An Ideal Duchess (57 page)

             
Amanda laughed lightly. “Come now Lieutenant Howson, there must be some young lady who inspired you to learn how not to tread on her toes.”

             
The lieutenant’s insouciant grin faded to a bittersweet smile. “Lady Muriel Brassey.”

             
“Your fiancée?” Amanda lifted a brow. “Why are you dancing with me tonight instead of dining with the Brasseys in Belgrave Square?”

             
“No,” Lieutenant Howson shook his head. “Not my fiancée. I couldn’t lay the burden of my possibly being killed before the week was out on her. It wouldn’t be fair.”

             
“I consider making Lady Muriel’s decision for her to be more than unfair, Lieutenant—and worse, a gross mistake. I believe your refusal to brave the possibility of your death or being maimed with her causes much more pain.”

             
“Lady Muriel was in complete agreement in the last letters we exchanged before my leave,”

             
“Oh, Lieutenant,” Amanda sighed in exasperation. “I am not intimate with Lady Muriel Brassey, but she is known to be quite shy and overly agreeable. Did it ever occur to you that she agreed with your sentiments in order to mask her hurt?”

             
Lieutenant Howson’s brow wrinkled in bewilderment. Thankfully, the waltz ended before his pause on the dance floor could disrupt the flow of the other dancers. The shifting expressions on the young officer’s face, from the aforementioned bewilderment to consternation to hope, would have under other circumstances, made her laugh had not her heart leapt in her throat. She swallowed painfully and she forced herself to smile as Lieutenant Howson flushed slightly in palpable relief, his eyes already lifted away from hers towards the restaurant’s exit. Something touched the hand with which she clutched the young officer’s shoulder, and she turned away from the recognizable glow of long suppressed love to see Douglas already lifting her hand and cutting in.

             
Lieutenant Howson politely stepped aside, his hand dropping from her waist to be replaced by Douglas’s large, warm one. The orchestra struck up a swift tango, but she stayed Douglas’ shift towards the waxed dance floor when the lieutenant narrowed his eyes in skepticism.

             
“Go lieutenant—if you do not, I shall call on Lady Muriel and tell her myself.”

             
“Are you certain?”

             
“I am,” Amanda said firmly.

             
The lieutenant grinned broadly, and as Douglas pulled her into the tango, she caught a glimpse of the young officer retrieving his khaki cap from the table and hopefully—she prayed—hie off to propose to Lady Muriel Brassey and marry her as quickly as possible. That thought—and the image of thousands of young men and women running to registries, desperate with love and desire, made her choke on a bitterness she was shocked to feel. Shocking more so because she was in the arms of the man she planned to soon marry and wipe the dust of fifteen years of sorrow from her feet.

             
She forcibly turned her contemplation to the warm, solid man who moved expertly on the dance floor, his arm around her waist providing an anchor, a sense of security that allowed her to relax in his embrace without fear of rejection or of revulsion. It they had not been in a public setting, she would have thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him. Douglas stared down at her, his mouth curving into a slow, sensual smile, as though he caught the gist of her thoughts, which, in and of itself was also a comfort. He did not wait for the tango to end before squiring her out of the Palm Court and back to their table, where he threw a few pound notes on the table before lifting her opera cloak from her seat and holding it out for her. Amanda obliged, turning to allow him to settle the thick velvet cape over her, and his hands lingered on her shoulders as she fastened the toggle braid closure.

             
His hand on her elbow was firm and commanding as they departed from the Carlton, stepping back into the darkened, chilly night. A cobalt colored motorcar slid neatly up to the kerb in the space left by the gleaming hansom cab into which a couple before them had climbed, and from the motorcar slid her chauffeur, Mrs. Molly Cartwright. Mrs. Cartwright, the tall, bright-eyed widow of Amand’s late chauffeur, saluted and opened the passenger door of the De Dion Bouton landau.

             
“I had a devil of a time trying to remain in the Haymarket while Your Grace and Mr. Warfield dined. Bloody cabs.”

             
“I apologize, Cartwright,” Amanda paused at the door. “I should have informed you of my change of plans after the theater.”

             
“It wasn’t a bother, Your Grace,” Cartwright shook her head. “Now in you go—it looks to be another nasty night.”

             
Amanda suppressed a smile of amusement at her chauffeur’s authoritative command and settled into the plush passenger seat, twitching the trailing hem of her frock and her opera cloak out of the way when Douglas settled in beside her, his masculine presence and crisp scent filling the car. The De Dion pulled away from the kerb and away from the comforting bright lights of the Carlton Hotel and His Majesty’s Theatre, for now they were swallowed in the incessant and unpleasant darkness mandated by the government. She gave an apprehensive look at the darkened sky. The anti-aircraft guns were silent tonight, but a Zepp could fly over London at any moment, and she decided she would rather not become a moving target during an aerial attack.

             
Douglas took her hand, and she gave him a questioning glance, only just realizing he could not see her face just as she could not see his. But she could feel him—besides their clasped hands—and sense him, and the brief press of his lips to hers under the cover of night was warm and comforting, giving her a taste of what she could expect from a marriage with him. An arc of light sliced through the interior of the De Dion, and Douglas sat hastily back into the seat, a flush of embarrassment apparent on his cheeks before the darkness closed in on them again. She did not know whether to feel disappointed or relieved, and told herself it was disappointment as he squeezed the hand he held.

             
“What were you discussing with that Howson fellow?” He murmured.

             
“Not your rudeness, Douglas,” She unlinked their hands.

             
“He called us cowards,” Douglas scoffed. “As though we didn’t burn to avenge the useless destruction of the Lusitania.”

             
“You needn’t have baited him about your blasted ships. Is that all you care about?”

             
“Of course not. Nevertheless, you must admit the British are doing a poor job of protecting us. I’m glad we’ve finally got in; Wilson was a fool for waiting so long.”

             
“Wilson wanted peace.”

             
“At the cost of dozens of ships sunk and countless lives lost because America was determined to remain neutral?” Douglas pulled her into his embrace. “When I think of you over here, alone, unprotected—”

             
“Not entirely alone,” She replied dryly. “I have my children.”

             
“They’re away at school for most of the year, aren’t they? And that rotter has them during holidays.”

             
“Not all holidays,” Cornelia said sharply. “I see my sons often enough.”

             
She felt Douglas’ dismissive huff of air on her cheek. “What matters is that they are thoroughly English boys—I’m positive they haven’t a drop of red-blooded American in them, not at all like our sons shall be.”

             
That stung. Amanda hid her grimace in his shoulder, allowing him to mistake her gesture as agreement rather than a desire to conceal her pang of grief. If there was one thing she regretted about her decision to leave her husband, it was her separation from her boys. Douglas took her silence as agreement and she and she reluctantly allowed him to tilt her chin up to where she supposed his face was.

             
“You’ve seen a lawyer, haven’t you?”

             
“You don’t divorce a man in wartime!” She exclaimed softly, taken aback.

             
“Why ever not? There’s no ration on divorce like there is on food.”

             
“It’s unpatriotic, or I believe it would be considered so.” This time, she pulled out of his arms. She tightened her grip on the cloak around her shoulders. “You’ve been so patient—”

             
“Fourteen years.” He interrupted sharply.

             
Her breath caught in her throat at his words, and she turned away from his impatience in discomfort. “Can we at least wait until the war ends?”

             
Douglas’s huff of exasperation reassured her, and she felt on safer ground, safe enough to rest her head on his shoulder, tilting her face upwards. “Now you may kiss me again.”

             
He lifted her hands and pressed a kiss to each of her palms, and then bent to kiss her. This time the kiss was real and hungry, and she gratified that she could rouse Douglas to such passion. He pressed her into the seat, his hands on her bare shoulders as her opera cloak slid to her waist, and the masterful movement of his lips over hers was more than delicious.

             
Unbidden, the memory of the last time Malvern kissed her blotted out the sensations Douglas aroused, and she wrenched away with a gasp of shock, feeling as though she’d been doused with a bucket of ice water. She pressed her knuckles to her kiss-swollen lips in dismay, confused and angry as to why Malvern intruded—even from hundreds of miles away—just as she decided to make a final break with him.

             
“Darling, what is it?”

             
She flinched away from Douglas’s touch and drew her opera cloak over her shoulders, making certain the toggle braid closure was fastened tightly. She could not think, her wits scattered to the wind, and it was with extreme relief that she viewed her Belgravian townhouse on Eaton Place, the long row of white Georgian houses gleaming in the moonlight. She shook her head in response to Douglas’s next query, and hastened from the motorcar the moment Cartwright opened the passenger door. As she walked to the front door, hand outstretched to rap the knocker, she shivered with yet another sensation of warning, and before her housemaid Sarah even opened the door, she knew something was wrong.