by Cheryl Bolen
"Knowing what a particular friend, James Edward Twickingham–Twigs–is of yours, I thought you would want to know what has happened to him."
"To Twigs?" the duke said, his eyes rounding. "He's not–"
"No, my dear fellow, he's not dead. At least he wasn't when I left London."
Radcliff's voice when he spoke was filled with concern. "What has happened to him?"
"He has suffered a great many broken bones and is currently laid up at his town house. There are those of us who fear he is not being seen to adequately. He won't allow his parents to know what has happened. They have been out of charity with him for quite some time, I understand."
"Damn it, man, how did he break these bones?"
"That is the delicate subject I wish to impart to you. It seems one night Twigs and many of your crowd were rather deep in their cups and made a wager that Twigs would not swim naked in the Thames. To which Twigs bet he would."
"In the dead of winter?"
"Just so."
The two men exchanged amused grins.
"But that is not what caused his injuries. It seems he sustained the injuries as he got out of the water, naked as a nymph, just as the carriage bearing the Duke and Duchess of York drove by. I myself was not there, but I have been told that Twigs moved faster than one chased by a swarm of bees and leapt over a brick wall–the result of which was a broken leg, broken arm, broken rib and a multitude of bruises."
"All of this certainly explains why he doesn't want his parents to know."
Stanley looked into his brandy snifter. "As I understand, his parents have been most displeased with what they consider his immaturity."
"I am not privy to his parents' likes and dislikes." A deep frown furrowed Radcliff's brow. "You say he is at his London address?"
"Yes, with only his man to look in on him. From what I have heard, he is most subject to taking a dangerous infection and dying. And he is also very lonely. He does not know I am here, but I believe your presence in London is what he needs to begin the mending process."
"By all that's holy, I'll move him to my place in Berkeley Square, and Barbara and I will do our damnedest to nurse him back to good health."
A smug, satisfied smile spread across Stanley's face. It was a start.
Bonny selected Dante's Divine Comedy in Latin and took it to her chamber. Since her husband had told Marie not to come, she dressed herself for bed in a soft white muslin nightgown. She put the Radcliff Jewels back in the velvet case, sat at her dressing table and began to brush her long tresses, which by now had dried thoroughly.
Through her mirror, she saw her fully clothed husband enter from his dressing room. He pressed a kiss on top of her head. "I did not at all like you wearing that indecent gown tonight," her husband said. "Why did you not at least wear a shawl?"
"You, sir, threw it off."
"I did not know at the time another man would be raking his eyes over you."
Bonny's own eyes twinkled.
Richard turned his back to her, folding his hands behind him as he began to pace. "I fear we must go to London tomorrow, my love."
She turned round to face him, frowning. She had begun to feel secure here with just the two of them. London and its myriad attractions could take her husband from her. "Why?"
"Twigs is very much in need of me. How would you perform as nursemaid, my dear?"
She swallowed. "I will do whatever you desire, sir." He nodded absently but was not looking at her. She could tell his mind was on other matters. "Is your friend sick?"
"He has suffered many broken bones and may have taken a fever to boot."
"Is no one looking after him?"
"Only his man."
"Then we must go tomorrow."
"Yes. I shall alert Evans." He turned on his heel and left.
After he was gone, Bonny lightly smoothed perfume over her pulse and on her throat, thinking of Richard's face buried in its scent. She daringly stroked a dab between her breasts.
When she finished at the dressing table, she brought the candle to her bedside and, climbing on the bed, began to read by its light, propping herself up on lacy pillows and draping her coal black tresses over her shoulder. She must look wide-awake when Richard came back. Kind soul that he was, he would not want to disturb her if she seemed tired.
Richard's presence in her bed could never be unwelcome. She had grown to love their intimate encounters and waking to the heat of him beside her.
The candle burned steadily as she read words that no longer had meaning for her. Her mind was engaged with thoughts of Richard, listening for his footsteps, hungering for him.
When the candle burned out, she turned her head into the pillow, an emptiness deep within her.
He would not come tonight.
Chapter Eleven
Viewing her new town house after a long day's travel did not diminish Bonny's first impression of the stately home at the head of Berkeley Square. After the liveried footman assisted her from the traveling coach, Bonny stared at the white mansion illuminated by a half-dozen gaslights. It was as large for a town house as Hedley Hall was for a country home.
"All this for just one person?" she asked her husband.
He waited several seconds before answering. "Two now." He never responded to anything without carefully developing a reply and delivering it in his most serious manner. Why couldn't levity come more easily to her husband? Bonny wondered, gazing at the stern cut of his face, the corners of his wonderful mouth tugging southward.
"And what rooms have you had redone here, sir?" Bonny asked.
"I had thought to have yours done before we came to London, but since I decided only yesterday to travel here, your chamber remains as it was in my mother's day." He ushered her through the double doors.
A thousand candles in crystal chandeliers and gilded sconces around the damask walls lightened the broad hall.
A flurry of impressions hit Bonny. The attentive servants in the same crimson livery as at Hedley Hall, the checkered floor of alternating black and white marble, the huge ancestral portraits staring down at her from beside the baroque staircase.
She met her husband's steady gaze. "You sent someone ahead to announce our arrival."
Her husband's harsh features softened slightly. "To be sure, my dear."
He introduced her to a whole new staff headed by Mandley, the butler, and Mrs. Henson, the housekeeper, who looked remarkably like Mrs. Green.
"I hope I don't call you Mrs. Green," Bonny said. "You resemble very much our housekeeper at Hedley Hall."
The woman's shriveled face brightened, and her faded eyes flickered with mirth. "But Sarah's my sister, your grace."
"Ah, lovely! If you are half as capable as your sister, I shall count myself most fortunate," Bonny said.
"The duchess is tired from the journey," Radcliff said. "You can show her around tomorrow, Mrs. Henson. I shall take her to her chamber. Perhaps you could send up a small repast."
"Cook's already taken care of that. It will be up momentarily. I also saw to it that the linens were changed in the old duchess's chamber, and there's a fire in the hearth."
Upstairs, Bonny appreciatively eyed the old duchess's room of ivory and gold. It did not at all appear to need updating. "Oh, Richard, I think it's charming just the way it is." She went to pull off her black pelisse, and he came to assist her, the corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly.
"But you know I prefer that you are surrounded by color, preferably the color of your eyes."
The feel of his strong hand brushing across her shoulder had the power to make her knees cottony.
"And if you must wear that blasted mourning, we'll have Madame Deveraux make up some for you. She is all the rage with women of fashion."
Bonny's stomach sank as she wondered if he had ever taken Lady Heffington to Madame Deveraux.
A soft knock sounded at her door, and she opened it to Marie, who went straight to her mistress's portmanteau and beg
an to unpack.
Radcliff strode toward a doorway on the other side of the room. "Like Hedley Hall, my dear, my dressing chamber connects our rooms here. I will divest myself of these riding clothes."
The next caller at Bonny's door proved to be Mrs. Henson bringing up a tray, which she set on a small table between two French chairs. Bonny noted with disappointment there was only one glass. Was her husband not going to join her?
When Marie finished unpacking, she helped Bonny into a nightgown, then removed the pins from her hair and brushed it out, babbling on the whole while about her excitement over London. Bonny only half listened. Her mind was on Richard. Why hadn't he returned to her room? He had avoided her last night and had chosen to ride his horse today rather than share the coach with her. And now she was left in a strange room to eat alone.
Evans hovered around his master. "Your grace's complexion has become unfashionably dark from spending so much time in the outdoors of late. It is most agreeable that you have returned to town life."
Radcliff cocked an eyebrow at his valet. "I find I prefer the country life."
"Do I understand that the country life you always found so sadly lacking now has an appeal for you?" Evans assisted Radcliff from his jacket, fashioned by Weston himself to fit the duke's muscled torso to perfection.
"Things are different when one has a family. I am too old to continue with the young man's pursuits that have occupied me these last dozen years."
Evans stiffened and proceeded to brush his master's coat. "It is regrettable the old duchess is not here to instruct her grace in the ways of the nobility."
"The new duchess will do admirably." The duke took a seat and began to loosen his Hessians.
With no need for words between the two, Evans came and helped Radcliff remove the boots.
"Quite so, but her grace does seem rather young."
Was Evans jealous of Barbara? Radcliff remembered the mornings when he would share his day's plans with Evans, and sometimes lament the activities of the preceding night. But Barbara had usurped Evans. She had become his closest friend as well as his lover. It was she who now shared his mornings. He thought of her black hair fanning across the fine ivory sheets, of her waking in his arms, a smile on her gentle lips. And a knot of emotion unraveled deep within him.
After Marie left, Bonny approached her husband's dressing chamber nervously. He wasn't there. She opened the next door–the door to his room. On a small table she saw his untouched dinner.
"Richard, I thought perhaps you could join me for din–" she announced as she walked into her husband's chamber and confronted a stern-faced Evans, who was in front of her husband. She stood there blushing in her nightgown before she gathered up the presence of mind to turn her back to the unfriendly valet and return to her chamber.
"I'll be there in just a moment, my dear," her husband called.
He soon joined her, bringing his tray with him, and fell into a chair. "I'm awfully fatigued."
"If your muscles are sore from riding Sultan all day, I am glad," Bonny said poutingly. "Leaving me to ride in the lonely barouche."
He tore off a chunk of the cold mutton on his tray. "So you missed my company?"
"Today–and last night."
A crooked smile crinkled his tanned face. "I can assure you that I will not allow you to spend your first night in a strange new bed alone."
On his way out the following morning, the duke paused at the sideboard in the entrance hall to look over the calling cards that had been left in his absence. Most of them were from other bucks who comprised his set. No doubt they wanted to announce Twigs's unfortunate accident. But one card caused him to stiffen, and an earthquake rumbled and surged and cracked his insides. Addressed to his wife, it was from the Earl of Dunsford.
Returning to her aunt and uncle's on Cavendish Square, Bonny was seized with a sense of unreality. Only three months before, dressed in a severely wrinkled and outdated dress, she had stepped off a crowded stagecoach, utterly alone, to face for the first time the thriving city known as the capital of the world. Now, a stylish barouche pulled by matching bays and sporting the crest of the Duke of Radcliff drew up to Wickham House, and a driver, a coachman, two outriders and a tiger–all in the crimson livery of the Moncriefs–danced attendance on her. In the span of twelve weeks, she had leapt from frightened schoolgirl to contented woman, from modest virgin to passionate wife.
Bonny's altered circumstances failed to win her aunt's approval, though.
"Forgive me, Barbara," Lady Landis remarked in cool tones as the three women sat down on a silken sofa for tea in the drawing room of Wickham House, "for not calling you 'your grace.' I know you truly are, but I cannot bring myself to address you thus. It seems like only yesterday you were nursing at Charlotte's breast."
"Pray, don't think of me any differently. I'm still the same Bonny Barbara, only now it's Bonny Barbara Moncrief, who happens to be a duchess." Bonny, too, had a hard time believing she was, indeed, a duchess. She directed her gaze at Emily and her heart plummeted. The color was once again gone from her cousin's pale cheeks. Her swept-back blond hair seemed as lifeless as her thin face. Like a funeral wreath, sorrow hung around her.
Lady Landis poured steaming tea into heavily gilded porcelain cups and handed one to Bonny. "So sorry about your mother. David took it very hard indeed. Of course I tried to console him by telling him how very happy Charlotte must have been at her passing to know that a duke had married her cherished daughter–for to know Charlotte was to know how she positively doted on you, Barbara."
"Then if you knew Mama so well," Bonny said stiffly, "you also know that she didn't give a button for rank."
"Certainly not for herself. David tells me any number of peers offered for her when she was presented. She was still beautiful at thirty when I met her."
"But she never wanted to be the wife of anyone except Papa, even though he was only a country vicar."
Lady Landis poured a second serving of tea into her own cup, having impatiently gulped down the first. "Very noble of her, I'm sure," she said without conviction, holding her chin in such a manner so as to tighten the sagging flesh beneath it. "Of course, Ronald Allan was awfully handsome."
"No wonder Bonny's so beautiful, with both her parents so uncommonly good-looking."
Lady Landis ignored her daughter's comment. "Despite what you say about your mother's indifference to titles, as a mother, I know she had to be thrilled with your match."
Bonny's smile widened. "She was." She remembered how acutely her mother was aware of her feelings for Richard.
"As I will be if ever my very unobliging daughter would give encouragement to any of the circle of men who pay court to her," Lady Landis said. "Do you know she actually turned down an offer from the Marquis of Eden!"
"Mama!" Emily protested. "He was older than Papa and as round as a billiard ball. I'd kill myself before I'd marry him."
"Pray, don't talk about killing yourself," her mother commanded. "Your father and I will not force you to marry."
Emily left her biscuits untouched. "I am most grateful to hear that."
Lady Landis's bejeweled hand swept back the loose tendrils of her silver-threaded auburn locks. "I am convinced you nearly won the hand of a very handsome peer, only to lose him to a scheming country miss."
"You may be sure I have no notion what you're talking about, Mama," Emily said, her cheeks hot.
Bonny's cup clattered as she set it down firmly on the table. "I would like Em to accompany me to Madame Deveraux's today. Richard insists that I purchase more fashionable mourning wear." Bonny knew her aunt would not object to her daughter being seen in the establishment of the most fashionable modiste in London.
Eyes narrowed, Lady Landis said, "Allow me to suggest that you put yourself in the duke's hands, Barbara, since you know nothing of the ways of the exalted. And, of course, I will be most happy to assist you in any matters of judgment."
Bonny got to her feet. "How very
kind of you," she said dryly.
As pleased as Bonny was to see Emily again, she longed even more to see baby Harriet. Once inside the Radcliff barouche, the two young women could speak in private.
"To be perfectly honest, Em, I'm quite mad to go to Kepple Street and play with Harriet."
"You will not believe how she has grown. She quite babbles all the time now and plays with her feet and giggles over them." Emily's whole demeanor changed when she spoke of her child. Liveliness lit her eyes and a smile transformed her solemn face.
How Bonny wanted her own baby, and how she pitied Emily for having to hide what she loved most.
The ride from Cavendish Square to Kepple Street was accomplished in mere minutes. When the driver came to a stop in front of Bonny's former servant's house, Emily exclaimed, "But Bonny, you cannot risk someone of the ton seeing your coach here."
Bonny had not thought about the Radcliff crest mounted on the barouche, announcing to everyone that the Duchess of Radcliff visited these quarters. That would never do! What if her husband questioned her about it? She had sworn not to reveal Emily's secret.
The coachman came to open the door.
"Please tell the driver I was mistaken in the address," Bonny said. Remembering a square they had passed a few blocks before, she instructed the driver to take them there.
The ladies got out and strolled through the park of the square, then headed to the Kepple Street house, where they visited with the baby for half an hour before hastening back to the barouche and making a quick trip to Madame Deveraux's.
At Madame Deveraux's, Bonny told the modiste she wanted mourning gowns in muslin and in sarcenet, with matching pelisses. She also ordered a hooded black cloak trimmed in black fur with a muff to match.
As Bonny and Emily were leaving the shop, Lady Lavinia Heffington entered. A pang of jealousy seized Bonny when she looked at the beautiful woman, whose rust-colored dress and matching pelisse and hat fit to perfection and complemented her milky skin and copper hair.