear Lord, it was enough that she had made love with him the night before; how could she possibly hold a conversation with the girl? She felt as if the same harlot's brand with which her father had burned Paul's lover was radiating off her cheek.

With reluctance, Maria nodded and followed Laura to a pair of matching marble benches nestled within a grouping of rose bushes. They sat, facing one another, their hands clasped in their laps, both nervous, both no
doubt
thinking of the same man.

Salterdon.
Her mind's utterance of the name made her quiver.

At last, Laura sighed. "For a moment, Maria, might we forget our vast differences in situations and speak to one another like friends?"

"If you so desire,
m'lady
."

"First of all, you may stop addressing me as '
m'lady
.' My name is Laura."

Soon to be Salterdon's wife,
Maria thought with a growing sense of despair. Dear Lord, what was happening to her that she could sit here before this charming child when the night before she had been wrapped up in the girl's soon-to-be-husband's arms.

"Tell me truthfully, Maria. I simply must know. His
Grace . . .
is he really healthy? Is he prepared to marry me?"

"Do you doubt it, Laura?"

Laura chewed her lower lip, and once again her eyes became troubled. "I only wonder if there is any hope— or possibility—that he would decide otherwise."

Stunned, Maria stared at the suddenly flushed young woman. It seemed in that instant that Laura's being began to frazzle. She shook; tears filled up her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

Covering her face with her hands, Laura began sobbing. "Oh, I am a dreadful child!
Irresponsibly selfish and self-centered.
I should be grateful that a man
of
Salterdon's
esteem should choose me to marry, but I'm not. I'm not, I tell you."

Maria took the bench beside Laura and, after a moment's hesitation, put her arm comfortingly around the weeping girl's shoulder. "There, there," she consoled. "I assure you His Grace is neither monster nor—"

"He's a stranger to me, Maria. Simply a man my father deems as acceptable for me to marry."

Shrugging, gazing off into the bramble of twisted rose bushes, Maria mused softly, "I admit, at first he seems intimidating. But he's no different than any other man, and much more human than some. He loves pudding,
m'lady
. And bread with treacle. He enjoys reading late at
nighl
beneath the flame of a goodly beeswax candle—he says the light is clearer than with tallow . . . and besides, dukes don't stoop to using sheep fat unless they're sinking in a mire of debt—says they smell like a rutting ram when they smolder.

"He loves horses—oh, not just any horses, but Arabian horses.
Drinkers of the wind.
Beasts beautiful enough to inspire royalty.
Animals full of fire and spirit,
whose
every stride is like the movement of a celestial ballet.

"He . . . plays the pianoforte, deep, deep into the night. He hears music when others perceive noise. His genius is surpassed only by his immense desire to fill the air with heavenly sonatas.

"His only fault is in refusing to recognize and acknowledge his own identity—that aside from what
he is, the duke, he is a man worthy of respect and admiration, even without his grandiose title."

"But
I don't love him, Maria! Oh, I respect him fiercely.
I
think him incredibly handsome. A girl would have to be insane not to find the prospect of becoming the next duchess the realization of a dream. He is—or was—after all, the most sought-after bachelor in all of England."

Laura left the bench and paced, wringing her hands, doing nothing to stem the flow of emotion pouring down her cheeks. "You see . . ." Her voice grew tighter, almost painful as she appeared to struggle with her next confession. "I—I'm in love with another!"

With a stomp of her little foot, she turned on Maria with a swirl of her velvet skirt. Her countenance became tormented and angry—hardly the demure, shy, doe-like creature she had portrayed the last days. "You cannot know how dreadful it is to love a man forbidden to you, Maria.
To crave him with every fiber of your being.
To close your eyes and see nothing but his face, to recall the
desirous
ecstasy of his touch and know he is only, can only be, an impossible fantasy."

Eyes brimming and burning, Laura said, "Please don't tell me I shall learn to love Salterdon. I have heard it a hundred times, Maria.
I
would rather die than be forced to marry a man who would care for me only because I suit his purpose, knowing there's one who would cherish and adore me if only . . ."

"If only what?"

"If only he were born of the same class."

"So that's the way of it," Maria said gently, almost to herself. What dreadful irony. What a wretched twist of fate!

"Oh, Maria."
Laura dropped onto the bench beside Maria, took one of her hands and gripped it fiercely. "If only I could be as unencumbered as you. To be free to marry the man you love, never having to worry over this despicable responsibility expected of us by our fathers. Oh, if I could only change places with you, Maria, I would be the happiest woman alive."

Briefly closing her eyes, Maria replied softly, "And I as well, dear Laura.
And I as well."

The moon was lifting well above the shoulder of the surrounding hills when Salterdon swept into the room with a rush of cold wind, the smell of leather and horses clinging to him. Sitting at her dresser, brushing out her hair, Maria barely had time to turn from the mirror before Salterdon swept her up from the cushioned stool and spun her around the floor. She laughed despite herself and the sudden onslaught of upheaval that overwhelmed her each time he stood near her. He kissed her throat, her shoulder, the soft skin beneath her ear.

"Your Grace, I've searched hours for you. You're making it extremely difficult to continue to hide your improvement from your grandmother—"

"I don't care to talk about my grandmother," he said in her ear, and twirled her again. "I want to tell you about where I've been and what I've seen."

Maria pulled away, backed against the dresser while watching his face and his eyes which were no longer wolfish, or hard, or angry. In truth, he looked like a boy
full of mischief. "Obviously Your Grace is growing stronger by the
day—"

"By the hour, sweetheart."
With his fists, he pounded his long legs, which were encased in tight leather breeches, then he reached for her again, forcing her to dance aside, to put distance between them or she would surely succumb to her desire to fling herself against him and invite his body into hers.

"Your guests will begin arriving tomorrow. Do you expect Basingstoke to continue this dupery forever?"

"I'm surprised that he would play into Grandmother's hands as easily as he has."

"
Edgcumbe
continues to press Her Grace into sending you to Royal Oaks. He believes any man who would continue to close himself up in his room, refusing to see or speak to anyone as you have supposedly done, has lost all fiber of sanity."

"
Edgcumbe
is an ass. He and
Thackley
have leeched off my grandmother since the day my father died. With me buried away in Royal Oaks they can continue to control her estates and finances after she dies.
Thackley
realizes that the moment I inherit my grandmother's estate I'll let him go. It's called self-preservation, my beautiful Maria. More than one family has been ruined by unscrupulous administrators."

"If you think them unscrupulous, then why have you not insisted to your grandmother—
"