An Ideal Duchess (17 page)

             
“We’ve not long before we reach Bledington, the captain says,”

             
“I know, I can read the captain’s charts,” She said softly. “He has just rung the bell for dinner. Shall we dine out here or in the dining room?”

             
“The dining room, of course,” Bron said brusquely. “We shan’t be dining al fresco at Bledington.”

             
“It was nice, wasn’t it?” Amanda frowned slightly at him. “Dining on the deck, among other things.”

             
“Yes, but the sooner you learn to do things the Bledington way, the less trouble you will have with my mother,” Bron extended his hand to her. “Come.”

             
She took his hand and he led her down the promenade towards the dining-saloon. The dining-saloon was large, spanning most of the aft of the promenade deck. It was filled with heavy, Baroque décor, a fireplace, an upright piano in massively carved oak case, and a massive table around which sat high-backed oak chairs upholstered in tapestry. The electric bulbs cleverly built into the perimeter of the ceiling diffused a soft, mellow glow over the gold and silver dinner service on the table. The moment they entered, the dining-saloon steward wheeled a cart into the room, covered dishes on each shelf, and another steward arrived with bottles of wine and a bucket in which a champagne bottle canted to the right.

             
Bron seated Amanda and then took his chair at the opposite end of the table, unrolling the crisp linen napkin at his cover and placing it in his lap. The stewards moved silently and efficiently as they served the first course, withdrawing just as silently and efficiently from the dining room at his nod. He ate his soup, a delicate consommé of julienned vegetables, and then noticed Amanda was staring down the length of the table at him. She hadn’t touched her soup, he noticed with a frown.

             
“Bron, your mother isn’t going to live with us at Bledington.”

             
“The Dower House is in a wretched state of disrepair. It hasn’t been occupied since my great-grandmother’s time as dowager in the ‘seventies.” Bron set his heavy soup spoon on the table. “I also thought it necessary for a smooth change of regime. What do you know of running a house of Bledington’s size?”

             
“I’m not so utterly devoid intelligence that I cannot learn how to do so,” Amanda snapped.

             
“I never insinuated that you were without any intelligence,” He said sharply. “I hoped you would be grateful for my concern over your unfamiliarity with Bledington.”

             
“Why can’t you help me?”

             
“It is the duchess’s responsibility for running the household. I thought you were aware of what would be required of you as my duchess.”

             
“Was I supposed to purchase a guidebook? Perhaps Baedeker has put out a line of books to assist stupid American girls like I in knowing instinctively what is required of them should they marry into a noble house.”

             
His mouth thinned with displeasure when she pushed her chair back and left the dining room. He picked up his spoon and finished his soup, and then filled his wine glass with the claret thoughtfully decanted by the wine steward. He glanced at the door that Amanda had exited, which led to the staircase descending to the suite of rooms designated for her and for him.

             
His instinct to go after her warred with his irritation over her twisting of his words and inability to see the situation from his point of view; the latter emotion won when he realized that indulging in this type of behavior would begin their role at Bledington on the wrong foot. He could also anticipate his mother’s horror that he allowed his wife to expose them to ridicule and servants’ gossip, and with that at the forefront of his mind, he rose from his seat to serve himself the second course.

*          *          *

              Amanda regretted her childish impulse the moment she shut the door of her bedroom behind her. His doubts about her suitability as chatelaine of Bledington Park piqued her pride, and though she admitted that she was inexperienced in the finer details of housekeeping on such a monumental scale, having him express this thought aloud felt like a betrayal. That he failed to inform her of the Dowager Duchess’s continued presence at Bledington struck her as even more disloyal, and the anxiety she’d chased away the closer they came to England returned tenfold. Being the Duchess of Malvern and all that it entailed seemed rather abstract when she signed the marriage register, and even being “Your Grace’d” from every port between New York and Southampton had been a bemusing experience rather than a concrete fact.

             
The rumbling of her stomach alerted her of a more pressing protest against her stomp from the dining room, and she made her way back upstairs. Bron remained in his chair, which faced the door leading to their suite, drinking a glass of golden-brown wine. Cognac. She took in the remains of his dinner left untouched on his plate, his strong, lightly tanned forearms exposed by his rolling up his shirtsleeves, his auburn hair rumpled from what she knew was the repeated raking of his hand through his hair, and her hunger shifted to something less corporeal than food. He looked up from his glass and the pink flush across his cheeks and the silvery glitter in his eyes made her pulse thunder in her ears.

             
“Bron,” She managed to murmur before he was on her, mouth, hands, hips, as he pressed her into the door.

             
This was always wonderful between them. There were no missteps or misinterpretations when they shed their clothes, and they weren’t even Bron and Amanda, or the Duke and Duchess of Malvern—just a man and a woman coming together in the most intimate of ways.

             
She supposed she ought to be shocked to her maidenly toes as Bron nearly ripped the buttons from her shirtwaist as he pulled it from her serge yachting skirt and ran his hands impatiently down her front, but she was just as impatient to unbutton his shirt. They had nearly tumbled down the stairs in their haste to reach their suite, and Amanda squirmed in frustration beneath him when they tripped over her skirt and fell backwards on the bed. After a few minutes more of hurried their fumbling with her clothes, she was finally free, corset and combinations flung across the room, her stockings rolled swiftly down her legs, and her hairpins bunched onto the table beside the bed.

             
Amanda grasped greedily for him when he paused to shuck his clothes, and he returned to her, his hands fisted in her hair as he kissed her soundly. The delightful sensation of his skin against her skin, his hardness pressing into her softness, was almost too much to bear, and she groaned in pleasure at his first thrust. His hands skimmed down her arms and then pressed them above her head, and she clutched his fingers tightly, sinking into the exquisite sensation of his hips slamming and retreating between her legs. His breath was warm against her ear, catching slightly in his throat when he disengaged his fingers from her grasp to dig into her thighs as he thrust harder and higher into her body.

             
The tension building within her was uncomfortable in its intensity, sending waves of heat radiating across her body. Based on the slickness of his shoulders and the sweatiness of his hair at the nape of his neck beneath her hands, he felt the same. She kissed him, fusing their mouths together to disguise her embarrassingly loud moans she was certain the yacht’s crew could hear all the way in their quarters near the stern, but he laughed against her mouth—actually laughed!

             
“Don’t stop yourself on my account,” He whispered against her skin.

             
She groaned, kicking one leg out straight and inadvertently allowing him to thrust at a different angle. Were these powerful and engrossing sensations how it felt to be in love? She wondered, tightening her grasp on his hands when he fell heavily against her with a cry of passion, pressing her more deeply into the mattress. She had little experience with love, other than the fondness she held for her family, and she had certainly never felt so strongly or so deeply for another person, much less another man. She certainly had never been so absorbed in anyone half as much as she was with Bron, and so she decided, as she arched beneath him and shattered into a score of pieces, that she was madly, desperately, passionately, greedily in love.

             
He was quiet, head in the crook of her neck as she caressed the sweaty expanse of his back, sliding her palm over the flats and planes of the muscles beneath his skin. She stared at the canopy above her bed wishing that she could feel this way, that they would be this way, for good. As though reading her thoughts, he raised his head and narrowed his eyes at her with a searching gaze before lowering his mouth to kiss her tenderly on the lips and her forehead. He sighed deeply and rolled away, folding his arms behind his head as he settled on the bed beside her and stared up at the canopy.

             
“It won’t be permanent, my mother residing at Bledington,” He said gravely. “You don’t know anything about the estate, and she is anxious to help you maintain our standards when she finally does leave for the Dower House.”             

             
“Won’t I have some say in how Bledington is run?” Amanda frowned over at him. “I am the duchess.”

             
“Of course you will,” He turned to face her. “But you can’t expect to come to my home and change everything about it.”

             
She gave him an incredulous look, her euphoria dissipating with the reality of how she was expected to fit into her new role. Her reaction failed to faze him, and he slid from the bed and bent to retrieve his clothes, the muscles of his buttocks and thighs flexing appealingly as he pulled on his trousers.

             
“Why don’t you stay with me?”

             
Bron raised his head from his shirt to give her a startled look.

             
“In bed,” She said bluntly. “I always awake alone in the mornings.”

             
“It isn’t done,” His eyes were distant, as though a veil had been dropped between them.

             
“You mean we shan’t ever share the same bedroom?” She pulled the blanket over her nakedness.

             
“Of course not. There are suites for the duke and the duchess—we will have a connecting door.”

             
“How absurd! My father and mother have shared a bedroom throughout all of their married life.”

             
“Then why are there two bedrooms on your father’s yacht?” He raised a brow.

             
She glowered at him. “Formalities.”

             
His brow descended and he bent to kiss her again. “Precisely. Good night, darling.”

*          *          *

Bledington Park

             
Today was the day the duke was bringing home his new duchess!
Fourteen-year-old Maggie Wilcox’s eyes popped up and she hugged herself in excitement. She had heard so much about the new duchess whilst serving the butler, housekeeper, valet, and lady’s maid in the housekeeper’s sitting room, and now she was to finally lay eyes on the mythical lady. Maggie absently wondered if the new duchess was actually made of brass as she carefully inched her blanket down her body, aware of the sleeping figure at her back and slid quietly from the bed, the sheets rustling softly from her movement.

             
She padded lightly across the room to the washbasin and pitcher, shivering in the chill of the attic given to the housemaids, and poured some of the freezing water into the bowl. She plunged her hands into the bowl to break up the ice and dashed ice-cold water across her face and neck, her hands and arms, and her legs, wiping herself down with the scratchy towel hung over the towel horse after that. Next were her work corset, which she pulled over her head and then laced tightly in front, a fresh pair of thick woolen stockings, and then her gingham day dress and white apron. 

             
Maggie looked about for her shoes, falling to all fours to lift the blanket and peer under the wide, brass bed she shared with the sixth and fifth housemaids at Bledington. She found her shoes, a pair of sturdy black boots with two buttons on each side and equally sturdy laces, and sat on the floor, tongue between her teeth, as she carefully laced them up. There, she eyed her boots with satisfaction, turning them this way and that to admire their sheen; she had never owned such a pair, and she liked to admire them as often as possible. The snort from the bed alerted her to the time, and she scampered to her feet and over to the bed to shake Doris awake.

             
“Go on ya rangy nutter,” Doris pushed away her hand and burrowed deeper into the duvet.

             
“Doris, we mustn’t be late setting the fires or else Mr. Fowler won’t allow us to join the servants when the new duchess arrives!”