The Accidental Duchess

by Jessica Benson

  “I have?” I whispered.

  “Yes, darling,” Cambourne replied. “Enclosure Acts, if you recall.”

  “Yes, now that you mention it, I do.” I narrowed my eyes at him. What were they getting up to? How did he know about that?

  “And the decisions,” Cambourne said, shooting me an amused look. “What to wear, which fobs, jewelry, quizzing glasses, canes, etcetera—it was simply becoming too fatiguing.”

  “Fatiguing for you or the valet?” Spenborough asked his soup bowl.

  “Oh, for me,” replied Cambourne, those blue eyes as guileless as could be. “I was the one making the decisions, you understand. My wife has convinced me that all of the emphasis on remaining an arbiter of fashion was taxing me overly. My health, you must know, is delicate.”

  “My—ah, your health is delicate, brother?” Milburn asked him in incredulous tones.

  “Oh, yes, vastly.” Cambourne threw him a limpid glance. “I have been thinking about taking myself away to take the waters at Bath.”

  Milburn spluttered into his serviette. “Have you, Milburn?” he asked.

  Cambourne nodded, and sighed. “I am not certain I am up to the rigors of the Season this year. And, too, I have quite a bit of legislation on Enclosures with which to familiarize myself.”

  “Good idea, young fellow,” suggested the Dowager Lady Grenham, whose hearing—which she professed gave her a great deal of trouble—always became remarkably acute at any discussion of ill health.

  “Enclosure Acts! How fascinating,” ventured Miss Lawson, bravely undertaking the task of getting the conversation started up again.

  Cambourne nodded. “Thank you, Miss Lawson. Ask me anytime, and I shall be glad to undertake educating you on them.” He slanted a sly look at Milburn. “But I also have several new hobbies at the moment.”

  “Oh, do tell, Milburn,” murmured Milburn. “You are a veritable font of surprises this evening!”

  “Well, of course, there is the gardening,” replied Cambourne limpidly. “I have always been fascinated by it, but previously was deterred by the thought of the dirt under my fingernails. And I am no longer bothered by the … feminine aspect of it, you see.”

  “Oh, I do, indeed,” Milburn assured him with a raised brow. “And one almost hates to ask, but is there more?”

  “Only the tatting, really,” replied Cambourne. “Lord Bertie’s Frivolities, I am calling the products.”

  It was awfully hard not to laugh. I choked on my wine. I wasn’t sure what they were up to, but it was amusing.

  “Tatting? Lord Bertie’s Frivolities?” Milburn almost shrieked. He really had been remarkably calm up to this point.

  Therèse raised a brow at Cambourne. “This lace, it is for your old acolytes to wear, perhaps, Cousin Bertee? Since you are such of the visionary?”

  I had to look down to hide my laugh.

  “I am not yet that expert,” Cambourne told her. “For now I am confining myself to doilies.”

  That, finally, was apparently too much for poor Milburn. “I do not tat!” he cried.

  “Well we ain’t talking about you, are we, Cambourne?” Spenborough observed.

  Just then, my father shouted down the table at Milburn. “Hey! Cambourne! Almeria wants to know what chance you think Preston’s motion stands now.”

  “Preston’s motion,” echoed Milburn. “That would be Preston’s motion on, er …”

  My father frowned. “You said it was worthless, as I recall. He did say it was worthless, did he not, Almeria?”

  “Yes, Axton. Worthless,” she replied.

  “Oh, right. Well, I said it was worthless because it had no, er, worth that I could discern,” Milburn said.

  “I agree,” Spenborough said, around a mouthful of food.

  “Its lack of control over imports is altogether misguided.”

  “Imports?” asked Milburn. “Refresh my memory if you will.”

  “Corn, brother,” replied Cambourne through gritted teeth.

  “Preston’s motion, Cambourne,” I told Milburn. “He wants to change the price at which the high duty ceases, according to the Act of 1804. Right now it stands at sixty-three shillings.” I had done my reading. Cambourne smiled at me, and that warmth licked over me.

  A gleam came into Milburn’s eyes that I could not like. “Oh, yes, right. Corn Laws,” he said, leaning back in his chair, as footmen served the next remove. “Actually, I’ve quite given those up,” he said airily. “Don’t look for me in Parliament again. Took an age, but now it’s as though I’ve seen the light in recent months: dashed waste of time all these years, as it turns out, time when I could have been pursuing my real interests.”

  “Was it, Cambourne?” Cambourne said, as he paused in lifting his glass.

  My father’s fork clattered to his plate. “Given them up, you say! Almeria did say you’d gone off a bit with this new stance—thought you was in danger of becoming a Whig—but given them up, altogether!”

  “I believe what my brother meant with his new stance,” Cambourne said, toying with his wineglass, “is that these laws were written with the assumption that every man was dependent upon the land for subsistence. Cambourne—forward-thinking fellow that he is—believes industry will increasingly supplant agriculture, and that it is a foolish man who believes the world he lives in will never change around him. And an even more foolish man who does not prepare for that change.”

  “Dashed pack of nonsense,” my father said. “Right, Almeria? Dashed pack of nonsense?”

  “Well, perhaps I did care about that at one point,” said Milburn languidly. “But I came to understand that I was turning into quite the dry old stick. Really, I’d become the most dashed, deadly old bore. And at the moment I’m far too busy with my new interests to have much time or interest to spare on fusty old Corn Laws.”

  Apparently two could play at Cambourne’s game.

  “I didn’t think you a bore, brother,” Cambourne said.

  “Oh, you might not have, but many did, brother, many did.” Milburn nodded earnestly. “Why, people were practically running when they saw me approach, I had become so very tedious on the topic.”

  “You have the new interests, then, also, Cambourne?” Therèse asked Milburn. “I think this is quite the, how you say, coincidence, is it not?”

  “Yes, do tell, brother,” said Cambourne, taking a long drink of his wine. “I suspect we are all agog to hear how you have reformed your dull ways.”

  “Well?” inquired Spenborough. “Don’t leave us in suspense, Cambourne.”

  Milburn nodded. “First, there is the smuggling,” he said.

  “Smuggling, brother?” Cambourne inquired.

  “Smuggling?” my mother echoed, in faint tones.

  “I don’t actually cross the channel myself,” Milburn allowed. “It wouldn’t be seemly, given my … position and titles, etcetera. But overseeing things takes up a good deal of my time.”

  “I can see that it would,” Cambourne replied.

  “And there is a second new interest, I think?” Therèse prompted.

  “Yes, cousin, there is. Although I am quite proud of the fact that I am the first Earl of Cambourne really, well, ever, to be engaged in trade,” Milburn said, and my mother gasped aloud in horror, “the second is more of a hobby, you understand, in accordance with my own personal interests than it is a business venture, although it did spin off quite naturally from the smuggling.”

  “What is it?” my mother practically shrieked.

  Milburn raised his voice. “The import and distribution of lewd drawings!”

  Cambourne choked at this. “Do I,” he asked, when he had finished, “get any type of discount on merchandise as I am family?” he asked.

  Milburn laughed. “Touché, brother,” he said.

  “I’ve an entirely new respect for you, Cambourne,” Spenborough said to Milburn.

  At this new information from Milburn, my mother had looked doubtful for just a moment, but
then, I saw her elbow my father in the ribs. “Ouch,” he screamed, as she gave him a meaningful look. “Oh, er, yes, right.” He stood. “Ah, Cambourne,” he said, looking at Milburn. “Could I have just a quick word in the, er, other room? About, ah, Preston’s motion.”

  Right, I thought, one last quick try at blackmail: Bed my daughter or we reveal that your father’s been attempting to commit treason. How nice to have concerned parents!

  “Now?” asked Milburn.

  “Now?” my father asked my mother. She glared at him. “Er, yes, now,” he said, looking again at Milburn, who cast me a glance as he rose. Cambourne looked as if he, too, were about to rise.

  “Now,” Myrtia mouthed at me.

  “Milburn,” I said to Cambourne. “Could I have a word with you also?” I raised my voice. “Somewhere private.”

  My father and Milburn left the room.

  My mother stood. “Milburn!” she said to Cambourne.

  “Please excuse us,” Cambourne said as he came round the table to me and rested his hand on the curve of my waist. I felt it there, warm and reassuring as we walked out. It was only his measured pace that kept me from breaking into a run, so agitated was I to be clear of all the eyes fixed upon us.

  “But Milburn, Gwen!” Mother called. “You cannot leave now.”

  “Oh, but we can,” I said, not looking back and continuing on my way.

  “No, no,” she cried, almost trotting behind us. “I believe your father and Cambourne shall have an important announcement to make when they return. Although I am not altogether certain I can recover from his being in trade …”

  I was pulling Cambourne up a flight of stairs and into the second-floor drawing room where it was private and I knew there would be a fire. “I suspect you’ll manage,” I told her.

  “It is imperative, Gwen, that you be there for the announcement,” Mother tried again.

  “Good-bye, Mother,” I said, as we stepped into the room and I closed the door in her face.

  She knocked.

  “Go away,” I called. “You are neglecting your guests.” And we waited in silence until we heard her retreat. I had preceded Cambourne into the room, and now I turned to face him.

  “I know about the blackmail,” I said.

  “I figured that much,” he replied. “And Bertie told me.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me, Cambourne? All those times I asked? I would have kept the secret about your father.”

  He smiled down at me. “Forgive me, Gwen. There is no good way to tell the woman you have always longed for that you were forced to marry her by her odious scheming parents, in order to save your father’s hide. It doesn’t seem like much of a way to start a marriage. And besides, would you have believed me, that I married you because I wanted to, if I had simply told you at the beginning?”

  I hesitated. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I disagree now. I think it is an excellent way to start a marriage. But, Cambourne, what is to stop my parents now?”

  “Well,” he said, carefully, “I suppose it all depends on what happens next. It’s perfectly possible that by the time we leave this room they will have lost their desire to reveal anything, anyway.”

  I nodded. “Now,” I said, without preamble.

  And he did not pretend to misunderstand. He smiled. “Here?”

  I nodded.

  “There will be hell to pay,” he said. “In the eyes of the world, you will be married to your smuggling, pornography importing, brother-in-law, who married you under false pretenses, with a traitor for a father, and idiot for a mother, and a gardening, lace-tatting dandy for a brother.”

  “I know,” I said. “You will be married to a formerly spineless, but now managing female, with a blackmailing idiot for a father, and a blackmailing gorgon for a mother.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “You have no plan to save our reputations?” I said.

  “No,” he said. “Not a one.”

  “And you are willing to take that chance?” I said. “That the names of Cambourne and Winfell might be smudged for the foreseeable future?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “And you, Gwen, you are falling in with your mother’s plans for you far better than she ever could have hoped. And when they eventually unravel who is who, she’ll know it.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “I know that. Although,” I said, advancing a step on him, “there is some hope that all is ruined in her eyes by the fact that you are now a disgrace to your own name.”

  He smiled that long, slow smile that always seemed to make something warm happen in my midriff. “This,” he said, leaning back against the door, and not taking his gaze from mine, “is not how it should be.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  He began to unwind his neckcloth, his mesmerizing eyes still not leaving mine. “Particularly the first time,” he said, as he dropped the white square on the floor.

  “I know that, too,” I said. “I still don’t care.”

  He laughed then, and held out his arms. “Come, Gwen,” he said, and buried his face in my hair as he held me against him. “It’s been a long wait.”

  I wanted to breathe him in, rub my face against his jacket, to run my fingers through the silky hair falling over his brow, but I was aware that we did not have much time. I was also, to be honest, extremely impatient. “Now, Harry,” I said, again.

  “You have to give a fellow a chance to figure out where he’s headed, Gwen.”

  “You know where you’re headed,” I said.

  He laughed again. “You are truly not like any virgin I’ve ever met,” he said, still into my hair. “I shudder to imagine what you will be like when you’ve had a little experience.” But then he pulled me against him, hard, like I wanted, and kissed me, extremely thoroughly, his tongue moving over my lips until I parted them for him.

  I reached up and put my arms around his neck, pulling him nearer still. “I read the letters,” I said against his mouth.

  He lifted his head and looked down at me. “I love you, Gwen,” he said, very quietly. “I loved you at the beginning and I have loved you more each day. I’ll give up what I need to in order to have you—as long as you are willing to live in disgrace with me.”

  “Oh, Harry, that’s absolutely the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  He smiled, slowly, at me. “At least, since I married you because I was being blackmailed to do so?”

  “Yes.” I looked up at him. “And I would love to live in disgrace with you.”

  The next few moments passed extremely pleasurably, and then, I said, “Did you have your stewards and your secretary set out to make it awful for Milburn?”

  He nodded. “I’m afraid so. Really awful. No one could have stuck it out.”

  “I thought so. Is someone truly digging up St. Dunstan’s? Bertie told me a hair-raising tale about some antiquarian, dead bore, Oxford cove, as he put it.”

  “Of course,” he said, as his dimple appeared. “Fascinating project.” And then he kissed me again.

  “Mathilde!” I said, when he had finished.

  “Mathilde,” he said, slowly, lifting his head. “Milburn and I have been bringing money to Toulouse.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What is there? Other than women eager to show travelers their fathers’ barns, that is, and what does it have to do with Mathilde?”

  “Well, the why is that we’ve been blackmailed into doing so. A small group of Frenchmen who are more sympathetic to the Royalist cause than Boney’s is what is there, and the Crown is eager to assist their mission with funds and supplies. But getting them there is not an easy piece of business, and not one that people are lining up to undertake. Before our return journeys, we pick up information from them about the planned defenses of certain cities. When Milburn did not return, this time, there was some concern at Whitehall, fanned by some of your nearest and dearest, that he had disappeared with both the money and the information.”

  To tell th
e truth, I already understood the gist of what they had been doing, and with his body pressed up against me in such a delightfully scandalous manner, I was not all that interested in hearing the particulars. In the future, absolutely, but not at this moment. There was that one thing, though. “Mathilde?” I reminded him.

  “Her father is in Toulouse. He is one of the War Office contacts there, and she has been assisting us for some time. She was helping me try to learn—outside of Whitehall channels, since we were not sure who inside them was involved in the blackmail—what had become of Milburn, and then recently, to destroy evidence of what my father was attempting to do. Between us, we managed to divert the funds, and now if anyone tries to say anything, it’s nothing but an empty accusation. Which, to be honest, I doubt even your parents would dare make against the Duke of Winfell. She is not averse to some, ah, entertainment, so I asked her to make a few, shall we say, extra demands of Milburn.”

  “So you were not lovers?” I asked.

  “No, Gwen,” he said, gently. “We were. I’m sorry. But not since I married you.”

  “Oh Harry, I love you,” I said, throwing myself against him with gusto.

  “Are you the same person who told me that gently bred females don’t have baser instincts?” he asked, kissing me, and simultaneously struggling with his jacket.

  “As I recall, you told me I wasn’t gently bred,” I reminded him.

  “That explains it, then,” he said.

  “It must.” I was trying to help him pull the tight sleeves off.

  “I’m so glad,” he said, as his arms came free and he pulled me closer, deepening his kiss, with a rhythm that made me writhe against him. We rocked back against the door and his hands came up; he rubbed my breast none too gently, and I could feel the nipple harden in his hand. I clutched at his shoulders and would have cried out, but he said, “Ssshh,” and again covered my mouth with his.

  “Someday,” he said, against my lips, as his hands slid under my gown, and up my legs to my buttocks, cupping me, pulling me nearer, “we will be private. Completely unclothed. In a bed. And this will be long, and slow, and I will kiss and memorize and then kiss again, every inch of you, and we can make all the noise in the world.” He gently bit my earlobe.