An Ideal Duchess (24 page)

             
“You have your ticket?” Anthony released his hold on her arm, peering down the platform as the sleek slate gray train tooted its horn in warning as it slid into the station.

             
She gave him an ironic smile, deliberately brushing the arm he had held in his hand with her fingertips. He narrowed his eyes at her, but refrained from responding, instead gesturing with his hand for her to go towards the first-class carriage. A hand reached out to open the door, and a young, well-dressed couple stepped from the cabin, both laughing softly from some private joke, their intimacy so evident it made Viola’s teeth ache. She stalked into the carriage they abandoned and sat back against the velvet seat, aware of the lingering smell of lavender and Bay Rum the couple had left behind them.

She jerked away from the window when Anthony poked his hatless head in, arms resting on the window and hands dangling against the inside of the door.

              “What do you want?” She asked through clenched teeth.

             
“To tell you that you shouldn’t waste yourself waiting for Bron.”

             
She glanced away, suddenly nervous under the seriousness of his regard, and she fiddled with the strap of her handbag.

             
“You shouldn’t waste your time poking your nose in other people’s affairs,”

             
“I’m merely a concerned friend—of Bron’s,” He said hastily, his expression grim. “And I don’t want to see his duchess hurt.”

             
“Everyone is so concerned with accommodating her,” Viola burst out. “It’s only because of her money. She’s truly vile. Horrid! Her Grace is incensed by her selfishness!”

             
“Ah Vi, how you reveal yourself,”

             
She glanced at him sharply, taken aback.

             
“What do you mean by that?” She asked stiffly.

             
“Nothing,” He replied, suddenly back to the blithe and flippant Anthony Challoner.

             
She watched him warily as he pulled his head from her window and stepped back, placing his top hat onto his head. Her eyes remained on his tall figure as the train whistled loudly, chugging out of the railway terminal, and she stared back until he disappeared from her sight.

              Bron expected Bim to run him to ground sooner than three days, so when he did appear at the door of Bron’s hotel room towards the end of his stay in London, he was too surprised to prevent the smile of pleasure that crossed his face. The impulsive gesture was brief, when the sight of Bim lounging in his doorframe triggered the return of the stormy emotions his friend had roused over luncheon at Simpson’s.

             
That he held this petty grudge for so long was a source of mystification for him, and he stepped back to allow Bim into his sitting room. He finished tying his tie and closed the door, stepping widely over the paper aeroplane model on the ground, avoiding the reams of his sketches scattered across the carpet, to step towards the tray atop the oak bureau, on which stood cut glass decanters of brandy, port, and sherry and matching tumblers nestled upside down around them.

             
He turned to Bim, who was sprawled on his belly, peering at one of Bron’s sketches. “Would you like a drink?”

             
“Port,” Bim replied. “What are the odds of getting this into the air?”

             
He poured Bim’s glass of port and held it carefully as he squatted beside his friend. He tilted his head to look at the sketch of a motorized biplane, having modified the shape and size of the rudder and the position of the flyer’s seat between the horizontal beams. He handed the glass to Bim, who had pushed himself into a sitting position, and then returned to the decanters to pour a glass of sherry.

             
He took a sip of the room temperature wine before lifting his shoulders, mouth twisting wryly. “Nothing it seems. But what is the point? The Wrights were the first to remain aloft for more than ten minutes, and no one is interested in the designs of a duke.”

             
“You could always form your own company,” Bim’s tone was measured as he sipped his port.

             
“That I could, but I admit to possessing the deepest dread of exposing my aeroplane to the censure of the world.”

             
“Or their praise,”

             
“Do you think?” He asked softly, unconvinced. “My primary anxieties, however, have to do with what my mother would think. Anything that would prohibit me from carrying out my duties as Duke of Malvern is abhorrent in her eyes. After all, this is what she’s wanted for me all of my life.”

             
Bim appeared shocked by his blunt statement. Bron finished his sherry and set the glass on the tray, moving to the window overlooking the Victoria Embankment and the slow barges plying up and down the Thames.

             
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know she detested Alex for being the elder by three minutes?” He cocked a brow at his friend. “It stuck in her craw that due to circumstances beyond her control, I was merely the second son.”

             
“I saw…” Bim shook his head. “But I never put it into words.”

             
Bron leaned against the wall, crossing his arms as he returned his gaze towards the window, this time lowering it to the Cleopatra Needle, around which a gaggle of schoolchildren thronged. Seeing the children reminded him of Amanda’s state, and for a brief moment, he wished she would have a girl—nothing but girls! Let some distant cousin claim this cursed dukedom and its equally cursed estate when his coffin was lowered into the family cemetery.

             
His attention caught on the flock of pigeons flapping into the sky, escaping the boys stomping after them, and was arrested by the beauty of the aerodynamics of their sleek silver bodies, the feathered wingspan, their riding of the wind. That was what he hoped to recapture through his own aeroplanes: the freedom of the bird, the absolute control the bird had over its own destiny and direction. Suddenly struck by another idea, he fell to his knees beside a sheet of paper and pulled the pencil from behind his ear, drawing heavy, bold, sloppy strokes over the glider he’d drawn, redistributing the weight of the pilot, widening the wingspan, and scribbling new notes and calculations in the margins. He grinned, flushing slightly when he realized Bim was staring at him amusedly, though his expression was tinged with an unidentifiable emotion.

             
“I’d forgotten,” Bim said suddenly, reaching into his breast coat pocket. “Your beautiful wife has written to you. It was delivered to my flat, of course, since you hadn’t informed her of your, uh, alternate residence.”

             
“Amanda?” Bron lowered the sketches to the floor in dismay, but slid the pencil behind his ear and rose to his feet to take letter from Bim’s hand.

             
He searched the drawer of the small desk beside one of the upholstered chairs strewn about the room for a letter opener. His fingers touched something cool and long, and he pulled the hotel’s monogrammed silver letter opener from the drawer. There was something slightly unnerving about reading a letter from his wife of seven months in front of Bim, as though the simple act of correspondence between husband and wife was as intimate as their physical correspondence. He hastily yanked the letter from the envelope, the seductive, opulent fragrance of vetivert emanating from the sheets suddenly reminding him that he had not made love to Amanda in several months.

             
Her bold, irreverent hand brought a half smile to his face; he could hear her precise, outspoken American ways through the handwriting. Her letter was four pages, front and back, the subjects running the gamut from the state of her pregnancy, to household gossip, to her latest reading, and to, of course, his mother. Bron lowered the letter and raised a brow at Bim who laughed.

             
“I hope there is something about me in that tome.” Bim raised his own brows expectantly.

             
Bron made an exaggerated check of the letter’s contents.                             “One measly sentence is devoted to you, my arrogant friend.”

Bim clutched his chest and looked devastated. “I’m heartbroken. This calls for a visit—I must make sure my absence makes her heart grow fonder.”

              “Amanda has retired from society until this summer,”

             
“I’m not society—I’m practically family.” Bim stretched his legs in front of him, dislocating a number of papers. “I’m sure she’s dying for someone to talk to, so she’ll be highly appreciative of my company.”

             
“What are you implying?” Bron’s good humor faded.

             
“Pax!” Bim raised his hands in the air. “I’m sure the chances of my presence exciting her more than seeing you at Bledington are slim to none.”

             
Bron felt two parts foolish and one part jealous, and lowered his eyes to Amanda’s letter. “Do you employ a groom by the name of…Jacky Wilcox?”

             
Bim appeared relieved to be on sturdier ground. “I believe so—young, with the surest touch for my horses. Why?”

             
“It seems Amanda has ordered a motorcar, and begs me to take Jacky Wilcox on as chauffeur. My God, she’s so impetuous.”

             
“And presumptuous!” Bim exclaimed, folding his feet beneath him to stand. “But I’m besotted enough with your wife to allow her to poach my newest groom.”

             
“How do you know I’m going to keep this motorcar?”

             
“Because, old chap, I recognize the signs of a woman on a mission,” Bim patted his shoulder in sympathy.

*          *          *

              Four months later, Amanda was delivered of not one, but two healthy, squalling red-haired boys. Their christening was fixed for a month after her confinement, but the only other thing upon which she and Bron could agree was the choice of Anthony as their godfather. By the time her parents arrived from New York the day before the baptism, the boys remained unnamed, and she was still too exhausted and lethargic to quarrel with him over the topic. The village doctor, Satterthwaite, merely advised her to eat more irons, and Mrs. Alcock sent up dishes filled with enough spinach, carrots, and onions to make her feel as though she were made of vegetables. The morning of the christening, she managed to gather enough energy, buoyed by the thought of her darling sons and her much-needed visit from her parents, to dress for Church.

             
The new straw hat her mother had brought over from New York, adorned with plush pink artificial roses, buoyed her mood as well, and she sat still as Bowen placed the hat over the crest of her hair and carefully slid a hatpin to anchor it to her head. The dreadful woman remained her lady’s maid, but it seemed Amanda’s impulsive gesture towards Maggie had shaken her pride in her position enough that she no longer reported to the dowager duchess. Bowen still pinched or jabbed her whenever she could, but Amanda posited that having physically continued the Townsend line, she was entitled to a lady’s maid of her own choosing and planned to give the woman the sack at the first possible chance.

             
She went directly from her bedroom to the nursery, surprising the newly-hired nanny and nursery maid as they lifted both boys from their cradles.

             
“We were on our way downstairs, Your Grace,” said Nanny Tester.

             
“I shall carry one of them,” She held out her arms to the nanny, whom, she rightly assumed, carried the eldest twin.

             
“But—”

             
Amanda took the small, warm baby from the nurse, silencing her protest, and then turned to walk down the flights of stairs leading to the Saloon. She buried her nose briefly into his downy blanket and kissed his forehead, smiling as he stirred and yawned. The family had gathered in the Saloon, attired in their hats and coats, and she ignored their equally surprised expressions. The Dowager Duchess was the first to speak.

             
“This is most irregular, Amanda,”

             
“I should be allowed to carry my own son,” She walked to her parents, whose faces creased into broad smiles.

             
“How darling,” Her mother cooed, peering at the face of her eldest grandchild. “He looks exactly like Amanda—they both do, don’t they Neily?”

             
“Handsome boys,” Her father cleared his throat and blinked his eyes as he looked at the baby in her arms and the baby in the arms of the nursery maid.

             
Amanda smiled wryly, touched by her bluff-hearted father’s attempts to remain unaffected by the sight of her children. She looked down when she felt a tug on her sleeve to see Bron’s young sister, Beryl, looking solemnly up at her.