The Perfect Duchess

by Erica Taylor

  With a laugh, Clara linked her arm through her friend’s. “I say, Lady Susanna, you have a hidden vicious side that I think I quite like. So much different than prim and proper.”

  Susanna shrugged. “Prim and proper will get you places, but it gets old and boring after a while. Vicious and malevolent are far more enjoyable from time to time.”

  “Remind me to never get on your bad side,” Clara replied, clucking her tongue. “You would make a formidable enemy.”

  “Marry my brother, and you shall never have to worry about it,” Susanna countered, grinning.

  Clara’s amusement faded. “If only it were that simple.”

  Susanna watched her for a long moment before replying, “If it should come to pass that you and Andrew do not suit, and your engagement is broken, I will aid you in any way you require. You are my friend, Clara, and that is whether or not you are married to my brother.”

  Clara managed a smile. “Thank you, Susanna. You have no idea what your friendship means to me.”

  Clara followed Susanna to their seats, sitting between Andrew and Sarah, all the while straining to maintain a glimmer of decorum and a polite expression on her face. She regarded the other attendees, a bit curious as to the identities of the ladies who had spoken such mean things about her, but she was not as determined as Susanna was, who was twisting around in her seat, staring at each person as they walked by, straining to recognize the voices they had heard. Sarah swatted Susanna with her fan, and Susanna glared at her sister before facing forward with her hands properly clasped together in her lap.

  The musicale finally began, Mara taking her seat at the pianoforte, every inch a lady. Her proper posture, her soft smile, and the overall regal air about her. She was like a strange lady-child, the paradox amusing to Clara. Barely a teenaged young lady but dressed as a duchess. She was very accomplished on the pianoforte and simply magic to behold. Her hands flew across the keys, graceful yet powerful in the music she was creating. The sounds of Mozart and Vivaldi washed over Clara, the notes cascaded throughout the room. Mara moved with the music, her head dipping in intensity, a small smile crossing her youthful face in lighter parts of the music.

  Part of the way through the program, Clara glanced to her left at Andrew. He was toying with the signet ring on his right hand, twisting it around and around as if anxious about something. This was startling; what did he have to be anxious about? She hoped it had nothing to do with her brother but feared it might.

  Turning back to the performance, Clara tried to relax and let the music calm her, enjoying the warm length of Andrew up against her left side. They were not touching, but she could still feel the warmth radiating from his body. She remembered him without his shirt, the way he had been a week earlier, and remembered the heat and feel of his body pressed up against hers, the way his fingers had stroked her from inside as he led her to release.

  She squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to control her thoughts as a rush of heat swept through her, and she dared a glance at Andrew. He was smirking down at her, as if he knew exactly where her thoughts had wondered. Her eyes widened in challenge, and he looked towards the performances and then back at her, indicating she should be paying attention. She made the same motion with her eyes, and he smiled, lifting his right shoulder in a slight shrug. They both turned back to the recital.

  At its conclusion, she rose with the other fifty or so people in attendance and applauded Mara’s performance. She had thoroughly enjoyed the concert. Lady Mara had been quite impressive.

  “Lady Clara, my grandmother has a lovely garden full of roses. Would you care to take a tour before we go in for dinner?” Andrew asked, as they walked up the aisle of chairs.

  It would seem outwardly rude to refuse, so Clara nodded her acquiescence, placing her gloved hand on his arm, and went with him out the far doors. She tried to ignore the stares that followed them—some supportive, some rude, but speculative stares all the same. She knew they were making a scene as he practically paraded her out of the room, and she tried desperately not to care.

  The cool night breeze hit her face, a welcome reprieve from the heat of the music room. Besides, she had resolved to take what he had to offer for the remainder of her time with him, and if he wanted to walk through the gardens unchaperoned, then who was she to refuse?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Andrew was doing his best not to burst with nervousness and excitement. He was anxious, thankful he was wearing gloves, afraid she would feel his palms perspiring.

  He ignored the shocked look on Sarah’s face, the bemused look on Susanna’s, and the confused, alarmed and distressed looks on the various ladies they passed on their way out of the music room. He wanted to laugh at all of them. To think they doubted his commitment to Clara.

  “Have you enjoyed your evening?” he asked, chiding himself for his cool tone.

  “Yes,” Clara replied absently as she strolled beside him. “Your sister is a prodigy.”

  “She wants to play with the new Royal Philharmonic Society,” Andrew said. “Though I doubt they’d allow a lady.”

  “Or a child,” Clara added.

  Andrew glanced at Clara in worry. Something about her demeanor seemed off.

  “Are you well?” he asked, and she turned her gaze to meet his.

  “Perfectly,” she replied, though the dimming light in her eyes said something else.

  “Are you worried about your brother?” he asked. “Because, allow me to reassure you—”

  “Yes, I know,” Clara interjected. “I am well protected under your house and soon with your name. Your soldiers in Andrew’s Grand Army will make certain no harm comes to me.”

  “Your sarcasm indicates you do not agree.”

  “I don’t agree with any of this,” Clara replied with a shrug. “I cannot understand what possessed you to take such a giant risk in proposing to me. I can only conclude you did so in a moment of worry and now wish to rescind your offer. But, you are too polite to do such a thing.”

  “I assure you, I do not wish anything of the sort,” he said, halting their progress into the gardens.

  “I wouldn’t hold it against you if you did,” Clara said gently.

  “Clara, I have no desire to break my promise to you,” he replied. “In fact, I brought you out here to renew my commitment to this engagement and to you.” He pulled a jeweler’s box from his jacket pocket, pulling the ring from inside.

  It was a strong gold band with a diamond half the size of Clara’s nail, flanked by two equally impressive sapphires.

  “This is the reason I was late this evening, and I apologize,” Andrew said to her, slipping the ring onto her finger. “I received a missive this evening that it was ready, and I rushed to pick it up. I know it is not traditional to give a ring before a marriage, but I wanted you to have something from me,” he explained. “There are the Bradstone jewels you will have access to, and numerous family pieces that have been passed down. But I wanted this one thing to be between you and I, Andrew and Clara, not the duke and duchess.”

  Clara stared at the ring, held in its rightful place as he held her hand in his. It sparkled in the dimming moonlight, stark against the white of her glove.

  “Hopefully this will prove my desire to marry you.”

  “You don’t even want to marry me, Andrew. Not really.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you proposed to me under threat of my life,” Clara said with a laugh. “And I was not exactly given a choice.”

  “If you had the choice now, would you change your mind?”

  Clara paused for a long moment before answering.

  “If I thought there was a chance, a possibility you could love me—that this marriage would not turn into a thicket of pity and resentment—I would never leave your side,” she admitted. “But I do not know what to believe anymor
e. One moment you are charming, the next there is a frozen tundra of distance between us. You tell me one thing, but your actions tell me something different. I will not be your pet, or the source of some revenge trick. What my sister did to you was unforgivable, but I will not be some pawn in your vengeance.” She took a few steps away from him and Andrew was thankful for the distance, lest he be tempted to pull her into his arms.

  “Is that really what you think?” Andrew asked, his brows pulling together. “That this is some sort of game? That I am getting some sort of entertainment from this, at your expense?”

  “Are you not?” she asked him.

  “Whatever gave you that impression?” Andrew demanded.

  “Idle chatter in the refreshing rooms,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

  “I do not care what other people think of you,” Andrew replied, taking hold of her hands. She still did not meet his eyes. “What they think does not matter. I am choosing you, regardless what the haute ton thinks of my decision.”

  “You had a choice once and you chose my sister,” Clara reminded him. “Am I to be her replacement? A second choice—an afterthought?”

  “Clara, I am terribly sorry for any hurt I caused you all those years ago,” he replied. “But you have to understand, I did not have a say in the matter.”

  “I was there, Andrew!” Clara exclaimed. “For years I had watched you parade about with Jonathan, never giving me a second thought. Then, the night of my debut, you walked right up to Christina, bowed, and asked her to dance. You barely glanced at me. I spent my entire life in her shadow, in Jonathan’s shadow, and the one person who had barely managed to notice me looked right past me when it mattered most. No one forced your hand, no one coerced you into proposing. Like everyone else, you chose her over me.”

  “Is that what you think happened?” he asked delicately. “Darling, I am afraid you are terribly wrong. I did see you, since the first day I met you. You were always following after Jonathan and me. Christina would stay in the house, but you chased after us. You were the bright parts in my summers at Morton Park. After I inherited, every time something got me down I would think of you and your light and your freckles, and it would cheer me up. The night of your debut ball, I went to see you. After all those years, I had not forgotten about you.”

  “Then why did you dance with my sister?”

  Andrew sighed. “I thought she was you.”

  Clara blinked at him dumbly.

  “You two looked so similar,” he continued, “and I hadn’t seen you in seven years. She smiled so brightly at me. I thought she was you, smiling at me in friendly recognition, a reflection of the feeling I had buried but not forgotten. I only realized my mistake at the end of the dance when she mentioned you by name, I looked back at you and realized my mistake. I figured I would dance with you next, but your father had already set his cap for me and Christina, and I would never get that chance to dance or speak with you.

  “Each time I called I was brow beat into escorting Christina to the park or to Gunter’s or a ball. Then your father practically guilted me into proposing to her, claiming I had paid her too much attention to cut off my suit. He said it would harm her reputation. The papers were practically announcing our engagement. I felt trapped. I did not want to be the villain and bring about the scandal of stopping my suit. But I did not want her for a wife. I resigned myself that if she and I were married at least you would still be in my life, and I wouldn’t lose you completely. Then she left me at the altar, your father whisked you away, and I thought my chance at happiness was lost.

  “So there you have it,” Andrew finished and ran his hand through his hair. “In the most important moment of my life I could not tell you and Christina apart. I chose wrong. But I never overlooked you, Clara, I always saw you.”

  Clara shook her head. “I know you to be a kind and generous man, the ton’s greatest hero, swooping in to save the day. But what if you cannot save me?”

  “Clara,” Andrew said, desperate for her to understand. He cupped her face in his hands, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. “It is you who has saved me. I love you, darling. That cannot be denied.”

  “Andrew, I don’t know what to say,” Clara said, shaking her head.

  He stepped closer, eliminating any space between them. Slowly he raised his hands to her face, placing feather-light kisses on her lips.

  “Say you’ll marry me,” Andrew pleaded, cradling her head in his hands, he kissed her softly on the lips.

  Clara shook her head again, pulling out of his arms. “I need a moment to think.”

  “We’ve been engaged for weeks, Clara,” he reminded her. “What else have you to think about?”

  “Andrew, I never intended to actually marry you!” she exclaimed. “Not when you were just offering to keep me safe. That is no way to start a marriage, a relationship we’d both have to live with until one of us died!”

  Frowning, Andrew asked, “Then what did you intend to do?”

  “I intended to break it off,” Clara said, her voice small. “Once Jonathan was no longer a threat, I intended . . . to leave.”

  Andrew felt his stomach drop to his toes. The past weeks when he’d been tumbling head over heels in love with her, she’d been . . . planning to leave him?

  He could feel his features changing, hardening into granite, pushing every ounce of pain and hurt down deep within him to where he could not feel it at all.

  “Andrew, please,” Clara began reaching for him but he cut her off, stepping out of her reach.

  “This is for you,” Andrew said, handing her the soft jeweler’s box. “As my wife, you will need a wedding band.”

  “Andrew, you cannot possibly still want to marry me after what I’ve just said to you.”

  “My wants and desires are immaterial in this matter,” he replied. “I have made you a promise, and I intend to keep it. Whether or not you decide you will be there is up to you. I’ve dealt with one Masson daughter leaving me at the altar. Another might go without notice.”

  He bowed to her stiffly and made his exit from the gardens.

  How lovely of her to tell him now of her true intentions. At least this time he could prepare for the scandal. What he could not prepare for was the hole left in his heart. It was only fair, he assumed. He’d broken her heart the first time, it was her turn to do the same to him.

  Clara stared after him, her mouth agape as she watched him walk away. It took her a few seconds to recover but quickly she caught up to him, not wanting to remain outside in the gardens alone. Her brother did want her dead, after all.

  The moment she stepped back into the music room, she knew her mistake. The ring on her finger shone bright like a lighthouse beacon at the edge of a rocky cliff. A sure sign of his commitment to her. Who gave a lady a ring before the wedding? A man desperately in love, that is who. And it was blatantly obvious.

  Andrew did not look at her as she walked beside him towards where his family stood. Clara swallowed the lump in her throat, holding her head high. She was determined to make it through the rest of the evening, despite the awful turn it had taken.

  The first person she saw was Susanna, whose eyes lit up like fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day. Unable to hold her glee in any longer, Susanna rushed the last few feet to wrap her arms around Clara in a very unladylike way. Clara chuckled and patted her soon-to-be sister-in-law’s back before Susanna pulled away, her face in a brilliant grin.

  “Did I not tell you, Clara?” Susanna asked excitedly, Clara managed a faint smile at her exuberance. She was not sure what they looked like to everyone else, but they could not look the epitome of a couple happily in love.

  “I do not believe this!” a feminine voice rang out, echoing off the halls and the entirety of the Macalister family, plus Clara, Bexley, and everyone else in the room turned to see what could have caused such a noise
.

  Striding out of the crowd came Lady Laura, fuming with anger.

  “Oh lord,” Clara heard Norah mutter behind her.

  “Your grace, you cannot possibly be serious!” the young lady screeched at him. “What could you possibly be thinking?”

  “Lady Laura, please calm down,” Norah said stepping around Clara and taking her friend’s hand. Lady Laura shook her off, rounding on Norah.

  “You let this happen!” Lady Laura accused, glaring daggers at Norah. “We told you to fuss the hussy out, to get rid of her. And you are encouraging the match?” Clara could see the change in Norah’s posture, her back straightened, chin slightly raised. Clara had come to recognize it as the Macalister fighting stance, like a snake about to strike.

  “Laura, please, be reasonable,” Norah replied in a calm, albeit dangerous tone, much more proper than the screeching Lady Laura.

  Lady Laura apparently did not appreciate Norah’s condescending tone, and Clara had her first glimpse of what a wronged young lady was capable of. Laura glared murderously at Norah, raising her hand to strike her. The entire room seemed to gasp as one.

  Faster than Clara could have thought possible, Andrew moved and caught Lady Laura’s slim arm, halting the assault on his sister. Lady Laura looked up at Andrew in shock.

  “If you dare lay a hand on my sister, I will forget you are a lady,” Andrew threatened in a low tone. Lady Laura’s murderous stare returned, and she yanked her hand way.

  “How could you choose this trollop over the much more qualified ladies of the ton?” Lady Laura demanded, pointing an elegantly gloved finger at Clara.

  “My reasons are not any concern of yours,” Andrew replied, his voice a little louder. “But hear this: Lady Clara is who I choose to marry, and if you or anyone else has a negative word against her or my decision, they will answer directly to me.”