My Dear Duchess

by M C Beaton

  “You need to get married,” said Archie, patting her hand. He suddenly turned to his friend, his face alight with mischief. “And damme, if there ain’t somebody else in this room who needs to get married.”

  Both Corinthians slowly looked at Frederica.

  She was attired in the shabby tarlatan dress which was too short for her and exposed a pair of much-worn half boots. The two men, both over six feet tall, seemed to fill the small, scantily furnished parlor. In their impeccable swallowtail coats, intricate cravats and glossy hessians, they seemed a glittering world away to poor Frederica. She began to wonder if she were mad. It was such a logical idea at the time. Now she had to admit dismally that she did not want to be anyone’s mistress except the Duke’s.

  He was a Duke! Clarissa would surely accept him now. A large tear began to creep down her cheek.

  The Duke put a long finger under her chin and turned her face up to his. “I wonder,” he mused aloud. “It might just work.”

  Then he said briskly, “Leave us, Archie.”

  The Corinthian hesitated in the doorway. “She’s such a little thing, Henry. Be gentle…”

  “I will. I will,” he said impatiently, thrusting his large friend from the room.

  He came back to stand in front of her. “It so happens, my dear Miss Frederica, that under the terms of the late Duke’s will, I must marry before the month is out.

  “Now this is too short a time in which to expect any lady to form a tendre for me so it must needs be a marriage of convenience. You need to escape from the unpleasant circumstances of your home and I need a wife.”

  “But Clarissa will have you now!” wailed Frederica.

  His face hardened. “I do not wish to be wed to any lady who is only interested in my title. I do not wish to be reminded of my idiocy in that direction.”

  Frederica faltered, “You do… do… well, you are not, I trust, thinking of a means to revenge yourself on my stepsister?”

  Now the Duke was only human, and that delicious thought had certainly entered his mind, but he dismissed it firmly. “I am no longer concerned with your stepsister, Miss Frederica. I am sure we shall rub along together famously.” His voice softened, “I am not forcing you, you know. It is quite simple to say ‘no.’”

  Frederica shuddered as she thought of the scene there would be on her return when her stepmother learned that the Captain had become my lord Duke, and that the despised Frederica had snatched the prize from under Clarissa’s nose.

  As if reading her thoughts, he said gently, “I see no reason you should return. I can take you to my Aunt Matilda in Hartford Street. She is chaperoning my sister Emily for the Season and you can be married from there. Emily would be glad of some young company. I fear she detests London and would rather be in the country with her horses and dogs. What do you say?”

  Frederica suddenly realized that if she did not take this chance, she would never forgive herself. She ignored a little warning voice in her brain which was whispering to her that the Duke might never fall in love with her no matter how married they were. She smiled bravely at him and said, “I would like it above all things. But what will my stepmother say?”

  He shrugged. “There is little she can say. My aunt will inform her of your visit. The wedding announcement can come as a surprise. I think… yes I really think… that we should announce our forthcoming nuptials at the Falconer ball. Now let us tell Archie your news.”

  He opened the door and called to his friend who came in followed by Stubbs who was bearing a bottle of champagne and three glasses.

  “I thought celebrations might be the order of the day,” said Lord Hefford cheerfully.

  The Duke told him of the plan to escort Frederica to his aunt’s house. “Capital!” said Lord Hefford. “You’ll find Emily a great girl. No nonsense about her!”

  The description of Emily did indeed seem apt as Frederica was urged forward into the salon in Hartford Street some hours later to meet her new friend. Emily Wright was a tall, bony girl with brown hair scraped back from an angular face. When the party entered, she was sitting reading the Gazette with her legs crossed.

  Frederica hurriedly averted her eyes from this scandalous lapse of good manners. Emily took the news that Frederica was to be her sister-in-law with indifferent calm. “So long as you don’t expect me to talk about clothes and balls and trash like that,” was her only comment as she buried her head in the paper again.

  “Have you no manners?” declared her much-exasperated brother.

  “None at all,” was the cool rejoinder. “Here’s auntie. Aunt Matilda—our Henry’s a Duke.”

  “Come to take a look… at what,” said a vague, thin woman teetering on the threshold. To the amazed Frederica, Mrs. Cholmley, Henry’s Aunt Matilda, seemed so frail and emaciated, it was a wonder she did not blow away. She had slanting eyes of pale grey which gazed upon the world with perpetual and myopic wonder. A pale grey chiffon dress clung to her painfully-thin form. She looked like an elderly and kindly marsh spirit.

  “This is Frederica Sayers… come to stay,” said the Duke.

  “To pay what, dear?” said his aunt, smiling kindly. “A dressmaker’s bill? Madam Vernee is usually not so importunate. Why, I can remember the day.…”

  “Not pay, STAY!” roared her nephew.

  “Fey? How odd. Have you Scottish blood, my dear?”

  Emily gave a sudden bark of laughter. “Don’t strain your vocal cords, Henry. You know there’s only one person she understands.” She gave the bell pull an energetic tug and a heavy-set butler appeared.

  “Stafford. Tell Mrs. Cholmley that Captain Wright has just learned that he is the new Duke of Westerland and that Miss Frederica Sayers and he are to be married and that Miss Sayers is to stay with us until the wedding.”

  “Very good, miss.”

  Stafford marched to the center of the salon, placed a tapestried footstool on the middle of the rug and stood up on it. Then he began to declaim in a pulpit voice, “Yea verily, Mrs. Cholmley, let it be known and heard in the land that your nephew here has been heralded throughout the realm as the new Duke of Westerland. Also hear ye that His Grace will take unto him, in holy wedlock, Miss Frederica Sayers, who is to reside in this blessed house until that aforesaid happy event.”

  “Really, how nice, my dear,” said Mrs. Cholmley, patting Frederica’s hand while Emily whispered to her, “She only understands anything if it sounds as if it’s in church. Stone deaf to anything else.”

  By the time Frederica was shown to her rooms, she felt exhausted by all the strange conversation and the butler’s odd translations. A new wardrobe was to be provided for her, or, as Stafford had put it, “Yea verily, raiment shall be furnished forthwith.”

  Emily pottered around Frederica’s little parlor, picking things up and putting them down. At last she burst out, “You see what it’s like here. Aunt Matilda is a dear but it gets so wearing always having to ask Stafford to explain things in that biblical manner. Oh, how I wish we could live in the country all the year round.”

  “Now that the Cap… I mean Henry is a Duke, he’ll have lots of places in the country and…” began Frederica.

  “What’s the use,” said Emily savagely. “I am supposed to get married. This is my second Season and I’m nigh dead of boredom.

  “What is the use of being married anyway… one becomes no better than a servant.” She blushed. “I am sorry,” she said impulsively. “I am not always such a bear and so you shall see. I suppose the fact is that I’m just like any other female. I don’t care for propping up the walls in the ballroom. Various well-meaning people tell me I ought to prettify up. But what can be done with this set of features?”

  “Oh, a great deal,” said Frederica timidly. “I collect our first major engagement is the Falconer ball. Please, allow me to choose something for you. I hope you do not consider me impertinent,” here she looked at Emily’s pale pink muslin, “but I feel if you were to wear something more dashing…
you could look a most striking girl.”

  “Buy anything you like,” said Emily moodily. “Nothing I know of will change me.”

  Chapter Four

  Clarissa nimbly executed the steps of the Cotillion, glancing under her upraised arm at a French clock over the mantle. Eleven o’clock and the Duke had not yet arrived.

  The name of the new Duke of Westerland had proved to be one of London’s best kept secrets as far as the Sayers were concerned. Experts on the peerage had claimed the new member of the aristocracy to be the Honorable Jack Ferrand. But that gentleman had been gambling heavily in the card room almost since the evening began and showed no signs of laying claim to the title.

  “A Duke,” thought Clarissa, smiling radiantly at her partner while her mind ran round in circles. “And unmarried, they say. I know I could catch him. If only he would come.”

  As ever, her mama’s thoughts were running along much the same lines as her daughter. Of Frederica she barely thought at all except to be relieved that the brat had been taken off her hands by the nutty Mrs. Cholmley and so far showed no signs of appearing on the social scene.

  The Cotillion came to a breathless end and, as the couples separated to find their new partners, a stentorian voice from the top of the curving staircase announced, “His Grace, The Duke of Westerland.”

  All heads turned. Everyone stared. Clarissa glared as if she could not believe her eyes. It was only Captain Wright and that little pest, Frederica. The Duke must be behind them. Where on earth had Frederica found the money to buy that gown?

  The pair descended the staircase in stately silence. The Duke was dressed in impeccable black and white with rubies flashing on his cravat and fingers. Frederica wore a flame-red gown of deceptive simplicity cut by the hand of a master to reveal her small and exquisite figure. A thin collar of rubies blazed like fire around her slender throat and her black hair was worn in a coronet.

  The waltz was announced, the fiddlers struck up and still Clarissa craned her head. Where was the Duke?

  “Magnificent pair, aren’t they?” murmured a voice at her elbow. Mrs. Bannington was standing beside her, her eyes alight with mischief. “I think Captain Wright looks every inch the Duke.”

  “Pooh!” said Clarissa rudely. “I am looking for the real Duke.”

  “But haven’t you heard,” said Mrs. Bannington with gentle malice. “Captain Wright is the Duke.”

  “Impossible!” shouted Clarissa and then blushed as several people turned to stare at her.

  “But not impossible at all,” said Mrs. Bannington sweetly. “The Duke and your little sister make such a charming couple.” And having delivered her last barb, she drifted off.

  Clarissa could feel her heart beating hard against her ribs. Then she relaxed. Of course, all was not lost. Why only last week, he had declared his love for her… had asked her to marry him. Well, he should have his wish. That is, if he ever stopped dancing with that little idiot.

  But the idiot was still circling in a dream-like trance in the Duke’s arms. The Falconers had chosen an Indian theme for their ball. A great tent of white silk was hung from the roof of the ballroom which was so crowded with palm trees, stuffed tigers and exotic plants that it was hard at times for the dancers to find space. The ball was declared to be a sad crush which meant that it was the success of the Season.

  Lord Hefford approached Clarissa and begged for a dance but she pleaded fatigue, anxious not to lose a moment of the chase. Archie shrugged and then remembered that he had promised Henry to spare his sister a dance. He searched along the line of wallflowers, looking for the familiar angular figure of Emily Wright, but she was nowhere to be seen. He turned and studied the dance floor. A tall, dashing girl floated past in the arms of her partner and turned to give him a brilliant smile. He smiled back automatically, wondering who the dasher was… and then he slowly looked at her again. By George it was Emily.

  She was wearing a sea-green gown of crepe trimmed with bugle beads and cut low to reveal an unexpectedly generous bosom. Gold jewelery flashed at her neck and ears and on the heels of her dancing slippers. Her bony arms were concealed by a pair of long green silk gloves and her gown had a demi-train which added fullness to her figure. He did not know that the precocious Frederica had persuaded Emily to darken her brows and fair eyelashes. Lord Hefford only knew that his childhood friend seemed to have undergone some magical transformation. To blazes with playing games with Clarissa. He would secure Emily for the next dance.

  After an hour had passed, Clarissa realized that the Duke was not going to dance with her. He was obviously having his revenge. That did not disturb her. It was exactly how she would have behaved herself.

  Resorting to her old tactics, she slipped as she took his hand during the Grand Chain and stumbled against him so heavily that he perforce had to put his arms around her to prevent them both from falling. To Frederica it looked as if he seized hold of Clarissa in an affectionate embrace and her heart sank down to her little scarlet slippers.

  She had hardly seen him during a week taken up with the hurried and important affair of choosing a new wardrobe, a project in which Emily had taken an increasing interest, confiding to Frederica that it was so pleasant to shop with someone who could hear what one said. Clarissa seemed to be entreating the Duke to remove her from the dance. Frederica momentarily closed her eyes because she could not bear to look. But when she opened them again, the dance was proceeding as if nothing had happened. Clarissa was sitting sulkily beside her mother and the Duke was returning to her round the chain of the dance.

  There was a sudden fanfare of trumpets and Lady Falconer mounted a small stage beside the musicians and held up her hands for silence. “My lords, ladies and gentlemen,” she cried. “Curiosity has been satisfied. Behold our Duke.”

  There was much cheering and clapping for Henry Wright was a popular figure. “But this is an evening of surprises,” she went on. “Our Duke has chosen his Duchess.”

  Clarissa let out a little sigh of relief. Who could Lady Falconer mean except herself. Why he had been crying with disappointment over her rejection of him. Clarissa had the enviable talent of believing her own lies as soon as she had uttered them. She fixed the Duke with an excited and predatory stare like some exotic bird spying a particularly large and tantalizing worm.

  “May I present our future Duchess… Miss Frederica Sayers!” said Lady Falconer, holding out her hands to the Duke and Frederica. Blushing at the cries and applause, Frederica mounted the platform with the Duke and then suddenly felt herself being wrenched to one side.

  Clarissa was seizing the Duke’s arm with fingers like claws digging into his evening coat. “What a silly mistake, Lady Falconer,” she cried shrilly. “I am his affianced bride.”

  The Duke looked at her with something like loathing. “You are standing in the way of my fiancee,” he said brutally, extricating himself from her grasp. He stretched his hand out to Frederica. Clarissa was bundled unceremoniously away by two large dowagers who kept shaking their turbanned heads over the scandalous lack of breeding in the younger generation. Clarissa was so mad with rage that she would have returned to the attack had not a stentorian voice announced, “His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent.” The band struck up “God Bless The Prince of Wales,” as the portly figure wearing the Order of The Garter descended the stairs. With the ease of long social practice, the company had formed themselves into two long reception lines in order of importance.

  At the very bottom was Clarissa. At the very top was her stepsister. His Highness was laughing and clapping the Duke on the back and chucking Frederica under the chin. Clarissa writhed in misery. But His Royal Highness would surely notice her. As yet, her great beauty had not gone unmarked. But the bluff Prince went no further than the beginning of the line and then retired to the card room followed by his cronies.

  Clarissa’s bitter cup was full. She longed to murder Frederica. Murder her… but see her disgraced first. Hard glances were being dir
ected at her as loud murmurs of “What do you expect from the mushroom class,” assailed her burning ears.

  “Control your fury. You’ll win no battles that way,” said an amused voice at her elbow. Clarissa swung round. The Honorable Jack Ferrand was standing smiling at her. He was a square-built, soberly-dressed young man with a pleasant, open expression in his light blue eyes.

  “We have not been introduced,” snapped Clarissa fanning herself vigorously with her ostrich feather fan.

  “Come now,” he said, not in the least put out, “our paths run together, yours and mine. You wish revenge and I, my dear… er… wish for revenge as well.”

  Clarissa, who had started to move away, stopped still. “You are talking fustian, sir,” she said, yawning, “but do proceed.”

  “Come sit beside me behind this wilting palm,” he said, “and I will elaborate.”

  Beginning to be intrigued and anxious to escape from public view, Clarissa complied.

  He began without preamble. “The title of Duke of Westerland should have been mine. I am of more noble birth than Captain Wright and just as close to the title in line of descent. For reasons that I do not wish to bore you with at the moment, I do not wish that marriage to prosper.”

  “What will you do?” asked Clarissa eagerly. “Stop the marriage from taking place? Arrange some accident?”

  “What a bloodthirsty and vindictive girl you are,” he said matter-of-factly. “No, nothing so dramatic.

  “I am merely anxious that the marriage should be so unhappy that your sister would remain childless, if you take my meaning.”

  “And what satisfaction do you get out of it?” demanded Clarissa. “Even if they had no children, you cannot inherit unless the Duke dies.”

  “I shall get the same satisfaction as you… revenge,” he said bluntly. “The other reasons are my own affair.”

  Clarissa blinked her beautiful eyes and stared at the reflection of her feet in the polished floor. This seemingly amiable and correct young man exuded a strange menace. But the longing to see the Duke and Frederica humiliated was too much for her.