My American Duchess (32 page)

T
rent made it through the days that followed Merry’s declaration of love in a haze. He still didn’t know exactly what had happened between them. Thank God, it had blown over quickly, or so he told himself.

On the face of it, nothing had changed. Though why that made him feel like grinding his teeth and cursing, he didn’t know.

His wife seemed to have got over their disagreement promptly and without holding a grudge.

But she had changed. She wasn’t herself. At luncheon the next day, he caught her pronouncing “schedule” with a “shed” sound and not “sked,” as she had before.

She laughed when he pointed it out, and said that their children would be English.

Trent scowled at her.

“All right, I won’t try to adopt an English accent,” she
said, putting a hand on his arm. “But I would never want our children to feel that they owed allegiance to two countries. It would be confusing.”

She was right . . . was she right? He didn’t know. But he didn’t want Merry to put a hand on his sleeve as if she were Lady Caroline.

The evening meal was surprisingly tedious, because she didn’t take him to task for the inadequacies of the English government, as she usually did. The newspaper reported the despicable treatment of the begums of Oudh by the East India Company, but Merry only remarked on the prospects for a good harvest. She seemed to have made friends with every one of his tenant farmers.

On the second evening, it struck him that she hadn’t told him any facts all that day or the one before. It felt like a clutch at his heart, the idea that his wife would no longer inform him, out of the blue, that King Henry III had a polar bear that used to swim in the Thames.

She’d spent the whole morning going about in that damned pony cart. Holding babies, she said. Talking to tenants.

“What did you talk about?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “We argued. Mr. Middlebryer is in favor of Lord Ellenborough’s bill extending the death penalty to violent crimes. It’s well known that penalties do not discourage criminal activity.”

She was sharing all those facts she had stored in her head with others, but not with him.

Merry must have seen a shadow on his face because she added, “Not to worry, Trent. I didn’t offend him; we both enjoyed ourselves.”

“Why the hell are you calling me that name?” he demanded.

He saw the confusion on her face. “Because it’s your name?”

He felt churlish but couldn’t seem to stop himself. “You said that Trent sounded like a river and you’d prefer Jack when we were alone. We’re alone.”

Merry gave him that charming smile, the one she gave to footmen, and said, “I called you Jack for all the wrong reasons, simply because it was an American name.” It wasn’t
his
smile. The smile she gave Jack.

Trent nodded at the dog she was cuddling and said, “What about George? He’s named after your president.”

“George is a name that can also honor the king,” she said, scratching the puppy’s head. “George the Third. I’m sure my George is a king among dogs, after all.”

“You may call me Jack,” he said lamely.

“You told me that it was your childhood name, and I didn’t understand how much you disliked it. I apologize,” she said earnestly, obviously meaning it.

Trent finally managed to identify the storm of feelings that was making him feel sick.

He felt as guilty as if he’d killed a robin in its nest.

It turned out he had a conscience. Yet what had he done, precisely? He’d never asked Merry to turn mealymouthed or English.

He had liked her just as she was. He liked being called Jack.

Now she was every inch a duchess: affable to all, irreproachable in her kindness, courteous to her husband. The household eddied around her like leaves caught in a river, and she seemed to effortlessly keep it all going.

The thought sent him, brooding, into his study. He suspected he knew what was going on: in her courageous, cheerful way, Merry had determined to make the best of
things. He had as much as told her that she was immature and shallow, but he was an idiot.

She was at the mercy of her emotions, after all. It wasn’t as if she’d said,
I think I’ll fall in love with Cedric today
. Or Bertie, or that other idiot over in Boston.

Or him.

As far as he could see, emotion stormed over her like a hurricane and left as quickly. The harsh pain in his chest was hard to ignore; he wanted to turn back the clock. Why in hell hadn’t he luxuriated in her love while he had it? He was damned sure that Bertie had been wildly happy for the two glorious months that Merry loved him.

The reminder that she’d fallen out of love with Bertie made Trent feel like a feral dog chained to a tree. Something uncontrollable rose up in his gut, demanding attention. Some . . . feeling. Worse than his attack of conscience, worse than lust, worse than anger.

It took the discipline of a lifetime to shove that emotion back into the locked box where it belonged.

A
fter a few days, Merry was pretty sure that Trent didn’t appreciate her efforts to become more English. His mouth tightened when she tried to modify her voice. He growled at her when she praised British policy.

Perhaps he wanted her, the real her.

Unfortunately, she was growing confused about who the real her was.

Being a duchess was a lot of work. It seemed selfish to spend time picking flowers when so many people living on her husband’s land were in need: sometimes of no more than a friendly word, but often, once she sat down to talk, she learned that Mum had rheumatism, or the roof was leaking, or their only cow had died and they hadn’t milk for the children.

Who would listen, if not the duchess?

Today she had to visit a new widow, and she’d prom
ised to stop by the vicarage. The late duchess’s orphanage urgently needed beds; the littlest ones were sleeping in threes and fours. At home, Mrs. Honeydukes wanted to show her samples of serge for the footmen’s new livery.

Merry sighed and turned away from the window. It was time to bathe and dress. All she wanted to do was garden, but it was out of the question. Maybe tonight she could find some time for the design of a new hedge maze to replace the decrepit one.

No, tonight the squire and his wife were giving a dinner party to celebrate the fact that their only son had graduated from Cambridge with highest honors. Her heart sank even further: Kestril would be in attendance.

Kestril spilled his adulation for her as easily as a bag of grain pours out its seed, and her marriage only seemed to have exacerbated things. It had become intolerable. Tonight she would have to make a stand and tell him plainly that if he didn’t change his behavior, she would have no choice but to exclude him from her social circle.

That evening she put a gown whose leaf-green skirt showed through translucent silk gauze trimmed with ribbons the color of cherries, along with high-heeled Italian shoes that matched the ribbons. She might not act like a perfect duchess, but she was reasonably certain that she looked like one.

She was fidgeting around the drawing room, sipping a glass of sherry, when Oswald informed her that His Grace was unavoidably detained, and had requested that she precede him; he would join the party as soon as he was able.

Merry put down her glass. Could it be that Trent was avoiding a carriage ride with her? “Of course,” she said to Oswald, managing a smile. “My wrap, if you please. The carriage can return for His Grace.”

She had made such a foolish mistake when she’d told
Trent that she loved him. By pushing him, she had ruined everything they had between them.

No, that couldn’t be true.

He would love her someday. She simply had to give him time.

Look at the story he’d told her about his mother. What’s more, his only sibling was Cedric. She shuddered at the thought. Trent had never been loved; how could she expect him to recognize the emotion when he felt it?

If only she hadn’t told him.
That
was what had created this painful awkwardness between them. It was always there in the room now. He felt she was fickle and shallow, and then she’d demanded an emotion he didn’t feel for her.

His words beat through her head, creating a repeating memory as powerful and painful as it had been the first time she’d heard it.
I don’t love you, Merry, not that way, and I never will.

She wrenched her mind away. Enough. She would prove her constancy by loving him, and after a year, or five years, or however many it took, she would mention it again.

Meanwhile she had to love him silently while becoming who he wanted.

He would fall in love with her. It would just take time.

She was learning to be a duchess as fast as she could. She was already better in bed, making certain that she caressed him in all the right ways every single time. She hadn’t called him Jack once, although he didn’t seem to notice either way.

What’s more, she hadn’t let herself cry in front of Trent, no matter how anguished she felt, because she knew how much he hated it. It turned out that if a woman clenched her fists hard, driving her fingernails into her palms, she could stop tears from falling. Then she could pull on gloves and cover up the white marks left on her skin.

Part of her wanted to run into the library, pull him away from the desk, and make him go to the dinner party with her. Didn’t he care in the least that Kestril would take it as blatant encouragement if she appeared alone?

But a duchess didn’t do that sort of thing. A duchess didn’t shout the way an American woman might. A duchess just climbed into the coach and silently ground her teeth.

The squire’s drawing room was unusually full; in addition to the usual neighbors, Lady Montjoy’s son had brought home with him four young men from Cambridge. With one glance, Merry could tell that all five young men were well into their cups.

Kestril popped up at her elbow the moment she turned from her hosts. Merry’s spirits sank when he greeted her with a tipsy grin.

“The evening is very fine, Your Grace, and our hostess has opened the doors leading to the garden. There is a magnificent prospect to the east and I am convinced you would find that it rivals even the finest such in America.”

Merry hesitated, but she might as well get it over with. She had to inform Kestril that they would no longer converse until he put a stop to his ardent compliments, not to mention his feverish glances.

“Montjoy built a splendid stone staircase, as straight as Jacob’s ladder, behind the house,” Kestril said. “You simply
must
see it, Your Grace. May I have the pleasure of escorting you there?”

This was her opportunity.

His breath was so brandy-filled that it was likely flammable. He leaned closer and slurred, “I will
always
take the greatest care with the woman who holds my heart in her keeping.”

Kestril understood love about as well as she had before
her marriage. She should explain to him that love—
true
love—was something that came quietly in the night, like a thief who stole your heart.

It wasn’t a cheap emotion, to be given away to a pretty neighbor. Or to the three men with whom she’d been girlishly infatuated.

“All right,” she said with a sigh. “I would be glad of your escort to see the stairs.”

The staircase lay on the other side of a short rise, out of sight of the drawing room. Kestril had not exaggerated; it truly was splendid. It stretched all the way down the hill, with no obvious purpose other than to please.

“There are one hundred steps in all,” he told her.

“Why is the marble wet?” she asked. “It hasn’t rained today.”

“Hydraulics,” he explained, drawing her down several steps and pointing to a small opening at the top. “When the squire pulls a lever, water pours down the steps, cleansing away leaves and dirt.”

“That’s quite brilliant,” Merry said, immediately thinking of three or four places at Hawksmede where a staircase would be not only beautiful but useful. Likely her uncle would have ideas about the hydraulics. “Do you know—?”

She stopped because Kestril had dropped to his knees, awkwardly balanced on the step above her, still clutching her hand.

She gave a little tug, but he just brought her gloved hand to his mouth and started to kiss it.

“Mr. Kestril,” she scolded, pulling harder. “You are being entirely improper.”

“You remind me of an orchid, a neglected orchid blooming in the deepest forest,” he said, slavering kisses on her gloves. “You are my American orchid.”

“Stop kissing my hand this very moment!” Merry cried.

“I will never love any woman the way I love you,” he said soulfully. In contrast with Cedric, it was obvious that he had over-imbibed. His words were slurring together.

Merry tugged again, with more force. “Let go of my hand, sirrah!” Perhaps she ought to give him a kick. Her shoes were quite pointy. She moved up a step so that she was on the same level. “If you don’t let go, I shall kick you straight down this flight of steps, Mr. Kestril!”

He simply looked up at her, eyes wide and glassy. “I know you desire me as much as I desire you, Merry. I’ve seen it in your eyes.”

“How dare you use my first name?” She finally wrenched her hand free and wiped it on her gown.

Kestril scrambled to his feet. “I’m planning to travel into the jungle where I will discover a new orchid, which I will name after you. Perhaps a
Comparettia merriana
. Or
Phalaenopsis americana
, depending on what I discover.”

“You are a blackguard,” Merry snapped, “and exceedingly fortunate that my husband didn’t accompany—”

“What care I for husbands? Your hand is a white, white orchid. I love you; I adore you; my heart is in your hands!”

Before she could stop him, he again grabbed her hand and fell to his knees. But one of those knees slipped on the slick stone, and he pitched forward into Merry. She rocked on her high heels, moored by Kestril’s grip on her hand.

For a long second she swayed at the top of Squire Montjoy’s stone staircase, but then her weight pulled her hand from Kestril’s and she pitched down the steps.

There wasn’t time to scream.