by Joan Wolf
She stood beside him, the sun glinting off the drops that clung to her hair and lashes, and laughed for sheer joy. “I love to swim,” she said.
“You must be part mermaid,” he answered and, bending, picked up one of the towels.
“No, I’m just a girl from Salem, Massachusetts.” She smiled and reached for the towel he held. But he shook his head and proceeded to dry her himself, after which he laid her down in the shelter of two old trees and made love to her.
That was the afternoon of their last day at Thorn Manor. When at last they returned to the house, Tracy was met by a very upset Emma. “Oh, Your Grace! Alphonse fell down this afternoon and hit his head and the doctor has been and says he must stay in bed for at least two days!”
“Good heavens.” Tracy had hardly walked in the door; the Duke had taken the horses around to the stables. “However did he come to fall?”
“There was a wet spot on the kitchen floor. He hit his head on the table.”
“Is he all right?” Tracy asked with swift concern. “The doctor didn’t think it was serious?”
“No, Your Grace. A concussion, he said.”
“Well, that’s all right then.”
“But, Your Grace,” Emma almost wailed, “I don’t know who is to cook your dinner for you. Mrs. Alien boils everything, she says. And I can cook eggs and fry bread, but I don’t think His Grace.. .”
The corners of Tracy*s mouth indented. “No,” she said, “a boiled dinner or eggs certainly will not do for His Grace. I suppose it’s too late to find someone else?”
“Mrs. Allen doesn’t have any suggestions.”
“Well, don’t get into such a pucker, Emma. I guess I’ll just have to cook dinner myself.”
“You, Your Grace?”
Tracy laughed. “Me. Before I became a duchess, I was just an American girl, Emma, and American girls learn to cook. I’ll have a look in the kitchen to see what’s available, and then I should very much like to wash my hair.”
So it was that on the last evening of her honeymoon, Tracy ate a dinner she had cooked herself. So did the servants, for whom she had done a roast beef, refusing to allow them to dine on the eggs that would otherwise have been their fate.
The Duke had had no idea that his wife was in the kitchen until she arrived in the drawing room clad in an apron that she proceeded to remove and place on the back of a chair as she announced with aplomb, “Dinner is served.”
There was a lovely clear soup, fillets of the fish they had caught that afternoon served in herb butter, and tender, succulent chicken. Emma, who had had strict instructions on when to turn things over and when to take them off the heat, was in charge in the kitchen. Robert, serving, couldn’t help but look with amazement at the Duchess, who sat serenely eating her food and sipping her wine, giving no sign at all that she had been chopping vegetables in the kitchen an hour ago.
The Duke was scarcely less amazed. “Did you actually cook this?” he asked, as he tasted the delicious fish.
“I did,” said Tracy. “My mother was an excellent cook—although not in the same category as Alphonse. She taught me to cook when I was still a little girl.”
“But did you cook in America?” clearly he couldn’t quite understand how his wife had come to acquire such a skill.
“We had a cook, of course, but either Mother or I took over on her day off. And we often did the baking.” Tracy smiled at his expression. “It is not that easy to find help in America, Adrian. Most good households only have three or four people. There is nothing like the number of people you have working for you in England. Except in the South, and that is only because of slavery, a situation we all disapprove of deeply.”
“Except, of course, the Southerners,” he said.
“Not really. Most slave owners don’t defend the institution, you know. The problem is how to get rid of it. But they will. It has only been a few years since the Northern states emancipated their slaves. England has only outlawed slavery quite recently also. One after the other, the Southern states will follow suit, I’m sure.”
“Even with the plantations requiring so many people to work them?”
“About a year ago a group of plantation owners and slaveholders formed the American Colonization Society. Its president is Bushrod Washington, President Washington’s nephew and the owner of Mount Vernon. They want to try to repatriate the Blacks back to Africa. Most of the members are slaveholders who want to find a practicable way of accomplishing emancipation. So you see, progress is being made. It is all a question of time.”
“Well, that is certainly encouraging,” he remarked, and changed the subject.
That night, Tracy lay awake in her husband’s arms, listening to the night sounds coming from outside the open window and wishing they did not have to leave tomorrow. She knew that these last five days with Adrian were a unique, never-to-be-repeated time; they were days that were almost out of time, isolated, idyllic, spell bound. They would go back to London and pick up their real life, go back to being people who existed in the context of a world that included other people, other demands, other responsibilities. It was inevitable that they do so, yet Tracy wished now that it did not have to come so soon. She sighed softly and her husband stirred. “Is anything wrong, ma mie?”
“No.” She smiled a little in the darkness and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I was just thinking that our honeymoon has been too short. I only finished one book, you know.” She turned her head so that her lips were against his bare chest. “I don’t believe any girl ever had a honeymoon more wonderful than mine,” she murmured.
He didn’t answer, but in half a minute he had turned her over and come into her. She was startled and opened her mouth to protest, but his own mouth came down over hers, crushing the words. He made no attempt to caress her and the hands holding her shoulders were hard and inescapable. After a moment, Tracy’s mouth answered to his and she arched up against him, shuddering with passion.
After, she lay nestled against him, relaxed and sleepy. “That was incredible,” she murmured.
Gently he hissed her temple. “Go to sleep,” he said, his voice like a caress. “Go to sleep, my love.”
And she did.
Chapter 11
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love
more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
—Shakespeare
Tracy was very silent during the drive back to London and the Duke made little attempt to draw her into conversation. When they reached the outskirts of the city he asked her if she wanted to stop first at the Clarendon to see her father, and she said that she did.
She had pushed her father to the bottom of her mind for the last week, but now reality was avoidable no longer. She would see him today, and for a few more days after that. Then he would go back to America, and she would never see him again. When they reached the hotel her husband said tactfully, “You go up first, ma mie. I’ll come along in a bit.” She smiled a little tremulously, nodded and left him to go inside.
His daughter had been very much in Mr. Bodmin’s mind for the last week. When he had seen her drive off with the Duke he had been attacked by feelings of uneasiness and guilt. He knew he had been instrumental in bringing about this marriage. He had been sure he was doing the right thing. However, as he watched Tracy drive off in the impressive ducal carriage, his certainty had wavered. What had he done, trusting his girl to this unknown young man?
So he searched her face carefully when she came into his suite, looking for evidence of happiness or pain. His first impression, as she blew into his drawing room like a fresh breeze, was that she glowed. But there was a shade of anxiety in her eyes, he thought, as she chatted with him easily and amusingly. He was not to know that the anxiety was for himself, that he seemed smaller to her, and grayer, and far too thin.
Then the Duke was at the door and Tracy turned her face to him for a minute, before looking back to her father. The youn
g couple stayed for perhaps twenty more minutes, and by the time they left, Mr. Bodmin was quite certain that everything was all right indeed.
The next day, Mr. Bodmin called at the Duke’s town house in Berkeley Square and asked to see his son-in-law alone. The Duke took him into the library and offered him some Madeira, which the American accepted and sipped appreciatively.
“I want to talk business with you, Adrian,” Mr. Bodmin began purposefully,
The Duke was a little startled. He thought all that had been taken care of by the lawyers. But he nodded courteously and said, “Certainly, sir. What do you wish to say to me?”
“It may seem strange to you that I did not tell you this before, but I wanted to wait until after your marriage. To be blunt, I wanted to satisfy myself that you could make Tracy happy.”
“I see.” The Duke’s voice was cool. “And are you satisfied?”
“Yes. There is a certain look in a woman’s eyes when she ...” Mr. Bodmin broke off and the two men looked at each other in perfect comprehension. Then the older man said simply, “I am a dying man, Adrian.”
The Duke’s blue eyes darkened. “What?”
“Yes. It’s my lungs. I’m done for, I’m afraid.”
“Does Tracy know?”
“No. And I don’t want her to know. Not until she has to. It shouldn’t take too long.”
The Duke looked at the American for a minute, then said softly, “You are a brave man, sir.”
Those words, coming from his son-in-law, meant something. Mr. Bodmin raised his hand a little, then said prosaically, “I am going home to settle my estate. I shall sell my ships; I know several people who will be interested. I should realize millions, Adrian, and it will all come to you.”
“It will come to Tracy,” said the Duke quietly.
Mr. Bodmin shrugged. “It’s the same thing, isn’t it, under English law?”
The Duke frowned. “I don’t want your money, sir. The arrangements we made previous to our marriage were quite generous enough. Tie the money up in a trust for Tracy.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes.” The Duke’s voice was pleasant but adamant.
“I guess I could do that.”
“Certainly you could.” The Duke looked steadily at his father-in-law and said directly, “You needn’t worry about Tracy, sir. I shall take very good care of her, I promise you.”
“Thank you, my boy. That is all that is important to me, really.” Mr. Bodmin put down his glass. “I’ll settle the money on Tracy, then, and on your children.”
The Duke smiled faintly. “Thank you, sir.”
“Well then, I think I’ll see if Tracy would like to take a drive with me.”
“She is in the morning parlor, I believe,” the Duke said quietly. The two men looked at each other for a moment, and then Mr. Bodmin nodded and left.
All the Duke could do for his father-in-law at present was to allow him the comfort of his daughter’s company as much as possible, and this he did, withdrawing from the scene with beautiful ease and tact. The couple made just one appearance at a large social function, a ball given by Lady Maria Egerton. The rest of the week consisted of small family parties, from which the Duke contrived to be frequently absent.
Mr. Bodmin had accompanied them to the Egerton ball and had derived enormous satisfaction from it. When the major domo had announced:
“His Grace the Duke of Hastings and Her Grace the Duchess,” he had felt as if the crowning achievement of his life had been realized.
Tracy had looked beautiful, and she had been a center of flattering attention all evening. As the Duchess of Hastings she was still as gracefully and naturally charming as she had been before her elevation to her present exalted rank. It would be impossible, Mr. Bodmin thought complacently, for anyone to resist the radiant warmth of his Tracy.
And nothing gave Mr. Bodmin more pleasure than to see his son-in-law in society. There was an air about Adrian that was difficult to define but not at all difficult to distinguish. He was not haughty or arrogant, yet one never had any doubt, when in his company, that one was in the presence of someone who stood very high in the world. There was such serenity about him, the large and beautiful ease of a man who has always been certain of himself and of his place in the world. He never said or did anything that indicated he thought himself superior. But, instinctively, he was always deferred to. It was something inherent in himself, Mr. Bodmin thought. Adrian was the real thing, the genuine article; in the Duke, Mr. Bodmin had gotten good value for his money.
Tracy had known her father would enjoy seeing her appear publicly as the Duchess of Hastings, and she had determined to give him a good show. She was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain her fictional ignorance of his condition, and she both looked forward to, and dreaded, his imminent departure. She did not know if Adrian was aware of his condition. She thought, from the way he arranged that father and daughter be alone together, that he was. But she couldn’t speak of it. Not yet.
The day finally dawned for Mr. Bodmin’s departure. He was leaving early in the morning to drive to Dover, where his ship was waiting, so his dinner at Berkeley Square with his daughter and son-in-law was to be his farewell.
Tracy got through the dinner largely because of the Duke. It was his genius for charm that buoyed up father and daughter and cast a glow of warmth and cheerfulness that the two were scarcely feeling. Because of him it was almost possible to believe that they were parting only temporarily, that many good times lay ahead in the future.
When it came time for her father to leave, Tracy kissed him warmly, smiled brilliantly and said, “Now you be sure to come back to England soon, Papa. I’ll miss you, you know.”
Mr. Bodmin held her closely for a minute. “I’ll miss you too, honey. But it will make me happy just to think of you.”
He then shook hands with his son-in-law, who said, “I’ll see you out to the carriage, sir.”
When the Duke came back into the house the hall was empty. He looked in the drawing room but, finding that empty as well, proceeded to the library. There he found Tracy, standing looking down at a great globe. “Is he gone?” she asked.
“Yes.” He crossed to her, but she continued to look down at the globe, spinning it slowly. Her face was expressionless. “You know, don’t you?” he asked softly.
She turned and he took her in his arms. “Oh, Adrian,” was all she could say.
After a minute he said, “Come and sit down. I’m going to get you a brandy.” When it was in her hands, she looked at it blankly. “Drink it, Tracy,” he said firmly, and she obeyed him.
“Did he tell you?” she asked, after she had finished it and the warmth was flowing through her chilled veins.
“Yes. The day after we returned from Hertfordshire. He didn’t think you knew.”
“I overheard him tell Mr. Rush one afternoon in London. He said he didn’t want me to know. He didn’t want me to see him as—less than he was.” Her voice trembled. “He is such a proud man.”
“And so you decided to pretend ignorance.”
“It was what he wanted. / wanted to be with him, to take care of him; but it seemed to me that the greatest comfort I could give him was my supposed ignorance.”
“I see,” he said slowly.
“But oh, Adrian, to let him go like this ...” At last the tears began to slide down her face.
He remembered her brilliant smile. “You were splendid, ma mie. And you were right to do as you did. It gave him happiness to think he was sparing you.”
She was sobbing in his arms now. “But it wasn’t fair,” she got out.
“No,” he replied soberly, softly stroking her hair. “It wasn’t fair.”
After a while her sobs slowed and then ceased, but she made no attempt to move away from him. Adrian was all she had now, she thought somewhat incoherently. She wasn’t going to let go of him.
At length he got her on her feet and up the stairs to her bedroom. He und
ressed her and slowly, gently, comfortingly, made love to her until she fell asleep.
Chapter 12
I say, therefore, that since the nature of man in youthful age is so much inclined to sense, it may be granted the courtier, while he is young, to love sensually…
—The Book of the Courtier
For the present the Duke and Duchess of Hastings remained in London. The Season was still in full swing; town would not begin to empty until August and the Duke exerted gentle pressure on his wife to remain. Tracy was not in the mood for parties, but Adrian felt she would be better off keeping busy. He did not want to give her too much time to brood about her father.
He was anxious to remain in London for his own sake as well. It was time, he thought, for him to take up the threads of his own life again. Ever since he had returned from France he had been occupied with family business; first sorting out his father’s financial debacle, and then getting married to rectify the catastrophic position he had found himself in. Thanks to Mr. Bodmin’s very generous settlement, his financial problems had largely been solved. It would be the work of some years to see his estates restored to what they once had been, but the crushing load of debt had been lifted. For the first time since he had come home, he had no money worries. Finally he could turn his attention to what really interested him.
What interested the Duke was foreign affairs. For years in France he had worked with the Ambassadorial Conference, and the Duke of Wellington had found his assistance invaluable. The Duke knew all the important European diplomats and, what was even more important, he had their confidence. Viscount Castlereagh, the Foreign Secretary, was anxious to annex his assistance for the Foreign Office.
In the young Duke, Lord Castlereagh had discovered someone whose worldview matched the Secretary’s own. The Duke thought in terms of Europe; nearly everyone else in England thought only in terms of their own small island. Castlereagh had been single-handedly running his country’s foreign affairs for years, and he was getting tired. In the Duke of Hastings he recognized a possible successor; and he was very willing to share some of the burdens of his office.