At the Duke's Wedding (A romance anthology)

by Caroline Linden

  “Why should I not excuse you for speaking the truth?”

  “So if you’ll so easily admit to coming here to look at these books, which I’ve no doubt you’ve already done at least once, which is why they’re sitting on this table,” she said, turning another page, “why did you look so uncomfortable before you told me this was your destination?”

  “Habit.” He moved into the room and came to her side. “You are unique in knowing my shameful secret. No one else, you see, has gone searching in my drawers.”

  His voice was easy, teasing now, but a note of uncomfortable truth played in its depth.

  She looked up at him. “Why is it shameful that you draw?”

  “How do you know of the importance of Fableau’s work?” he asked instead of answering.

  “I took a summer seminar at the Newberry Library in Chicago on a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.”

  “I am not familiar with that library.”

  “It hasn’t been founded yet.” Neither has Chicago. “The seminar was about Old World explorers in the New World. My professor was particularly interested in the work of naturalists,” she explained, because she could only tell him the truth now. “Since early naturalists didn’t often have the funds to hire ships of their own, they sailed with merchants and sometimes even on naval vessels.”

  “Thus your interest in them.”

  Butterflies jumped around her stomach. “You’ve been paying attention.”

  “To every word, however fantastical.” He traced the line of her lips with his dark gaze. “What else have you studied, Mistress Scholar?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Oh, this and that. British India. The French Revolution. The slave trade. You know, relevant subjects.”

  “Relevant subjects,” he repeated then drew a long, slow breath, still looking at her lips.

  “Before you say anything,” she said quickly, “or kiss me—though I’d really like you to do the latter, and I’m always happy when you do the former—I wish you’d tell me why you’re not allowed to be an artist.”

  His gaze rolled up toward the gallery. “Angela—”

  “No, Trent. There are plenty of famous male artists now, and plenty before now. For God’s sake, Leonardo DaVinci was a master at drawing long before he painted. Art was the sole realm of men for centuries. Millennia, actually. It was entirely a man’s world.”

  “That may be,” he said, his jaw tight, “but the world of art, even the humble sort that I enjoy, is anathema to my father.”

  Her lovely eyes went wide. Trent’s neck cloth pulled at his throat mercilessly.

  “Your father?” she only said.

  “My father reveres the pitch above all.”

  “The pitch?”

  “The playing field,” he pushed on, the words coming gruffly, as though they were forcing him to voice them aloud. “Art, music, even reading are not of value in the Earl of Ware’s household. The last time a member of my family cut the pages of a book was so long ago I don’t recall it. My father’s set and the boys he encouraged me to associate with prefer vigorous activity—sport, war—to anything resembling the contemplative arts, simple stillness or ...”

  “Or what?”

  “Or natural beauty.” That very quality stood before him now, yet instead of taking her in his arms, he was blathering. But he could not seem to halt the words. “In my world, art is feminine. Weak. Less than British.”

  “It sounds like in ancient Rome, how solid, masculine gravitas was required of the male elite.”

  “Precisely, although how you know of gravitas I cannot fathom.”

  “My undergraduate major.” She waved it off. “But Trent, there are men of your class who are indisputably masculine and artists both. Look at Lord Byron—”

  “Whom my father loudly declares England well rid of. But at least he writes poetry, a noble art.”

  “Drawing isn’t noble?”

  “It is positively ignoble, suitable only for craftsmen, commoners, and females. Never for a man of honor.”

  “That just isn’t true. I could list dozens of—”

  “Enough, Angela.”

  Her mouth snapped shut and her honest gaze retreated. Trent nearly groaned in frustration. But his hands were cold and damp and his pulse was quick. Since his mother’s death twelve years ago, he’d not spoken of this to anyone.

  “All right,” she said, her sweet voice clipped now. “If we can’t talk about that, why don’t you explain instead why you don’t want me to speak with Sir Richard Howell?”

  Hell. He’d never felt more like he was imprisoned in the fiery inferno, peering through the confining bars at heaven just out of arm’s reach.

  “I cannot,” he uttered.

  She nodded. “Fine.” She closed Fableau’s masterpiece and went to the door.

  “Angela—”

  “Trent, I know he is a very bad man. I know this for a fact. That you won’t tell me what you know about him worries me. It worries me a lot.” Her rich eyes entreated. “But the thing is, I don’t have a bad feeling about you. Rather the opposite.” Her voice seemed to catch. She cleared her throat. “I’m really honored that you’ve confided in me, even if I forced you to it.”

  “You attribute to me more honor than I deserve.”

  “I don’t think so.” She stood still as the statue he had first imagined her, as lovely and distant as a beauty carved of alabaster, as though she were waiting for him to speak. He did not; he had nothing he could honorably say. Finally, she nodded once then left the room.

  o0o

  No pleasure was to be had now in the library, nor solace. He wanted her every moment, yet he could not have her. She was thoughtful and clever and wise and honest and insane and she was like no other woman he’d known. In order to save his father, he was shortly to be betrothed to the unappealing daughter of a man he loathed.

  There was nothing to be done for it. He went to the stables and started to drink.

  He was on his third brandy, leaning against the wall, continually replaying the vision of Angela’s sweet curves in his mind and the sensation of her mouth on him, when he heard her name spoken.

  “—the American,” one of the men at the card table was saying. “Miss Cowdrey.”

  “No,” Jack Willoughby said. “She’s not Lady Sophronia’s companion. That’s Henrietta Black.”

  “Miss Cowdrey’s been spending time with the old eccentric. Two peas in a pod, I say. Though one’s much prettier than the other, of course.” The fellow guffawed as though he’d said something clever. In his cups. Trent ignored him.

  “Lady Grey insists that Miss Cowdrey has no connections,” another man said. “Says she’s an upstart colonial with no family to speak of and should be cut.”

  “Cut one of Wessex’s guests? I say, that would be terribly bad ton, old chap.”

  “Goes about the estate alone, without any companion,” the other added. “Never a good idea for a girl that pretty.”

  “Americans are a brazen lot,” the first said with a chuckle.

  Trent couldn’t resist agreeing in silence, and thanking God for it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had the best night of his life, and he would still be the only person alive who knew his true passion. Both of them.

  “Immodest females like Miss Cowdrey,” Sir Richard’s voice rose above the others, “lacking in decorum and modesty, have clearly not felt the backside of their lord and master’s hand often enough.”

  Trent’s entire body went cold. He’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t seen the villain enter. He stood and faced the card table.

  Sir Richard’s cravat was perfectly starched, his coat was of expensive fabric and cut, and the pin in his neck cloth was fashioned of gold and diamond. But he still looked like refuse.

  “Sir,” Trent said in a voice deepened by nine fingers of brandy. “The lady in question is a close friend of an American cousin of my family,” he blatantly lied for perhaps the third or four
th time in his life, this time without a mote of discomfort.

  The two gentlemen who’d been discussing Angela tugged at cravats and looked away uncomfortably.

  Sir Richard’s eyes scanned him slyly. “Unsavory connections can be so plaguing, can’t they, Lord Everett?”

  Trent saw red. This upstart popinjay manipulating his family’s fate was the truly brazen one. He must be chastised.

  “Sir,” he said, “you will now retract your ungentlemanly remarks about the lady, or I will have satisfaction for it.”

  Sir Richard’s gaze darted about at the faces then back to Trent. “Come now, my lord,” he said, laying his cards on the table and spreading his palms up. “I meant no particular insult to the girl. Her situation is merely indefensible.”

  “Crash, old friend.” The Earl of Bruton laid a hand on his shoulder. “A duel is no way to settle anything. Don’t rise to it.”

  But Trent had already set aside reason and sanity. He wanted blood. He shrugged off Bruton’s hand. “Name your seconds, Howell.”

  Sir Richard’s cheeks paled. “Come now, son. Is this necessary? It’s not as though the chit is your responsibility.”

  But she was, in every way that mattered.

  “Hallo!” Jack Willoughby exclaimed. “I say we bring this down a notch, gents. How about a round of whist instead of a duel, then? Much less troublesome.”

  “Excellent idea, Willoughby,” Bruton grumbled.

  “Everett doesn’t play cards,” someone else called out with a laugh. “Crash, challenge him to a boxing match. See if the old man has any tone left to him.”

  Trent stared at Sir Richard. “Will you fight me, sir?”

  Sir Richard shook his head with a chuckle. “Now, that wouldn’t be good sportsmanship, would it, son? I’ve at least two stone on you and a decade of prize-winning fights under my belt.”

  “Will you deny me the opportunity to defend the lady’s honor? That’s hardly gentlemanly of you, is it?”

  Murmurs of approval all around.

  Sir Richard’s jowls colored again. Then his eyes narrowed. “I have just the solution, my lord. Tomorrow should be a fair day. Why not have a friendly little ... carriage race?”

  Silence descended.

  Trent’s heart pounded. He held Sir Richard’s gaze and spoke to the room at large. “Can anybody loan me a carriage?”

  Chapter Eight

  Gentlemen’s laughter and the enthusiastic clinking of glasses echoed throughout the stable.

  “To Everett!” someone called out. “A lady’s honor is always safe with him!” More laughing, this time ribald. Trent accepted it with the appearance of manly good humor he’d perfected for years. He usually felt it, but never more so than now.

  Sir Richard had barely been able to offer his hand to shake at the end of the race. The blackguard was well trounced, and Trent felt on top of the world. He’d climbed onto the miniscule seat and taken the ribbons of Willoughby’s phaeton with sheer terror freezing his veins. But the carriage had handled smoothly, and the horses’ mouths were marvelously soft. Within minutes Trent remembered that he enjoyed driving. He’d always enjoyed it.

  It was the racing he hated.

  Then he thrashed Sir Richard, with several carriage lengths to spare.

  “I say, Crash, that was a fine show,” someone called out. “We’ll have to come up with a new name for you, won’t we, gentlemen?”

  “Huzzah!” the cry went up.

  “To Hippolyta!” someone else shouted.

  “Huzzah! Huzzah!”

  Trent grinned, but he was eager to be about his next task. Sir Richard had disappeared, no doubt to lick his wounds. But Trent didn’t need him now. Now he needed a particular lady.

  He left the stable and went searching.

  He finally found Miss Howell in the garden. She was sitting in the shade of an enormous oak, arranging and rearranging her skirt to either side of her on the iron bench.

  “Good day, Miss Howell.” He bowed.

  “Good day, my lord.” She stood and curtsied. “Perhaps you saw me just now. I have been practicing methods of displaying my skirt on a bench when I sit. I do believe I have come upon the method that is to my gown’s greatest advantage, though of course it would not suffice for taffeta.”

  “Miss Howell, I should like to speak with you about a delicate matter.”

  “I heard that you bested Papa in a race this morning, and now I see it must be true that you were racing. Your boots and breeches are dusty. But I suppose you might have gotten that dust on a walk. Leather and buckskin do attract dust in the country wretchedly, don’t they? I always tell Papa to avoid wearing buckskin in the country because it attracts dust, although of course we spend very little time in the country, as we live in town, which of course I prefer as all the most interesting people are in town and what is there to do in the country anyway? But if we were to be obliged to spend time in the country, I would tell Papa every day to avoid stepping on roads that are dusty. No one likes dusty boots, do they, my lord?” She raised her eyes in question.

  “Miss Howell.” He drew a steadying breath, but he’d never been more certain of anything, except swimming in a lake with a lovely American. “Do you understand your father’s plans for you? For us?”

  “That we are to marry and I will become a viscountess?” she said. “Yes. Papa said you would ask his permission before you asked me. But he has not yet informed me of that. Are you here to request the honor of my hand?”

  “No. I am not.” He folded his hands behind his back and spoke gently. “Miss Howell, I mean you no disrespect. You seem a perfectly unexceptionable lady and any man should be honored to have you as his bride. But I am not able to be that man for you.”

  Her round eyes stared up at him. “Then you do not intend to ask for my hand?”

  “I do not. I do not believe we would suit.”

  “Oh.” She blinked twice. “In truth, this news comes as a relief to me.”

  The air shot out of his lungs. “It does?”

  She nodded. “Given my complexion, I would prefer to marry a man with dark hair. Your hair is quite handsome, but it isn’t dark at all, and I’m afraid I would be perpetually out of sorts with you for it.”

  “Because of the color of my hair?”

  “Yes. You look very fine in knee breeches, much better than Sir Kennett,” she said thoughtfully. “But Sir Kennett has black hair, you see. And while he is only a baronet, we appear to great advantage beside each other, so I cannot begrudge him his less elevated title. Can I?”

  “That is generous of you.”

  “Sir Kennett is in madly love with me and has already asked for my hand, but Papa said I mustn’t accept because he wished me to wed you. But if you will not wed me, I will wed Sir Kennett instead, and I am sure I shall be the happiest married lady in England.”

  Trent smiled. “I hope you are. I wish you all the best.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” She curtsied. He bowed. He started off, then paused and returned to her.

  “Miss Howell.”

  “My lord?”

  “If your father is displeased over this turn of events, and if he should express his displeasure in a manner that you cannot like, I hope you will appeal to me for assistance.”

  “Oh, you are kind, my lord. But he will be quite happy with Sir Kennett as a son-in-law. He owns two sugar plantations in the West Indies.”

  Trent’s step was lighter, his heartbeat quick as he reentered the house and asked the butler for his father’s whereabouts.

  “His lordship has gone shooting with Lord Warnford, my lord. I do not expect them back until the ball this evening.”

  Trent ground his molars, gathered his sketchbook and pencil, and went into the park.

  o0o

  Angela awoke with a start to a shadowy room. She dragged her head off the bed where she was sprawled and shuffled to the mirror. After another sleepless night, she’d gone to the stables to finally confront Sir Richard,
only to be told by a stable hand that all the men were off at a carriage race. Frustrated and crabby, she’d returned to her bedchamber and promptly fell asleep.

  “Ugh.” Lines from the bedspread crisscrossed her cheek, her eyes were bloodshot, and her dress was all wrinkles. She couldn’t join the party tonight looking like this, but she had to finally talk to Sir Richard. And she wanted to see Trent more than she’d ever wanted anything. Despite their fight—or maybe because of it—the sizzling zing had morphed into all-out fever. She needed to know if he was angry with her for lecturing him, and if it really had been just a one-night stand for him.

  She went into Lady Sophronia’s chambers.

  “Miss Cowdrey, you look a state!” She waved away the maid laying out dinner. “I don’t know where Henrietta had gotten to, but sit, sit. Then we will dress you properly for the ball.”

  “Ball?”

  “Dancing and champagne! Hate the stuff myself—dancing, that is—adore champagne, of course—but Her Grace is fond of elaborate festivities. Now eat. Then we will make you stunning.”

  Angela doubted it. She’d never been a stunner. That was her mother.

  But when the maid brought out a beautiful gown of blue watered silk embroidered with beads and sequins that sparkled all across the low-cut bodice and down the skirt like rainfall, she didn’t object. When they’d finished dressing her and arranging her hair with bejeweled combs, she barely recognized the woman staring back at her in the mirror.

  Lady Sophronia clapped her bony hands and beamed. “Yes, yes! This will do. It surely will.”

  Angela really felt like a fairy princess going to a ball as she descended the main stairs and found her way to the ballroom. Music lilted along the corridor. She passed the footmen to either side of the door and paused on the threshold.

  Everybody was there, gorgeously gowned and coiffed and primped and elegant. Nobody was dancing yet, though the orchestra was playing.