by Eloisa James
Most women in their forties allow themselves to take on a soft roundness. But, as if in reproach to her unsatisfactory elder daughter, Mrs. Lytton ate like a bird and ruthlessly confined what curves she had in a whalebone corset. Consequently, she looked like a stork with anxious, beady eyes and a particularly feathery head.
Georgiana instantly rose to her feet and curtsied. “Good evening, Mother. How lovely that you pay us a visit.”
“I hate it when you do that,” Olivia put in, pushing herself to a standing position with a little groan. “Lord, my feet hurt. Rupert trampled them at least five or six times.”
“Do what, my dear?” Mrs. Lytton asked, just catching Olivia’s remark as she shut the door behind her.
“Georgie goes all gooey and sweet just for you,” Olivia said, not for the first time.
Her mother’s frown was a miraculous concoction: she managed to express distaste without even twitching her forehead. “As your sister is well aware, ‘A lady’s whole pilgrimage is nothing less than to show the world what is most requisite for a great personage.’ ”
“Show unto the world,” Olivia said, making a feeble gesture toward mutiny. “If you must quote The Mirror of Senseless Stupidity, Mama, you might as well get it right.”
Mrs. Lytton and Georgiana both ignored this unhelpful comment. “You looked exquisite in your plum-colored sarcenet tonight,” Georgiana said, pulling a chair closer to the fireplace and ushering her mother into it, “particularly when you were dancing with Papa. His coat complemented your gown to a turn.”
“Have you heard? He is calling on us tomorrow!” Mrs. Lytton breathed the pronoun as though Rupert were a deity who deigned to enter their mortal dwelling.
“I heard,” Olivia said, watching her sister tuck a small cushion behind their mother’s back.
“You’ll be a duchess by this time tomorrow.” The tremble in Mrs. Lytton’s voice spoke for itself.
“No, I won’t. I’ll be formally betrothed to a marquess, which isn’t the same thing as actually being a duchess. I’m sure you remember that I’ve been unofficially betrothed for some twenty-three years.”
“The distinction between our informal agreement with the duke and the ceremony tomorrow is just what I wish to speak to you about,” their mother said. “Georgiana, perhaps you should leave us, as you are unmarried.”
Olivia found that surprising; Mrs. Lytton was fluttering her eyelashes in such a way that suggested she was in the grip of deep anxiety, and Georgiana had a talent for soothing aphorisms.
In fact, just as Georgiana reached the door, their mother waved her hand: “I’ve changed my mind. My dear, you may stay. I have no doubt but that the marquess will dower you shortly after the marriage, so this information may be relevant to you as well.
“A formal betrothal is a complicated relationship, legally speaking. Of course, our legal system is in flux and so on.” Mrs. Lytton looked as if she hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. “Apparently it is always in flux. Parts of the old law, parts of the new . . . your father understands all this better than I.
“Under current interpretation of the law, your betrothal will be binding, unless the marquess suffers a fatal accident—when, of course, it would be invalidated by his death.” She snapped open her fan and waved it before her face, as if such a tragedy was too terrible even to contemplate.
“Which is all too likely,” Olivia said, responding to the fan as much as to her mother’s words. “Inasmuch as Rupert has the brainpower of a gnat and he’s apparently going into battle.”
“ ‘Civility is never out of fashion,’ ” Mrs. Lytton said, dropping the fan below her chin and dipping into The Mirror of Compliments. “You should never speak of the peerage in such a manner. It is true that in the tragic event of the marquess’s demise, the betrothal will come to nothing. But there is one interesting provision that falls under the provenance of an older law, as I understand it.”
“Provision?” Olivia asked, creasing her brow—unluckily just as her mother glanced at her.
“ ‘Cloud not your brow with disdainful scorn,’ ” Mrs. Lytton said automatically. Apparently duchesses remained wrinkle-free for life, doubtless because they never frowned.
“If you were to . . .” Mrs. Lytton waved her fan in the air. “To . . . to . . .” She gave Olivia a meaningful glance. “Then the betrothal would be more than legally binding; it would turn into a marriage under some sort of law. I can’t remember what your father called it. ‘Common,’ perhaps. Though how a common law could have any application to nobility, I cannot say.”
“Are you saying that if I tup the FF, I become a marchioness even if he dies?” Olivia said, wiggling her sore toes. “That sounds extremely unlikely.”
The fan fluttered madly. “I’m sure I don’t know what you intend to say, Olivia. You must learn to speak the English language.”
“I expect that the law is designed to protect young women,” Georgiana interrupted, before her mother could elaborate on the subject of Olivia’s egregious linguistic lapses. “If I understand you correctly, Mother, you are saying that should the marquess lose his composure and commit an act unbecoming his rank as a peer, he would be forced to marry his betrothed bride, that is, Olivia.”
“Actually, I’m not entirely sure whether he would be obligated to marry Olivia, or whether the betrothal would simply turn into a marriage. But most importantly, should this occurrence result in—in an event, the child will be declared legitimate. And if the betrothed were not deceased, then he would not be allowed to alter his mind. Not that the marquess would think of such a thing.”
“To sum it up,” Olivia said flatly, “bedwork is followed by bondage.”
Their mother snapped her fan shut and came to her feet. “Olivia Mayfield Lytton, your incessant vulgarity is unacceptable. The more unacceptable, because you are a duchess-to-be. Remember, all eyes will be upon you!” She stopped to take a breath.
“Might we return to a more important subject?” Olivia asked, rising reluctantly to her feet once more. “It seems that you are instructing me to seduce Rupert, although you unaccountably neglected to give me a tutor in that particular art.”
“I cannot bear your rank vulgarity!” Mrs. Lytton barked. Then, remembering that she was the mother of a duchess-to-be, she cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “There is no need for any . . . exertion. A man—even a gentleman—merely has to be given the impression that a woman is ready for intimacy and he will . . . that is, he will take advantage of the situation.”
And with that, Mrs. Lytton swept out the door without so much as a nod to either of her daughters.
Olivia sat down once again. Her mother had never been very interested in shows of maternal warmth, but it was painfully clear that quite soon Olivia would have no mother at all—merely an irritated, and irritating, lady-in-waiting. The thought made her throat tighten.
“I don’t want to make you uneasy,” Georgiana said, seating herself as well, “but I would guess that Mama and Papa are going to lock you in the root cellar with the FF.”
“They could move the matrimonial bed down to the study. Just to make sure that Rupert understands his duty.”
“Oh, he will understand,” Georgiana said. “Men come to it naturally, as I understand.”
“But I never had any particular sense that the FF was of that sort, did you?”
“No.” Georgiana thought for a moment. “At least, not yet. He’s like a puppy.”
“I don’t think he’ll mature by tomorrow evening.” “Puppy” wasn’t a bad description of Rupert, given that he had turned eighteen only the week before. Olivia would always fault her papa for leaping into matrimony before the duke, and then proceeding to procreate at the same headlong rate.
It was tiresome to be a woman of twenty-three, betrothed to a lad of barely eighteen. Especially a boy who was such a callow eighteen.
All through a light supper before the ball Rupert had babbled on about how the glory of his family name d
epended upon his performance on the battlefield—even though everyone at the table knew that he would never be allowed near a battlefield. He might have been “going to war,” but he was the scion of a duke. What’s more, he was an heir for whom there was no spare, and as such had to be kept from harm’s way. He’d probably be sent to another country. In fact, she was rather surprised that his father was allowing Rupert to travel outside England at all.
“You’ll have to take the lead,” Georgiana suggested. “Begin as you mean to go on.”
Olivia slumped a little lower on the settee. She had known, of course, that she would have to bed Rupert at some point. But she had vaguely imagined the event taking place in the dark, where she and Rupert could more easily ignore the fact that he was a good head shorter than she was and more than a stone slimmer. That didn’t seem likely if they were locked into the library.
“That’s one good thing about your figure,” Georgiana went on. “Men like curvaceous women.”
“I can’t say I’ve noticed. Except perhaps when it comes to Melchett, the new footman with the lovely shoulders.”
“You shouldn’t be ogling a footman,” Georgiana said primly.
“He ogles me, not the other way around. I am merely observant. Why do you suppose we aren’t simply getting married now?” Olivia asked, tucking her feet beneath her. “I know that we had to wait until Rupert turned eighteen, though frankly, I thought we might as well do it when he was out of diapers. Or at least out of the nursery. It’s not as if he’s ever going to achieve maturity as most people think of the word. Why a betrothal, and not a wedding?”
“I expect the FF doesn’t wish to marry.”
“Why not? I’m not saying that I’m a matrimonial prize. But he can’t possibly hope to escape his father’s wishes. I don’t think he’d even want to. He doesn’t have a touch of rebellion in him.”
“No man wants to marry a woman his father picked out for him. Actually, no woman either—think about Juliet.”
“Juliet Fallesbury? Whom did her father choose? All I remember is that she ran away with a gardener she nicknamed Longfellow.”
“Romeo and Juliet, ninny!”
“Shakespeare never wrote anything relevant to my life,” Olivia stated, “at least until they discover a long-lost tragedy called Much Ado about Olivia and the Fool. Rupert is no Romeo. He’s never shown the least inclination to dissolve our betrothal.”
“In that case, I expect he feels too young to be married. He wants to sow some wild oats.”
They were both silent for a moment, trying to picture Rupert’s wild oats. “Hard to imagine, isn’t it?” Olivia said, after a bit. “I simply cannot envision the FF shaking the sheets.”
“You shouldn’t be able to envision anyone shaking the sheets,” Georgiana said weakly.
“Save your tedious virtue for when there’s someone in the room who might care,” Olivia advised her, not unkindly. “Do you suppose that Rupert has any idea of the mechanics involved?”
“Maybe he’s hoping that by the time he comes back from France, he will be an inch or two taller.”
“Oh, believe me,” Olivia said with a shudder, “I have recurring nightmares about the two of us walking down the aisle in St. Paul’s. Mother will force me into a wedding dress adorned with bunches of tulle so I’ll be twice as tall and twice as wide as my groom. Rupert will have that absurd little dog of his trotting at his side, which will only call attention to the fact that the dog has a better waistline than I do.”
“I shall take Mother in hand when it comes to your gown,” Georgiana promised. “But your wedding dress is irrelevant to this discussion as pertains to tomorrow’s seduction.”
“ ‘Pertains to?’ I really think you should be careful, Georgie. Your language is tainted by that pestilent Mirror even when we’re alone.”
“You’ll have to think of tomorrow as a trial, like Hercules cleaning out the Augean stables.”
“I’d rather muck out the stables than seduce a man who’s a head shorter and as light as thistledown.”
“Offer him a glass of spirits,” Georgiana suggested. “Do you remember how terrified Nurse Luddle was of men who drank spirits? She said they turned into raging satyrs.”
“Rupert, the Raging Satyr,” Olivia said thoughtfully. “I can just see him skipping through the forest on his frisky little hooves.”
“Hooves might give him a distinguished air. Especially if he had a goatee. Satyrs always have goatees.”
“Rupert would have trouble with that. I told him tonight that I thought his attempt to grow a mustache was interesting, but I was lying. Don’t satyrs have little horns as well?”
“Yes, and tails.”
“A tail might—just might—give Rupert a devilish air, like one of those rakes who are rumored to have slept with half the ton. Maybe I’ll try to imagine him with those embellishments tomorrow evening.”
“You’ll start giggling,” Georgiana warned. “You’re not supposed to laugh at your husband during intimate moments. It might put him off.”
“For one thing, he’s not my husband. For another, one either laughs at Rupert or bursts into tears. While we were dancing tonight I asked him what his father thought about his plan to win glory, and he stopped in the middle of the ballroom and announced, ‘The duck can dip an eagle’s wings but to no avail!’ And then he threw out his arm and struck Lady Tunstall so hard that her wig fell off.”
“I saw that,” Georgiana said. “From the side of the room it looked as if she was making a rather unnecessary fuss. It just drew more attention.”
“Rupert handed back her wig with the charming comment that she didn’t look in the least like someone who was bald, and he never would have guessed it.”
Georgiana nodded. “An exciting moment for her, no doubt. I don’t understand the bit about the duck, though.”
“No one could. Life with Rupert is going to be a series of exciting moments requiring interpretation.”
“The duck must be the duke,” Georgiana said, still puzzling over it. “Perhaps dipping the eagle’s wings should be clipping? What do you think? That implies Rupert thinks of himself as an eagle. Personally I consider him more akin to a duck.”
“Because he quacks? He would certainly be alone in visualizing himself as an eagle.” Olivia got to her feet and rang the bell. “I think it would behoove me—there’s a twopenny word for you, Georgie—it would behoove me to keep in mind that I’m being invited to have intimacies with a duck in my father’s library tomorrow night. And if that doesn’t sum up my relationship with our parents, I don’t know what could.”
Georgiana gave a snort.
Olivia waggled a finger at her. “Verrrrry vulgar noise you just made, my lady. Very vulgar.”
Four
That Which Is Engraved on the Heart of a Man (or Woman)
The following evening, Olivia was positioned on the sofa in the Yellow Drawing Room some two hours before the Duke of Canterwick and his son Rupert were due to arrive. Mrs. Lytton kept rushing through, squeaking this or that order to the servants. Mr. Lytton was more given to agitated pacing than to rushing. He fiddled with his cravat until it had utterly wilted, and he had to go off to change.
The truth was that her parents had prepared the whole of their married life for this moment, and even so they didn’t really believe their good fortune. She could see the incredulity in their eyes.
Would the duke truly go through with this marriage, based on a schoolboy promise years ago? Inside, they were not convinced.
“ ‘Dignity, virtue, affability, and bearing,’ ” her mother whispered to her, for the third time that evening.
Her father was more direct. “For goodness’ sake, keep your mouth shut.”
Olivia nodded. Again.
“Aren’t you the least bit nervous?” her mother hissed, sitting down beside her.
“No,” Olivia stated.
“That’s—that’s unnatural! One would almost think you didn’t want to
be a duchess.” The very notion was clearly inconceivable to Mrs. Lytton.
“Insofar as I am about to formally betroth myself to a man whose brain would make a grain of sand loom large, I must wish to be a duchess,” Olivia pointed out.
“The marquess’s brain is irrelevant,” Mrs. Lytton said, frowning, and then instantly soothing her brow with her fingertips, in case a wrinkle had sprung up. “You will someday be a duchess. I never thought about brains when I married your father. The very consideration is unladylike.”
“I feel quite certain that Father evinced a normal intelligence,” Olivia said. She was sitting very still so that her ludicrously unnatural ringlets wouldn’t tangle.
“Mr. Lytton paid me a call. We danced. I never considered the question of his wits. You think too much, Olivia!”
“Which may not be a drawback, given that any woman who marries Rupert will have to do the thinking for two.”
“My heart is palpitating,” Mrs. Lytton said, with a little gasp. “Even my toes are qualmish. What if the duke changes his mind? You . . . you are not all that you could be. If only you could stop trying to be witty, Olivia. I assure you that your jests are not funny.”
“I don’t try, Mama,” Olivia said, starting to feel a little angry, even though she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t wrangle. “I simply don’t always agree with you. I see things differently.”
“You indulge in coarse wit, no matter how you wish to phrase it.”
“Then Rupert and I will make quite a pair,” Olivia said, just stopping herself from snapping. “Dim-witted and coarse-witted.”
“That’s just the sort of thing I’m talking about!” her mother accused. “It’s unnatural to jest at a moment like this, when a marquess is about to plight his troth to you.”
Olivia was calm. She knew perfectly well that Rupert’s father would arrive, at the appointed hour, and bearing whatever papers were necessary to effect the betrothal. The bridegroom’s presence hardly seemed relevant.
The Duke of Canterwick was a hardheaded man who had no interest in finding his son a compatible spouse; instead, he was looking for a nursemaid. A fertile nursemaid. He didn’t need money, and the dowry her parents had scraped together—which was more than respectable for a girl of her rank—was of no importance.