A Duke for Christmas

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  Beatrice Cenci ate flowers

  to sweeten her breath,

  purple-lipped and deadly,

  a bloom withered untimely.

  So fair and alone in grief,

  waiting for time’s last beat,

  white-handed...

  Kenton held up his hand. “Who’s Beatrice Cenci?”

  “What do you mean?” Dominic asked. “You own the play. I saw it.” He unfolded his length from the chair and stepped to the shelves. “Here it is,” he said, holding up a book covered in pale, limp leather. “The Cenci, by Percy B. Shelley. Published last year.”

  “Was it really?” Sophie asked. “Oh, dear. Maybe we should leave this one out then. It might suffer from comparison.”

  “No, don’t worry about that.” Dominic opened the cover, then shot Kenton a laughing glance. “Pages uncut, I see. Still ordering your books by the linear foot, old man?”

  “I don’t read plays; I prefer to watch them. Has it been put on?”

  “I doubt it. It would be a beast to stage.” He tossed the book to Kenton, who caught it handily. “Beatrice Cenci was known as the ‘beautiful parricide.’ With the help of a few friends and relations, she dispatched her monstrously cruel father in 1570 or thereabouts. She was executed and was lucky not to have been tortured to death. They were a fairly brutal bunch back then.”

  “As opposed to now?” Sophie asked. “I wonder if we will be seen as particularly brutal when people look back.”

  “Well, be that as it may,” Kenton said. “Unless this poem mentions sunsets at some point, it seems rather odd to call it... what is it?”

  “ ‘Walk Sunset Down,’” Sophie said. “Maybe it is a reference to her last walk to the scaffold?”

  “Why don’t you just call it ‘Beatrice Cenci’ and not worry about it anymore?”

  Dominic and Sophie looked at him in some amazement. “We didn’t think of it,” Dominic admitted.

  Sophie held out her hand for Shelley’s book. “This publisher,” she said, tracing the name on the: frontispiece. “O. and J. Oilier, Vere Street, Bond Street, London. Are they any good?”

  “They have the reputation of being honest and no slower to pay than anyone else.”

  “Excellent. I shall send them the manuscript as soon as we are finished with it. After all, if they’ll publish a hack like Percy Shelley, they’ll surely jump at the chance to put Broderick’s poems before the public.”

  “Before we do that,” Dominic said, “I wonder if you would object to my sending a copy to an old friend of mine. He’s a writer, not a poet, but a very clever and

  clear-minded man. Confidentially, he was a spy during the war.”

  “Sounds intriguing,” Sophie said.

  “He’s married to a charming girl with two exquisite children,” Dominic added quickly.

  Sophie smiled without letting him see. Was he suffering from jealousy after so careless a comment?

  “Philip LaCorte?” Kenton asked.

  “Yes. You met him some years ago at my miserable flat in Islington. He’s writing again now that he’s married with a family to support. You might have read something by him,” Dominic added, turning to Sophie.

  “I don’t recognize his name.”

  “He writes exotic romances. His last one was called ...” He squinted horribly with the effort of remembering. “Oh, it was set in Sicily, which is why I thought you might have read it. The Queen of the Volcano or something like that.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said as Kenton said, “That sounds like a book for me. None of this ‘beautiful parricide’ stuff. No offense intended, Sophie, but it sounds more than a little morbid to me to dwell on such subjects.”

  “None in the world,” she reassured him. “And Broderick was often morbid. As it turned out, he was quite right. He did not live to be old.” She looked at their faces and wanted to tell them, especially Kenton, not to hang his head abashed. But, what with his son being born, she felt it was not time to add to his shocks. “Why do you want to send a copy of the manuscript to this Mr. LaCorte?”

  “Mostly to garner another opinion as to the merits of the poetry. You are prejudiced because you believe Broderick Banner was a great poet. I’m prejudiced because I...” He paused, glancing sideways at Kenton, who listened with great attention. “Don’t you have flowers to water?”

  “And Maris says I don’t understand hints,” Kenton said. “Very well. Keep your secrets. I may say I don’t envy either of you, copying out such stuff as that, like so many medieval monks copying the Bible.”

  Sophie saw Dominic surreptitiously flex his right hand. She smiled up at him, wishing she could find words to tell him of her gratitude. The situation between them could have been so very awkward if it weren’t for the grace and sympathy he’d shown. She fought with her own sense of embarrassment in his presence, forcing herself to remain casual and friendly when she would have liked to blush and hide her face.

  “Actually. Kenton, I’m glad I caught you,” Dominic said. “I don’t wish to treat your house like a hotel but I want to deliver these poems to Philip as quickly as I can and not wait for the post.”

  “Come and go as you like, you know that,” Kenton said. “Maris says she likes it when you are here. Keeps me from hanging on her neck.” He saluted Dominic lazily with two fingers and went off, whistling.

  “Do you think your friend will like these poems?” Sophie asked, idly stirring the ink with the point of her pen.

  “I think he will find them most interesting. I’m taking the ones with the original titles, if that’s acceptable.”

  “Of course. As you know, I have some doubts about changing the titles. Broderick didn’t care whether the masses understood his work or not. He said if he couldn’t make people feel, he’d settle for making them think.”

  “You admired him very much,” Dominic said. He had a way of standing that made him appear very relaxed, as if he had a wall-to prop him up even when he stood alone in the center of the floor.

  “Of course.” She laid down her pen. “I wish you would tell me...”

  “What?”

  “It’s ridiculous. You know my entire emotional history. I was young and foolish and fell in love with a stranger whom I invested with every virtue and quality.” Her tone poured scorn upon the commonplace phrase. “You even claim to wish to marry me. Yet I know nothing whatever about you beyond the barest facts. You love your mother and cordially dislike your great-aunt. You have a genie of the ring masquerading as your servant and a good man for a friend. Yet what about your past loves? I hope they are as innumerable as grains of sand on a beach and as widely scattered.”

  “Do you truly wish to know?” Dominic abandoned his relaxed pose and came to lean forward over the writing desk they’d been sharing. His eyes seemed larger and brighter than she’d ever seen them.

  Sophie nodded. “Yes. I do.”

  “Well, then ...” He opened his mouth as if to launch into a catalog but stopped and straightened. “No, I don’t think I will. If you really want to know everything, marry me and I’ll take you to see Great-Aunt Clementina. She’ll fill your ears with all the gossip.”

  “Then there is gossip?” Sophie nodded wisely. “I thought there must be.”

  “There’s always gossip. It is as constant as wind and blows just as much dust in your eyes. But no one can deny that it is most interesting at times.”

  “That’s two good reasons for marrying you. If I come up with a third, I just might consent.” Sophie spoke lightly but couldn’t resist glancing at him to see his expression. She half suspected she’d see appalled horror in his eyes, but instead she surprised an expression that she recognized. Desire, bright as a flame, danced in his blue eyes. To her astonishment and with no particular sense of welcome, she recognized the same feeling in herself. She dragged her gaze away from his mouth the instant she realized she was staring at it.

  “What was your first reason?” he asked, his voice soft and husky.


  “I…”

  “You said you had two good, reasons for marrying me.”

  “I misspoke.”

  “I see.” A little blindly, he turned again toward the books, running his fingertips over the spines, but not as if he saw the titles.

  “Will you be gone for very long?”

  “I doubt it. He lives about forty miles from here. I’ll break my journey at a little inn I know. The whole visit shouldn’t take more than four or five days, depending on the weather.”

  “You’ll drive, of course.”

  “No,” he said, walking to the window. He looked out. “The weather is clearing. I’ll ride. The horse needs the exercise and, frankly, so do I. Mrs. Lemon might be squeamish, but she’s a marvelous cook.”

  “My mother says there is to be a party at the home of Mr. Lively. It is quite the event of the Christmas season, if you’d care to return for it.”

  “Oh, is he giving it again? I went one year with Kenton before he was married, Yes, I shall certainly return in time for that. Will you save me a dance or two?”

  “I will. I’ll be happy to.”

  Chapter Twelve

  After Dominic left, Sophie kept as busy as possible. She spent time leaning over the cradle, gazing at her nephew. Simms tried several times to assert her absolute authority, but the irregularity of the household was too much for her. Sophie encouraged her brother-in-law to pick up his own son, despite Simms’s objections. Maris, under orders to stay in bed for ten days, arose on the third day after her child’s birth, though Kenton insisted on carrying her up and down the stairs.

  She would sit in the library, close to the fire, sewing lace caps for the baby while Sophie copied out the poems. There were forty-seven in all. Fifteen or so would probably be cut before publication. Though they had some good images or phrases, the overall quality was not Broderick’s best. The seven poems with strange titles were an interesting mix. Three were splendid. The other four, including “Walk Sunset Down,” seemed a trifle trite, as if they were imitations of another’s work rather than the pure product of Broderick’s mind.

  She came across the one that was about her and her wedding day. Dominic had argued for its inclusion, but Sophie still hesitated over sharing that poem with the world. It brought everything back so clearly. The perfume of an evening in an English spring had filled the air, the moonlight and the trees seeming to whisper sweet conspiracies to one another. Dominic—that is—Broderick had kissed her with such tender emotion, such breathless yearning...

  “Sophie?” Maris said, breaking in upon her thoughts. “Sophie? You’ve been sitting there for five minutes with your pen in the air. The ink must have dried hard by now.”

  “I’m sorry. My thoughts were a million miles away. Did you say something?”

  “No. I was only afraid you’d gone off in an apoplexy with me sitting right here. What were you thinking of? Broderick?”

  “Yes. Broderick.”

  Maris finished basting the ribbon around the edge of the cape and began feather-boning it. “I did like him, you know. I could see why a well-read young lady would fall in love with him. He did have a way with him. The way he’d look at you during a dinner party as if you were the most intelligent and beautiful woman he’d ever met. Of course, he’d look the same way at the woman sitting on his other side, but there’s no doubt it was flattering while it lasted.”

  “Did he do that? I hadn’t noticed.” Surely, she must have noticed at some point that Broderick had, like Henry V, “largesse universal, like the sun, his liberal eye doth give to every one.” There had been those girls, when she’d first met him in Yorkshire, who had hung upon his every word, even as she herself was guilty. He had declared them children and swore he gave no thought to them. If she had doubted him, his attitude was so noble in forgiving her that her jealousies had been quieted by shame.

  “He did choose me in the end,” Sophie said.

  “Yes, he did,” Maris agreed with a soft smile. “Mother and I wondered why.”

  “Thank you very much, indeed.” She feigned indignation.

  “Now, you know I didn’t mean it that way. You were very lovely.”

  “A pity I’ve gone down so quickly. A mere three years and I’m an antidote.” But she quite failed to keep the laughter out of her voice.

  “There, I knew you weren’t angry,” Maris said with a pleased sigh. “It’s only that we wondered whether Broderick had designs on your fortune.”

  “Fortune? Of course not. I have none to be coveted. Are you feeling quite yourself, Maris?”

  “Didn’t he meet you while you were visiting Uncle Shirley? A very wealthy man with no heirs. What could be more logical than that he should leave his fortune to us? And there is Kenton. You know what sort of a man he is—generous, thoughtful, caring. Would he let his wife’s sister’s family go into debtor’s prison?”

  “I see.” Sophie reflected for a moment. “No, you misjudge Broderick. Money meant nothing to him. As long as he had enough to buy a coffee at the Gaffe Greco when it suited him and a few pence for a new goose quill, he was a happy man. He married me because he loved me; when he loved me no longer, he left me. That’s the way he was. If I went on loving him a little longer than was sensible, that was too bad. He felt sorry for me, but one does not return to a wife out of pity.”

  “Then he was immoral, and I thought him only grasping.”

  “He was a poet,” Sophie said and returned to her work.

  An hour later, after Maris had retired for her afternoon nap, Sophie finished the last line of a poem and paused to read it over. Every word must be exactly as Broderick wrote it. She’d heard too many poets complain that their copyists had been careless, turning rooks into books and haste to waste.

  Her mother came in, somewhat flustered. “Here’s a fine thing. Tremlow’s just informed me that someone has stolen half a ham out of the kitchen. Half a ham!”

  “How did they manage that?”

  “The kitchen was left empty for a few minutes when Mrs. Lemon went down to the cellar. She’d brought up the ham for tonight’s dinner but had forgotten that she needed a new jar of that fancy French mustard Kenton is so partial to. When she came back, the ham was gone.”

  “Could Tip have taken it? He’s a good dog, but the best of us can be tempted.”

  “I beg your pardon, madam,” Tremlow said, entering with tread so stately one instinctively glanced behind him for the sweep of an ermine robe. “I have ascertained that Tip is asleep on the master’s dressing gown in his room. There is no trace of ham bone, either visually or olfactorially. I believe this to be the work of a human agency.”

  “Have any of the stable lads been especially hungry lately, Tremlow?”

  “Not to my knowledge, madam. I shall, of course, investigate. I wonder, however, if you would condescend to ask the young Italian girls if they have seen it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they wouldn’t steal a ham, but I shall ask them if they saw anything suspicious in the kitchen.”

  Mrs. Lindel asked a question. “Were there any footprints in the snow?”

  “The walkway was swept with unusual care this morning by young Elden. Naturally, I do not wish to reprimand the boy for his zeal, though I could have wished this morning saw him sweeping in his more indolent fashion.”

  Sophie felt a certain reluctance to ask the Ferrara girls about the ham. She had never heard a word against either of them and, in their small Roman neighborhood, she would. Whatever gossip Dominic promised was as nothing compared with the epic quality of the gossiping women in her former neighborhood.

  She knocked on their door, determined to exercise the utmost in tact. However, her resolution proved useless. No one answered her rapping.

  Sophie tried the handle. The door opened. Peering into the room, she saw that it was indeed empty of people. Two beds, one rather larger than the other, stood against the far wall, matching crucifixes hanging over the iron-frame heads. A white china ewer and ba
sin stood on a dark oaken stand with a small tilting mirror on top. A small fireplace showed banked coals. The curtains were open over the little windows, showing the tops of the trees at the edge of the garden. The wind was blowing, sending a fine silt of blown snow flying like magic sparkles through the air.

  The room was no different than a thousand other servants’ quarters, only as comfortable as necessary. Perhaps Finchley could be considered as dull compared to Rome, where the very walls breathed long history and every step outside could lead to adventure.

  Sophie felt a stab of guilt that she had not taken more care of the girls since returning home, so caught up in her own questions about her future. It wasn’t right. Though their parents had insisted their daughters accompany her, she had accepted the responsibility. Though her mother and the upper servants had taken on the role of teaching them how to go on in England, ultimately their adjustment was her duty.

  She went down to the lower level of the house. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lemon ...”

  “Mrs. Banner? What may I do for you?”

  “Have you seen the Ferrara girls? Mr. Tremlow thought they were in their room, but they’re not.”

  “Aren’t they, indeed? I confess I find it difficult to make out what they’re saying, but I thought that’s where they were going.”

  Sophie pressed her hands together, palm to palm. “About this missing ham, Mrs. Lemon ...”

  “A fine ham, well-smoked, from Gilling’s farm, not half cut. I could have done wonderful things with that ham.” She seemed to mourn culinary wonders that would now never be conjured from her kitchen.

  “What do you think happened to it?”

  “I think the same ruffian who broke into the library came in here. Some nasty tramp looking for whatever he could steal. An objet de art, one of them silver statues, a ham, it’s all the same. Lucky we weren’t all murdered in our beds.”

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  “I’m sleeping with the big cleaver under my pillow,” Mrs. Lemon said with ferocious pride.