The Desirable Duchess (3 page)

“So now I suppose you are just like the rest of us,” said Lucy sympathetically. “I have my first Season next year, as you know, and it has been dinned into my head that I must be betrothed to anyone at all suitable by the end of it. Perhaps God should have made us poor,” said Lucy, who believed like most of her peers that God put one in one’s appointed station, “and then we could marry whom we pleased.”

“I think romantic shepherds and shepherdesses exist only in poetry.” Alice sighed. “Even the poor use their daughters as pawns to get a little more money. But Mama and Papa will not force me into marriage with anyone I do not like. I would rather not get married at all.”

Lucy looked at her friend in alarm. “But the ignomy of being an old maid! Everyone sneers so. Then, unlike you, I have five little sisters who will all grow up and get married and I do not want to be the spinster aunt, passed from one household to another during my declining years. Besides, spinsters are odd, have you noticed?”

“I have often thought that spinsters might be happy enough were not society determined to find them odd,” said Alice. “Please do something for me, Lucy. Only a few friends of mine—such as yourself—knew of my affection for Sir Gerald, for my parents would urge me not to talk about him until I was engaged.” A tear ran down Alice’s cheek and she brushed it angrily away. “Do not ever mention his name again.”

“Gladly,” said Lucy. “Although I would like to poison the man. But all saw him paying court to you. I shall say, if asked, that there was nothing to it.”

Around them voices rose and fell, talking about the duke, how handsome he was, how different life would be now that this new duke appeared determined to entertain.

“Will he come to your birthday party next week?” asked Annabelle Buxtable, a long-nosed young miss on Lucy’s other side.

“My parents sent out the invitations,” said Alice, “so I do not know whether he has been invited or not. It is not a very grand affair…”

Her voice trailed away and she angrily shook out the smock she was working on. She had dreamed about her birthday party. She had been so sure that she would have heard her engagement to Sir Gerald announced then. A special gown sent down from a famous London dressmaker’s still lay in its folds of tissue. It was of the inevitable white muslin, but cut so cleverly with little puff sleeves, her first really low neckline, and with four flounces at the hem, with a spider gauze overdress fastening with silver clasps. How often she had imagined Gerald’s black eyes when he saw her in that gown. Now he would not be there. There would be plenty of other young men from the county, but she was not interested in any of them—from the hunting-mad Lord Brent to the wispy and poetic Mr. Anderson, who claimed that his Scottish ancestry allowed him to actually see fairies dancing in the grass.

As she drove her little pony and trap back home, Betty, the maid, said suddenly, “I think I saw that duke riding off in the distance over the fields. I wonder whether he has been calling on Mr. and Mrs. Lacey.”

“Perhaps,” said Alice. “If he has, I am glad I have missed him. A very grand, formidable sort of man.”

“Dukes always are,” said Betty dismissively.

Alice found her parents in the downstairs Yellow Saloon, haranguing the servants. It transpired someone had left the door of the icehouse in the grounds open and the precious few blocks of ice, left over from the previous winter, had melted.

“Someone will need to go over to the Farringdons and beg some ice,” said Mrs. Lacey, looking quite frantic. “What is a birthday party without ices? And all the furniture must be taken out of these downstairs saloons and stored. We must have decorations. Silk draped on the walls and hothouse flowers. An orchestra! We must have an orchestra.”

“Mama, what is all this?” cried Alice. “We had agreed to have a few couples only; the drawing room would be enough for them with the carpet rolled back and the fiddler from the village.”

“Fiddler from the—My stars, only hear the child! Alice, Ferrant is coming.”

“But he will hardly expect us to compete with the grandeur of Clarendon,” said Alice.

“We are not going to have the Duke of Ferrant damn us as shabby,” said her father. “Leave all arrangements to us. He called here
in person
to pay his compliments to you, Alice. I did not tell him where you were, but he said he suddenly remembered your saying you sewed for the poor on Mondays. There was no need to tell him
that
.”

All Alice could think in the days that followed was that she would be glad when her birthday was over. Another London Season was looming on her horizon. Her parents said they were opening up the town house again next year. Her heart ached for the fickle Sir Gerald.

She often stood on the belvedere, looking down the drive, hoping to see him ride up, hoping to hear him laugh and say it had all been a joke, that he still loved her and wanted to marry her.

But the day before her birthday party, she looked out and saw a gardener burning leaves over near the stables.

She went to the writing desk in her sitting room and took out a packet of letters that Gerald had sent her. Then putting on her cloak, she went down and out across the lawns to the bonfire.

She thrust the pile of letters into the blaze and then nodded to the under gardener, who stirred up the fire so that a tongue of flame from the letters shot up into the chilly autumn air.

Alice stood for a long time, her cloak wrapped tightly about her, gazing until all the letters had been reduced to ashes.

Then with dragging steps, she walked slowly back to the house.

The Duke of Ferrant took a clean cravat from his valet and applied himself to tying it in the Mathematical. His valet waited anxiously, more clean cravats at the ready, but the duke’s deft fingers sculpted the starched muslin into place.

He was preparing to go out to Alice’s birthday party. He had a gift already wrapped to take with him. It was a musical box, a pretty trifle made of carved sandalwood and lined with silk that played “My Heart’s Desire,” a song that had been popular for over ten years now. It was hard to know what to buy a young girl, as anything very expensive would be frowned on. He hoped he would not be the oldest there. What a vast gulf there seemed between his age and that of young Alice, a gulf caused not so much by years as by experience. He had fought in the Low Countries, in India, and then in the Peninsula before coming into the dukedom. Also Alice Lacey quite obviously had doting parents. He could barely remember his mother, who had died when he was six years old. His father had been a cold, austere man who had turned the training of his son over to servants to make sure he excelled in everything from riding, to shooting, to a thorough knowledge of the classics. It had been a lonely childhood. The only time he appeared to have pleased his father, the old duke, was when he expressed a desire to join the military at the age of sixteen. His father had bought him a commission in a crack regiment and had then apparently forgotten about his existence.

To the duke, a sensitive young man, the army was a brutal awakening. But he quickly adapted, and soon the end to his lonely life outweighed all other drawbacks. He never returned home on leave, preferring to spend his time in London before returning to the battlefront. He had never been in love but had enjoyed the favors and company of several experienced mistresses. He had never thought to marry but, somehow, now that he was a duke, now that he was settled and held the main position in the county and one of the highest positions in society, he found his thoughts frequently turning to marriage. He had gradually decided that the best prospect for a future wife would be a young girl who could be trained to the responsibilities of being a duchess. He thought about Alice Lacey. She was very beautiful and desirable; this evening, he would have an opportunity to study her further.

His butler entered and said, “Mr. Edward Vere has called, Your Grace.”

The duke’s face lit up. “Send him up immediately.” Edward was his closest friend, but he had not seen him for over a year, for Edward had stayed with the regiment, right up to the surrender of Napoléon.

Edward Vere was a small, round, jolly man with a cherubic face and a mop of black curls that he desperately tried to tame into one of the fashionable styles without success. The duke hugged him and then stood back and gazed down at him affectionately. “Can you bear to get dressed very quickly and accompany me to a young lady’s birthday party? Or are you too exhausted after your journey?”

“Fit for anything,” said Edward, with a grin. “What’s in the air? Marriage?”

“Only a social occasion. My neighbors, the Laceys, have an exquisite daughter. This is her nineteenth birthday.”

“I should have a present for her. Can’t go without a present.”

“The family will understand. I shall send a footman on ahead of us to warn them of your arrival.”

“Actually, I got something for you, but maybe it’s more suitable for a lady.”

“And what is that?”

“A parrot.”

“Does it speak?”

“Not a word.”

“Very suitable. Parrots are inclined to swear. It was a kind thought, but I would be delighted if you gave the bird to Miss Lacey. What is it called?”

“Polly.”

“So original,” mocked the duke. “Hurry and change. Take my man with you.”

Soon both men set out, the bird in a cage between them. “That is not a parrot,” said the duke, peering at it in the swaying light of the carriage lamp. “It’s black. Parrots have gaudy colors.”

“A sailor told me it was a rare black parrot,” said Edward a trifle huffily.

“I saw something like that in a book,” said the duke. “I have it! It’s a
Gracula Religiosa
.”

“Speak English.”

“A mynah. Comes from Southeast Asia. Member of the starling family. I’m sure I read they were great talkers.”

“Not this one.”

“Have you been feeding it the right stuff?”

“I suppose so. Chap in the regiment said he knew of another chap who had one of these and told me what it ate. Eats like a horse, anyway.”

“Its wings aren’t clipped. Weren’t you frightened it would fly away?”

“Haven’t let it out the cage.”

Edward sank back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Wake me up when we get there. I’m devilish tired and my corset is deuced uncomfortable.”

“Why wear it?”

“Because,” said Edward sleepily, “my evening coat is an example of Weston’s best work and I couldn’t get into it without my corset.” Then he promptly fell asleep.

The duke surveyed him with affection. Edward’s very presence was making thoughts of marriage fade away. The duke realized that a return to a certain amount of loneliness had started him thinking about marriage. The bird shifted awkwardly on its perch. “Poor thing,” said the duke. “I shall make sure Miss Lacey buys you a very large cage so you can at least hop about.”

Edward was slumbering so peacefully when they arrived at Wold Park, home of the Laceys, that the duke felt a pang of remorse at having to awaken him for what was surely going to turn out to be little more than a provincial children’s party.

The house was blazing with light from top to bottom. The duke sighed. He hoped that the Laceys were as rich as he had heard them to be. In the short time since he had become a duke, he had been alarmed at the way mothers of hopeful daughters nearly bankrupted their husbands in their efforts to entertain him.

He woke Edward, and then both men entered the hall, a footman following, carrying the bird and the duke’s gift.

The butler relieved them of their cloaks, and, taking their presents from the footman, the duke and Edward walked into the Yellow Saloon, where they had been told the guests were being received. Mr. and Mrs. Lacey stood at the entrance. The Yellow Saloon, the Green Saloon, and the Blue Saloon, all on the ground floor, had been opened up for the festivities. The walls were draped in swathes of silk and huge arrangements of hothouse flowers scented the air.

Alice Lacey was enthroned in a large chair at the end of the Yellow Saloon. She was surrounded with friends, and a table beside her was piled high with presents.

Edward thought she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. The low-cut white gown showed the excellence of her bosom. A small fairylike diamond tiara was set amongst the burnished curls of her auburn hair and a thin string of diamonds was about her neck. Edward drew a deep breath. “Worth fighting for,” he murmured. “That’s the sort of lady I used to dream of on the battlefield, a true English rose.”

Both men approached Alice, who stood up and curtsied. She shyly accepted the duke’s gift and then exclaimed in surprise at the mynah. “How wonderful,” she cried. “What is it called?”

“Polly,” said Edward, pleased at the effect of his gift.

“Oh, that is too ordinary,” said Alice. “What is it?”

“A mynah,” said the duke. “A foreign bird. I would suggest it needs a larger cage.”

The bird hunched on its perch and looked at Alice with bright, inquisitive eyes. “I am sure it is a he,” Alice said, laughing. “I shall call him Oracle… because he looks so wise. What does he eat?”

“Loves fruit,” said Edward.

Lucy Farringdon lifted a bunch of grapes from a bowl and gave it to Alice. “See if he will take one.”

Alice held out a black grape, which the bird eyed inquisitively. She laughed with delight when Oracle seized it in his beak.

“He should talk, but he don’t,” said Edward.

“I am sure he shall.” Alice summoned a footman and said, “Tell the smith I want a very large cage for this bird as soon as possible.”

“What about my present?” said the duke. “Am I to be outclassed by Mr. Vere?”

She smiled at him and unwrapped his gift. She opened the lid. “My Heart’s Desire” tinkled out. A shadow crossed Alice’s face and she quickly snapped the lid shut. That had been their tune, hers and Gerald’s.

“My present displeases you?” demanded the duke sharply.

Alice rallied. “No, Your Grace, it is vastly pretty… and so very kind of you to have brought it to me.” She put it carefully on the table with the other gifts and turned her attention back to the mynah.