A Scandalous Connection, page 2
“Now, now, Amy, dear, you must trust me. Just because you went to Miss Simpson’s Academy for Young Ladies does not mean your dear Aunt Ermentrude does not know what is best for you. And on that subject, why in heavens do you think we procured quite the largest diamond set from Lacey’s—I had it on the best authority that it is larger even than the countess of Winsham’s —when you insist on wearing those trumpery pearls? If you wish to catch a gentleman, my dear, you must not allow him to think you behind hand in any manner or fashion. And you cannot gammon me into believing gentlemen don’t care for such things, for your uncle saw Lord Iverley buying the hugest bracelet of sapphires, and if Lacey had not already drawn out the tray he would doubtless have procured them for you.”
Mrs. Froversham Worthing—she would like to have been known as “the Honorable” Mrs. Froversham Worthing, but, most unfortunately, her husband, though excessively rich, was disappointingly untitled—stopped for a short breath, but only so long as was strictly necessary to fill out the full extent of her corsetted lungs.
“And so, my dear, what I was saying from the start, was that you simply must avail yourself of this opportunity! When I think of that spiteful widgeon Amelia Corey being included in the party—and she with not an ame’s ace of your beauty—it fair makes me boil with rage. You must go, my dear, you simply must. I insist on it, indeed I do. And if the duke should just happen to be wandering in his gardens . . . oh, Amy! Wouldn’t it be delightful if he should see you standing there, like a sylph. . . . Oh, yes, you must take the diamonds, they will glitter extraordinarily in the dusk light—”
Miss Amy Mayhew could not help interjecting, at this point, to mention that it would be highly unlikely that the duke would be in residence so close to the Temperton races, and further, if she were ever to achieve the hideous prospect her aunt had outlined, dripping in diamonds like a . . . a sylph—here she stopped to stifle a small shudder at the prospect—she would doubtless remind His Grace more forcibly of his notorious barques of frailty than strike him as a serious matrimonial prospect.
At this, her aunt made shocked protest and announced that even she—who was not schooled in the ways of the nobility, though heaven knew, she was born above her station and fancied she knew a little about such matters, and if only Mr. Worthing would make the smallest push, he could procure for them a barony—that young ladies did not refer to such matters, or even know of them, though gracious knew there were enough light skirts about London to very likely fill the halls of Carlton Place.
She took another breath and pinched Miss Mayhew’s cheeks till they were pink. Amy, used to this particular display of affection, managed, somehow, not to flinch.
“But dear, dear, Amy, I implore you not to mention them! Pray pretend, I beg you, that you have never heard of them. Indeed, I am at a loss to know where you did hear of such matters! Not at Miss Simpson’s, I am certain.”
Miss Mayhew did not correct her certainty, though her eyes lit up with sudden laughter. What she also refrained from mentioning—very scrupulously too—was that the sapphire bracelet Lord Iverley had bought had gone, not to his wife, who despised such vulgar ornamentation, but to his latest mistress. She held her tongue for two reasons. First, her Aunt Ermentrude was right. She should not know about such matters, but since Lord Iverley’s scatter wit niece was also her bosom bow, it was difficult—indeed, impossible—not to hear of such things. But more importantly, she knew that arguing with her aunt was a lost cause. It always ended up in prolonged swoons and episodes with sal volatile. And though she could not herself abide such acute displays of sensibility, she did truly love her aunt and had no wish to distress her unwarrantedly.
So she meekly promised never to discuss such distressing matters—which, indeed, was not hard to do, for she had no real notion that the topic would ever present itself in company—and braved the multiplicity of feathers to kiss Mrs. Worthing’s nose.
That lady was much mollified. She adored her niece, despite her disappointingly stubborn streak on certain matters of the utmost importance. Marriage, for instance. Amy steadfastly refused to make the slightest push to find herself a nobleman, a deficiency that Mrs. Worthing found a sore trial, indeed. Now, she rose to her feet, fortified by Amy’s show of compliance.
“Then you shall join the duke’s party?”
“It is not His Grace’s party, Aunt! Indeed, I would be astonished to learn that he knew anything of our intentions! Mrs. Murgatroyd has been corresponding with Lady Caroline Darris, who, I understand, is his sister.”
“Oh! Well, then! It is all perfectly acceptable! I’m sure Lady Caroline must be all that is proper! Now you can have no possible objection to accepting!”
Mrs. Froversham Worthing’s feathers bobbed in relief. To press home her advantage, she took Amy’s hands firmly in her own. “It really is my dearest wish, Amy! If your dear departed parents were alive I feel certain they would have said the same.” She added, as an afterthought, “And it is your uncle’s too, I daresay.”
Uncle Froversham, when applied to, looked up from his account book and nodded vaguely in the direction of his wife, his niece and his two young heirs, who were both squabbling most unbecomingly on the Aubusson carpet he had imported—at terrific expense—from Paris. He wished, for a moment, for a breath of fresh air, for though the room was decorated in the most sumptuous style—all gilt and marble and fabulous red velvets—he could not help having the oddest notion of being oppressed. All nonsense, of course, for he knew to a penny how much every fitting had cost, and the sum had been quite prodigious. One did not pay such vast sums to be stifled in gloom.
“See, what did I tell you? Froversham agrees.”
Miss Mayhew was not convinced, but she could see at a glance that Mr. Worthing was beginning one of his headaches and it would be fatal to allow her aunt to rattle on at him. So, with a sigh, she agreed, reasoning that a frightful afternoon in the dead boring company of two chaperons and five ninnies with no more sensible thought in their heads than to ensnare the most eligible bachelor in all of England was a suitable price to pay for all the kindness she had received from their hands. For though her aunt did not move in the same social circles—and she was loath to even think in such terms—she was nevertheless warmhearted and devoted to her only niece.
“Very well, Aunt, I shall go. I cannot, however, think it worthy of the expense.”
“Tush, my dear! You need not worry your head about such paltry matters. Your principal shall not be touched, for Uncle Froversham guards it like a dragon, I can assure you. Indeed, it puts me into quite a pelter, for the other day I was short quite a guinea and a sixpence, and do you know, he pressed me to account for it, which I was at my wits end to do until I remembered those silk stockings—which, indeed, I trust you like, though I do not believe I have seen you wearing them yet, though of course the color is one you do not . . .”
Amy stemmed the flow with a slight chuckle, which was better than a shudder, for the memory of the lime-green stockings—now consigned to the upper parlor maid—was still unfortunately ripe in her mind. Instead, she steered the conversation back to Mrs. Worthing’s earlier remark about her uncle’s stewardship of her fortune.
“Indeed, his management has been quite remarkable! I was astonished to see the figures he presented me with the other day. Which makes me all the more resolved to pay for this nonsensical extravagance you have devised.”
The feathers shook wildly on Mrs. Worthing’s turban, and she flung back one jewel-bedecked hand in good-natured annoyance. “Oh, do not be so absurd! Now you run along and leave the details to me, for I have been told often and often that . . .”
Amy groaned inwardly and did not stay to hear what Mrs. Worthing had been told so often and often. Instead, she slipped down to the kitchens to make up a soothing tisane for poor Uncle Froversham, whose headache appeared to be worsening. It was perhaps poor-spirited of her to think it, but truly, if she were married to a regular gabble monger like her aunt, she might find that she, too, would be sorely in need of some soothing relief.
As she made up the brew, she spared hardly a thought for the cynical-eyed, dark-haired paragon of all virtues, known as His Noble Grace, the fifth duke of Darris. She was too sensible a young lady to pay the least heed to Aunt Ermentrude’s ambitious maundering. Besides, at four and twenty she was well beyond her last prayers and she suspected strongly that were she not an heiress, she would not have received—and therefore been able to reject—the several handsome offers that had been made for her hand. No, she did not consider a chance encounter—let alone an actual meeting—to be in the least likely.
Two
Dark eyes flashed. “The paragon,” as Amy ironically regarded him, was at that moment trying very hard not to flinch. Though he was able to keep his noble composure, he would not have been a man had his eyes not sparked with a sudden anger, nor his jaw tightened, imperceptibly, with the effort of remaining silent. This he did, though not without singular effort.
It was not often that His Grace was at such a point nonplus, and frankly, he did not like it. Nor did he like the way in which he was being flogged, for no particular fault that he knew of. Not with a whip, of course—he was long out of short coats—but with cool words and an appraising glance that seemed blind to all the most promising of his attributes.
For an instant, his tormentor quivered. He was alert, quick to gain the advantage. She did not drop her lashes coyly, as one might have expected. Rather, she simpered and shook out her ringlets. There must have been ten, at the least. Her eyes remained dampeningly cold.
Darris sighed inwardly. The interview was not proving promising, but there was that within him which persisted. Perhaps it was the lady’s beauty. That, he thought dispassionately, must count for something.
He therefore held himself splendidly aloof, as always, his bearing as rigid as his rank demanded, and if he gripped his gold-topped cane a little too tightly, no one—least of all the lady before him—was any the wiser.
It was fortunate, for Lady Raquel Fortesque-Benton had not finished speaking. Her exquisite lips—shaped becomingly in a delicate pink bow—were still moving. He tried hard to concentrate, but all he could see were her icy blue eyes and the magnificent arch of dark eyebrows as she moved on to her next point.
It must have been the eleventh point, at least, in the long litany of points she had been bedeviling the duke with all morning.
In any other circumstance, His Grace would have felt himself well justified in cutting her short with a haughty glare. He was well used to depressing pretension, despite his generally open manner. Now, however, he felt compelled to listen, albeit in a growing silence that his peers would immediately have recognized as ominous, indeed.
Not so the Lady Raquel Fortesque-Benton. She, of course, attributed his silence to the rapt attention she deserved—no, insisted upon. With a fleeting pause for breath, she adjusted one of her tiny ringlets. No man, she knew, could resist those little curls of burnished gold that peeped becomingly from the brim of her high poke bonnet. Small wonder, too, for the effect took an hour at least to achieve. Artlessly, she clicked open a fan and proceeded on to her next point.
“Now, Demian—I shall call you that, for we are practically betrothed, are we not?” For the first time, she shot him a coy look from beneath those high arches. Demian, or properly speaking, Lord Demian Charles Julius Radcliffe, duke of Darris, marquis of Hartford and eighth Earl Shrewsbury, bowed. The salutation held no warmth whatsoever, but then, Lady Raquel was not perspicacious enough to discern such niceties. She continued through to point twelve.
“I shall naturally secure the line for you. The Fortesque-Bentons are excellent breeders, as I am sure you are aware.”
His Grace’s dark, dulcet eyes flickered with detached interest. It was unusual for ladies to speak so plainly upon such matters, but then, the maiden in the exquisitely stitched morning gown of deep russet merino was not usual in any sense. It was not common for beauty—and Lord Darris was not blind, Lady Raquel was quite extraordinarily beautiful—to be allied so handsomely with a fortune. And such a vast fortune, too! It quite made one’s head swim.
The lips were open again, and Lord Darris contemplated kissing them. This course, of course, would hold two felicitous outcomes. The first would be in tandem with her words, which were now slyly referring to the marital bliss which he could rightfully expect from her chamber two nights a week for precisely one hour, the length of time, she had been told, that was strictly necessary for the outcome of any future dukes of Darris and marquises of Hartford. The duke arrogantly discounted this, for he had a sufficiently high regard for his own expertise to imagine that the lovely Lady Raquel would soon be waiving any nonsensical time limits. No, the primary reason for kissing her would, of course, be to shut her up. Not very elegantly phrased, perhaps, but an adequate reflection of Demian’s rather grim thoughts.
He moved toward her and cast the gold-topped cane across the desk that lay between them. Then, rather seductively, he tilted her chin so that her lips were but inches from his own. Good! She had stopped her prattling. He concentrated on her lips, for, indeed, they were quite delightfully perfect, if one could ignore the icy eyes with their cold, speculative flecks of gold just above. He drew her forward, so that her bodice was straining from the exertion. Demian took fleeting note of the fact that Lady Raquel’s lips were not the only curves he could bring himself, with time, to admire.
He bent his dark head toward her and offered her one of his rather practiced, lazy smiles. The type of smile that had ladies customarily swooning at his feet. He permitted his eyes to linger a little on the top buttons of her morning gown, trimmed, of course, with pearls and the gentle glitter of diamonds. Such glances were known to have other ladies—of quite a different type—on their deliciously brazen backs in the twinkling of an eye. His Grace was not entirely known for leading the life of a monk.
Lady Raquel Fortesque-Benton did not blink. Rather, she puckered up her lips dutifully and permitted a chaste kiss to alight on her cheek. Then, as His Grace was rather foolishly regaining his balance across the table, she carried on speaking.
“After I have produced your first two sons, Darris, I shall naturally then be free to pursue my own interests.”
“Interests?” The duke could only mimic her words in confusion. His sister, had she been present, would have chuckled. Normally urbane to a quite acute degree, His Grace’s current discomfort would have been a marvel to those who knew him well. Of course, Caroline would probably, by now, have planted Lady Raquel a rather indelicate facer, for there could be no doubt she doted on her brother and consequently expected every person on earth to treat him with a similar level of devotion. Clearly, the season’s most feted heiress did not.
With mild reproof in her exquisite aqua eyes, she rephrased her twelfth point.
“Lovers, Your Grace. I shall naturally take lovers once the Darris line is secured. I perceive you can have no possible objection?”
She picked up a piece of embroidery and carefully selected a shade of yellow silk streaked with the faintest hint of gold. Lord Darris despised samplers, but he was less concerned with this further evidence of their obvious incompatibility than with the content of her last remark.
“Lovers?”
“Yes . . . you know, cicisbei.”
Lord Darris did not know, but he gritted his teeth, retrieved his cane and inclined his head. Lady Raquel could have all the cicisbei she wanted, for all he cared. God knew, he could even find it within himself to be sorry for the poor misguided lechers. For a fraction of a second he wondered whether he should tell Lady Raquel that she was mistaken in her terms. A half hour in her chamber once a month would be more than sufficient to his needs.
He decided not to, though, for there were people other than himself depending on this alliance. Indeed, if it was left to him the huge edifice of Darris Castle could crumble to the ground for all he cared. As for his earthly titles, well, they were well enough, but certainly not sufficient to feed and roof the hungry tenants and crofters he’d inherited along with all the pomp. No, marriage was not so much a pleasure as a necessity. He was just lucky that he outranked the decrepit marquis of Somerford. He was certain that had he not, Lady Raquel would not now be fixing her cool blue eyes in his direction. God! If he were not second in rank to a prince, he might even now be escaping the satin coils of her gloved hand. He tried not to think of this as he took it lightly in his and placed a kiss in the requisite place.
“Are you mad?” Mr. Thomas Endicott breathed heavily as he deftly avoided being floored to the ground by a powerful fist. He did not wait for a reply before smashing his left hook into the stomach of his bosom bow. Sadly, the excellent gentleman did not tumble to the ground or at least concede defeat as he’d fully expected. Rather, he shook out his distinctive black curls and matched the blow with a stunning one of his own. Mr. Endicott teetered slightly.
“Not mad, Tom, merely perfectly sane. I am not accepting a penny in rents—the estates are all too ruinous to expect a brass farthing—so despite a great deal of scrimping and saving, I have literally mountains of debts! I am rethatching all the roofs in Hartford—they are rat ridden and I cannot have my dependents living in such squalor. Most of the residents of Darris need fuel for the winter and there is precious little firewood left after the recent fires. . . .”
