The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet (44 page)

Her eyelashes, he noticed when she lowered her eyes to look at her hands, were darker than her hair. They were thick and long.

“The betrothal has been announced,” he said. “The notice was in this morning’s papers.”

“Yes, I know.” She looked up at him again. “And so another notice must be sent correcting the first.”

“There would be scandal,” he said.

“I care nothing for scandal,” she said. “And
you
will not be touched deeply by it. Your rank will protect you. I shall return to Sindon and be far enough away. I shall see if Mr. Watkins can find another husband for me within the next three months or so—one whose rank will not intimidate me.”

“No one,” he said softly, “will marry a woman who has just scandalized society with a broken betrothal.”

She bit her lip. It was quite apparent to him that she had not known that. “Then I shall go back to my old life,” she said. “I shall take another governess’s post.”

“Do you think,” he asked, “that your former employers will give you a character when you walked out of their house early one morning without even giving notice?”

Her face was pale again. The shadows beneath her eyes were noticeable. Her eyes were fixed on his.

Why was he so diligently dissuading her from doing what she so clearly wanted to do? he wondered. He had felt the impossibility of it just as powerfully as she—especially since yesterday afternoon. Was it because he dreaded the scandal the breaking of the betrothal would bring on him? Or was it because, as he had just explained to her, she was in an impossible situation? He could
not
let her go.

She got to her feet suddenly and hurried across the room to stand facing one of the windows, where he had stood the day before watching for her arrival. He stayed where he was and watched her. She looked even more slender than she had during those three days. He wondered if she had been unable to eat as well as to sleep during the past week and a half. He remembered the trembling eagerness—though she had tried hard to hide it—with which she had eaten her soup on that first day.

He wondered briefly how innocence would feel beneath him on a bed on his wedding night. He had only ever known experienced women. And he remembered his assumption that she was very experienced indeed. If all had been as he had thought it was, she would have been his mistress now for almost two weeks. He would have been almost as familiar with that tall, lithe body as he was with his own. Well, in one month’s time he would begin the lifelong acquirement of familiarity.

It was not by any means an unpleasant thought. If only that were all that was involved in his marriage!

“You will adjust to your new life,” he said. “You have a lady’s birth and education, after all. And my mother will be a good teacher. You can learn everything you need to know from her. She has not been … harsh with you today, I trust?”

“No,” she said quickly, without turning. “No, of course she has not. She has been very kind. This must not be easy for her. She must be hating every moment. She must have had high hopes for her elder son.”

He got to his feet and walked toward her. “She will be proud of you,” he said, “and she will grow to love you. Over the coming week she will help you be fitted for clothes suited to your new station and she will help you learn some of the basic facts of a duchess’s life. After that we will introduce you to Society between us. I look forward to it. You will take well. You are very lovely.”

She lowered her head for a moment, but she did not immediately respond in words.

“Very well, then,” she said at last. “I will learn how to dress and how to behave so that I will not shame you as I did yesterday, Your Grace. I will learn how to be a duchess.”

He grimaced. “You did not shame me,” he said. “I and my mother and sisters understood that you were somewhat overwhelmed by the occasion. It was thoughtless of me to have allowed it. I should have waited on you first at the Pulteney. I should have presented you first to my mother alone.”

“You were not to know how it would be,” she said, hunching her shoulders briefly. “Any lady from your world would have known what to expect and how to behave. She would not have been overwhelmed by the occasion.”

He set his hands lightly against her upper arms. “You did not shame me,” he said again. “And you will quickly learn to feel more comfortable in your new world. We will all help you—my mother and I, Jane, Louise …” He hesitated, but did not add Elizabeth’s name.

She laughed and hunched her shoulders again. “Jane, Louise,” she said. “I do not even know who they are. I do not even remember their titles or their other names. I am not even sure I would recognize them if I saw them again. I—”

“Give yourself time,” he said.

She stood very still, her head down before nodding and turning to face him. “A week,” she said. “We will have to hope that I am an apt pupil. We will have to hope that at the end of the week, when I leave this house to appear in Society, I will have learned enough not to disgrace you.”

His hands had returned to her upper arms after she
had turned. They were almost thin. “Promise me something,” he said, looking into her eyes.

“What?” she said. “Have I not promised enough?”

“Promise me that you will sleep at night and eat at mealtimes,” he said. “You have not been doing much of either, have you?”

She smiled fleetingly. “I wonder,” she said, “how much Cinderella ate and slept in the weeks prior to her wedding.”

“Try,” he said. “Promise me that you will try.”

“Very well,” she said. “I promise.”

He remembered touching his lips to hers briefly that first night at the inn, when he had expected that his kiss would be the mere prelude to the full feast, when he had thought that she had openly invited him to the feast. He remembered that he had been sexually aroused even before the kiss. She had looked so achingly lovely and so mouth-wateringly desirable arched back on the bed with her face lifted and her eyes closed.

“May I kiss you?” he asked.

Her eyes widened, and she flushed.

“We are betrothed,” he said. “May I kiss you?”

He thought for a moment that she would not answer at all. Then she nodded almost imperceptibly.

Her lips were closed and immobile. Warm. She smelled of soap, he thought as he lifted his own away from them. He had not realized until that moment how much he associated sexual passion with strong perfumes. He liked the soap smell. He preferred it.

Her eyes were on him. Wary.

He set his arms loosely about her before kissing her again, one about her waist, the other about her shoulders. She lost her balance and came swaying against him, her hands spread against his chest. There were no voluptuous curves, he thought, and yet she felt utterly feminine. She had long, slim legs. He kept his kiss light
and undemanding, though he parted his lips to taste her and ran his tongue once slowly across the seam of her lips.

“You have never kissed before,” he said as he lifted his head and released his hold of her. He wished immediately that he had not said it—he had done so only because the delightful novelty of it had somewhat dazed him. It was one more humiliation for her. He could see it as soon as her eyes dropped from his.

“The only chances I have had to kiss,” she said, “have been with gentlemen who wanted a great deal more than just kisses.”

He wondered if she too was remembering that first night.

“You will not be subjected to such indignities or to such humiliation ever again,” he said softly. “My honor on it.”

“This too,” she said equally quietly, looking down at her hands, “I will learn in time with you as my teacher. I will try to be a diligent pupil, Your Grace. I am ignorant in so many ways, am I not?” Her voice sounded a little bitter.

“Ah, but it is ignorance,” he said, “or rather innocence that a man hopes to find in his bride, Miss Gray. Do not apologize for yours. Yes, I will teach you. And you will teach me. We will each learn how to please the other. Now, I believe I will take my leave even before my mother returns. I believe you would appreciate some time to yourself, some time to sleep perhaps before dinner?”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Come,” he said, “I will escort you to the stairs. I will leave word for my mother that you are resting.”

He drew her arm through his and set his hand over hers. A few moments later he watched her climb the
stairs to her room before he descended to the hall and left the house after giving his message to a footman.

He had no more idea than when he had arrived if this thing was going to be possible or not. All he did know was that it was impossible to go back or to try to change the situation. Like it or not, he was going to be a married man by this time next month. He was going to be married to Miss Stephanie Gray. She was an intelligent woman, he thought, with a natural refinement of manner, even if she had little confidence in her ability to be a duchess. His mother would see to it that she was brought up to snuff within the next week. And together he and his mother would polish the product and prune away its raw edges in the three weeks that would remain before the wedding.

Yes, she would take, he thought. He really did feel more confident than he had felt yesterday—considerably more confident. And there was something else too that helped him sit back in his carriage and relax against the velvet seats.

He was going to enjoy the intimate side of the marriage. As the flamboyant actress he had taken her for, he had wanted her. But as Miss Stephanie Gray, his betrothed, she was just as desirable. Perhaps more so. He really had found her innocence—her total lack of understanding of what a kiss could be—almost erotic.

Yes, today he felt considerably more cheerful.

S
HE FELT LESS
cheerful than she had felt before his visit—if that was possible. Until then, she realized afterward, she had never been quite convinced that her betrothal was irrevocable. Bad as things had seemed, she had been able to tell herself that she could put an end to it, find herself another husband within the appointed
time, or even go back to her old way of life as a last resort.

Now she knew that there was no going back. Only forward. But how could she go forward? It was impossible. Only by changing herself completely could she fit herself for her new life. And how could she change herself completely when she was already six-and-twenty? And when certain principles and attitudes and ideas were ingrained in her? And when she basically liked herself the way she was?

But change she must. And if she must change, then she would give herself a good reason for changing—a really good one. She would change for
him
. She would never forget how he had saved her from certain misery and terror and from possible death just two weeks before. And she would never forget how courteous he had been—except for that one small lapse when she had inadvertently tempted him. Of how he had treated her like a
person
even when others were looking askance at her because of her appearance. She would never forget how he had insisted on taking her all the way to Sindon Park, even though he had obviously realized that he was going to feel honor bound to offer her marriage. And she would never forget how he had urged her to accept and how he had continued to urge her today, just so that she would not suffer disgrace.

She owed him everything, even her life.

And yet, she was quite sure that he must be as reluctant about this marriage as she could possibly be. He was a young and a handsome man. He was a wealthy man and a duke. He had everything with which to attract any woman he cared to choose as a wife. Yet he had been forced—by his own gallantry—to take her. She wondered if he had ever had dreams of love. She did not know a great deal about men, but she imagined that they must have such dreams just as much as women did.

She would change for him then—in order to make him a worthy duchess. And in order to … please him. That was the term he had used. They would teach each other, he had said. They would each learn to please the other. She knew nothing about pleasing a man. But she drew comfort from the fact that he had told her men hoped for ignorance and innocence in their brides. He would have both in full measure with her. She knew nothing.

She had been shocked to the core of her being by his kiss. His lips had been parted—she had felt the warmth and moisture of his mouth against her lips. She had tasted him. And he had touched her with his
tongue
. Perhaps what had shocked her most, though, was her reaction. She had felt the kiss not only with her lips. She had felt it with her body, with a rush of strange sensation to her breasts and to the most secret parts of her body. Her legs had almost collapsed under her.

Oh yes, he would have his innocent, right enough.

She would change for him—for his sake.

And so the following day—and again four days after that—she stood uncomplaining for hours on end while the duchess’s own modiste measured her and pinned fabrics to her and showed her endless patterns and bolts of fabric and lengths of trimmings. She listened meekly to Her Grace’s advice and to the modiste’s and only occasionally insisted on disagreeing. She felt incredulity at the number of different clothes for all occasions that were deemed the bare essentials for her during the next six months—of course she was expected to be
increasing
by that time. But she said nothing.

At home—at the duchess’s home—she sat for more hours on end unmoving while Patty, her bright and talkative and skilled new maid, dressed and redressed her hair in a dizzying number and variety of styles. And she listened to Her Grace’s judgment on each and resisted
the urge each time to grab her brush and pull furiously at the elegant creations.

At home too she trailed about the house after the duchess, listening to that lady’s conversations with her housekeeper, her cook, and her butler. She memorized both Her Grace’s manner of speaking and her way of taking command of her own household. She genuinely admired the quiet firmness with which Her Grace treated all her servants, but she wondered if there would be any harm in a little more warmth. She quelled the thought. If this was how a duchess ran her household, then she would learn the way. She would not disgrace him when the time came by trying to make friends of his servants.