The Duchess

by Danielle Steel

  “Tristan and his family, and my brother Edward, arrived as soon as Papa died, and the night of the funeral, Tristan told me that I would be a burden to him, I no longer had a right to be there. And they arranged to have me hired as a nanny by people they knew in Hampshire, and I would be leaving the next day. They claimed I was a distant cousin, and sent me to some very spoiled rich people, where I was the nanny to their six children and became a servant.” Andrew made no comment, but his heart began to ache for her as he listened, at the vision of a young girl sent away from her home to become a servant after her father’s death. It was a terrible story.

  “I loved the children I took care of. They were very nice, although their parents were spoiled and dreadful. I was there for sixteen months.” And then she told him about Bertie, defending herself, biting him, and the lies he told the next day as revenge. “So I was sacked, and sent away that day without a reference. At first I didn’t understand what that meant. It meant I could not get any kind of job when I went to London. No one would hire me without a character.” Andrew could guess what came next, or thought he could. “They suggested I try France and I might have better luck. I didn’t. No one would hire me there either, not as a nanny, a maid, or to scrub floors. With no reference, I couldn’t get a job.”

  “You don’t need to tell me the rest,” he said gently, not wanting to put her through further agony and confession, and humiliate her totally. He already felt desperately sorry for her.

  “Yes, I do. You said you wanted to know it all. I stayed at a hotel in Paris, trying to figure out what to do. A woman I met said I should try to come to America, but I was afraid to.” She told him about finding Fabienne then, injured in the gutter, beaten by a “client.” And all the things she had told her, and how sorry she felt for girls like her. “And I couldn’t get a job myself, and I didn’t want to end up like them. They were being exploited by everyone, their madams, their pimps, the clients, and getting beaten up, and making nothing. The madams and pimps make all the money,” she informed him, looking very young, and he smiled.

  “So I’ve been told,” he said with a tender look at her. It seemed incredible that she would even know that, given her background and upbringing.

  “So I decided to use some of my father’s money to set up an establishment, a ‘house.’ I set out to buy furniture, find girls with Fabienne’s help, pay them fairly, and set up the best house in Paris, with the best girls, for the best men.” This time Andrew stared at her in disbelief.

  “You set up a brothel?” She had finally shocked him, not with the immorality of it, but with the courage, guts, and spirit of enterprise that had led her to do it.

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice, “I did. And it was wonderful. The house was beautiful. It worked perfectly. The men loved it, the girls were happy, and we made a lot of money, which I shared equally with them. It was the best house in Paris,” she said proudly, and Andrew shook his head and laughed. He would never in a million years have guessed that about her, or that she could do it. She was so demure and aristocratic, and so young.

  “And you were twenty when you did all this?”

  “Yes. It went perfectly for a year and a half.” And then she told him about the murder on their last night in business. “All the most powerful men in Paris came to us, and I knew some important people. The minister of the interior was sort of a patron, and a friend. He helped arrange everything that night.” She told him about that too. “And he said we had to close. He told me to go away for a while, six months or a year, and then I could come back and set it up again, but there was too much risk for scandal if I stayed open. He told me to book passage on a ship and go to America, so I did. I thought I’d come here for six months and then go back. But then I met you on the boat, and we fell in love and got engaged. I wrote to Fabienne and all the girls to tell them I’m not coming back now. I thought they should know.” She looked at him with wide innocent eyes, and he smiled at her. “You know it all now. There is nothing else.” Except one last detail, and he wanted to know that too, just for himself.

  “I have no right to ask you this, Angélique, but I’d rather know and hear it from you. Did you serve the clients too?…the way the girls did?” She shook her head emphatically.

  “No, that was part of our agreement from the beginning. I ran the house. I was the madam, but I never had sex with anyone. I’m still a virgin,” she said quietly. “Some of the men called me the Ice Queen. I spoke to them in the drawing room, I played cards with them, I knew them well, but it never went any further, and I think they respected it.” And so did he.

  “That’s quite a story, of courage and resourcefulness.” And he could tell that she had been honest with him about it. He had trusted her completely, and he wasn’t wrong. And he loved her all the more for everything she’d been through. His father was right, she had lied to him, but he respected her more, not less, after what he’d heard. And in her shoes, he realized he might have lied too.

  “I’m sorry I was afraid to tell you. I thought about it, but I didn’t know how. What about your political career? Won’t that hurt you one day? If your father heard about it, I suppose people know, even here,” she said, although she knew this wasn’t true. She knew that John had met her at the brothel. No one had “told” him in New York.

  “It could. But I’m not worried. People have done worse things here in politics and gotten away with it. This is America—there are some very rough people both in business here and in government. They’re not all gentlemen. And who would believe this anyway? It’s an amazing story.” She nodded, grateful that he hadn’t gotten up and walked out of the room halfway through it. She started to take his ring off then, and he stopped her again. “I love you, Angélique. Thank you for being honest with me. I want to marry you. This doesn’t change anything for me. I just want you to promise me that you’ll never be afraid to tell me the truth again.”

  And then he stopped for a moment and thought about something else he wanted to ask her, just to be sure. “Did you ever see my father there, at the house? Did he ever go there?” She gazed into Andrew’s eyes, and agonized over her answer. She felt she had no right to destroy their relationship, even if John hated her. She didn’t need to damn him to clear herself, and who they saw at the brothel was like a sacred trust they never admitted to anyone. Even a man like John had a right to secrets from his son. She vowed to herself before she answered that it was the last lie she’d ever tell Andrew. He didn’t need to know. It was a generous decision on her part, to protect Andrew’s illusions about his father, more than John.

  “No, I never saw him there,” she said simply, and Andrew nodded.

  “I just wondered. I didn’t think he would, but you never know. He was so outraged. I’ll speak to him tomorrow.” He kissed her then, and she looked at him with eyes wide with surprise and gratitude.

  “You’re sure?” she asked him softly. “I promise you, I will never lie to you again.” And she meant it with her heart and soul.

  “I’m totally sure. I love you.” And then he couldn’t help laughing. “It’s quite exotic. I’m going to be married to a madam, and a duchess.”

  “I’m not a duchess,” she said primly. “My brother’s wife is. But I was a madam.” And then she laughed too. “It really was the best house in Paris. I wish you could have seen it,” she said, sounding like a child again, and then he kissed her hard as he held her. All he wanted was to marry her as soon as he could. Saint Valentine’s Day, or sooner, even now that he knew the truth.

  —

  He strode into his father’s office the next day shortly after his father got there, and stood across the desk from him.

  “She told me everything,” he said, his eyes digging into his father’s.

  “Did she?” He stared back at his son just as hard. “And what would that be?” He was terrified she had told Andrew about him.

  “Being sent away by her brother when her father died, working as a nanny, arriving
in London and then Paris without a reference, and setting up a brothel in Paris. It sounds like quite a place.” His father’s eyes grew even harder, and then he looked away, afraid to meet his son’s gaze.

  “I wouldn’t know, and I don’t want to.” He didn’t dare ask his son if she had said she had met him there, or about his two proposals, first as his mistress, then his wife. But Andrew said nothing about it, which led him to hope that by some miracle she had spared him. He thought Andrew would have said something if he knew. “What about your political ambitions? What happens to all that if someone finds out you’re married to a whore?”

  “She’s not a whore,” Andrew said angrily. “She was a madam. And for a girl of twenty, daughter of a duke, in a crazy way, I think that’s pretty damn impressive.”

  “You’re out of your mind.” He could understand it all too well. He had been out of his mind over her too, and still was. She was that kind of woman, who drove men to wanting her desperately, especially when they couldn’t have her. “And I’m not sure the world will care about the distinction between a whore and a madam. To most people, it’s the same thing.”

  “Apparently, it isn’t. She ran a business.”

  “Let’s not whitewash this, Andrew. She ran a Paris whorehouse, whether or not she slept with the clients. That’s not going to help you become senator, or president one day, if that’s what you want. If anyone finds out, the scandal will blow you right out of whatever seat you’re in.”

  “Maybe I don’t care about that as much as you do. And I’ll take the risk. She’s worth it, and I love her. I’m going to marry her, whether you approve or not.” John Hanson was silent for a long time, and then slumped in his seat. He didn’t want to lose his son, but he would never forgive Angélique either, for loving Andrew and not him. John Hanson was a man who never forgave once he was injured, and held on to enemies for life. She had become one by refusing him in Paris, which he might have forgiven her. But he would never forgive her for preferring his son.

  “Do what you want. But never bring her to my home. Never speak to me of her. I think you’re a fool to marry her, and I want nothing to do with her. I don’t consort with women like that,” he lied to Andrew. “And you shouldn’t either, let alone marry them. And I am begging you to reconsider.” He wouldn’t admit to his son that he would have married her himself if he had the chance, whatever sort of woman she was. She was like a beautiful jewel he had wanted to own. Andrew truly loved her, no matter what she had done in the past.

  “I would ask the same of you, to reconsider. She’s going to be your daughter-in-law, and the mother of your grandchildren one day.” The thought of it made John sick, and he didn’t comment.

  Andrew left then, and had dinner with Angélique at the hotel.

  “How was your father?” she asked in a nervous tone. She was afraid that he might have confessed to meeting her, and then Andrew would know she had lied, although it was her only lie to him now, and one she thought best for him. But apparently John had said nothing, and she suspected now that he never would. And she didn’t intend to tell Andrew either. It made no difference now.

  “He’s an unreasonable man sometimes,” Andrew said quietly. “And if he’s going to be difficult about it, I don’t want to wait to get married. Let’s get married now, in the next week or two. I want to live with you.” She loved that idea too, and they arranged a tiny intimate wedding for New Year’s Eve, with two of his close friends as witnesses. Angélique met them a few days later and loved them, and they were crazy about her. They were looking for a house and hadn’t found one yet. And his bachelor apartment was too small for both of them.

  She and Andrew spent Christmas quietly at the hotel. He went to see his father for a drink, but did not have dinner with him, and neither of them spoke of Angélique.

  And on New Year’s Eve, in a white satin gown she had brought with her, that she had worn once at Le Boudoir on Christmas, she and Andrew were married in a private ceremony at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, modeled after St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London, and he spent the night with her at her hotel.

  They left the next day on a wedding trip for two weeks at the luxurious Greenbrier in Virginia. When they returned, she rapidly became known as one of the most beautiful, elegant women in New York.

  Andrew hadn’t met with his father since before the wedding, and he was in no hurry to see him. He and Angélique were in the papers constantly, as the golden couple. And a month after they returned from their honeymoon, Angélique realized that she was pregnant. Their new life had begun, their dreams were coming true, and Andrew told her every day how much he loved her and that they deserved it. And she believed him.

  Chapter 20

  Angélique wrote to Mrs. White to tell her that she and Andrew had gotten married, how happy she was, how much she liked New York, and then she wrote to her again when she knew she was pregnant. Mrs. White told Hobson all about it, and he was pleased. He was relieved to know that Her Ladyship was happy, had married a nice man, and was in good hands.

  And a letter from Mrs. White in the spring gave her the news that her brother Edward had been killed in a hunting accident. She said the funeral had been at Belgrave, and he was buried in the mausoleum with her parents. She thought about writing to Tristan about it to offer her sympathy, but decided not to after discussing it with Andrew. She had heard nothing from her brother since the last time she had seen him at the Fergusons’ and he had denied her as a sister.

  “He doesn’t deserve the time of day from you,” Andrew told her, and she decided he was right.

  They had just found a house on Washington Square, and she was busy decorating it, and getting it ready. They planned to move in, in May, and the baby was due at the beginning of October. She had been feeling well, and Andrew thought she was more beautiful than ever, with his baby growing in her gently swelling belly.

  She had never seen his father again, although Andrew saw him for dinner from time to time, and had told him about the baby, which only made him angrier. He reminded Andrew that he wanted to hear nothing about her, nor their future offspring. The only relationship he wanted was with his son.

  Andrew’s political ambitions were going well, and he was planning to run for a congressional seat in November, in a special election to replace a congressman who had died. It was an excellent opportunity for him. It was his first big step into politics, and Angélique was excited for him too. She hoped to be able to be at his side for the final weeks before the election, after the baby was born.

  And when they moved into their new home, it was beautiful and everything they hoped it would be, and she was four months pregnant. They entertained friends frequently, and Andrew knew he was a lucky man. He had a wonderful wife he adored.

  She had a letter from Fabienne in June, from Provence. Their baby had been born, a son they named Étienne, and they were over the moon about it. And Angélique promised to let her know as soon as their baby was born. She could hardly wait. The nursery she had prepared for it looked like a child’s dream. The only argument she and Andrew had was that she wanted to take care of it herself, and he insisted she have a baby nurse. He wanted to be able to go out with her, and said she couldn’t do it all alone. They compromised on her having a young girl to help her, but she didn’t plan to be a mother like Eugenia Ferguson, or even some of their friends in New York, who never saw their children. And Andrew said he wanted many, and Angélique was willing. She was excited about becoming a mother. And it was surely going to be easier than taking care of Eugenia’s twins. The doctor said it was just going to be one baby. They were hoping for a boy, but Andrew assured her he would be satisfied with a girl too, and they could try for a boy soon after, if that was the case.

  They rented a house in Saratoga Springs for the summer, and stayed there for July and August until Labor Day. Andrew made occasional trips to the city for work and his campaign, and in September he got fiercely busy, with dinners, appearances, meetings,
and shaking hands with voters everywhere he could, while Angélique stayed home and waited for the baby. She was too big to go out now, was expected to remain out of sight, and had almost nothing to wear that fit her. She complained that she was bored, but she was more tired than she wanted to admit, and she was going to have the baby at home. Everything was ready, and Andrew was more in love with her every day, and she with him.

  On the first of October, she was folding tiny shirts in the nursery, with Claire’s help, when her water broke and the first pains started. A baby nurse had been hired and was due to arrive from Boston in the next few days. She had been working for a family there.

  Angélique went back to their bedroom, to lie down and wait. Claire and their new housekeeper, Mrs. Partridge, brought in stacks of sheets and towels, as she had seen done for Eugenia when she had the twins, and they sent a message to the doctor. He arrived an hour later and said that everything was going well. She was progressing slowly and not in too much pain. And Andrew was at an important dinner with his supporters, and not expected home until that evening. The doctor didn’t think the baby would come before midnight, and promised to come back at suppertime. He expected things to move along at a faster pace by then, and he sent a nurse to watch her, as Angélique lay nervously on her bed, timing pains. And nothing much had happened when Andrew got home and said the dinner had gone well.

  “It’s so tiresome waiting for something to happen,” she complained to him when the nurse went down to supper, and he kept her company. He was anxious for the baby to come too, although he was grateful she wasn’t in too much pain. And when the doctor arrived to see her again, things were moving more slowly than he’d expected, and he didn’t think she’d have the baby until the next day. And they both looked disappointed when he left.