Duchess by Design

by Maya Rodale

  “More reasonable to move?” He was shocked. Horrified. Aghast. “Women put far too much stock into fashion,” he replied tartly, thinking of the tradesmen’s bills for ostrich feathers, rare furs, custom gowns from Paris that arrived regularly. Astronomical sums for things that must be worn precisely once and then never seen again. He had the distinct sensation of his heart sinking and taking his hopes for this woman down with it.

  Good God, not another fashion-mad female. Lord save him from the dress obsessed.

  “Said by someone who misunderstands the power of elegant dress and how it is often a woman’s sole means of control and communication,” she retorted.

  Kingston found himself shocked, again. Somewhat horrified. Slightly aghast. Never had he met a woman who contradicted him so early in their acquaintance and who dared to confront his ignorance. No English girl would ever dare to. The title, you see. Was it arousing or enraging? He couldn’t read the quickening of his heart or the constriction in his lungs. He couldn’t be sure, but he knew he could not quit her just yet.

  “I pay the tradesmen’s bills and cannot imagine why anyone needs dozens of hats decorated in the plumage of dead birds and more dresses than anyone could wear in a week.”

  “For whom are you purchasing these hats, might I ask?”

  “My mother. My two sisters. I hate to deny them anything, even if I think it’s silly.”

  “How positively noble of you.”

  “You are not impressed.”

  “I am one of those women who finds fashion singularly interesting and empowering to womankind.”

  Yes, another fashion-obsessed female. One who might even lecture him.

  Those lips, though. He wanted to kiss them. His pulse quickened when she smiled at him. Maybe he could just listen to what she had to say.

  So he said, “Convince me.”

  She gave him a smile that said challenge accepted.

  “It’s simple. Women are raised to be seen and not heard; why, it’s still scandalous for a woman to speak publicly. So we make ourselves heard with our clothes. We wear full skirts to take up space in the world that wants us to be shut away in drawing rooms and kitchens. We wear bright colors to remind mankind that we exist. For example.”

  “An interesting perspective I had not considered. It does have a ring of logic to it,” he conceded. “But what is the message that a dead bird on a hat is trying to convey?”

  “That one feels trapped and powerless in their existence.”

  This was a novel interpretation of the fashion obsession of Her Grace, the Duchess of Kingston. It was an obsession that threatened to bankrupt the already dwindling estate. He feared it all reflected poorly upon him and his father. It was a theory that probably merited more consideration at a later date when he was not walking arm in arm with an enchanting and confounding woman who might be the answer to his prayers—or who might make things infinitely worse.

  Her passion for fashion complicated things. Was she perfect for him or would she only be more trouble? It was too soon to tell but the yearning to explore more was undeniable. He was not in the habit of denying his yearnings.

  “After all this discussion of fashion, I hope I haven’t compromised your sense of masculinity,” she teased.

  “I assure you, my sense of masculinity is just fine.”

  “I daresay it is as well,” she murmured.

  The pathway was now winding toward a tunnel which promised a cool, dark, and private respite from the sunshine and the crowds. In this little secluded spot in an otherwise crowded city, there was nothing to distract them. And, oddly, no one to see.

  Miss Freeman, chaperone extraordinaire, had conveniently made herself scarce by lagging behind a few steps and developing a sudden interest in the foliage.

  Kingston offered a prayer of gratitude for romantically inclined chaperones.

  Especially when this enchanting girl seemed as keen for something as he was.

  Her gaze had locked with his. Her lips parted.

  Was it too soon to kiss her?

  Yes, they had only just met. She might or might not be perfect. A short acquaintance had never stopped him from stealing a kiss from a willing woman before. He may not know how to read a dress, but he knew desire in a woman’s eyes. He knew what it did to him.

  A look like that made a man think of kisses and wedded bliss.

  It was a look so captivating that he almost missed the swarm of bicyclists rushing toward them. Without thinking he grabbed her around the waist and tugged her close against him, out of the way of those dangerous riders.

  She clasped the lapels of his jacket. Her lips were just inches from his.

  The throng of humans on bicycles flew past with their wheels whirring, buzzing and generating a gust of wind in their wake. He didn’t move an inch. Not at all. She clung to him and he didn’t exactly let go.

  He stood tall above her, acutely aware that her breasts occasionally brushed against his chest, achingly aware just an inch would close the distance between his arousal and her skirts. He held her, his hand hot and possessive on her waist.

  Kingston flirted with the possibility of kissing her.

  He came so close he could taste it.

  A slow, sweet kiss was just there between them, ripe for the plucking. Something stopped him, though. It was a deep, instinctive sense that once his lips touched hers it would be impossible to stop. When he kissed this woman, he was going to kiss her so thoroughly and completely that they would require all night and the morning, too. They would require privacy.

  He was a duke. A gentleman of honor, breeding, and refinement. He did not debauch and ravish women during an afternoon stroll in the park.

  But he thought about it.

  And so he took a reluctant step away from this enchanting, bewitching woman.

  They resumed their stroll, following the meandering path until it deposited them on a grand promenade. It didn’t escape his notice that people stared at them. He was accustomed to being the subject of attention and he hid behind an air of reserved indifference.

  The woman on his arm bore up well under the scrutiny. She kept her head held high, her shoulders back, all to show off her costume to its best effect to the admiring eyes of those in the vicinity.

  Yes, he could definitely see her taking London by storm.

  “So you have come to New York to find a bride,” she started. “Most come here to seek fame and fortune.”

  “Those things are not necessarily mutually exclusive,” he replied carefully. Kingston was hesitant to reveal himself as a duke just yet—she didn’t seem to know, and he was enjoying this sense of getting to know each other before titles and fortunes got involved.

  “On that point, I must agree. I’ve read enough dime novels to know that fame, fortune, and matrimony go hand in hand.”

  “My usual reading material consists of parliamentary reports. I’m not familiar with dime novels.”

  “They are thrilling novels of adventure for ladies—the dime novels, not parliamentary reports—featuring a girl who is definitely impoverished and probably an orphan, and who encounters every possible obstacle before discovering she’s really an heiress and then marrying a millionaire to boot. You know, as one does.”

  “I love dime novels,” Miss Freeman said, cutting into the conversation. “I must have read a hundred.”

  “At least,” her friend confirmed.

  “This is what ladies prefer to read?”

  “Yes, and you had better watch out,” Miss Freeman said. “You look and sound like a character from one. Not that I have been eavesdropping while I’ve been diligently chaperoning. Mostly.”

  “It’s true,” Miss Burnett replied. “You’re tall, dark, and handsome, and prone to displays of heroics . . .”

  She stopped short of making a direct reference to his wealth—or lack of—and he did not correct her. But God, he hated that it was a delicate subject. He didn’t think he needed a fortune of his own to win her, or n
early any woman, but a man ought to be able to provide. Keep a woman in feathered hats and the first stare of fashion. At least.

  “I suppose ladies read such books as they don’t have such adventures in real life,” he remarked.

  “Oh, we have plenty of adventures—at least until the wedding,” said Miss Freeman.

  “If there is a wedding,” Miss Burnett added.

  “If? Do you mean to suggest you might not marry?” He was shocked. Slightly horrified. Somewhat aghast.

  Falling for a woman who did not wish to wed was not in accordance with his plans. Kingston hadn’t even considered that a woman wouldn’t want to wed him or wed at all. He could not discern if this girl on his arm was a distraction and complication or the one. He just knew he didn’t feel finished with her. She confounded him and that intrigued him.

  “You needn’t sound so surprised,” she said. “It’s 1895. Times are changing.”

  “Yes, but this is holy matrimony. It is what people do.”

  She shrugged—shrugged!—at a centuries-old institution and he found himself actually feeling . . . old-fashioned and stodgy. Missish, even. Which was decidedly not how he—or most women—saw himself. He was young, virile, powerful. The stuff of women’s dreams.

  “The marriages I have seen are not happy ones,” she continued with the faraway look of one who was remembering something. “The woman does twice as much work and relinquishes control over her money and, as such, her security.”

  Kingston wanted to protest this, but he knew that reason or facts were not on his side. His duchess would be consumed with the management of the households, plural, and he would need her funds at his disposal. He could make all the promises in the world about providing for her after his death, but they would just be promises or special provisions. And so, without being able to make an argument with logic or reason, he relied on another age-old point:

  “But what of children?”

  “Lovely little creatures, but they are not the be-all and end-all of a woman’s existence.” Then she tilted her head thoughtfully. “Much as they try to be.”

  “I see the suffragettes are making inroads here, too,” Kingston said with some chagrin. “They make a man’s job harder. Now a bloke must convince a woman to marry at all, not just marry him.”

  It was just his luck. Impoverished duke must choose between marriage of love or fortune but quickly finds a woman who possesses a fortune and whom he could quite easily love and for whom he definitely lusted.

  And she didn’t want to marry. At all.

  Maybe he should tell her that he was a duke. Once upon a time, that would have been enough. That, and the fact that he had a full head of hair, all of his teeth, never mind that he knew how to please a woman. He’d be more than happy to show her.

  “We’ve only just met and here you are with the marriage proposals again,” she said with a laugh.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m teasing you, English.”

  She glanced up at him, laughter still dancing in her eyes, her lips still upturned in a smile, and he thought it was going to be impossible not to love her. No one ever teased him. No one certainly ever teased him about something as serious as marriage.

  It went without saying that he’d never, ever anticipated having to do more than stand about and let it be known that he was a duke and to take his pick from the throngs of women vying to be his duchess. He’d never imagined having to try. But just one walk in the park with the shocking and intriguing Miss Burnett, and he was ready to dart into Broadway traffic for her. He was shocked. Exhilarated. Aroused by the challenge.

  Behind him Miss Freeman sighed again and he wanted to reply, I know, I know! But men did not issue heartfelt sighs, even if that’s what they felt on the inside.

  He concluded that if this girl, his enchanting elevator girl, could afford to make light of the matrimonial attentions of a duke, she must be very rich indeed. Between the flirting and the fortune, this girl was definitely duchess material. Kingston couldn’t believe his luck. Now he just had to woo her . . .

  Chapter Five

  Ostrich feathers are all the rage. Stop. You know Clara and I hate to be unfashionable. Stop.

  —Telegram from Her Grace,

  the Duchess of Kingston

  A few days later

  No one was anyone in Manhattan until they had been feted by Mrs. Astor—the Mrs. Astor with the ballroom that could fit the infamous Four Hundred, otherwise known as the four hundred best, most important people in society. For the duke of Kingston, she hosted an intimate, exclusive, and outrageously opulent dinner to introduce him to four hundred of her closest friends.

  And so began his grand tour of the ballrooms of Fifth Avenue mansions and Park Avenue palaces. With Freddie and his wife Marian as his guides—for they had relocated from London to New York at her insistence, to be nearer to her own family—Kingston embarked on a whirlwind tour of meeting everyone and anyone who might make a suitable duchess. His days and nights were a swarm of eligible women.

  Tonight he made his way through a pack of pretty young women at a soirée hosted by Mrs. Fish, one of the town’s renowned hostesses.

  “Have you met Miss Gould and her sisters yet?” Freddie inquired and performed the introductions.

  “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,” Kingston said as he kissed the outstretched hand of a stunning raven-haired beauty. Her shorter sister pushed her aside and stepped forward with a coy smile.

  “How do you do, Your Grace? We are so eager to make your acquaintance. The previous dukes we’ve met have been so . . .”

  Don’t say poor.

  “Old.”

  “Stodgy.”

  “But a young duke . . .”

  The Gould sisters closed around him and Kingston feared he might be devoured alive. It wouldn’t be the worst way to go. These American girls were so . . . bold. Centuries of British reserve and good breeding made him initially resistant to their frank overtures. The novelty of such forward women was intriguing, he had to admit, but it didn’t compare to the playful, teasing wit of Miss Burnett.

  Thus far, of all the women he had met, not one compared to her.

  “Tell me more about your silver collection,” he said to one heiress. She proceeded to do so, at length. A lady with fiery red hair was very committed to public sanitations works—a noble endeavor he wasn’t keen to discuss over dinner. But at least they conversed, even if it was somewhat one-sided. Another woman he met was too shy to say multisyllabic words, and he feared it was because he intimidated her too much. With others he managed perfectly pleasant conversations but soon found himself exhausted from the sustained effort.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine years stretching out before him—of polite, silent breakfasts and cold, awkward nights—should he marry one of these women.

  Everywhere he went, from ballroom to street to back again, he kept his eyes wide open for the enchanting girl from the elevator. The more women he was introduced to who did not compare, the more he wanted her.

  So where the devil was she?

  How hard was it to find the heiress next door?

  “Let me introduce you to Miss Pennypacker, Cousin. Her family first made their money in cotton, and now their business is shipping.”

  And so Kingston was introduced to Miss Pennypacker. And Miss Watson, of a railroad fortune. Dozens and dozens of women were delighted to make his acquaintance. They were honored and pleased and eager to show him the city.

  And then, finally, there she was. Freddie said the name he’d been aching to hear for days.

  “Duke, I want to introduce you to Miss Burnett,” Freddie said, pulling Kingston away from one conversation to engage him in another.

  Miss Burnett.

  Kingston paused before he turned around. Should he pretend not to know her, so that they might be allowed to claim a proper introduction and perfectly respectable relationship? More to the point, could he pretend not to know her? Already his he
art was racing and for the first time in his life, he understood what people meant when they spoke of feeling butterflies in their stomachs.

  Finally, he turned.

  His heart sank. The butterflies died off all at once.

  A tall, fair-haired woman with gray eyes extended her hand. “How do you do, Your Grace?”

  “Miss Burnett?”

  “The one and only.”

  “But you’re the second one I’ve met this week.”

  “Is that so?” She smiled at him and her eyes sparkled prettily. He did not understand.

  “Is Burnett a common name in America?”

  “Well, it’s not Smith or Jones, but it certainly isn’t as rare as, say, DeMilla Featherbottom.”

  Kingston smiled tightly. He had the feeling that she was, to put it indelicately, taking the piss. But unwed women of marriageable age, richly attired in formal gowns and idling in gilded ballrooms did not take the piss of an English duke who had been declared the most eligible bachelor on the whole island of Manhattan.

  He thought of the other Miss Burnett.

  She also teased.

  But this felt different.

  He hadn’t stopped thinking of the other Miss Burnett. Not wanting to seem overeager, he had forced himself to cool his heels and exercise some restraint. And so it was only this afternoon that he had penned another invitation and left it with the hotel staff to deliver.

  “How are you enjoying the city thus far?” she asked him. “I trust you are taking time to explore the city and finding enchanting company to join you.”

  Enchanting. She had to use that word.

  “As a matter of fact, I have.”

  “Central Park?”

  “How did you guess?”

  “It was either that or the Ladies’ Mile,” she joked.

  “I’m not exactly the type to enjoy women’s shops.”

  “That’s what they all say.” She smiled again. Teasing. Eyes sparkling. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was finding amusement at his expense. He didn’t entirely mind; it was preferable to conversing with women who couldn’t resist subtle innuendos or blatant suggestions.