Deceived

by Bertrice Small

  “Oh, my!” Calandra sighed. “Doesn’t it all sound grand? I wonder what a duchess’s duties are, Aurora. Do you think I can do them?”

  “Just more manners, I suspect,” Aurora reassured her stepsister, “and you are wonderously clever at learning the civilities, decorums, and etiquette of society, Cally. I cannot be bothered with such folderol.”

  George had been going through the previous duke’s correspondence as his sisters spoke. Now he said, “There is no mention of you being called Aurora, my clever little sister. The bride is mentioned only as Charlotte in all the correspondence.”

  “But what if Papa referred to her in his letters as Aurora?” Calandra suggested. “What will we do then?”

  “Since this duke wasn’t aware of the marriage plans his family made,” Aurora said slowly, “it is unlikely he has ever seen the letters Papa wrote to his grandfather. I question if the old duke even kept the correspondence between them. His lady wife does not seem overly familiar with the situation, I divine.”

  “Papa kept the letters he received,” Calandra pointed out.

  “Yes,” Aurora agreed, “but it was more in Papa’s interest to keep them in the event the Hawkesworth family attempted to cry off, or conveniently forget the betrothal and marry off their heir to a wealthier heiress. Papa’s letters from the duke would have given him grounds for an action in the courts should he have felt the Kimberly honor besmirched. You know how proud Papa was of the family.”

  “We can find no evidence the duke knows he was betrothed to Charlotte Aurora,” George said. “I believe it is worth taking the chance of marrying him to Cally. How can he possibly find out that a switch has been made?”

  “And if he does,” Aurora said, “it is to be hoped that by that time he will harbor some tender feeling for Cally, and that she will have borne him an heir. Besides, he will have St. Timothy Plantation. What will he have lost by our little ruse?” She smiled at her stepbrother. “I am so glad you agree with me, George.”

  “I do not know if I agree with you at all,” the young man answered her, “but I do know that once you have set your mind to something, Aurora, you will not change it easily, if at all. I think you are being foolish, because I believe you to be frightened of this sudden shift in your life. Papa wanted you to have this marriage, but if you will not have it, then I can do nothing more than attempt to see the family is not endangered by your foolish action. The duke shall have a Charlotte Kimberly to wed even if it is not the correct Charlotte Kimberly.”

  “Papa would be very proud of you, George,” Aurora told him. “He always said he wished he were your natural father instead of just your stepfather. He loved you and Cally every bit as much as he loved me. That is why he legally adopted you and gave you his name as well as that of your own dead father. I wish he had left you St. Timothy instead of leaving it to me. Then nothing would have ever changed.”

  George reached out and took Aurora’s hand in his. “I might bear Papa’s name, little sister, but I am not of his blood. It was blood that made his decision for him. As you have already said, he was proud of his family. I am well provided for, God knows, and he has requested in his will that the duke continue my tenure as manager and overseer of St. Timothy. I am good at it, Aurora! There is no reason the duke will not honor Papa’s request, and as long as the plantation remains prosperous, he will have no cause for complaint, will he?”

  Calandra settled herself back down on the floor with her two siblings, resting her head on her brother’s shoulder. The trio had been together for almost their entire lifetime, and loved one another dearly. If Oralia and Robert Kimberly had worried that their children would not get on, it was a notion dismissed in the first few minutes of their meeting, when Aurora had struggled from her nanny’s arms and run down the dock to welcome her new stepmother and siblings to St. Timothy. It seemed to those watching that the child was greeting her natural mother, brother, and sister, who had been away but a time. There had never been any jealousy between any of them.

  “Then we are agreed,” Aurora said. “Cally will marry the duke, bringing with her the plantation as a dowry. I will have Cally’s portion from Papa, and my mother’s family home. And George will have what Papa left him, and remain as manager.”

  “You are absolutely certain this is what you want?” George questioned her. “Once Cally has been introduced to the duke as his bride, there can be no going back, Aurora. You do understand that?”

  She nodded. “I want to marry a man who loves me, George, not a man who is obligated to marry me. I know there are some who would think me a fool for it, but I do not care. I will go to England with Cally and the duke and see if I can find a gentleman who will love me. If I do not, then I shall return to St. Timothy to my own home.”

  “Very well, then,” George Spencer-Kimberly said. “Then it is indeed agreed between us that this is the course of action we shall take. I hope that the duke never finds out our little ruse.”

  “What of Mama?” Cally said. “She says she will not cooperate.”

  “Aurora is right,” George replied. “When the duke’s vessel sails into the harbor, Mama will have no choice but to go along with us. If she does not, she risks everything. I do not like making her unhappy, but if Aurora will not have her duke, then this is the best direction for us to take if we are to preserve the family.”

  The brother and his two sisters joined hands.

  “Together,” said George.

  “Forever,” said Cally.

  “As one!” Aurora responded, finishing the pledge of allegiance they had made up as children and repeated whenever they did something together that they considered important.

  “Then it is settled,” Cally said, her eyes sparkling.

  “Yes,” Aurora agreed.

  “And you shall be the duke’s duchess,” George chuckled. “What a treat London society has in store for it.”

  “I shall be a wonderful duchess,” Cally told him. “I shall have all the beautiful gowns I want! And jewelry! And I shall dance till dawn every night with all the handsome gentlemen!”

  “First, however,” her brother reminded her, “you will have to produce an heir for the duke. That will be your primary duty. It is your insurance should Valerian Hawkesworth ever find out you are not who you should be, little sister.”

  “Fiddlesticks, George! It will make no difference if he finds out one day. He will have St. Timothy anyway. There is plenty of time for babies, and being stuck in some country mansion just as isolated as our island home is not my idea of being a grand duchess. Any woman can have babies! I want to go to London and see the king! Do not distress yourselves. I shall make my duke fall madly in love with me. Then he will allow me to do whatever I want, for he will desire to please me at all times else I withdraw my love from him.” She giggled. “Ohhh, I cannot wait to be a duchess!”

  “What a heartless little hussy you will be.” Aurora laughed. “You had best not let Mama hear you speaking this way. It will give her a terrible attack of the vapors, I fear.”

  “I love Mama,” Calandra admitted, “but it will be so nice not to have her telling me what to do all the time.”

  “You will have the old dowager telling you what to do instead,” her brother teased her.

  “Another reason for staying in London,” Calandra countered.

  And the three of them laughed, while outside the study, a sudden afternoon squall blew in from the sea to pepper the windows with warm rain.

  Chapter 2

  The Duke of Farminster stood at the rail of the Royal George as it made its way around the island of St. Timothy. The only bay suitable for landing was on the far side of the island, away from the shipping lanes. In the last few days he had been treated to all manner of topography as they sailed among the islands of the western Indies. Many of the islands were mountainous, some were flat, but this island seemed to have a broad plain all about it, with a spine of rolling hills in the center running the length of the island. The ca
ne fields were lush and green, and he was not just a little impressed.

  “They’re harvesting. It’s the season,” the captain said, coming to stand by his side. “The island is about eighty square miles in size, about half of Barbados, and smaller than Grenada. Do you know anything about it, your grace?”

  “Precious little,” Valerian Hawkesworth replied. “I know the two families who were given the grant by King Charles were related to mine by marriage. My bride, and her father, are the last of them.”

  “The families kept in touch with England, then. Many of them don’t, y’know. They go native,” the captain noted disapprovingly.

  “No, our branches kept in touch. My father and Mr. Kimberly were at Oxford together, which is how the match came about between myself and Miss Kimberly. Is there a town on the island, Captain Conway?”

  The seaman shook his head. “Nay, your grace. St. Timothy was Kimberly and Meredith property. They grow sugar cane, and nothing else is done with the land. Besides, who would live here, and what sort of business could a man employ his time with on an island like this? Other than the family, and a few bond servants, there are only blacks.”

  The duke nodded in response and gazed out over the blue-green sea. The island was beautiful, but was it profitable? Was this Kimberly girl really a good match? His grandmother has assumed that the Kimberlys were rich, but were they? The island’s whole subsistence depended upon a good sugar crop. He would, he decided, want to go over the books, and speak with Mr. Kimberly as soon as possible. If the plantation did not make an excellent profit, they must consider the possibility of a cash dower. The ship entered the bay. He could see the warehouses and docks along the shore.

  “Do they ship their sugar to England from here?” he asked Captain Conway.

  “They ship to Barbados, and from there to England. The cargo ships can’t be bothered with a small island like this one, and don’t call. It’s the same all over the Indies, but St. Timothy is in an excellent location, your grace. It can ship cheaper than the plantations in Jamaica because the trade winds blow more convenient here than there.”

  “I can see I have a great deal to learn,” the duke replied.

  “Do you intend remaining here, then, your grace?” That would certainly be odd, the captain thought, unless, of course, this nobleman had murdered someone and needed to be out of England for a time.

  “No, but if this plantation is to come to me through my bride, sir, it would be advisable for me to know about how it is run. I would not like to lose Miss Kimberly’s dowry through ignorance or carelessness. I do not run my stud farms like that, and I will certainly not allow this plantation to be run that way.”

  Interesting, the captain thought. A milord who actually involved himself in the making of money. “You will have no difficulty then, your grace,” Captain Conway said. “St. Timothy is run by Mr. Kimberly himself, aided by his stepson, Mr. George Spencer-Kimberly, a fine young man, I can tell you.” He bowed to the duke. “You will excuse me, your grace. I must go and see to our landing.”

  The duke bowed in return, and watched the captain hurry off. Miss Kimberly had a stepbrother who helped run the plantation. Well, if he did indeed prove to be a fine young man, and he was interested in remaining on St. Timothy, there would be nothing to worry about when his father-in-law went to his reward many years hence. I wonder, Valerian Hawkesworth thought to himself, what kind of an income Kimberly has settled on my bride in the years until she comes into her inheritance.

  His eyes went to the large house upon the crest of a high hill overlooking the harbor. It was very white, and appeared to be open in front. It was a style of architecture with which he was unfamiliar. It didn’t look like any house he had ever seen. He would be interested to see it close up. The low boom of a cannon startled him.

  “Not to worry, yer grace,” his cabin steward told him, coming to the duke’s side. “It’s just that little gun of ours letting yer in-laws know yer here. Not that yer young lady isn’t watching us from her window right now, for I’ll wager she is,” he chuckled broadly.

  “They’re here!” Calandra shrieked excitedly. “Did you hear the arrival cannon? Look! Down in the harbor! The Royal George is sailing in right now! Oh, I think I am going to swoon! My duke is here! He’s here!” She collapsed into a chair, fanning herself with her handkerchief. “I do not think I can bear the excitement!”

  “I am not going to allow you three to bully me,” Oralia Kimberly said, but there was no iron in her voice. “You cannot do this! It is dishonest, and it is wrong! George!” She appealed to her son.

  “I am sorry, Mama, but we have been over and over this for the last month. Cally will marry the duke. It is the only way. If you attempt to tell the duke the truth, I shall say Papa’s death unhinged you and you do not know your own stepdaughter, or daughter, any longer. Then we will lock you away until the duke and Cally are wed and departed for England. Now, I must go down to the docks to greet our guest.” He turned on his heel and left her.

  “You are cruel, George!” she cried after him, but Oralia knew it was no use. The three young people had decided a course of action between them, and they would follow it through. If she interfered, George was quite capable of following through on his threat; and even if the duke believed her, Aurora was equally capable of telling him that she didn’t want to marry him. Then where would they all be?

  Aurora caught Calandra’s eye. Her look plainly said, See! I told you we would win. “Come, little sister,” she said sweetly, “you cannot greet your duke looking like that. We’ll have to hurry. Will you excuse us, Mama?”

  Oralia waved them away. “Yes, yes,” she said. She needed time to compose herself, for while this deception might not distress her children, she was quite upset by their actions. If only Robert had not died, she thought despairingly for the thousandth time in the last four weeks. But Robert was dead. She had no choice but to follow her children’s lead. Perhaps they were right. What real harm was there in what they were doing? Would it not be wickeder to force Aurora into a marriage she didn’t want? Especially when Calandra was so willing to take her place? Her daughter a duchess! Oralia bit her lip in vexation. No! They were wrong! But there was no help for it. What would Robert think of all of this? She shuddered. She knew what Robert would think, but, “Damnation!” the word slipped out, Robert wasn’t here, and it had always been next to impossible for her to control the three children. Robert had been the one to do that, and now he was gone from her side, leaving her to cope with an impossible situation. I will not cry, Oralia thought desperately. Calandra a duchess!

  Upstairs the two girls and their servants were all hurrying to get ready for the Duke of Farminster’s arrival. Calandra bathed in her tub, behind a painted screen. The air was heavy with her favorite scent, a mixture of tuberose and gardenia. Sally, her personal maid, was, under Aurora’s direction, laying out her young mistress’s clothing. Finally satisfied with her selection, Aurora withdrew to her own bedroom to change her clothing.

  “Yer a fool, and yer papa would be furious if he knew what you was doing,” her servant, Martha, said. “There is still time to change yer mind, Mistress Aurora. A man is a man, and while some are better than the others, in the end they’re all alike, I say.”

  “Martha, do not scold me over this,” Aurora replied. “I really don’t want to marry anyone at this time. Even if this duke were willing to wait a year or two, what if I don’t like him? No, this is a better solution all around, for me, for Cally, for all of us.”

  “And what if you do like him?” Martha demanded.

  “I hope I shall like him as a brother-in-law, as a friend, but now that he is to be my sister’s husband, there is no chance of anything else, Martha. Certainly you understand that.”

  The servant pursed her lips in mute disapproval. She had come to St. Timothy as a bondswoman shortly after Aurora’s birth. Because she was not a criminal, and because she was mannerly, Emily Kimberly had purchased her to care for h
er newborn daughter. Martha’s offense in the eyes of English law was that she was poor. When her parents had died she had been evicted from the family cottage by their landlord. It had been the local vicar who had suggested she indenture herself for a period of seven years, and give herself a chance at a better life in the new world. Martha had followed his advice, putting herself into the hands of the vicar’s brother, a decent man who saw his bondspeople placed with good families who would not abuse them. She had served as Aurora’s nanny when she was a child, and remained on when her term of servitude ended, as a free woman and Aurora’s personal servant.

  “I’ve set out a fresh gown for you,” she told her young mistress.

  “Oh, don’t be cross with me, Martha,” Aurora said, hugging the older woman. “It really is all for the best, you know.”

  Martha shook the girl off. “Now, don’t you go thinking you can wheedle me like you can Mistress Oralia and Master George, because you can’t. If your papa were here, you would have to do what you was told, and no nonsense about it. Now, go wash. I put your basin and sponge in the dressing room. I’ve set out that pretty blue-gray cotton gown for you to wear like you said. Even with those lovely lace engageants, it’s too plain. I don’t know why you want to wear it to meet this duke.”