When the Duchess Said Yes (3 page)

And if there was ever a place for a proud show, it was Ranelagh Gardens. Lizzie had often visited the gardens with her family, but she’d never attended a masquerade like this one. Even before she stepped from the coach, she was astonished by the number of people gathered before her inside the iron fences. Despite the sizable entrance fee—two shillings and sixpence!—that was charged to keep out those who weren’t quality, the
crowds were thick, laughing and chatting as they strolled the long walks beneath the trees. In the distance rose the Rotunda like a fancy tea cake, the centerpiece of the gardens; while it was a welcome refuge on cooler evenings, tonight the air was so warm and pleasing that no one went inside. Even the musicians had moved out-of-doors with their instruments, and their music drifted in the breeze in the most charming way imaginable.

Nearly everyone wore something fanciful, whether no more than an extralong plume in the hat or a full diamond-patterned Harlequin costume. Many were masked as well, in half masks of black or white satin, or grotesques of papier-mâché that hid the entire face. Even the gaudiest costume gleamed and shimmered beneath the light of the lanterns that hung in the branches overhead, and now Lizzie realized that her green fairy costume wasn’t hideous, as she’d feared, but exactly right.

As she walked beside Charlotte, her skirts fluttered about her legs and the spangles danced like true fairy dust, and the wings that had caused her so much grief in the carriage now trembled delicately on her back. She was glad, doubly glad. Earlier she’d wanted to look fine to win Hawkesworth’s favor; she still wished to be pleasing to his eye, of course, but now she also wanted him to realize what he’d missed by lingering so long in Naples.

In the middle of one of the long canals stood a Chinese-style pavilion with a pointed, tiled roof like a pagoda’s. The pavilion was open on all sides and had been contrived to look as if it floated on the water. March had reserved half of the pavilion for their exclusive use, ordering a table set with refreshments and armchairs brought for their ease and use until they went inside the Rotunda for dancing. Most important, March had ordered several of his own liveried footmen in addition to
the gardens’ attendants to stand guard and keep curious others at a distance.

These were the times that made Lizzie realize exactly how very grand the Duke and Duchess of Marchbourne were in comparison to ordinary Englishmen, or even to lesser peers. For all that March was kind and generous to her, to the world, he had royal blood in his veins, which made him the next thing to a prince. March and Charlotte acted as if there were nothing extraordinary about taking tea while strangers stared in awe, but Lizzie found it disconcerting, and felt more like the caged animals in the Tower menagerie than privileged noble folk.

Would it be like this for her, too, once she was married and a duchess in her own right? Throughout her childhood, she and her sisters had done as they’d pleased, and no one had taken any particular notice. At least she’d take Hawkesworth’s name as well as his title and become Elizabeth Halsbury, which meant that Lizzie Wyldest would finally be put to rest. But would people bow and curtsey to her as they did to Charlotte, even as they took note of every detail of her dress and jewels and how she styled her hair? Would wagers be made in clubs and taverns on the sex of her first child, too, and breathless reports of her every action be printed in the papers?

“This is most agreeable, March,” Charlotte was saying, languidly waving her painted ivory fan before her face as she rested her arm on the latticework railing. “And what a delightful place for Lizzie to have her first conversation with Hawke.”

Lizzie was unconvinced. She was anxious enough about meeting him without having to do so before an audience. Nibbling on a biscuit, she perched on her chair with her back straight, both from nervousness and to preserve her wings, and wistfully watched the ordinary
folk as they walked by, laughing and flirting and stealing kisses without a care.

“How will we recognize His Grace when he comes?” she asked. Hawkesworth had never bothered to send a portrait of himself to her, not even a miniature—another example of his indifference. In the beginning, Lizzie had imagined him to be every bit as handsome as March, but as the months had dragged by, she’d unconsciously begun altering that image in subtle ways, now picturing him in her mind as shorter, stouter, coarser. “Do you know what his costume will be?”

“Oh, no doubt something florid and Italian,” March said. He unhooked his watch from the chain at his waist and set it on the table, opening it so that they all could see the face and the time: an oversized golden reminder keeping the time until Hawkesworth’s scheduled appearance. “I expect I’ll have no difficulty telling it’s him.”

“But he’s sure to have changed while he’s been away.”

March smiled. “I’ll know him, Lizzie. We were often together as boys, and I doubt even Naples has changed him beyond recognition.”

“I cannot wait to make his acquaintance.” Charlotte reached out to squeeze Lizzie’s hand. “We’ll have such a splendid time together tonight, won’t we?”

Lizzie attempted a smile, then tried to concentrate on watching the crowds before them, wondering which gentleman might turn out to be her husband. She was appallingly nervous, her palms damp inside her mitts and her shift clinging moistly to her back beneath her stays. Though she tried not to look too often at March’s watch on the table, it sat there like a ticking conscience, relentlessly counting away the minutes.

They’d arrived early, because March believed in promptness to a fault. But soon the time appointed for Hawkesworth’s arrival came and went. He was a quarter
hour late, then a half hour, and still he did not appear. March and Charlotte pretended not to notice, maintaining cheerful, empty conversation as if nothing were amiss. Yet Lizzie knew they were furious with Hawkesworth and pitied her, and she didn’t know which was worse.

Finally Charlotte rose. “Come, Lizzie, I am weary of sitting,” she said, holding out her hand. “Let’s walk about, just the two of us, and leave March here with his wine.”

March waved them on, as if this were exactly what he’d planned from the beginning, but Lizzie also saw him glowering at the watch on the table. She could almost—almost—feel sorry for Hawkesworth, having to face a solemn lecture from March on timeliness, breeding, and good manners as soon as he finally arrived.

If
he arrived.

And as Lizzie’s spirits sank lower, all she could do was to wish the vilest, most humiliating, and most excruciating pox possible on the shameful tardiness of His Grace the Duke of Hawkesworth.

Hawke climbed from the hackney cab, paid the driver, and sauntered toward the gates of Ranelagh Gardens. It wasn’t either appropriate or customary for an English duke to travel in the anonymity of a hackney, but Hawke liked the lack of fuss that came with the worn leather seats. His father’s lumbering old carriage with the gold-picked wheels and the family coat of arms painted on the door remained in perfect working order in the coach house at Hawkesworth Chase, and his helpful (too helpful, really) agents here in London had anticipated his return by purchasing a suitable team of matched grays to draw it, plus engaging the stable boys, grooms, driver, and footmen that were a ducal coach’s necessities.

But what was the point of wearing a costume to a masquerade only to trumpet his identity with a carriage like that? No, Hawke would rather arrive like this, unknown and unnoticed in a dark blue costume that blended into the night, and pay for his ticket like any other mortal Englishman. The fox-faced girl at the booth winked and smiled invitingly, and told him when she was free for the night. Hawke nodded and winked in return, then moved through the gate.

Very well, then, he wasn’t entirely unnoticed, and he smiled as he considered both the ticket girl and then the
woman he’d been with when he’d last worn this costume, a lascivious flame-haired courtesan who’d been his companion for Carnival revelry along the canals of Venice. A splendid time, that, and exactly the kind of pleasurable diversion that he must now put behind him. He sighed deeply, almost a groan, and made his way further into the gardens.

He’d postponed this meeting a half dozen times already, and he was determined not to put it off again; otherwise he risked offending his cousin March beyond reconciliation. By temperament, he and March had little in common—March could be as serious and solemn as a preacher, and painfully earnest in the bargain—but they shared a common bloodline. Both their families (and that of two more cousins as well, the Duke of Breconridge and the Duke of Sheffield) had descended from ennobled bastards of a long-ago king and his royal mistresses, a kind of fraternity of dishonor that bound them more tightly than many true brothers.

March’s father had also arranged for him to wed one of the Earl of Hervey’s daughters, and in typical March fashion, he had obediently done so. March had always done what he was supposed to, while Hawke almost never did. Now March seemed determined to see that Hawke followed the same fate, arranging this introduction with the lady and generally shoving him headfirst toward matrimony. Misery must definitely love company, Hawke thought with gloomy resignation, dragging his feet like a condemned man with each step he took toward the Chinese pavilion.

He could see the pointed tile roof now, and thought he could make out March and the ladies inside, too. He took a deep breath, then another. Damnation, he wasn’t ready for this. One more walk around the gardens to settle his nerves—that was what he needed. A few more minutes to prepare himself, and then he’d join them.
Briskly he turned away from the pavilion and down the next path in the opposite direction. He knew perfectly, pitifully well that he was being a wretched coward, but so be it. A few more minutes of his blissful bachelor life was worth it, and then, at last, he’d meet the lady he must marry.

Arm in arm, Lizzie and Charlotte strolled in silence through the crowd, one of the tall footmen in the Marchbourne livery close behind them. The last gray of twilight had faded, replaced by stars and a quarter moon in the night sky. Neither sister spoke a word of the Duke of Hawkesworth, but when they came upon a group of Charlotte’s friends, Charlotte joined their conversation with eager relief.

Lizzie hung by her sister’s side, listening, but with nothing to contribute to the animated talk of husbands and babies. Impatiently she turned back toward the pavilion, wondering if perhaps Hawkesworth was there by now. Its pointed red roof and swinging lanterns showed through the trees, beckoning her to come. It wasn’t that far away; surely there’d be no harm in her returning by herself to see if the duke had appeared, then coming back for Charlotte. She looked for their footman, who’d been distracted by a giggling young woman in a black mask and yellow gown cut so low that her breasts threatened to pop free.

Likely the footman wouldn’t notice if Lizzie walked back to the pavilion, either, and quickly, before he did, Lizzie plunged resolutely into the crowd, her wings bouncing against her shoulders. Without Charlotte or her footman, Lizzie felt like everyone else who was in costume, and she liked it. The merriment was contagious, and for the first time in this whole wretched day she felt her spirits rise. She couldn’t keep from grinning. No one knew she was an earl’s daughter, or that she was
betrothed to a duke, or that she wasn’t simply some lady’s maid out for a lark, and it was a vastly fine feeling indeed.

“Hey, ho, my pretty fairy!” called a man in a Roman warrior’s helmet, bowing to her over his tin sword. “Come scatter your magic over my way!”

Lizzie laughed and shooed him away. She knew Charlotte—and, far worse, March—would not be happy to see her alone and behaving so freely, but she was willing to risk their displeasure for a few minutes. She was sure she was safe enough as long as she kept to the path among so many others. Besides, she rather liked the idea of surprising Hawkesworth and March, popping up unexpectedly in the pavilion like a true fairy. She chuckled to herself, imagining their faces.

“My lady in pink,” said another man beside her. He wore an ink-blue costume edged with silver, cut close to display his height and broad shoulders to best advantage. The upper half of his face was hidden by a black mask, but his smile was both charming and oddly familiar.

“Not your lady, sir,” Lizzie said, adding a toss of her flower-laden head for emphasis, “nor am I clad in pink.”

She began to hurry past him, but he deftly stepped before her to stop her short.

“Forgive me my boldness, sweeting,” he said, “but when last I saw you, you did wear pink.”

She glared at him. He spoke like a gentleman, but no man, whether a gentleman or otherwise, had the right to block her way like this.

“A pox on your boldness, sir,” she said, more sharply than before. “You’re barbarously mistaken. You are a stranger to me, and we’ve never so much as seen each other before. Now pray let me pass, so that I—”

He pulled off his mask, and she gasped.

“So you do remember me,” he said, bemused. “I suppose I should be honored.”