The Duchess

by Danielle Steel

  “OhmyGod…yes…yes…oh my darling, I love you,” she said, as he stood up and took her in his arms and held her. All he could envision was their bright future together, and all their dreams come true. And as he held her, she knew that there were things she should say to him, but she didn’t want to lose him. She wondered if she should tell him about Paris, and Le Boudoir, but perhaps he didn’t need to know. She didn’t want to hurt him, nor lie to him, and she was troubled by it, and all she knew was how much she loved him and wanted to be his wife. She had never felt that way before. “I love you so much” was all she could say. He didn’t know about her being a nanny, or her brother abandoning her either. There was so much he didn’t know, and he accepted her as she was. How much more could she ask, and how could she risk losing him now if she told him everything? But what if he found out? New York seemed so far away from all that had happened to her in the past three years. She clung to him like a lost child, as he began to make plans for the future.

  “We have to find a house,” he said, looking excited, “and I want to get married soon. We don’t have to wait.” And then he thought of something. “Should I write to your brother and ask him for your hand? I know you said you don’t get along, but I don’t want to offend him, or do something improperly.”

  “He won’t be offended,” she said quietly, brought to earth by what Andrew said. “He won’t care. He hates me. You don’t need to ask anyone.”

  “Should we invite him to the wedding, and your other brother?”

  “Certainly not. If you do, I won’t come,” she teased him, and he laughed.

  “I want you to meet my father as soon as he gets back from Boston. He’s been insanely busy for the past few months. I know he’ll love you,” Andrew said happily.

  Three days later, he gave her an engagement ring that was far bigger than anything she’d expected, with an intricate setting and a large diamond in the center. She would have been happy with a tiny ring or none at all. It was Andrew that she loved, not what he could give her. She had never been as happy in her life, thinking of their future, and the days ahead of them. And now he wanted to introduce her to his friends as his future wife. But he thought it best to introduce her to his father first, who was a stickler about tradition and form and very old-fashioned. Andrew warned her that he was very conservative in his beliefs, but he was sure he would be enchanted by her. He knew that everyone would be, and he was most of all.

  He wanted to plan for their wedding and didn’t see why they should wait long. They both knew what they wanted, and were of a reasonable age, and as he said it, she admitted to him that she was younger than she’d said at first. She said it seemed more respectable to her than her proper age. “I’m really twenty-one,” she said shyly. It was the only truth she was willing to admit to him of the lies she’d told. And he laughed at her confession and was pleased. He was thirty, and he thought their ages right together. He thought everything about their union was perfect, and he was certain his father would think so too. Angélique hoped that would be the case and was nervous about meeting him. Andrew made him sound daunting and a little stiff, but she was sure he loved his only son, and wanted him to be happy, and they were.

  “Let’s get married in February, on Saint Valentine’s Day,” Andrew suggested, and she loved the idea too.

  “It doesn’t give us much time to plan,” she said thoughtfully. “Do you want a big wedding?” She wasn’t sure how to arrange it, especially in New York. She could have done so in Paris or London, but not here. The city was too new to her.

  “Not really,” he said honestly. “You have no friends here, and if you don’t want your family to come from England, it would feel wrong to have hundreds of my acquaintances whom you don’t know. Why don’t we try to keep it small?” And he didn’t say it, but since she was a recent widow, he didn’t think they should have a showy wedding, and he was sure his father would think so too. Andrew thought an intimate wedding would be more appropriate, with only his father and closest friends. He didn’t care how they got married, as long as they did, and the sooner the better. And he couldn’t wait to start a family with her, and she liked that idea too. All she wanted now was to be his wife and have his babies. And she wanted to write to the girls from Le Boudoir and tell them, so they wouldn’t expect her to come back and open the house again. She knew Fabienne would be happy for her. Angélique had written to her when she got to New York, and Fabienne had responded that she and Jacques had gotten married in October and a baby was already on the way. Their lives had changed so much.

  She was planning to sell the furniture from Le Boudoir that she had put in storage. She didn’t want the furniture from her brothel in their new home. She had written to them as well and the storage company was going to sell it for her.

  Angélique could hardly absorb it all as she and Andrew made plans, and he told her that they were having supper with his father the night before Christmas Eve, and he was very excited to meet her, and pleased for his son. From everything Andrew had described to him, she sounded like the perfect girl, and Andrew knew she was.

  —

  The night they went to supper with his father, she wore a simple black velvet gown, with just enough bosom showing, but not too much, her mother’s pearls, and a small tiara in her hair that had been her maternal grandmother’s when she was a young girl. It was something Angélique had always treasured and had only worn once before when she went to a ball in London with her father, and after that he got sick, they stopped going to town, and she never wore it again. It seemed appropriate to wear tonight, with the beautiful engagement ring Andrew had given her. His breath caught when he picked her up at the hotel. She looked exquisite, and he had never been so proud in his life. He couldn’t wait for his father to meet her.

  Angélique was a little startled when the carriage pulled up to an enormous mansion on Pearl Street. She hadn’t expected it to be quite so grand, and was a little daunted for a moment, but she had been in bigger houses before, she reminded herself. And Belgrave, where she had grown up, was many times larger than this. She had never told Andrew anything about it, there was no reason to, since it was no longer hers and she couldn’t go there anymore. There was no point crying about the past with the future so bright.

  Two footmen and a butler let them into the house, which reminded her of Belgrave again, but everything here seemed newer, and smaller of course, than their vast ancestral home in England. The front hall of Andrew’s father’s house was all done in marble, with an enormous chandelier of candles to light the room. She took off her wrap and left it with one of the footmen, as Andrew led her into the large drawing room, where his father was waiting for them. He had his back to them, and was looking out at the garden with a drink in his hand, wearing white tie and tails, as Andrew was. His father turned, and the two men exchanged a warm glance, and he then turned his gaze to his future daughter-in-law with a welcoming smile, and as he did, Angélique nearly fainted, and so did he, as they stared at each other in disbelief.

  It was John Carson, the American financier, who had proposed to her only three months before at Le Boudoir, and whom she had refused. He had clearly used “Carson” as an alias for his visits to Le Boudoir, and not his real name. Neither of them said anything for a minute, as his face hardened and Angélique tried to cover her shock at seeing him and went deathly pale. It was a final cruel turn of fate in too many recent years of them. He had been deeply infatuated with her, and first offered to make her his mistress, and then was determined to marry her once he was widowed, despite her running a brothel. He had been willing to do almost anything to marry her and had been shocked and angry when she declined, and now she was marrying his son. It was almost too ironic to be true. He knew about her past in Paris, and she was terrified that he would tell Andrew now.

  “I…how do you do…,” she said, curtsying to him in deep respect, with tears glittering in her eyes. She prayed that he would be able to get over what had happened, and
accept her as Andrew’s future wife, but the look in his eyes was one of pure fury, and Andrew saw it too.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked his father, glancing from him to Angélique, unable to understand the expression on his father’s face.

  “Not at all,” John said to his son. “Happy to meet you,” he said to Angélique, finished his drink, and signaled a footman for another, and sat down in the drawing room with them with an unpleasant expression. All he wanted to do was get through the evening, and get her out of his house and his son’s life. There was no way he would allow Andrew to marry her, although he had been willing to himself, had wanted to very much, and had done everything he could to convince her. He hadn’t recovered from her refusal yet. And now this cruel turn of fate as they met again.

  Supper was agonizingly painful and silent, as John continued to drink heavily, said not a word to her, never even glanced at her, and spoke to his son about business matters as though she wasn’t there. Andrew had no idea what was going on, but Angélique looked ill all night and barely ate. And as soon as the meal was over, his father stood up and asked to have a word with him alone. He walked into the library, and acted like a raging bull the moment Andrew closed the door and turned to him.

  “What is going on?” He had never seen his father look that way before, like an animal in a cage.

  “You cannot marry that woman!” his father shouted at him. “I won’t allow it! You must break it off at once!”

  “Why? I don’t understand. You’ve been acting like a maniac all night.”

  “I know things about her that you don’t. She’s a whore, Andrew, and nothing more. She’s after you for your money, and mine.” If that had been true, she would have accepted his offer in Paris, and she had turned him down flat, but the last thing he wanted was for his son to marry the woman he had wanted, and what’s more one who had been the madam of a Paris brothel. He considered himself old enough to make a choice like that, but not his son. Andrew’s mother had been a respectable woman, from one of the finest families in New York, no matter how much they had come to dislike each other. This girl was anything but respectable, no matter how distinguished she seemed. In John’s opinion, it was an act, convincing but certainly not enough to warrant her marrying his son. “I will do everything I can to stand in the way of your marriage, Andrew. You must stop this travesty at once.”

  “It’s not a travesty, I love her. She’s a wonderful person. Have you ever met her before?”

  “No!” his father shouted at him, lying to him, but he could hardly admit the truth, that he had met her in a bordel, and proposed to her himself. But he was worried now that Angélique would tell Andrew, if she told him the truth about the rest. It was a risk for him, a serious one. He would never want his son to know something like that about him. Had she agreed to marry him, he would have invented a proper history for her, just as she herself had done to marry his son. “You know nothing of her history. I do. I’ve never met her,” he lied again, “but I’ve heard about her from others. She’s quite famous in Paris. What did she tell you about herself?”

  “That she has two brothers who don’t like her and whom she hates. Her parents are dead. She was married in Paris, her husband died, and she came here for a change of scene. And I met her on the ship. Why? What do you know different from that?” Andrew looked worried, but not very. He was far more upset by how badly his father had behaved, and what he was saying now, all of which sounded like lies to him. “Are you upset because she’s European, and not an American girl from a family you know?” He was such a snob that it was possible. Andrew felt sure his father would never have gotten involved with a European woman himself. Little did he know of what his father did.

  “That has nothing to do with it, although you don’t need to go abroad to find a wife. There are plenty of nice girls here. She’ll destroy your political career and your chance to be important in politics. And I can tell you one thing—I will do everything in my power to prevent you marrying that girl!” He was still shouting, and his eyes and a vein in his forehead were bulging, he was so crazed. “Tell her to tell you the truth about herself, and let’s see if she does! I can assure you it has nothing to do with the story you know.” He was pacing the room as he spoke. Andrew hadn’t moved as he watched him.

  “She’s an honest person, and I will ask her. We all have secrets we don’t want others to know. If she has any, I’m sure she’ll tell me the truth. But I’m thirty years old, Father. You can’t tell me who to marry, or forbid me to marry a woman I love. I won’t end up like you and Mother, hating each other for thirty years, lonely and miserable, because you married someone from the ‘right’ family. I’d rather be married to someone from the wrong family, than the wrong woman, which is what you did. And you can’t dictate to me how to live my life. I was just engaged to a girl you considered the right one, and she ran off with my best friend after cheating on me.” He was angry now too. He had never seen such appalling behavior from his father before, and he was deeply sorry for Angélique, who had lived through an evening of torture and been dignified and polite about it, although she looked like she was about to burst into tears.

  “I’m sure this one will cheat on you too, very quickly. And my marriage to your mother and the reasons for it are none of your business.”

  “I watched the two of you loathe each other all my life, barely able to stand being in the same room. I don’t want that for myself.” They both knew he was right, but John said nothing as he stared at his son miserably.

  “Get rid of her,” he said bluntly. “You’ll regret it if you don’t. And I will never have her in my house again. If you stay with her out of some folly, or because she lies to you, don’t expect me to receive her or ever see her again.”

  “I don’t know why she’d want to after the way you behaved tonight,” Andrew said, as he strode to the door and yanked it open. “Goodnight, Father. Thank you for supper.” And with that, he walked out and slammed the door behind him, as John looked at it, sank heavily into a chair, and suddenly felt a hundred years old. She had rejected him, and now she was marrying Andrew. He had wanted to own her, possess her, and give her everything he had. He had done everything he could to lure her and convince her. He had been obsessed with her, and still was, and now Andrew had won. And at that exact moment, he didn’t know who he hated more, Angélique or his son, for having her.

  Chapter 19

  Andrew and Angélique rode back to the hotel in silence. He was stone-faced, thinking about his father, and what he’d said, and Angélique was sure he was furious with her, and she was deathly afraid of what his father had told him behind closed doors after supper. Her face was ashen in the darkened carriage as she sat up straight in her seat. She expected never to see Andrew again. He wouldn’t marry her now after what his father must have told him, and she was prepared to give him back the ring when they got back to the hotel. She didn’t want to give it to him in the carriage and risk dropping it on the floor. But she had no doubt that their engagement was over as she fought tears. She just wanted to be alone now to grieve what they had had so briefly. It was yet another loss in her life, an important one.

  The doorman helped her down from the carriage, and Andrew looked at her seriously. “May I come upstairs?” She nodded. She would give him the ring there. He didn’t have to ask for it. She understood. She didn’t deserve it, and she hadn’t told him the truth about her life. It had been an incredibly cruel turn of fate that the man who had proposed to her in Paris under an assumed name, and whom she had refused, had turned out to be Andrew’s father. She couldn’t imagine anything worse except if she had slept with him. Thank God she hadn’t. She truly couldn’t have faced Andrew then.

  The moment they were in the parlor of her suite, Andrew gently took her shoulders in his hands and spoke to her kindly. “I want you to sit down, and we’re going to talk. My father says that there are things about you I don’t know. I want you to tell me everything now, no matter
how bad you think it is. I love you, and it won’t make a difference to me. But I should know, so something like this doesn’t happen again. If I’m to be your husband, I want to know everything about you. Love is about loving not just the good parts, but the bad parts too.” Tears rolled down her cheeks as he said it, and they sat down.

  “I don’t deserve you,” she said in a choked voice, as he held her hand. “Would you like your ring back now?” She began to take it off, and he stopped her.

  “No, I wouldn’t. Now start at the beginning. We can skip diapers and your first nanny, but I want to hear the rest, so I understand things better.” He could vaguely guess what his father had been hinting at, but he wasn’t sure. And now he wanted to know. “I want the whole truth, all of it. There should be no secrets between us.”

  “My mother died when I was born, she was French. You already know that. She was a Bourbon and an Orléans, and her family was killed in the Revolution. My father was Phillip, Duke of Westerfield, also related to the king. And he loved me very much. He was wonderful to me.” Her eyes filled with tears as she said it, especially after tonight. “We lived in a very big house called Belgrave Castle, in Hertfordshire. It’s a beautiful house. And my father was married before. He had two sons by his first marriage, and they hated my mother, and me even more, and were jealous of me all my life. We had a house in Grosvenor Square too, where my oldest brother lived for the last few years, before my father died. Tristan, my oldest brother, has a dreadful wife named Elizabeth, and two daughters. They all hate me too.” Andrew was listening to her quietly, and could imagine the scene; first marriage, jealous sons, Angélique the apple of her father’s eye.

  “Because of the laws in England,” she went on, “my oldest brother had to inherit everything. The title, my father’s fortune, Belgrave Castle, Grosvenor Square, all of it. My father couldn’t leave me anything, not legally anyway. He wanted Tristan to let me live in a large cottage on the estate when he died, but Tristan wouldn’t allow it, nor let me stay at home. I was eighteen when my father died, and he gave me some money and my mother’s jewelry the night before he died, and that’s all I was entitled to, unless my brother wanted to be more generous with me.