The Duchess (44 page)

“How was Brighton?” Lord Morgan said. “Or perhaps I should say France.”

“I asked Charles not to tell you,” Allegra said, calmly handing a cup of tea to her husband, and then another to her father.

“He had no choice, Allegra. I arrived in London yesterday. Had I come today he might have been able to keep your folly from me, but when you did not return by late last night he had no choice but to tell me. Only Quinton's message saved me undue worry.” He turned to his son-in-law. “And you, sir? Could you not prevent your wife from playing this dangerous game?”

“Sir,” the duke returned, “when you were her guardian, could you prevent her from her headstrong ways?”

Lord Morgan sighed. “I had hoped her fondness for you would have made her change. I see now that it has not.”

“Oh, Papa,” Allegra wheedled him, “do not fuss. We have been, and gone. The Bellinghams are delighted that we were able to rescue Anne-Marie and her children. We even brought two of the countess's servants with us. The old cook, Thérèse, killed the head of the Committee for Public Safety so we might escape. And remember when you thought it amusing that Honor
learned to speak French? Well, Papa, it was Honor who was our greatest heroine. She pretended to be our leader, and knew just how to speak to this dreadful man. She had him quite intimidated, Papa. I don't know what we would have done without her.”

Lord Morgan sighed. “It is over now, thank goodness, but Allegra, I hope that you and Quinton will never do such a foolish thing again.”

“No, Papa, we are going home to Hunter's Lair in a few days,” Allegra told her father. “We have had enough excitement, and enough of London now to last a lifetime.”

“I want you to stop down at Morgan Court before you go home,” he told her. “Your stepmother has not been well at all, and wishes to see you both.”

“Papa! What is the matter?” Allegra looked truly worried.

“Nothing dire, daughter, but Olympia wants to see you. That is why I came up to London. I shall return tomorrow. Then you and Quinton will follow in a few days' time when you have made all your good-byes.”

“Aunt Mama has not been well for several months,” Allegra told her husband later that evening as they cuddled together in their bed. “I wonder what the matter can be. She and Papa love each other very much. I should not like to see him hurt. You don't think she is going to die, Quinton, do you?” Her violet eyes were troubled.

“Your father said it was nothing dire. I believe we should take him at his word, my darling,” the duke replied. “Now, I seem to recall that before we left for France, you made me a rather earnest speech about our need for heirs.” His look was mischievous. “I believe we should now begin attempting to remedy our lack, Duchess, eh?”

To his surprise she pushed him away. “Forgive me, Quinton, but I am too worried about Aunt Mama to involve myself wholeheartedly in passion. Do not be angry with me, please.” She kissed him lightly.

He was admittedly surprised, but he actually understood. “I love you, Allegra, and nothing can change that,” he told her.

“You are so good to me, my darling,” she responded.

They set off for Morgan Court two days later. It was a journey of several days from London, and then their own home was another few days farther. The inns in which they stayed were comfortable, but Allegra found herself more worried about her stepmother as each mile passed. Olympia had virtually raised her, and Allegra loved her. She had been so happy to marry Lord Morgan, and he had certainly been happy to have a wife after all his years of enforced bachelorhood. What could have gone wrong?

They reached Morgan Court at teatime. A footman hurried from the house to open the coach door. He lowered the steps of the vehicle, and helped the Duchess of Sedgwick dismount her carriage. Her dark green velvet cloak with its beaver-trimmed hood clutched about her, Allegra went straight into the house, flinging her cloak to a footman, her husband following behind. Her father came forth to greet her.

“My dear child. Come, Olympia is waiting for you both,” he said, and led them into a small salon where his wife awaited their visitors.

Lady Morgan arose from her settee, and came forward, her hands outstretched in greeting. “Allegra. Quinton,” she said, greeting them.

Allegra gave a little shriek of surprise. “Aunt Mama! What has happened to you?” she cried, quite distressed.
Her stepmother's body was swollen and misshapen. “What is this terrible and abnormal growth that has taken ahold of your body? Do not tell me, I pray you, that you are going to die. I could not bear it!”

Olympia Morgan laughed softly. “Thank you, my darling, for loving me, but no, I do not expect to die. Sit down, Allegra. Your father and I have news to share with you. We would have told you sooner, but we could not believe it ourselves, and for several months ignored the signs. I am expecting a child, Allegra. Come May, you and Sirena will have a new baby brother, or sister. Both your father and I assumed we were past such things as infants, but it would appear that we are not. I have not told Sirena yet for her time is too near, and I would not shock her as I have obviously shocked you,” Lady Morgan concluded.

Allegra's gaze went from her stepmother to her father.
They were having a baby. Together.
They were old.
Old!
Yet they were having a baby. She had been wed over five months, and she was not with child, and she was young. Quinton was young. Her father and Aunt Mama were old, but there her stepmother sat, fat and burgeoning with new life. She did not know if she could tolerate it. It was simply too awful!

“We shall, my lord, have to discuss the terms of Allegra's marriage portion,” Lord Morgan said to the duke, “and renegotiate it under the circumstances, as I will now have another heir to consider.”

“Of course,” Quinton Hunter agreed. “I perfectly understand, sir.”

Allegra stood up. “I want to go home,” she said, and walked from the salon without so much as a farewell to her father and stepmother.

“It is late, the horses are tired,” the duke called after her.

“We will take fresh horses from the stables,” Allegra said in a stony voice.
“I want to go home!”

“There,”
Lady Morgan said to her husband. “Did I not tell you we should have told her sooner, Septimius? Now Allegra is upset, and heaven only knows how Sirena will respond when we finally speak to her.”

“I will fetch her back,” the duke told them. “She has gone out without her cloak.”

“No,” Lady Morgan said. “I know Allegra better than you, sir, and believe me, this has come as a terrible shock to her. Take her home, and let her digest all of our news. Until she can come to terms with herself she will be unhappy. And, Septimius, there will be no renegotiations regarding Allegra's status until
after
our child is born. Is that understood?”

“Yes, m'dear,” Lord Morgan said. Then he turned to his son-in-law. “Go along, Quinton. We will talk again eventually.”

The duke found his wife huddled in their coach shivering. He wrapped her fur-lined cape around her, having retrieved it from a footman. “Where are we going?” he asked, his voice laced with humor.

She glared up at him. “How can you jest, sir, in light of this revolting development? There is an inn about two hours away on the road home. It is respectable enough though not grand.” Then clutching her cloak about her she turned away from him, and remained silent for the next few hours until they had reached their destination.

Although they had never stayed at the Ducks and Drake, the innkeeper recognized them at once. Bowing, he ushered them into his establishment, apologizing that it was small, and he could but offer them his largest bedroom.

“We are grateful you are able to accommodate us at all,” the duke told him graciously. “We will want supper. Do you have a private room where we may dine, sir?”

“Indeed, my lord, I do,” the innkeeper assured him, bowing again. “And I have smaller rooms for your servants, too.”

“Excellent,” the duke said heartily. “Now if you will show us to our private room, we are ready for our supper. It has been a long day, and it is still quite chilly even if it is spring.”

“I have some rather good sherry, Your Grace,” the innkeeper said. “Shall I bring it?”

The duke nodded with a smile, and then escorted his wife to the little dining room the innkeeper offered them.

Allegra managed to hold her peace as the innkeeper and a maidservant bustled about them, taking her outdoor garment, bringing the sherry, pouring it into small glasses. However, when the door closed behind those offering them service, she burst out, “I cannot believe it! How could they do such a thing? It is so embarrassing that two people their age should have an infant. I realized what they were doing behind those closed doors before we were married, but I never expected that their excesses should lead to a
baby!”

“Why not?” her husband asked.

“Why not?”
Her voice was close to a shriek. “My father is over fifty. And Aunt Mama is over forty. That is why not. People that age do not have babies, Quinton. My stepmother's last baby was my cousin, Sirena. Heaven only knows what poor Sirena will think when she learns about this. Her own baby's aunt, or uncle, will be younger than her own child. It is obscene!”

“I think it rather romantic,” the duke told his wife.

“How you have changed,” she said scornfully. “There was a time when you were a practical man, Quinton. Now you consider it romantic that your aged father-in-law and his wife are about to be new parents when we are not. My father does not need an heir.
He has one.”

“So, that is what troubles you, Allegra,” her husband said quietly. “You will have to share your father's wealth with a new sibling.”

“Did you not match the bluest blood in England with the richest girl in England, sir? I shall no longer be the richest girl in England, Quinton. If my father has another son, we shall be poorer by a considerable amount. You had best pray Aunt Mama whelps another girl. At least then we shall retain half of what we have.”

“It doesn't matter,” he told her, taking her hands in his. “A year ago I would not have said such a thing to you, nor believed it if anyone had said it to me. I went to London to seek a rich wife. I found her. I did not, however, plan on falling in love with her, yet I did. Hunter's Lair has been restored. Nay, it is better than it ever was, Allegra, and that is thanks to you and your father's generosity. Your father negotiated a fabulous yearly sum upon you and upon me. Neither of us has spent a great deal of those monies for we are both frugal by nature. We could live comfortably for the rest of our lives on what your father has given us this year alone. And what of your investments, my darling duchess? Unless one of us takes to gambling, we shall never be poor, Allegra. Whatever your father decides he wants to give us after this child is born will be suitable. Septimius Morgan is a fair man.” Quinton Hunter put his arms about his wife. “I am content with just you, my darling.”

“It is not only the wealth involved,” she said to him.

“Do you know how embarrassing it is to be barren at my age, especially when both my cousins and my stepmother are about to have a child? My wealth is going to be taken away from me, and I cannot even give you an heir, Quinton. It appears to me that you have gotten a bad bargain in me.”

“Do you love me?” he asked looking down into her distraught face. “Do you love me, my darling duchess?”

“I do!”
she cried. “How can you ever doubt it?”

“Then why do you doubt me, Allegra? I love you, and all your wealth means nothing to me as long as you love me back,” he told her. Then he kissed her passionately.

She clung to him, her eyes welling with tears. He was a good man, but she knew he could not possibly really mean what he was saying. He had not yet had time to consider the situation. But, oh, she wanted to believe! They would return to Hunter's Lair, and he would soon see his wife with her pittance as a very bad bargain. Especially if she could not at least keep her end of their marriage bargain and produce a son for him.

He sensed her distress. How was he to make her believe that he loved her no matter what happened? He sighed, and held her close, his lips brushing the top of her hair.

Their dinner came, but Allegra ate little. She had lost her appetite, and nothing tasted good to her. The duke on the other hand ate heartily of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, salmon broiled with dill sauce, green beans, bread, butter, cheese, and a caramel custard. The innkeeper had a surprisingly good supply of good French Bordeaux, and Quinton Hunter drank three goblets down with his meal.

The next morning they departed early after a hearty country breakfast that Allegra picked at while her husband
ate, as she put it, “like a field hand.” The innkeeper provided them with a basket for luncheon. They stopped to rest the horses at noon, and by two o'clock were on the road again. At four as they were about to pass by a rather prosperous-looking inn a man ran out and flagged them down.

“Duke of Sedgwick?” he asked.

“I am the Duke of Sedgwick,” Quinton Hunter said, sticking his head from the carriage.

“Lord Morgan has sent ahead, Your Grace. We have your accommodations and your own prime cattle waiting in the stables. Lord Morgan asks that his men be allowed to return his horses tomorrow. If you'll turn in, and come this way, my lord.” The man swung about, and taking the harnesses of the lead horses escorted the duke's coach into the innyard.

“How thoughtful,” Allegra said sourly.

“She's in a right evil mood,” Honor murmured softly to Hawkins as they descended the carriage. “I've never seen her this way, and I've been with her since she was a child.”

“Spoilt rotten she is,” Hawkins pronounced.

“You keep on like that, and I'll not wed you,” Honor snapped.

“You have to now that I've put that baby in yer belly,” Hawkins grinned wickedly. “As soon as we gets back to Hunter's Lair, my girl!”

“Shut yer gob, Peter Hawkins! That's all she needs to know, that I'm having a baby and she ain't! You say one word, and I swear, I'll kill you!”