“I think I will be very happy.” She gave a bright smile when she said it, and she even believed it. In her heart, however, a little sadness lingered. She would be happy because she chose to be and because only a fool would not be happy if she was a duchess. While they remained in the first blush of marriage, she would even be very happy. She would know that he had already known his great passion with another woman, however. She would accept that he would probably seek out passion with others again, eventually.
At least with his insistence on discretion she might not learn about that when it happened. She could probably lie to herself for years.
Something passed between the two women in the looks they gave each other. “Well,” Clara said, “there is much to do in the next days. You will need a wardrobe fitting your station, of course, and your own coach and pair.”
“I would like my own phaeton.”
“A phaeton no less. Can you handle one?”
“I began learning at Teyhill. Brentworth taught me.”
“He sounds very accommodating to your preferences,” Clara said, casting another look at Amanda. “Did he give you anything you wanted?”
“Not the land, of course. That is why we went there. I regret I did not find enough proof for him, although I found enough for me. However, he is rebuilding the manor house, and even rehabilitating the gardens, so I suppose he gave me that. I don’t think it was his intention to do that otherwise.”
“You astonish me,” Clara said. “I find it difficult to see him doing anything he did not intend to do. He sounds almost romantic.”
“We have become friends.”
“Friends,” Amanda said curiously. “Friends,” she repeated to Clara.
“I do not think Brentworth ever had a woman friend,” Clara said. “Most men do, but not him. He does not see either of us as friends. We are the wives of his friends, which is something else.”
Davina shrugged. “I do not doubt I am his friend, so he has changed, it appears.” It was the one thing she did not doubt, and she clung to it. If she loved this friend in other than friendly ways, at least there was some kind of affection returned.
“Did he give you this?” Amanda asked, touching her fingertip to a simple necklace hanging around Davina’s neck.
Davina fingered the stone dangling on the gold chain. “Last night. He brought it to me. It was his mother’s jewel. But he said it was mine, and not part of the family hoard, whatever that is.”
“I will explain all of that, and other such things you need to know. The lessons I received from Clara are still very fresh,” Amanda said.
“You married in Scotland. Was there a contract?” Clara asked.
“No contract. Just the two of us and the witnesses. We signed the church book, of course.”
“No contract,” Clara murmured. “That will never do. One more thing to be handled soon. I will have my husband broach the matter with him. It was a mere oversight of the moment, I am sure.”
“I have nothing, so it will not be complicated.”
“It is always complicated. And utterly necessary. Leave it to me, however. Now, tell me, do you want some time to get your sea legs, or do you want us to start introducing you to people? I daresay you can call on whoever you like. No one refuses to receive Brentworth.”
“Sea legs sound good to me, thank you.”
“We will allow you a fortnight. We can address your wardrobe during that time, and you can demand the phaeton from Brentworth.”
* * *
No one brought Brentworth to any back chambers when he entered St. James’s the next drawing room day. The king left the diplomat he conversed with, crossed the chamber and greeted him as if they were brothers. With winks and smirks, he let it be known that this marriage to Davina pleased him very much indeed.
After Brentworth extricated himself from the king’s attention, Haversham pulled him aside. “A splendid resolution, Your Grace. Felicitations on your nuptials.”
“It was a most felicitous coincidence that I decided she suits me and I her. It had nothing to do with the king’s preference.”
“We don’t need to emphasize that to him, do we? He is happy. You are happy. All is well. As for your wife’s claim, we have found nothing. However, I think if a bill is introduced to reinstate the lands to that family, with her as the inheritor, it will have no difficulty in passing both houses.”
“I think it would be nice if the title is reinstated too.”
Haversham’s lips folded in. “That is more complicated. The baron was a rabble-rousing Jacobite. Had he not died in battle, he would have been among those executed. Our research into this entire matter uncovered evidence of that, unfortunately.”
“It was long ago. No one remembers. No one will care.”
“I am not so sure, Your Grace. After the recent Radical War, emotions can be strong on the question.”
“Haversham, I have complete confidence that you can make it happen. Once the lands are returned, she will ask the Lord Lyon in Scotland to recognize her as baroness, which, because it is a feudal barony with the title derived from ownership of the land, they will do. What happens here will be a formality, and it would cause unnecessary hard feelings if it were resisted.”
Haversham pondered the problem.
“Also, while the king remains under the illusion that I sold my manhood in marriage to save him from dishonor, tell him about our current attempts to return the slavery question to Parliament’s attention. I do not expect him to speak in favor of any bills. I only ask that he not speak against them.”
Haversham grimaced. “I’m not sure—”
Eric arched a brow at him.
“I will see what I can do, Your Grace.”
He took his leave of the sycophants flattering the king and now closing in to flatter the Duke of Brentworth. He rode back to Mayfair and stopped on Bond Street. He mounted the stairs to the dressmaker’s shop Davina said the duchesses were taking her to this afternoon.
“Your Grace.” The owner of the shop, Mrs. Dove, swept out and curtsied low. “It has been a long time.”
“I trust you did not mention to my wife that there was ever another time.” Clara and Amanda would have to choose a shop he had visited with several mistresses.
“Of course not, Your Grace. You have never been here before. The ladies are choosing designs and fabrics. If you come with me, you can inspect the orders submitted thus far.”
He did not doubt Clara would see to this with good taste and aplomb. All the same, he followed Mrs. Dove for no more reason than he wanted to see Davina.
Davina jumped up when he entered and came over to him. The duchesses exchanged unfathomable looks with each other.
“How good of you to join us, Brentworth,” Clara said. “I promise we are not bankrupting you, if that is your concern.”
“They are rather overdoing it,” Davina whispered. “They asked if you had given me an amount and when I said you had not, they went a little mad.”
“I have no concern about the bills, Clara. I am just curious to see what you have chosen.”
Davina took him to her place at the table and laid out fashion drawings and trims and pointed to colors. Her excitement touched him. He was glad he had interrupted.
He lifted one of the dinner dress plates. “Not this color. Primrose.”
She looked up and blinked at him. Then she smiled. “Ah, I remember. Primrose it will be.”
He glanced around the chamber, laden with fabric samples and stuffed with ladies’ frothy things. He spied a Venetian shawl gently patterned with blue on cream.
“Have you chosen the carriage ensembles yet?”
“One. It is lovely.” She pulled out a drawing. It appeared appropriate for London or the southern counties, but not for anything farther north.
“Davina will need a few more,” he told Clara. “At least two with fur. Ermine for one, because I favor it. Also cloaks. One of those should be fur as well.”
�
�Now you are overdoing it,” Davina murmured. “I promise not to take chills.”
“I’ll not have you cold.”
“Leave it to us, Brentworth. An excess of fur will be commissioned,” Clara said. “Amanda, where is the drawing we set aside, the one with the fur mantle?”
The two of them shuffled paper. He took the opportunity to give Davina a kiss. “It will be our first evening at home alone in London. I have some gifts for you.”
“Thank you, but this is already too generous.”
“Nonsense,” Clara interrupted, not even pausing in her perusal of the carriage ensembles.
“As she said, nonsense.” He gave her another kiss, letting his lips linger on hers. “I am going to Whitehall. I will see you at dinner.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The dining room at Brentworth’s house in Mayfair would suit a state dinner. Davina almost giggled when she and Brentworth took their places at the table with all those other chairs empty. Three footmen served them, which seemed two too many to her.
“The cook is from Milan,” Brentworth explained while she spooned some odd rice dish onto her plate. “He is full of fire and sends for ingredients from all over. Italy, Portugal, France. It was suggested to him by my father that the accounts had gotten out of hand. He threatened to leave. My father liked his food, so he stayed and I pay for things I can’t pronounce.”
“This is very good. Who would think rice could be so flavorful? And the joint tasted different from any other I have ever had. Am I supposed to supervise him, or will the housekeeper manage that?”
“No one supervises Marco Innocenti. You can try if you like, however. By all means, let him know what you want if you favor certain foods or preparations.”
She peppered him with some other questions about his expectations of her. He told her about the bills he was shepherding and hoped to see pass. She thought it noble of him to fight the continued use of slaves in the Indies. Great Britain had outlawed the slave trade, and its navy even interfered with ships engaged in it. To still allow slaves in the colonies was a terrible hypocrisy.
As the dinner wound down and the last of the wine had been drunk, he took her hand. “I am glad that soon you will have that new wardrobe, although in my mind I will always remember how lovely you appeared in your simpler garments.”
“I intend to keep them, so you may not have to rely on memories. There will be times I want to do something that might ruin those fine ensembles.”
“I would ask what activities you refer to, but I think I will wait for another day to learn that. I told you that I have some gifts for you. Several. The first I will give you now. A bill will be brought to Parliament, reinstating Teyhill to you. The king will let it be known he supports it. You will have fulfilled your mission.”
She should have been elated. She was happy, true, and she showed it, she hoped. She was getting what she thought her family deserved. But she had never found the proof that said it was in fact her family. She believed it was, but there would be those who always claimed she was a charlatan who only succeeded because she had turned Brentworth’s head.
She admitted it might only be half a loaf, but it was the better half and she would take it. Perhaps one day she would stumble upon the evidence she had been trying to find. She would prefer this were not a gift, but a right.
“There are other gifts?” she asked. “This news would be enough for one day.”
“There are several. Up in your chamber you will find two of them. I would like you to be wearing them when I visit tonight.”
“Do you expect me to sit here longer and talk, when I know surprises wait for me up there? That may be impossible. All I will do is try to get you to tell me what they are.”
“I expect you to run up and see them, so I can spend a very long night with you.” He raised and kissed her hand. “I have thought about little else all day and am half mad over it. Go now.”
She went to give him a kiss before scurrying out and up the stairs. In her chamber, her ladies’ maid had already prepared her bed and laid out a nightgown. A simple, practical one. After Brentworth had left today, after she assumed they were finished at Mrs. Dove’s, Amanda had insisted that some other items be commissioned to replace these serviceable ones.
Charlotte, her maid, stuck her head into the bedchamber from where she had been working in the dressing room. “His Grace’s valet brought something earlier. It is in here.”
Davina went into the dressing room. It was a sumptuous chamber, as large as the one with the bed, with a big fireplace and two damask-covered divans and a special spot for a tub that waited in a cupboard built into a corner. Charlotte pointed to one of the divans. Two packages, one small and one large, both wrapped in silk, rested on the cushion.
“Are you retiring, Your Grace? Should I prepare water for you to wash?”
“Please do.” She sat on the divan and pulled the ribbon on the little package. The cloth fell open to reveal a small wooden box. She pried that open to see the contents. Pearls. A string of them, perfectly matched. Beautiful. Priceless.
She called Charlotte over to see. She handed them to the maid, who ogled while she fingered the orbs. “Why, each one could keep a lady for a year,” she said.
“Leave it on the dressing table.” Davina opened the larger gift.
She recognized the shawl at once. It had caught her eye as soon as she entered that back chamber at Mrs. Dove’s shop. When she asked about buying it before she left, however, Mrs. Dove had informed her it was spoken for.
She lifted one corner high, and the thin silk fell like luminous water. The blue sprigs on the cream background would look perfect with a dress the color of primroses. She rose and draped it over the back of the divan. Of all the purchases made today, this one pleased her the most because Brentworth had seen it and thought she might like it.
Charlotte began her duties. Davina submitted, although having a maid take care of her would take some getting used to. The notion of lying abed until another woman came to get you out of bed struck her as a little stupid, and she doubted she would ever conform to that practice.
Face and body washed, hair brushed, clean and ready in her simple nightdress, she sent Charlotte away. She draped the shawl around her shoulders. The silk’s texture caressed her bare arms, but it looked silly with the muslin dress beneath it.
Feeling daring and naughty while she did it, she removed the dress and again draped the shawl. The silk created a wicked sensation on her whole body. She sat at the dressing table and began clasping the pearls around her neck.
Hands took it from her and finished. In her looking glass, she could see Brentworth’s brocade banyan and a V of his skin above where it was buttoned.
She ran her fingertips over the pearls. “It is perfect. Lovely. Thank you, and for this too.” She smoothed her hand over the shawl.
His hands followed, sliding down from her shoulders and over her breasts. “You are perfect. Jewels and silks are mere decoration.”
He caressed her like that, standing behind her, his strong hands visible in the looking glass while he touched her through that silk, and the fabric increased the sensuality. Watching that, feeling it, mesmerized her. Her head lulled back against him, but she did not close her eyes entirely. She kept watching.
He cast aside the edges of the silk and exposed her breasts. The pulse of pleasure made her sway against him and arch her back. Light touches, torturous ones, had her close to groaning. He circled and brushed her nipples, drawing gasps out of her, pushing her to the edge, where abandon beckoned. She felt his arousal, swollen and hard, heating the back of her neck.
A scandalous impulse joined her fever. A shocking one. The notion turned into an urge. Should she? Dare she? She heard his voice in her memory. No rules.
* * *
She was honest in her passion. Free. She did not resist what it did to her. How it transformed her. His desire turned savage when he saw her like this.
She spr
awled in the little chair now, her legs parted, the silk of the shawl’s ends falling between her thighs. Her head pressed him and her breasts rose high, their tips tight and dark. She shuddered whenever he caressed them. Lips parted, she watched through the slits where her lids had not closed entirely.
He cupped one breast and bent over and licked. A little cry escaped her, then another and more yet in a rising pitch of need. She raised her arm to circle his neck and hold him like that. He moved to the side of the chair for better purchase.
Only she did not want more. She took his head in her hands and held him to a deep kiss. Her tongue plunged and explored and demanded. She refused his attempt to join her, fending him off aggressively. While she kissed him, she unbuttoned his banyan.
He shrugged it off gladly. During the next kiss, she took his cock in both her hands. She stopped the kisses and pressed her lips to his shoulder, then his chest. He stood tall and watched what she was doing, balanced on rigid legs so pleasure did not bring him to his knees.
Her hands had him reeling. The path of her kisses made him grit his teeth. She could not know how suggestive this was, and what it was doing to him. He was on the verge of asking, begging, instructing when she showed she needed no encouragement. Her mouth closed on him, then took him in more fully. He threw back his head and closed his eyes, and his mind split while an ever-tightening pleasure thundered in him.
He lifted her up in his arms and dumped her on the divan. He dropped to his knees, spread her thighs and lifted her hips. He found enough sense not to ravish her, but to start slowly, but soon her cries begged for more, and he indulged what he wanted, using his mouth and tongue, claiming what was his, only his. Her surprised gasps drove him on. He made her moan with want, almost weep with it, before he felt the trembles that heralded her end. Her earthy scream almost took him with her.
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