by Regina Darcy
And Michael would expect James to come to Dennington for Christmas, to bask in the glow of a family which was not James’s family, and to wallow in the connubial bliss of matrimony. A wife, a son, with no memory of a false mother to sour his anticipation of the holiday. To be fair, Michael’s invitation to the country had been extended on a regular basis ever since his marriage, when suddenly hearth and home and family had taken on a significance which was quite inexplicable to James.
No, James thought as he locked his ledger in the safe, keeping it private, because, in those pages, the secrets of London were revealed. He would not return to Dennington like a modern-day version of the prodigal brother.
He had not dined on the husks of the food thrown to the pigs; he had not squandered his inheritance in loose living. He had no inheritance except for his wits and he took complete credit for those. He had left Oxford when there was no more to learn and he had turned his financial acumen into profit, offering his services to impoverished lords and upstart entrepreneurs who sought, respectively, a way to hold onto their vanishing wealth or a means of acquiring it.
He was known as a man of discretion, and in a city which was incapable of keeping its own counsel, such a reputation was its own currency. James Dalton was wealthy enough to buy his infant nephew a most impressive gift, and that he would do.
But he would not grace the ancestral home with his presence on Christmas Day.
No, that he would not do. What purpose would it serve to return home and be reminded of what was not his? Michael, who in earlier days had not been of a monkish disposition, was now the consummate married man, and former bachelors were the very worst when it came to urging others to matrimony. Michael knew very well that the young ladies of the ton were tedious and tiresome flirts, and James knew very well that at heart, even a married woman had a view to the liberties which would be hers once she had successfully fulfilled her marital duty. An heir for the title, a spare should something go wrong, and after that, the beau monde pretended not to notice when a child in the nursery bore absolutely no resemblance to its supposed father but instead was remarkably like the bounder who had captivated the larcenous affections of the mother.
Marriage. It was not for him. It was not that he disputed the potential appeal of matrimony, but what purpose was there in aspiring to a state which was populated by such disappointing failures? If there were wives to be found who were gentle of heart, faithful of body, wise in wit, and accomplished in character, he would be searching for one. But such a paragon did not exist.
James rose and straightened his frock coat. He was as attentive to his dress as Beau Brummel had been at the height of his popularity. But Brummel, too, had fallen prey to the cards and had fled London and his debtors.
James owed no master.
He left his office and went out into the rooms of the Imperial. This was his estate, his kingdom, and here, he ruled with a careful and discerning sceptre.
But he was not a philanthropist nor a gentleman, a point he had tried to make to the beleaguered Digby Stiers.
He was a businessman.
TWO
“I believe, Miss Cassandra, that it is regarded as a gift of peerless excellence,” said Sarah, the maid, her words distinctly at variance with her tone.
“It is dead, Sarah. It was once alive, and now, it is dead, and His Grace thinks that I am to be won over with such offerings.”
The two women, the maid and her mistress, looked at the lustrous fur coat which had arrived at the Bennet home that afternoon, delivered by a servant of the Duke of Cantenberg. The manservant had arrived in an elegant carriage adorned with the ducal crest.
Her family had been dazzled by the servant’s livery, and even though her sisters teased her about her beau, she knew that they, thinking her happy in the match, were happy for her. Her father, a gentle man if not a gentleman, masked his reaction to the sight of the elaborately fashioned fur coat. Her mother, dubious about such a garment, was able to muster her manners if not her sincerity as she instructed the servant to convey their daughter’s gratitude to His Grace.
For Cassandra Bennet had been speechless at the gift. She had been enjoying the day and the bustle of activity which took place every year as the servants prepared the house for Christmas. Her family did not shirk their roles in the seasonal cleaning which was a tradition, and even Cassandra was as adept as a housemaid when it came to polishing and cleaning the house so that it was ‘fit for the Lord’s birth’ as Mother put it. The Bennets were a comfortably middle-class family, but with five daughters to marry off, Father would not be averse, Cassandra was sure, to seeing her married well. He and Mother would never pressure her to accept the Duke’s suit, but Cassandra was mindful of her filial duty to the family.
It was her duty, she was sure, to accept the Duke’s proposal and what went with it. If she married well, her sisters’ prospects would improve immeasurably, for it was no minor achievement to have a duchess in the family. Amelia, Bethany, Delilah, and Emily would gauge their prospects by the standard that Cassandra set, and the Bennets as a family would be judged by the marriages of their daughters.
“I suppose,” Sarah said, “you will have to wear it.”
“I cannot bear the thought of it,” Cassandra replied. But she knew that Sarah was accurate in her supposition. The Duke would expect his munificent gift to be on display. Even though it was not suitable for a young lady to accept gifts from a man, Jeffrey Ogden regarded his gifts as a succession of gilded fetters, each one shackling Cassandra to her fate as his betrothed.
“I wonder if he knows that I do not love him,” Cassandra said in a low voice.
“Miss Cassandra, I don’t know that he could conceive of such a thing,” Sarah said. Although she was only a maid, she wasn’t a lackwit and she knew how to judge a man’s character.
Jeffrey Ogden was a duke. Therefore, to his mind, any woman would be grateful to be courted by him. He had a magnificent estate, Scarsdale; he had an elegant carriage; he was attractive. What more could a woman want?
“He is the shallowest man that I have ever known!” Cassandra exclaimed, freely voicing her opinions in the company of her maid, to whom she could say things she would never have uttered to her family. “He constantly speaks of his tailor, and his horses, and who he saw when riding on Rotten Row. As if I care! What is it to me if he is acquainted with the most illustrious members of the ton? I am not of their breed nor do I want to be.”
Sarah believed her mistress. The Bennets were a loving family, fond of one another and not at all greedy or pretentious in their ways. They were well regarded in the county and acquitted themselves well in their social activities. They were faithful in church attendance and respected for their acts of charity toward others in the community who were in need. But these were the traits of the middle-class folk, not the aristocracy, and Sarah did not perceive how her mistress would be able to shape her character to suit the standards of the upper classes.
Miss Cassandra was one-and-twenty years of age. Although she had benefitted from the smart polish of the local finishing school, as a result of having impressed Lady Deborah, the Countess of Harkshire, who had endorsed her for the school, she was not one given to pretentious airs.
How would she fare as the wife of a man as arrogant and vain as the Duke, Sarah wondered? Not well.
But it was the way of marriage, Sarah had noticed. Even in her family, her parents wanted their daughter to marry with an eye toward financial stability.
Not a servant for a husband, no, that would not suit. A shopkeeper or a farmer, those were the best options, they felt. One did what one’s parents directed, of course, for no girl had the freedom to make her own choice.
“Do you know,” Cassandra said, sounding conversational, except that Sarah knew very well that her mistress was aggrieved and in need of an opportunity to express her true thoughts, “that he has not read the poetry of either Lord Byron or Mr Shelley? He knows who Lord Byron is, of course, but
only because he is a peer of the realm. Is that not the saddest thing? To have no response to such soaring poetry, but to account a man worthy because of his birth.”
Sarah, who knew a bit more, thanks to servants’ gossip, about Lord Byron than did her mistress, had no response to make to this. She was of the understanding that poets were not the most proper of gentlemen, however gifted their writing.
“He will expect me to be part of the hunt, as he is,” Cassandra went on, “even though I think it a horrible sport. But if I fail to measure up to what a duchess ought to be, he will feel cheated out of his due.” Cassandra bit her lower lip and turned towards her maid. “Sarah, I cannot marry him, and yet, I must do so. Whatever shall we talk about, he and I, if we are wed? I have never yet had a conversation with him of any import. Can you fathom that? How can a man speak of nothing? He is not silent; it is not as if he refrains from discussion. But all his words are of his possessions or of those things that he hopes to possess.”
An unbidden thought entered the maid’s mind: Miss Cassandra is one of those things that he hopes to possess.
But she did not release the words into speech. There was no need. Cassandra Bennet was not vain, but she knew that her mirror did not lie. She was a diamond of first water.
“I do not wish to be a possession,” Cassandra sighed.
The Duke coveted her because of her beauty. Because she had lovely golden hair, vivid green eyes and a pleasing female form. If she were plain, he would not be so tireless in his courtship.
She knew this. Did her parents not know it as well? Or were they blind to the Duke’s motives because they loved her for who she was and not for her looks?
It seemed the height of vanity to assess her appeal as a potential bride only because she was pleasing to the eye, but Cassandra knew very well that the Duke would not be pursuing her if she were homely. She was not of the peerage, her family was comfortable but ordinary, and there were no titles, heirlooms, or jewelled tiaras in the Bennet genealogy. She had blonde hair which, she had been told by a suitor with poetic inclinations, looked as if Apollo had touched each strand to turn it to gold.
She had green eyes which, the same swain had insisted, the amorous deity had formed after he’d taken emeralds from Olympus and bestowed them upon her. Cassandra smiled at the memory. Silly Percy, he had been much too florid in his compliments to ever be taken seriously as a suitor, but he had been amusing to speak with, and at least, with Percy, one could actually have a conversation.
Jeffrey Ogden felt that giving her opulent gifts placed the burden of conversation upon her. She was to lavish him with ‘thank you’s in response, and that, the Duke held, was a discourse.
He would expect her to be seen in his gifts—after all, the Christmas season was filled with gatherings, balls, and suppers, and he intended to escort her to all of them.
She knew, although he had not said so, that he intended one of the gatherings at the Bennet townhouse, rented for the Christmas season, to be the site where their engagement would be officially announced. The prospect made her dread the thought of the approaching yuletide, a time which had hitherto filled her with joy.
“I know,” she said apologetically, “that it must seem as though I am dreadfully spoiled. To be wooed by the Duke who has the famed estate at Scarsdale must appear to be the very epitome of a maiden’s dream.”
Sarah smiled in understanding. “Not for you, Miss Cassandra. You’ve never been that way.”
Although Cassandra and Sarah occupied the positions of mistress and maid, they were, in many ways, friends. They had known each other since childhood; Sarah’s mother had been the head parlour maid at the house, even after her marriage to a sailor, and she’d brought her children along, with the Bennets’ blessing, to play with the girls.
Only two years separated Sarah, the elder at three-and-twenty, from Cassandra and they had quickly formed a bond which had only grown stronger when Mr and Mrs Bennet had decided that it was time for Cassandra to have her own lady’s maid. Sarah, who was observant by nature and quick with a needle, was able to notice the attire of other young ladies and easily adapt Cassandra’s wardrobe so that it looked even more fashionable, without the need for a London dressmaker.
She was frugal by nature, saving half of her wages—the other went to her mother, who was now a widow, her sailor husband having been lost at sea five years ago—with the aim of one day opening a dressmaker’s shop in the village.
But for now, her duty and her pleasure were to serve Cassandra, who was a gentle and undemanding mistress.
“Nor are my sisters,” Cassandra went on, “and I do not wish them to become so. But I know that if I am a Duchess… the Duchess of Cantenberg, I will be able to provide them with entry to society, and from there, they will be able to choose from among the most eligible bachelors in England. I ought not to be so unhappy, I suppose. Scarsdale is said to be a beautiful estate,” she said with no enthusiasm. “At least, that is what the Duke says.”
The Duke, Sarah knew, spoke of Scarsdale often. He, of course, paid no attention to the presence of servants when he called upon the Bennets and his conversation dominated the gathering. Scarsdale, he assured them, was beyond compare; it was not an old and rickety ancestral manor that had seen its better days long ago. No, it had been constructed during the reign of Queen Anne and it reflected the modern influence of those years.
The Ogdens, like many other English families, had made their name in military service. The Duke himself had not served in the army; that was a position for younger sons who would not inherit. But the great Marlborough had dined at Scarsdale during his years of prominence.
Mr Bennet, who was something of a student of England’s military history, had been riveted by this disclosure and had confessed to the Duke that he would very much like to see Scarsdale one day.
The Duke, with a purposeful glance at Cassandra, had said that he was sure that such an occasion would not be long in coming.
At his possessive glare, Cassandra had plastered a smile on her face, willing her body not to recoil at the thought of his possession.
THREE
James exited his hackney-cab and stepped onto the pavement, intent upon a series of errands which he needed to accomplish. But he came to an abrupt halt.
There before him was a vision of loveliness. A young woman of surpassing beauty, with a dashing bonnet which did not entirely conceal a crown of golden hair beneath it. The day was a crisp, cool one, and her cheeks were red from the cold. She wore a fur coat which made her impervious to the frigid December air. And yet, bedecked as she was—he spied diamond earrings dangling from her dainty earlobes—she was not smiling. The man at her side was chattering away, and she seemed to be making sounds of agreement, but it did not appear as though she was actively engaged in the conversation.
The woman was unknown to him, but he recognised her companion and, on an impulse, hailed him.
“Ogden,” James exclaimed, just as the pair were about to enter Rundell and Bridges.
The Duke looked about him then saw James approaching.
“Dalton,” he greeted in return. “I did not think you would be about in the light of day. The Imperial takes up your night-time hours, I suspect.”
“It does,” James acknowledged, “but there are tasks which must be attended to, if the club is going to maintain its reputation—and I must see to them.” He inclined his head toward the jewellery shop. “Are you going inside?”
“I am,” the Duke said, tightening his proprietary grip on the young woman’s arm. James noticed a flicker of distaste show itself on the woman’s face and then it vanished, leaving her impassive. “My dear, may I introduce you to James Dalton, who owns the Imperial? James, meet Miss Cassandra Bennet.”
“I am pleased to meet you, Miss Bennet,” James bowed. “I have not seen you before, I think.”
“The Bennets live quietly,” the Duke answered. “But you will be seeing far more of Miss Bennet in the weeks to co
me, and certainly in the coming year, with me.”
“I see. How very fortunate you are,” James said politely, although he could not take his eyes off the beautiful young woman with the unhappy countenance. What sort of female was she, to be immune to the matrimonial lure of a man as rich as Jeffrey Ogden, who was, if city gossip could be relied upon, intent upon entering the jeweller for, James would wager, no purchase of his own?
The Duke chuckled. “Yes,” he agreed, “I do regard myself as fortunate. I think that Miss Bennet would consider herself fortunate as well, do you not, my dear?”
Miss Bennet murmured something. James was not sure what, but it seemed to content the Duke because he patted her arm in a manner which indicated approval.
“Naturally, Miss Bennet is somewhat overawed at the prospect before her, but I have assured her that her humble background is no impediment to a happy future.”
“Quite,” James said.
Really, what a pompous ass Ogden was, to trumpet his betrothed’s lack of status in such a manner. She was easily as beautiful as any pampered belle of the beau monde, with a natural manner which made her stand out.
The Duke appeared not to know how to take this remark.
“Er… let us not keep you, Dalton.” He smiled. “The diamonds, they summon us.”
“And what man,” James continued airily, “can compete with diamonds? Good day to you, Miss Bennet, and I wish you every happiness.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
Her voice was soft; a man could listen to its intonation all day and never tire of the sound, he thought, as he bowed his farewell, watching as the couple entered the shop.