by M C Beaton
With a sinking heart, the duke saw Lady Fortes-cue bearing down on him.
“Wardshire!” she trilled. “We are all talking about that article in the newspaper. Such a delight to see the pretentious Mrs. Bliss trounced! And you, you wicked man, to lead society by the nose with fictitious tales of your evildoing.”
They walked a little way away from the curious ears of Mrs. Drummond Burrell. “You have not asked me to dance,” teased Lady Fortescue. “Nor any other lady.”
He looked around the ballroom with a scowl.
“I’ faith, my lady,” he said, “I made a sad mistake in coming to town.”
“How so?”
“I had convinced myself that my bachelor state displeased me. Now I find it infinitely desirable.”
Two spots of color burned on her cheeks. “You are blunt,” she said. “You led me to believe otherwise.”
“A malicious trick for which I am truly sorry,” he said. “You snubbed me once. I was taking my revenge.”
Before she could stop herself, she had slapped his face.
And that slap rang around the ballroom. She had slapped him just at a point when Neil Gow’s band had ceased to play. Faces turned, mouths dropped open, quizzing glasses were raised, and a hum of gossip and speculation rose to the huge crystal chandelier.
He turned on his heel and walked out. He felt he must be losing his wits. Whatever had possessed him to be so blunt?
Mr. Graham caught up with him. “Let’s go to the club,” he said. “It’s all so damned flat without the Bliss girls, although I don’t expect you to agree.” Mr. Graham was very relieved he had not told the duke that Lady Fortescue expected to marry him.
The duke said nothing but strode on while Mr. Graham, impeded by all the fashionable discomforts of tight corset and false calves, struggled to keep up.
The next day Mrs. Bliss sat at her desk, gloomily looking at a small pile of invitation cards she had taken down from the mantelpiece. All invitations had been canceled. But to retreat to the country, beaten! To face the syrupy sympathy of her friends, who would all have read that newspaper article. Everyone professed loudly that they would not dream of reading such a low, common, radical paper as the Morning Bugle, but most did. Mrs. Bliss felt tears rising to her eyes and angrily brushed them away. Belinda should have been at Almack’s. Belinda would have been the star of Almack’s. And all, all ruined because of Lucy. Mr. Graham had called several times asking permission to take Lucy on a drive, but Mrs. Bliss had refused each time. Why should Lucy have a beau when she had ruined Belinda’s chances of ever making a match? And it was of no use talking to Belinda. All Belinda would say in her placid way was that any man really interested in her would not pay any heed to either gossip or newspaper articles.
Mrs. Bliss thought and thought and then, ever optimistic, came to the conclusion that the Duke of Wardshire did not realize the full extent of the damage he had done. And had he not shown himself to be smitten by Belinda? Mrs. Bliss squared her plump shoulders. Like the Duke of Wellington, she would show that action was the best form of defense. She would go to the duke’s town house and lay the matter before him.
The duke had never dreamt that Mrs. Bliss would have the temerity to call on him at his London home and so had given the servants no instructions to send her away. So when Mrs. Bliss made her call, saying it was most important, the butler did not really know what to do. He, of course, had read that newspaper article, and therefore it surely stood to reason that the duke would not relish seeing her. The duke was out, but Mrs. Bliss, accompanied by Feathers, said firmly that she would wait, and noticing the butler’s worried look, added calmly, “His Grace is expecting my call.”
The butler’s face cleared. He put Mrs. Bliss and Feathers in the drawing room, furnished them with wine and cakes, and withdrew.
Mrs. Bliss sat and planned her strategy. She was now inside the house—the house that could have been Belinda’s, as well as Sarsey. The drawing room was immense, with little islands of tables and chairs dotted here and there. Everything was of the finest, and the furniture was modern. But it had an impersonal air, and Mrs. Bliss suspected that the room was hardly ever used.
Deaf to the mutterings of Feathers, who was complaining that the duke would simply order his servants to throw Mrs. Bliss out, Mrs. Bliss did not bother to point out that she had already made plans to thwart such a happening. She sat in a chair by a long window that overlooked the street, a formidable matron in plum velvet with an awesome turban on her head ornamented with one tall peacock’s feather, which bobbed and twitched with every movement as if trying to fly away and escape from imprisonment on top of this human body.
Mrs. Bliss looked down from her vantage point, and after half an hour was rewarded by the sight of the Duke of Wardshire driving up.
She opened her capacious reticule and, taking out a small flask of onion juice, liberally dabbed her eyes with it before throwing the rest of the contents into poor Feathers’s startled face.
With tears streaming from her eyes, Feathers groped her way downstairs after her mistress, wondering whether Mrs. Bliss had run mad.
So just as the duke’s butler was about to tell His Grace of the visitors, the duke found himself confronted by Mrs. Bliss, weeping copiously, followed by an equally lachrymose maid, and both smelling vilely of onions.
Mrs. Bliss sank to her fat knees and held up her chubby, velvet-covered arms. “I fall on your mercy, Your Grace!”
“Control yourself, madam,” snapped the duke. “Nothing irritates me more than a crying female.” That had the effect of making Mrs. Bliss quickly dry her eyes, although poor Feathers, who had suffered from the brunt of the onion juice, continued to weep. “And pray rise. I shall spare you ten minutes. No, do not go above again. The library will suffice.” He opened a door that led off the hall. Mrs. Bliss marched in, her mind working furiously.
When she was seated, the duke stood in front of the fireplace and looked down at her. “Before you speak, if you have come to complain to me about your social downfall, then may I point out that it was up to you to bring up your daughters, or rather your elder daughter, to be better behaved?”
“I have done my best. But it was you, as you admitted to the newspaper, that started the tales of your villainy, Your Grace, and poor Lucy believed them, particularly as your own best friend told her that you were to hold a black mass. I fear Lucy has been more sinned against than sinning.
“Furthermore, if I am such a poisonous mushroom, why did you choose to call on me? If you had taken me and my family in dislike, then all you had to do was stay away.”
The duke found himself becoming strangely embarrassed. This ridiculous matron was only speaking the truth. He felt the beginnings of an odd respect for her. She was as single-minded in her aims as any general going in to battle.
All he had to do was to ring the bell and ask the servants to show her out, and that would be that. But the malicious imp which had prompted him to call on her in the first place, which had also prompted him to take revenge on Lady Fortescue, started to work again.
He suddenly smiled at her and said, “There is a way in which your social fortunes might be mended, madam, a way which would suit us both. I came to London to find a bride and have already discovered the task wearisome. Therefore, to make amends to you and for you to make amends to me, the only solution is that you give me your daughter’s hand in marriage.”
Mrs. Bliss stared at him, amazed, one plump hand going to her well-upholstered bosom. The duke had the satisfaction of seeing her struck speechless.
“So,” went on the duke blandly, “perhaps you will explain matters to Mr. Bliss and tell him that I will call on him this afternoon to talk about the marriage settlements.”
Mrs. Bliss felt that all the angels were singing for her. Belinda would be a duchess. Real tears of gratitude entered her eyes. But she said with some dignity, “We shall expect you, Your Grace. A most satisfactory arrangement.”
“Now, why on earth did
I do that?” mused the duke when she had left. “I shall not actually go through with it as far as the altar, but it will restore that horrible family in the eyes of society, and yes, I think, provide me with some much-needed amusement.”
Shortly afterwards, the Bliss household was in an uproar. Only Belinda, sitting in the middle of the small group composed of distressed father, furious sister, defiant mother, and red-eyed maid, appeared calm.
“How dare you!” shouted Mr. Bliss, his calm and timid world shattered. “How dare you sacrifice Belinda to such a man? He’s nearly twice her age. Give my permission? Damn, I’ll send the fellow, duke or no duke, to the right-about.”
“And so what becomes of my girls?” demanded Mrs. Bliss, bosom heaving. “Because of your ingratitude, they will be cast into outer darkness.”
“Only back to the country,” snapped Lucy. “Mama, how could you be so foolish? He is amusing himself at your expense.”
“No one has asked me what I think,” put in Belinda and all surveyed her in surprise.
“Well, what do you think?” prompted Lucy.
“Sarsey is a very big place,” said Belinda in a thoughtful voice. “One could disappear in such a place for days and days and be alone and quiet. I think being a duchess would suit me very well.”
“There you are!” screamed Mrs. Bliss in delight. “There you are, Mr. Bliss! She wants him.”
Mr. Bliss looked sorrowfully at Belinda. “Are you very sure?”
“Yes, Papa, for I would have a home of my own and perhaps one or two babies, although I would like a little dog first. You know Mama would never let me have one. But I could have lots of dogs at Sarsey, for I would be a duchess.”
“But, my child, there is more to marriage than pets and babies. You make it sound like playing with a doll’s house,” said Mr. Bliss, and Lucy realized with a start of surprise that what he said was true. Belinda switched from grave maturity one moment to childishness the next, hovering, it seemed, between schoolroom and ballroom.
“I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” said Belinda. “He wants to marry me. I want to get away… I mean, it would be pleasant to have a home of my own, and perhaps Lucy to stay with me for very long visits. Yes, I should like that.”
The rage that had seemed to animate Mr. Bliss and give him color faded away, and he sank back into his former gray, timid state.
“Very well,” he said sadly, “I shall see Wardshire when he calls.”
Lucy would have liked to talk to Belinda, but Belinda was swept off by Mrs. Bliss to prepare for the duke’s proposal. Lucy felt very low in spirits.
Other girls of her class rarely saw their mothers from the cradle to the grave. Why was she cursed with such an overwhelming, talkative, brash, and vulgar mama? If Mrs. Bliss had not gone to see Wardshire, if Wardshire had not decided to continue his revenge against the Bliss family—for Lucy was sure it was part of a plan of revenge—then they would have gone back to their quiet life in the country.
She was leaving the drawing room when she heard someone arriving in the hall below. Thinking the duke had arrived early, she looked over the banisters and saw Mr. Graham and heard the butler saying regretfully, “I am afraid the ladies are not at home.”
Lucy ran lightly down the stairs. “Oh, yes, we are,” she said.
Mr. Graham brightened at the sight of her. “I have been calling and calling,” he said. “I kept hoping to find you at home.”
“And now you have,” said Lucy. “Come to the drawing room. I need to talk to you.” And under the butler’s disapproving eye, she led him up the stairs.
“You will never guess what has happened,” cried Lucy, “or do you already know what Wardshire has done?”
“Oh, that awful newspaper article,” said Mr. Graham. “I must apologize, Miss Bliss. I did not intend to lie to you, but Wardshire had always told me to maintain the fiction of his villainy.”
“Not that. Mama went to see him this morning to try to repair our social fortunes, and Wardshire says he will do it by marrying Belinda.”
Mr. Graham looked at her in amazement. “Is he serious about it?”
“I suppose so, and yet I feel he plans to humiliate us further.”
“And what of poor Miss Belinda? What does she say?”
“That’s the trouble. She says she will accept him. But you see, Belinda craves a home of her own, and she is still part child in that she thinks only of having peace and quiet and being allowed to keep a dog. He will terrify her!”
“I do not think so,” said Mr. Graham cautiously.
“He is actually very kind and generous, but perhaps prone to mischief, I admit.”
“A mischief which will ruin my sister’s happiness.”
Mrs. Bliss came hurtling into the room. She moved always with a fast but fluid movement, rather like an overstuffed armchair on casters.
“Lucy, you should not entertain gentlemen callers unchaperoned, and you should know better, Mr. Graham. I must send you on your way. This is a great day for us, and there is much to do. Lucy, go abovestairs immediately. You cannot receive His Grace in that old gown.”
And so Mr. Graham was shooed out.
Lucy submitted to being primped and preened with very bad grace—“particularly as you smell most vilely of onions, Feathers.”
And so Feathers, heating the curling tongs on a small spirit stove, told Lucy how she came to be smelling of onions, and Lucy shuddered at this further proof of her mother’s vulgarity. She prayed the duke had already had his revenge and that he would not call.
But at two o’clock Feathers whispered to her that the duke had arrived and was talking to Mr. Bliss, and Mrs. Bliss had said that Lucy must present herself in the drawing room.
In the drawing room Belinda was calmly stitching at a piece of tapestry while Mrs. Bliss paced up and down. The duke and Mr. Bliss were in the study downstairs. The minutes ticked by until a whole hour had passed, and Mrs. Bliss was beside herself with anxiety and worry, saying over and over again, “If your father has talked him out of it, I will never forgive him.”
And then she stopped and listened. Footsteps were mounting the stairs. Mr. Bliss entered, followed by the duke.
“I am afraid there has been some mistake, my dear,” said Mr. Bliss.
Mrs. Bliss let out a faint scream and sank down into an armchair. Lucy glared at the duke, who smiled back.
“It is not Belinda the duke wishes to marry,” said Mr. Bliss. “He wishes to marry Lucy.”
“Lucy!” shouted Mrs. Bliss.
“I?” said Lucy faintly.
Belinda went on stitching. She seemed mildly amused.
Lucy glared at the duke. “But I do not want to marry you,” she cried.
He sighed. “What a pity. Then it will have to be Belinda.”
“Oh, no.” Lucy looked at her father. “Anything but that.”
Her father came to her and took both her hands in his. “Listen, my dear, Wardshire is all that is considerate. He does not wish to rush you into things. You and he need to get to know each other better. To that end, he has invited us all to Sarsey so that you can be instructed in the running of a great house and… and to see how you go on.”
Lucy twisted her hands in his. If she said no, then the duke would marry Belinda, and Belinda would accept and Belinda would be ruined. So she must pretend to accept his proposal and then give him such a disgust of her that he would cheerfully terminate the engagement.
Mrs. Bliss was making small moaning sounds from behind the barrier of a handkerchief.
“Yes,” said Lucy, her quiet voice dropping like stone. “Yes, on reflection, I will marry you, Your Grace.”
He smiled blandly on all. “May I then have a word in private with my fiancée?”
Mrs. Bliss was suddenly transformed from broken matron to triumphant matron. “Of course,” she said smoothly. “Come, Belinda.”
Lucy and the duke were left alone.
“What is your ploy?” asked Lucy w
earily.
He looked down at her with a hint of compassion in his eyes. “Why, I think we should suit very well.”
“I am sure you will find we will not,” said Lucy. “You do not care a fig for me, sir. In fact, I am persuaded you are still looking for revenge.”
“I? Fiddlesticks!”
“Then, my lord innocence, why?”
“Because I want to get married. You interest me, and I am persuaded you will not bore me.”
Their eyes met in a long stare, and battle was declared.
Lucy suddenly smiled at him. “Then, sir, may I remind you, you have not proposed to me?”
His eyes glinted with amusement. He got down on one knee in front of her and took her hand in his. “Miss Lucinda Bliss,” he said solemnly, “will you do me the very great honor of bestowing on me your hand in marriage?”
“Yes,” said Lucy coldly.
He rose to his feet and drew her into his arms and bent his mouth to kiss her, but she jerked her face away and the kiss landed somewhere near her ear. He laughed and took her chin in his hand and held her firm. Then he kissed her mouth, warmly and sweetly, finally drawing back to leave her breathless and trembling.
“I see I do not leave your senses unaffected,” he said. Lucy wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and glared at him. Her knees were shaking. How on earth was she going to win the battle if he was going to kiss her like that?
“I hope Miss Belinda is not too disappointed,” he went on.
“Yes, I think she might be, a little,” said Lucy. “She wanted a dog, you see, and marrying you was the only way she could think of getting one.”
He threw back his head and laughed just as Mrs. Bliss, coughing in what she considered a discreet manner, entered the room, with Mr. Bliss and Belinda behind her.
Champagne was served and a toast drunk to the happy couple. It was agreed between the duke and Mrs. Bliss that all should travel to Sarsey on the following day.
“Tell me, Wardshire,” said Lucy, “you plan to introduce me to the running of a very large house. I suggest you give me a free hand.”
“Of course,” he said smoothly, and then wondered what Miss Lucy Bliss was plotting.