An Ideal Duchess (20 page)

             
“Forgive me for not congratulating you on your marriage,” His uncle narrowed his eyes. “It was damned clever of you to have an heiress fall right into your lap.”

             
“I never intended to break the entail.” He said bluntly, setting his empty snifter on the table. “My marriage is incidental to that decision.”

             
“You’re selfish, that’s what you are,” His uncle slammed a hand on the table. “As your heir I had the right to be consulted in the matter.”

             
“On the contingency of my failing to sire a son, you are my heir, but in all other matters, I am the duke and I have a duty to maintain this estate.”

             
“You have a duty to maintain this family’s standards. What about my heirs, or your sister?”

             
“I was under the impression that Elliot and Ben are doing well in the City. Aunt Amelia was most persistent on that point.” The decanter came back his way, and Bron pointedly poured another glass of brandy. “You should be grateful the estate can continue to pay your allowance, which there was a chance of not happening if the broken entail resulted in everything from Bledington to the paintings to Rodborough Court being swallowed by taxes.”

             
He looked at his uncle, who looked a trifle gray about the gills, and felt slightly remorseful over possessing what should have never been his. But he was the duke, and since nothing could change that fact he must do his best to fill the role Providence, fate, or whatever amused deity thrust upon him. He glanced at the clock over the sideboard and saw that fifteen minutes had passed since the ladies departed the dining room. His Majesty had shortened the fashion for dawdling over brandy and cigars, and Bron had a concrete reason for escaping his uncle’s toxic presence. He remained in the dining room after the other gentlemen, including his uncle, shuffled out of the door, and glanced pensively at the brandy swirling in his glass.

             
The door opened and three footmen in the cherry red Townsend livery and powdered hair stepped inside. They paused when they saw him standing beside the table, and Bron drank his brandy and set the snifter on the table, gesturing for them to come clear the table. The footmen bowed as he passed, and he briefly found the action as absurd and antiquated as their powdered hair. However, it was the Bledington way, and he was steward of its maintenance. He stepped across the Saloon in the direction of the drawing room just as Fowler walked quickly to the door, and opened it to reveal Bim. An incredibly tardy Bim, but Bim nonetheless.

             
“God, I’m sorry, Bron,” Bim handed his greatcoat and top hat to Fowler, who retreated to a discreet distance. “I had to deal with a difficult brief and then there was an accident on Piccadilly as I made my way to Euston Station. I’m not too late for a little supper, am I?”

             
“Fowler,” He turned to the butler. “Ask Mrs. Alcock if she can scrounge up something, cold cuts perhaps, for Mr. Challoner.”

             
Fowler bowed deeply and then disappeared through the servants’ door.

             
“You can eat in the library, unless you want to look in the drawing room and greet my mother first.”

             
“I’m afraid of what she’ll say to me for arriving so late.” Bim pulled a face. “In her mind, it is better if I did not show up at all.”

             
Bron emitted a short bark of laughter as they walked towards the library. He heard the door to the drawing room directly across from them open and turned to see Amanda exiting the room.

             
“There you are—oh, hello Anthony! It’s so good of you to finally come.” His wife glided towards them in a cloud of pink chiffon.

             
Bron frowned when his eyes dipped to her unseemly décolleté, and then scowled when he saw Bim’s eyes fall as well with a wolfish grin.

             
“And miss this lovely sight?” He bent to kiss her hand.

             
Amanda’s creamy skin turned rosy with her blush, and she darted a glance at him over Bim’s head. Bron looked away and the open door to the drawing room gave him a clear view of his mother, who turned her head and lifted a brow in consternation. He reluctantly excused himself from his wife and his best friend to join his mother and the guests in the drawing room. He turned to look back at them just as Anthony opened the door the library and ushered her inside, closing the door behind them. His irrational sense of loss and jealousy was almost a physical pain, but the call of his duty towards his guests (a duty it seemed Amanda did not possess) tugged insistently against his urge to walk into the library and reclaim his wife.  He would only cause a scene and create a scandal just as the gossip about the family had finally shriveled on the vine and died. And so he calmly stepped into the drawing room and joined the party.

*          *          *

              Bim reached for his glass of wine after finishing the tray of cold meats and cheese Mrs. Alcock had sent up for his consumption. He raised the glass in a mock-toast to Amanda, who sat across from him, before downing the claret in one drink.

             
“Heavens, were you hungry,” She laughed, lifting her eyebrows in surprise. “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone eat this quickly since my brothers snuck one of my father’s desserts from the kitchen before my governess could catch them.”

             
“It was a very long trip from London,” Bim kicked his feet up on the low parquet table and leaned back in his chair. “I do hope I haven’t ruined your dinner party.”

             
“You’ve enlivened it, I should say.”

             
“Ah, the silent dinners.” He smiled ruefully and crossed his arms.

             
“Not only that, but Her Grace—” Amanda paused with a guilty look.

             
“Don’t hold your tongue on my account. Bron’s mother is a tartar.”

             
“She’s been so kind to me, but I can’t do anything,” Her deep huff of exasperation caused her breasts to swell against her low neckline.

             
Bim stifled his grin and averted his eyes: he kept off the grass when it came to married women, and this one happened to be married to his friend.

             
“Have you spoken to Bron about it? He really is quite an accommodating fellow when you tell him how you feel.”

             
“Well, no I haven’t, but that is beside the point!” Amanda looked agitated. “I wasn’t even the hostess of this dinner party. Her Grace organized it all and chose the guests of her liking.”

             
“I wouldn’t have been invited if that were so,” Anthony snorted. “But I am grateful that I could come and save you from the miseries of elderly dowagers and fussy old men.”

             
“You’re a terrible flirt, Anthony Challoner.” She laughed.

             
“Isn’t flirting one of life’s pleasures?”

             
“Well, I think it’s rather false.”

             
He unfolded his arms and straightened. “You’re right, of course. I apologize.”

             
“Don’t look so mournful, I was only teasing. I’ll take harmless flirting over being prodded in the belly and asked if I am breeding.” She shuddered.

             
“You’re securing the continuation of the dynasty, my darling duchess,” Bim said sardonically.              

             
“I would like to lead a more interesting life than that of a brood mare,” Amanda’s expression darkened.

             
“We all are unfairly yoked, some more so than others,” He paused, surprised by the sourness of his tone.

             
He put a stopper on his discontent, considering it unfair to place Amanda in between the growing restlessness he felt being beholden to and toeing the political line drawn by the Dukes of Malvern. Judging by her own restlessness, she had her own difficulties to deal with regarding Bron, and if he kept off the grass romantically, he definitely kept off the grass during quarrels. He summoned one of his jaunty smiles and lowered his feet to the ground.

             
“I suppose I ought to pay my respects to the Dowager Duchess after consuming her food.”

             
Amanda’s expression shifted to faint amusement, and she rose when he stood, and Bim gave an exaggerated flourish to his gesture for her to precede him from the library, his careless mask affixed firmly in place.

April 1904
             

             
There was a thump against the wall, followed a muffled curse, that disturbed Amanda’s admittedly restless sleep. She blinked disoriented into the darkness, and struggled to sit up against the mounds of pillows behind her head. Judging by the smoldering fire in her fireplace, the housemaid had already laid and lit the day’s fire, which placed the time at just slightly past five o’clock. She clutched the coverlet to her chin and frowned ruefully at her expanding waistline, which was the source of her inability to sleep soundly through the night. The cold, empty place beside her on the bed was the other reason.

             
Someone thumped against the wall again, and her nascent curiosity overcame the desire to settle back into bed and try to fall asleep. Rising from the bed without the assistance of her lady’s maid was difficult, but doable, and Amanda reached for her dressing gown folded over the chair at her dressing table and slid her arms through the sleeves, tying the sash loosely around her belly as she walked to the door between she and Bron’s bedrooms. Bron stood in stocking feet in the middle of his room, tying his Ascot in the small shaving mirror attached to his washstand. There was a small trunk on the floor beside the bed and his waistcoat, lounge jacket, and wool Chesterfield were laid neatly over the cane-seat chair beside the wardrobe.

             
“You ought to be in bed,” He said over his shoulder. “Sir James gave the strictest orders that you should rest as often as possible.”

             
“He isn’t the one forced to lie abed with little to occupy his time,” She stepped into the room. “I thought you weren’t leaving for London for another week.”

             
He turned and walked towards her, briefly cupping her shoulders and then pressed a frustratingly chaste kiss to her forehead. “It is for your sake as well as that of the child,”

             
Amanda sighed in irritation when he promptly moved away and retrieved his waistcoat and jacket from the chair. That was the most he had touched her in months, for after consulting with Sir James Reid, the preeminent London physician the Dowager Duchess summoned to Bledington, he decided any and all physical contact between them would endanger her pregnancy. Combine this with the constant orders from her mother-in-law to rest, and her inability to entertain, and she was now bored with having a baby (or as the Dowager would say, to be more discreet, enceinte).

             
At first, she was apprehensive: she was nineteen and newly married, and hadn’t a chance to assert herself as chatelaine of Bledington. However, as the months passed, she grew very proud and excited. She thought it great fun to be a mama, to have someone to keep her company throughout the day, someone who would be hers and hers alone. She was not very frightened by the aspect of childbirth, since Sir James informed her she could have a blissful, pain free labor courtesy of chloroform, and she looked forward to presenting Bron with an heir. Now, however, it was a very dull and very depressing turn of events, which were compounded by her increasing alienation from Bron and the goings-on in the house.

She stepped back when two footmen entered after a knock, and could only fume silently as they carted Bron’s trunk out of the room. Bron sat on the cane-seat chair to pull on his boots and then frowned slightly at her when he stood to button his coat.

              “Go back to bed, Amanda,” He lifted his felt derby from where it sat on the tall dressing chest.

             
“When shall you return?” She followed him to the door.

             
To her surprise, he stopped in the doorway and then pivoted, lifting her chin with his hand and kissing her swiftly on the lips. “I will send a wire to let you know when to send the carriage for me at the depot. Now I order you to go back to bed.”

             
She flushed and was too disarmed by his impulsive action to question him any further as he continued through the door and strode down the hall. She caught the eye of a young housemaid exiting the discreetly designed servants’ entrance, and blushed when the girl giggled. She supposed she ought to close the door and return to her bedroom, pretending she did not see the housemaid, but this was the most warmth she’d ever received from a member of Bledington’s large staff.