My Own True Duchess

by Grace Burrowes

  The food had little appeal. Removing to Hampshire had no appeal at all. Theo tore off a bite of beef and stuffed it in her mouth.

  “Before you finalize those plans,” Mr. Tresham said, “I have a proposition to put before you, if you’re willing to listen?”

  “If you are thinking to make me your mistress, I’ll take a pistol to you myself, Mr. Tresham. I’m not yet that desperate, no matter how handsome and wealthy you might be.”

  “You are not that desperate yet,” Mr. Tresham said, “which suggests soon you might be.”

  * * *

  “You need not see me home,” Lady Canmore said. “The coachman can set you down at your club.”

  She was a beautiful woman, also an upset woman. The first quality was a matter of indifference to Grey Birch Dorning, Earl of Casriel. The second meant he must pay attention to the lady, lest he aggravate her mood. Casriel had only two sisters, but those sisters had seven brothers, and thus the earl had a thorough acquaintance with exasperated women.

  “I was spared the details,” he said, “though I understand Tresham will ensure Lord Davington is on a packet for Calais by week’s end.”

  Her ladyship gazed out the window, thus the occasional streetlamp illuminated a perfect feminine profile… also a tear trickling down her cheek.

  “It doesn’t matter,” her ladyship said. “Davington can go to the Antipodes, and next week, another will take his place. I ought to dress in rags and carry a ferret, as Mrs. Haviland has suggested.”

  Tresham hadn’t said anything about the countess being mentally unbalanced. “A ferret?”

  “They have a disagreeable odor, my lord. Perhaps I can find a perfumer to bottle it for me so I can sell it as rake repellant.”

  Dealing with a furious woman required courage. Casriel switched seats, taking the place beside her ladyship when his every instinct prompted him to leap from the moving coach.

  “Davington behaved very badly, didn’t he?”

  “Horridly, and the worst part is, Mrs. Haviland saw most of it, and Mr. Tresham had to intervene, and there was nearly a duel, and now I’m being escorted home like some truant scholar overdue for a birching. I’m also hungry.” She swiped at her cheek.

  “Open that compartment to your left.”

  She left off staring into the night long enough to flip down a panel built into the side of the coach.

  “Sustenance,” Casriel said. “We’re in a ducal conveyance, after all.”

  Bread, cheese, two oranges, a pair of boiled eggs, and a few bites of shortbread, all prettily wrapped in a wicker basket and ready to be laid out on the tray latched to the inner side of the panel.

  “Wine is not a good idea right now,” the countess said. “But I will fight you for a fresh orange.”

  “I’ve had supper. Help yourself to the lot of it.” This was a lie, but a man with eight younger siblings knew the restorative power of food when tempers were high and spirits low.

  Her ladyship managed to create a cheese sandwich in a moving conveyance without making a mess.

  “Shall I tell you a secret?” Casriel asked when her ladyship had peeled the orange and eaten half of it.

  “I am not fond of secrets and confidences,” she said. “I am very fond of this orange.”

  “This is a cheering sort of secret. Mr. Tresham can ruin Davington so thoroughly that his lordship dare not return from Paris without Tresham’s permission. Tresham has connections all over the Continent, and Davington will be watched.”

  “Thankless job,” her ladyship muttered, wiping her hands on the monogrammed linen provided for that purpose. “But as I said, the issue is not Davington himself. He’s merely one of a horde of men who parade about in gentleman’s clothing while behaving awfully. If one is too skilled at eluding them, then one is coldhearted, superior, and arrogant. If one is not sufficiently skilled…” She tore the skin from the remaining half of the orange. “I shall cultivate Mr. Tresham’s acquaintance so that I might borrow this coach.”

  “If ever you need a coach, please consider my own at your disposal.” The words were out, little more than a platitude, and yet, Casriel meant them. Lady Canmore had substance he’d missed when observing her from across a ballroom.

  “Thank you, but your coach is crested. That too would start talk. Tell me more of Mr. Tresham. He’s taken an interest in Theodosia—Mrs. Haviland—something nobody else has dared.”

  No wonder Lady Canmore contemplated ownership of a smelly ferret. Even the way she licked her fingers was delicate and graceful.

  “Tresham is exactly as he seems to be: a ducal heir prepared to marry for the sake of duty, one who has not been idling about since he came down from Cambridge.”

  “Not idling about London, you mean. Cambridge is an unusual choice for a ducal heir.”

  Rolling through Town with Lady Canmore was not the dull ride Casriel had contemplated. She had a lively mind, a righteous temper, and she paid attention.

  Did Casriel want her attention for himself? The question was pointless. He must marry for money, and if Lady Canmore had substantial means, Davington would never have bothered her.

  “Tresham and his papa had a predictable falling out,” Casriel said. “Tresham refused to go to Oxford, and thus he was educated at Cambridge. Tell me of Mrs. Haviland. She seems a loyal friend.”

  A pretty, loyal friend. Her looks were understated, and she did not dress to call attention to herself. Casriel liked that in a woman. A man spoke his vows with a flesh and blood woman, not with a dressmaker’s manikin or a milliner’s artwork.

  “Theodosia is very loyal, and she has contended with significant challenges. Any man would be lucky to win her notice.” She tucked the second orange and a cheese sandwich into her beaded bag as coolly as if secreting foodstuffs was the stated purpose of reticules.

  “I’m sure Mrs. Haviland is a lovely woman,” Casriel said, “though she strikes me as formidable. Tresham does well with long odds and risky ventures, thrives on them, in fact. She could do much worse.”

  Her ladyship wrapped the shortbread in ducal linen and stashed that in her handbag as well. “Mr. Tresham has no chance at all with Theodosia, then, which is a shame. She disdains the company of idiots who thrive on needless risk or delight in stupid wagers. If Mr. Tresham enjoys that sort of diversion, she’ll have no time for him whatsoever.”

  “Take the wine,” Casriel said. “The vintage will be excellent, and you’ve had a trying evening.”

  She looked torn, so Casriel reached across her, extricated the bottle, and handed it to her.

  “Tresham is not reckless,” he said. “He’s enormously wealthy because he understands risk better than any man I know. He seems to grasp the inner workings of chance as a veterinarian knows the insides of a horse. Everybody else climbs aboard and sends the beast cantering off toward a destination. The veterinarian reads horse dung like tea leaves and diagnoses a poorly fitting saddle from the minutest unevenness of the footfalls.”

  The lady was giving him that look. The one that said he’d lapsed into a country squire’s musings when he was supposed to be an earl.

  “My land is in Dorset,” Casriel said, hoping to God his blush was not evident in the dark interior. “Our fortunes rise and fall with our flocks.”

  The carriage, mercifully, came to a halt.

  Lady Canmore was smiling. Not a great, beaming grin, but a little quirk of amusement. That too, emphasized her beauty, though she could likely wear the rags she’d alluded to and carry the ferret and make even that ensemble alluring.

  All without trying.

  He stepped down first and turned to assist the lady.

  “Mr. Tresham must divorce himself from any interest in risky ventures if he’s to win Theo’s notice,” Lady Canmore said, joining Casriel on the cobbles. “Theo’s late husband was not a prudent man.”

  Tresham was very prudent, but also… a financial adventurer. The various organizations on whose boards he sat always seemed to come right
fiscally, while Tresham’s personal finances were based on chance and speculation. Casriel hadn’t met his like previously, though he’d come across plenty of resentful heirs.

  Saw one in the mirror from time to time, in fact.

  “I will leave Mr. Tresham to sort out his own fate with Mrs. Haviland,” Casriel said, offering his arm. The lantern on the porch was unlit, an economy or an indication of domestic sloth. Either way, he didn’t like it. The coach was in a porte cochere, meaning the entrance was private, but darkness and lone women were not a prudent combination.

  “Theo will sort Mr. Tresham out,” Lady Canmore said. “Thank you for seeing me home, my lord.”

  She was in better spirits than when she’d left the ball, and she had slipped the wine bottle into her reticule as well. Casriel wanted to ask if he could call on her, but… no. He must marry wealth.

  Had to.

  “Are you…?” Casriel stared over the top of her head. She was a petite woman, and yet, she had presence. “Are you well, my lady?” Clearer than that he could not be.

  She faced him before her door, and such was the gloom that he could not make out her expression.

  “People talk about your eyes,” she said. “The Dorset Dornings have such beautiful eyes. Perhaps your eyes are a remarkable color, but I like that you see with your heart.”

  She leaned into him, only that. Her arms didn’t come around him, but her weight rested against his chest. Casriel embraced her, and she sighed, becoming a smaller, softer bundle of female. A hug seemed to be all she wanted, a momentary respite from relying exclusively on her own strength.

  “Tell Tresham to go gently with Theodosia,” she said. “Mrs. Haviland needs flirtation and tenderness, lighthearted diversion and simple pleasures. Tresham might seek a duchess, but Theo needs a doting swain.”

  “What do you need?” The question was inane, imbecilic, beyond ridiculous, because Casriel had nothing of value to give her.

  “I needed, for one moment, to be held. Thank you, my lord.”

  She slipped inside the house, leaving a hint of gardenia on the night air. Her departure—graceful, of course—was all that saved Casriel from asking if he might take her driving tomorrow at the fashionable hour.

  * * *

  Mrs. Haviland had pronounced Jonathan handsome and wealthy. She made both attributes sound like afflictions, and thus his confidence in his plan grew.

  “I have avoided intimate entanglements of the nature you allude to,” he said, keeping his voice down lest anybody strolling in the conservatory overhear. “I don’t intend to give any woman the means to wreak havoc in my life. Mistresses all too often regard such drama as their right.”

  Mrs. Haviland stared at her plate as if Jonathan hadn’t spoken. “I can’t let this food go to waste, and I can’t eat it. I want to do Davington a permanent injury.”

  So did Jonathan. “Davington is not the first man to disappoint you.” And yet, even disappointed, Mrs. Haviland did not fly into hysterics, threaten public retribution, or cause a scene. Jonathan’s parents would have done all three over a mere flirtation.

  She tore off the crust from a slice of buttered bread. “My husband was a gentleman in name, and he wasn’t a bad man, but he was untrue. That was a disappointment.”

  “You don’t mean he was merely unfaithful. Half of polite society’s marriages would collapse if infidelity were of any moment.” Which baffled Jonathan. What did the vows signify, if not both loyalty and fidelity to one’s spouse?

  “Archimedes never had a mistress. A mistress expects to be housed, clothed, and fed, for which reasonable demand, I do not blame her in the least.”

  This conversation was not going where Jonathan intended it to, and the dancing would soon resume. He needed to police Davington’s penance, but he also needed to secure Mrs. Haviland’s agreement.

  “While I’m sure you esteemed your husband greatly, I sense that the marriage was not entirely happy. I’m facing matrimony myself and hope the union is at least cordial.”

  She left off tearing up her bread. “You seek a love match?”

  Laughter felt good. “Good God, no. I don’t believe in fairy tales any more than you do, Mrs. Haviland. I seek a cordial partner with whom I am temperamentally compatible. I’ll be a generous, faithful husband; she’ll be a good mother to my children and a social ally. She will manage my households, I will tend to our finances. It’s a sensible system with room for considerable fondness. Nobody ends up disappointed, and much good can be accomplished without unnecessary histrionics.”

  Mrs. Haviland set her plate aside. “You make marriage sound like a business merger. Are you temperamentally compatible with your commercial partners?”

  Again, she was disapproving. “I haven’t any commercial partners.”

  “Then what makes you think you’ll succeed at having a marital partner?”

  Late at night, when the club had closed its doors to patrons and opened its windows to let in fresh air, when Jonathan’s only company was the staff cleaning up after another night of aristocrats at play, that question haunted him.

  “If nothing else,” Jonathan said, “I’ve seen a fine example of how not to be married. One can learn from a poor example.”

  Mrs. Haviland sat back, leaving behind the posture of the proper widow. “That is a profound truth. What did you want to discuss?”

  Archimedes had apparently been a rotter. Perhaps not in the same league with Jonathan’s father, but the late Mr. Haviland had dimmed the joy in his wife’s eyes and replaced it with grumpy honesty.

  “I must find a bride,” Jonathan said, trying to keep all emotion—all resentment, all anger—from the words. “I undertake this search not because the ducal succession requires an heir, but because I owe my uncle.”

  “Marrying for the sake of another is not well advised, Mr. Tresham.” She fiddled with the cuff of her sleeve, tugging it down. She’d taken off her gloves to eat, meaning her arms were exposed. She had a fading bruise near her right elbow and wore not a single bracelet or ring.

  “You speak from experience?”

  “I married in part because my younger sister required a home. My father was significantly older than my mother, and Mama needed her widow’s mite for herself when Papa died.”

  She rubbed her arms, and it occurred to Jonathan that she was cold. “Walk with me,” he said, rising and extending his hand.

  “I cannot allow this food to go to waste.”

  “It won’t go to waste. The kitchen staff will see that it’s used at the second table if it’s not consumed before dawn.”

  Still, she remained seated.

  “Madam, I’ll send you a cured ham, a joint of beef, fifty pounds of potatoes, and a damned pineapple, but I’d like to conclude this discussion in the next quarter hour.”

  She picked up her gloves and drew the left one on slowly. “You needn’t mock me.”

  “I am in complete earnest.”

  The right glove went on. “Not a pineapple. You want something from me.”

  “Nothing untoward.”

  She rose without taking Jonathan’s hand. “Oranges and lemons, then. More peaches, next week. A loaf of sugar, cooking spices, a pound of gunpowder, and a pound of China black.”

  With that recitation, she’d given him all the leverage he’d need to get what he wanted from her, and her list was pathetically easy to provide.

  “Done,” he said. “Let’s find a parlor where you will not be chilled and I will not be overheard.”

  She wrapped her hand around Jonathan’s arm, adopted a pleasant expression, and permitted him—he had no doubt about whose decision this had been—to escort her from the bench.

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  Once upon a time, Theo had loved the lyricism and passion of the violin. Trumpets blared across battlefields, drums reverberated throughout a city, but violins signaled polite society enjoying itself. Violins were creatures of refinement and leisure, made for beautiful bal
lrooms and genteel gatherings.

  “You are frowning,” Mr. Tresham said. “I can send the pineapple if you’ve changed your mind.”

  “A pineapple would draw significant notice, Mr. Tresham. You’ll procure the peaches from your personal connections, and the rest are common luxuries.”

  “This is why I wanted to speak to you.” He tapped softly on a closed door, waited a moment, then held it open.

  The interior was warm, which mattered to Theo. Somebody had given orders that the fire was to be tended, though only one branch of candles had been lit. Portraits on the shadowed walls gave the little room the sense of having a gallery of ancestors eavesdropping on any conversations. The ancestors were a happy lot, ruddy-cheeked and smiling in their plumed and embroidered attire.

  “I’ll be brief,” Mr. Tresham said. “I need two things. First, to not be compromised out of choosing my own bride. Second, to choose the correct wife, the one who will be a perfect duchess one day, and a good spouse for a man in my circumstances.”

  Theo crossed to the fire, the better to bask in its blessed heat. “Please elaborate. I am not a procuress, and virtually any debutante in all of Europe would be ecstatic to become your duchess.”

  Now , she was hungry. Now, she was preoccupied with memories of Cook’s peach compote, which had been delicious, but lacked the dash of cinnamon that would have elevated it to perfection.

  “I don’t want a perishing debutante.”

  Mr. Tresham hadn’t raised his voice, but he was exasperated, which pleased Theo. He’d handled the situation with Bea, handled Diana’s obstinance in the park, and handled any number of presuming young ladies. Theo was cheered to think he’d found a situation he could not confidently manage on his own.

  “What do you want? You are to become a duke, God willing. Dukes are married to duchesses and duchesses are chosen from the ranks of the debutantes.”

  “Might we sit? I’ll spend the rest of the evening enduring bosoms pressed to my person while I prance around the ballroom with a simpering, sighing, young woman in my arms. My feet ache at the very prospect.”