The American Duchess (3 page)

There was a little pause. “I thank you for your admiration
,
Lord Belton,” said Tracy at last. “I am honored. But I cannot be your wife.”

The young man moved closer to her on the sofa and managed to possess himself of her hand. “Do not say that!” he said earnestly. “Of course there will be some little fuss about it, your being an American, I mean, but no one will hold it against you, I assure you.”

Tracy’s back stiffened. “Indeed?”

“I have a very good income of my own. I want you to know that I am not interested in your money.”                                        “Indeed?” said Tracy again.

“I can give you as good a position as any man in England. You will be Lady Belton.”

“Lord Belton,” Tracy said with dangerous calm, “I rather think that wherever I am, I can make a position for myself. I am the daughter of  William Bodmin. I do not need you to lend me countenance.”

“Of course you do not!” said Lord Belton hastily, conscious at last that he had erred. “I did not mean that personally you lacked for anything. I simply meant to say that I can make an English lady out of you.”

“You have said quite enough, Lord Belton.” Tracy rose to her feet and stared at the young man, her eyes flashing. “I am an American citizen and that is quite good enough for me. I have no desire to aspire to the heights of being an ‘English lady.’”

“Miss Bodmin, you have mistaken my meaning .
..
” said Lord Belton miserably.

“Perhaps I have. However, let you not mistake mine. I do not wish to marry you, sir. You may take your title and your income elsewhere.” And she rang the bell.

“And is this all the answer I am to have?” he asked, beginning to look angry.

“You have asked me a question and I have replied,” said Tracy. “You will find consolation enough in the future when you realize the horrors I have spared you.” The waiter from the hotel came in and Tracy said, “Lord Belton is leaving.”

Lord Belton picked up his hat, looked unhappily at Tracy’s implacable face, and left.

Tracy had not completely recovered her tranquility by the time she and her father were leaving for Lady Bridgewater’s reception that evening. There was no doubt at all in Tracy’s mind that she was one of the best, and she resented fiercely Lord Belton’s implication that marriage to him would raise her in the eyes of the world. It was all part of the smug patronage she had detected in the English attitude toward Americans. It was not an attitude that Tracy appreciated.

However, she said nothing to her father about Lord Belton’s proposal.
One of the things that was beginning to disturb her most was the suspicion that her father would agree with Lord Belton’s assessment of the situation, not with hers. And she was also afraid that her father would not regard with the same disdain as she a proposal of marriage from Lord Belton, a man whom Tracy would not have considered marrying even had he been an American. He was good looking enough, she supposed, but stupid. Compared to Adam Lancaster he was trivial and inconsequential.

Chapter 4

       The courtier, therefore, beside nobleness of birth I will have him to be fortunate in this behalf, and by nature to have not only a wit and a comely shape of person and countenance, but of so a certain grace, and, as they say, a hue that shall make him at the first sight acceptable and loving unto whoso beholdeth him.

-
Castiglione, the
Book of the Courtier

Lady Bridgewater’s reception was not as large as Tracy had anticipated. Her experience with London social functions had been that they were generally conducted on a massive scale. A reception for a mere fifty or so people seemed very small. As she caught herself thinking this, Tracy was conscious of a flash of amusement.  Until her visit to London her idea of a big social function had been a subscription ball for 150 people at Hamilton Hall in Salem. In all her previous life, she had been to but one formal dinner, at the Derby family mansion on Chestnut Street.

   Salem did not go in for a grand social life. Tracy was used to occasions like sleigh
-
riding parties in winter or fishing parties in the bay in summer. Society, as it was conducted in London, had been amazing to her.

Lady Bridgewater greeted the Bodmins with a warm smile and looked with particular approval at Tracy. The girl, she thought, was always immaculately groomed. Tracy seemed to have the knack of looking just right no matter what the occasion. Her clothing was simple, elegant and expensive.

This evening she was wearing a gown of lemon yellow Italian silk that served to bring out the blonde in her hair. She wore an exquisite string of matched pearls around her neck, and pearl-encrusted combs held her hair back from her temples. That hair was allowed to fall in a seemingly careless tumble of silky curls almost to her shoulders. Lady Bridgewater had no doubt that Tracy’s distinctive look of casual perfection took hard hours of preparation, but the result was always fresh and delightful.

“I am happy to see you this evening, my dear,” Lady Bridgewater said kindly. “I have not planned anything too elaborate—just a gathering of a few friends.”

What Lady Bridgewater did not say was that those friends were the
crème de la crème of
English society, that people would be willing to kill for an invitation to one of these “gatherings of a few friends,” and that the inclusion of the Bodmins was occasioning a great deal of comment.

Tracy, completely oblivious to the honor she had been accorded, smiled back at Lady Bridgewater and went with her father to speak to the Princesse de Lieven. About fifteen minutes later, as Tracy was speaking to Lord Morehouse, a little rustle of electricity ran around the room, and Tracy automatically looked around. The disturbance seemed to be caused by a young man who was standing in the doorway speaking to Lady Bridgewater. As Tracy watched, he offered his arm to the Countess and they advanced together into the room. They stopped for a moment to speak to Mrs. Nesbet and her daughter, who both curtsied.

“Who is that?” Tracy asked Lord Morehouse curiously.

“That, my dear young lady, is Lady Bridgewater’s nephew, the Duke of Hastings. No one has seen very much of him since he came back from Paris last winter after his father’s death. He must have come up to London for her ladyship’s reception.” Lord Morehouse was watching the Duke as well.
“One has always heard of him, of course.”

The Duke was slowly circling the room with his aunt, stopping to greet people as he progressed, and Tracy was conscious of a sudden feeling that the room had expanded, had become higher and wider and more appointed for occasions of state and royalty. It was an odd impression to receive from the mere sight of a slender young man, however good looking he might be, at a reception.

Resolutely, she went back to talking to Lord Morehouse. Ten minutes later, Lady Bridgewater was at her side. “Miss Bodmin, I should like very much to introduce you to my nephew, the Duke of Hastings,” she said smiling. “Adrian, may I present Miss Teresa Bodmin, of Salem, Massachusetts.”

Tracy held out her hand. As a good republican she had no intention of curtseying
to anyone, and most certainly not to an English aristocrat. “How do you do, Miss Bodmin?” said the Duke, receiving her hand into his own. “I had the pleasure of the acquaintance of your Minister in Paris, Mr. Gallatin, and I remember him speaking highly of your father. I understand you are visiting London for a few months?”

Tracy was immediately disarmed. She gave him a friendly smile.
“Yes. That is, Papa and I have been here for a month now, and I haven’t heard him say anything about leaving, so I guess you might say we are here for a while.”

“Splendid.” He smiled back at her and turned to say a few words to include Lord Morehouse in the conversation. After another minute or so the Duke and Lady Bridgewater moved off, and Tracy saw them go up to her father, with whom they remained in conversation for at least fifteen minutes.

Ever since the Duke had come in, the atmosphere in the room had changed. Tracy sensed it, sensed that people were looking at him, sensed the almost awed respect with which people addressed him. He was a presence even though he did nothing that seemed to attract attention.

He was, in fact, a slender young man of no more than average height. Adam Lancaster, who was six feet three inches at least, was physically much more imposing, thought Tracy to herself, as if she had to justify her feelings about the Duke.

Half an hour later she was seated on one of the small gilt chairs talking to Sir Arthur Brett, when the Duke, this time by himself, approached them. The Duke said to Sir Arthur, “Would you mind giving me your chair so that I may talk with Miss Bodmin for a while?”

Tracy was amazed by such rudeness, but the Duke was smiling charmingly at Sir Arthur, who got up with alacrity. Evidently he was not at all put out and considered it a privilege to be able to vacate his chair for the Duke of Hastings.

“I have a very high opinion of Americans, you see,” the Duke said to Tracy when he was seated next to her, “and I take whatever opportunity I can to further my acquaintance with your countrymen.”

“What Americans have you met, my lord, besides Mr. Gallatin?” Tracy asked suspiciously.

“Mr. John Quincy Adams,” he replied promptly, and looked at her with amusement to see what she would say.

Tracy’s lips curved. Whatever would this English aristocrat have made of John Quincy Adams? “Did you have a high opinion of Mr. Adams, my lord?” she asked demurely.

“Yes,” he answered immediately. “I don’t say I should like to spend an extended period of time in his company,”—here Tracy involuntarily laughed— “but he has a relentlessly brilliant mind. I understand he is employed at present in the negotiation of a treaty for the Floridas. If Spain isn’t careful, he will have everything else she owns on the continent as well
.
”

Tracy was delighted. The Duke was the first English person she had talked to who seemed to know anything at all about America. He was also quite astonishingly handsome. She had never seen eyes of so dark a blue. “Mr. Adams is not a ... comfortable ... kind of person, I am afraid,” she returned. “But Papa shares your opinion of his brilliance.” She looked at him appraisingly. “General Jackson has headed up an expedition into Florida, you know. The Spanish government is bound by treaty to keep the Indians at peace with the United States, and they have failed to do so.”

He looked suddenly stem. “Ah, yes. General Jackson. Another of your singularly competent countrymen.”

“Do you know, my lord,” Tracy said candidly, “I have found that most English people have never even heard of Andrew Jackson?”

His face did not relax. “I rather wish that I had not heard of him, Miss Bodmin,” he replied. “I knew quite a few chaps who did not come back from New Orleans.”

“I’m sorry,” Tracy said softly. She sighed. “It was an unfortunate war for both our sides.”

“Well, it is over now and so we can be friends.” His blue eyes smiled at her. “I do so hope we are going to be friends, Miss Bodmin,” he said softly.

“I hope so, too,” Tracy replied, feeling the pull of him and not sure she liked it. Her brow puckered slightly. “Do you know, I haven’t the slightest idea of how I should address you. The protocol of the English aristocracy has quite eluded my grasp, I fear.”

“The proper term of address for a duke is Your Grace,” he replied serenely.

Tracy smiled, eyes crinkling and teeth gleaming. “Really?”

“However, I would not ask so much of a good republican like yourself. ‘My Lord’ will do admirably.”

“I am so glad,” she replied with faint irony and he grinned, looking all of a sudden charmingly boyish.

“May I call on you tomorrow?”

“Yes, you may,” said Tracy Bodmin, that ardent republican.

“Well?” said Lady Bridgewater to her nephew after the last of her guests had gone and they were alone together in the empty saloon. She had seen the attention that Adrian had paid to Tracy, but that attention did not necessarily mean anything conclusive. The Duke paid attention to a pretty girl in much the same way as he would listen to a piece of well-played music. Attention, in each case, was what he considered simple good manners.

He looked at her for a minute without speaking. Then he smiled slightly. “Yes,” he said. “I think she’ll do.”

Tracy went home with her father, unaware that she had just passed a momentous test. “I liked that Duke of Hastings,” her father said as they were sitting side by side in their carriage.

“Did you, Papa? Evidently he is quite a
grand seigneur
over here.”

“The grandest. Next best thing to royalty, according to Lord Melrose.”

“Yet he seemed to know quite a bit about America.”

“Yes, I discovered that myself.
We had a very interesting discussion about the British Navigation Laws.”

Tracy looked startled. “Did you?”

“Yes.” Tracy could hear from his voice that her father was smiling. “That is,
I
talked about the Navigation Laws, and he listened. But he did actually listen, which is rare for an Englishman in regard to that topic.”

“Yes.”

Her father turned
to her. “You liked him, didn’t you, Trace?”

“I’m afraid I did.”

“Why afraid?”

“I shouldn’t mind
if I didn’t,” she said, with truth if not with great rationality. “It’s not good for a girl’s pride to like a man so much on first acquaintance.”

 “Nonsense,” replied her father, very pleased with her answer. “What has pride to do with it?”

* * * *

The Duke came to call the next day and sat talking to Tracy for over an hour. The day after that he took her driving in the park, and later in the week he escorted both Bodmins and Lady Bridgewater to the theatre.

He was very pleased with his aunt’s protégée. If he had been given his own choice, he would have chosen his bride from his own order, a girl who would understand the duties and responsibilities of the great position she would be called upon to fill. But he did not have freedom of choice. Nor could he look with anything but pleasure at this American girl whom he proposed to make his wife.