When the Duchess Said Yes (6 page)

“We were discussing exactly that when you arrived, Lady Allred,” Brecon said, coming to bow with his usual grace. “Good day to you, ma’am. How vastly handsome you look.”

Hawke could have sworn his mother blushed beneath her paint.

“Why, thank you, Breconridge,” she said. “Forgive me for taking no notice of you. I am simply so distraught over Hawkesworth’s behavior that I am not myself.”

Brecon bowed his head, his expression both sorrowful and aggrieved.

“It is a deplorable situation, ma’am, to be sure,” he said, as if Hawke wasn’t there. “Most gentlemen would
rejoice at the prospect of marriage to so admirable a lady.”

“Exactly so, Breconridge,” Lady Allred said. “Such a pretty little thing, too. I must say she is bearing up well, considering. What lady wishes to be scorned, and by such a rogue as my son?”

Hawke sighed with exasperation. He felt like a beleaguered fox at the end of the chase, with the baying hounds nipping close at his exhausted heels.

“I’d dared to hope Hawkesworth would have secured the title with a son or two of his own by now,” his mother was saying. “How I should loathe to see the dukedom slip from the family because he was too proud to—”

“It has been resolved, Mother,” Hawke said. “Brecon and I are going to Marchbourne House this afternoon to take tea with the ladies. If Lady Elizabeth finds me tolerable, I will wed her before the cream cakes are passed, and present you with your first grandson by supper.”

Lady Allred snorted. “Such rubbish!”

“But Hawke and I are attending tea this day with March’s good lady and Lady Elizabeth,” Brecon said. “That part of it is true.”

Hawke took a deep breath. If he’d gone this far, he might as well jump entirely into the well.

“I’m sure Charlotte would welcome you to the party as well, Mother,” he said, bowing as Brecon had earlier. “I would be delighted to escort you.”

“No, no, that is very kind of you, Hawkesworth, but unnecessary,” his mother said, though clearly pleased. “I would not wish to interfere in your personal affairs.”

Hawke’s brows shot high with cynical amazement. “You, Mother?”

“Yes,” she said demurely, retying her hat’s silk bow at the nape of her neck as she prepared to leave. “I have never been a meddler, and I won’t begin now. Good day
to you, Hawkesworth. Pray make yourself agreeable to the lady, and if you can, pray remember to wear stockings and shoes.”

Three hours later, Hawke sat facing Brecon in his cousin’s carriage. Giacomo had taken considerable care with Hawke’s appearance, all the while as he shaved and dressed him fairly purring about how much he was looking forward to serving a duchess as well as a duke. Hawke wished he shared the valet’s enthusiasm. After so much attention to the brushing of his coat, the polishing of the silver buttons on his waistcoat, and the precise tying of his neckcloth, he felt more like a well-dressed dish being carried for presentation at the dining table than a jolly bridegroom.

“I’m surprised you didn’t put me in manacles to make sure I didn’t escape,” he said glumly to Brecon.

His cousin smiled. “I considered it,” he said. “But Giacomo would have had my head if I’d dared put irons over your shirt cuffs.”

“I am in no humor for your witty diversion, Brecon,” he said, unhappiness making him curt. “None at all.”

“Then I’ll beg you to have a thought for the lady,” Brecon said. “She is only eighteen, an innocent, with none of your experience or knowledge of the world. Consider how daunting you must be to her, and her distress at this meeting. She will look to you not only for protection but for guidance. Think of all the things you can share with her, and the pleasure that will bring to you both.”

“That’s easy enough for you to imagine, Brecon,” Hawke said grudgingly. “You loved your wife.”

“I did love her, more than I’d ever thought possible.” Brecon’s face softened, the way it always did when he spoke of his late wife, Henriette. She had died of smallpox more than a dozen years before, yet it was clear that
Brecon had never stopped grieving her. “On our wedding day, I’d no such feelings. I’d never been permitted her company unattended. I knew none of her likes or dislikes, nor what pleased her most. All I knew of her was that her smile was shy and that she blushed at anything, and that she was the daughter of the Duke of Culverton. Yet from that unromantic beginning, love grew, just as I hope it shall for you and Lady Elizabeth.”

Unconvinced, Hawke stared from the carriage window. His parents had lived in civilized distance from each other, and his father had always discreetly kept a mistress; the last one had even been mentioned in Father’s will. That seemed to Hawke to be a much more reasonable arrangement than hoping for Cupid to come along with the union of fortunes, estates, and titles that was to be his marriage. The best he could pray for now was that the well-bred and eminently suitable Lady Elizabeth wasn’t so homely that bedding her would be a trial, conducted behind closed bed-curtains with the candles doused.

“Ah, here we are,” Brecon said as the carriage rolled through the gates to Marchbourne House. “We’re fortunate in the weather. Tea in the garden will be pleasant indeed.”

It had been a decade since Hawke had visited Marchbourne House, and he had to admit that it compared more favorably than he would have thought to the grand Italian houses designed by Palladio. If Hawkesworth Chase was a Tudor ramble, then March’s house was as elegant and precise as a minuet, with everything done in the best classical manner.

As he and Brecon were ushered through the house and past room after richly furnished and appointed room, all marble and gilt, Hawke began to feel self-consciously protective of the old Chase. It wasn’t that there wasn’t money to bring it up to snuff—his bankers assured him
he’d plenty, or at least he would so long as he married—but Hawke had sadly neglected his London house in favor of his Neapolitan villa.

But March, however, had had no such divided loyalties, and his house was more imposing than many royal palaces Hawke had visited. He’d been told that Lady Elizabeth had been living here as a guest for some time. He hoped she hadn’t become too accustomed to such grandeur, or else she was bound to be disappointed in the Chase.

They followed the footman out the back door and into the walled garden at the rear of the house. The garden was a formal arrangement of squared paths framing beds of blooming flowers, scenting the air with their blossoms, and in one corner was a small fountain with a dancing stone faun. In the center of the garden stood a small green-painted summerhouse, raised to catch any breezes that came over the tall brick walls from the park beyond. A table was set for tea with gleaming silver pots and tableware, porcelain cups and saucers, and more flowers in a vase in the center.

All Hawke saw was the young woman sitting on a stool to one side. She was dressed in a dark gown with a white kerchief over her shoulders and a white ruffled cap on her curly, carroty hair, plain country dressing if ever he’d seen it.

But clothes could be changed, he told himself firmly, and fashion could be bought. He’d paid his share of mantua makers’ bills, and he knew a clever seamstress could find elegance and style in almost any woman. The girl was bent over some sort of handwork, the cloth bunched in her hand as she purposefully jabbed a needle in and out of the cloth. At least she was industrious and not idle, he thought, desperately striving to put the best face on matters even as his hopes plummeted.

But even at this distance Hawke could see that she
was no beauty, her form round and sturdy, and when she raised her needle to the sun to rethread it, squinting with one eye closed, he saw that her cheeks were badly pockmarked, her lips narrow and pinched, her eyes pale and lashless. There wasn’t a scrap of humor or good nature anywhere on her person or face, not one single feature of pleasantness that might make for an agreeable companion.

No wonder they’d brought him to a walled garden, or he would have bolted straightaway.

“Gentlemen!” March had spotted them, and rose to wave, grinning. “At last you are here!”

Still focused on the young woman sewing, Hawke felt as if his feet (or rather his shoes; his mother needn’t have worried) had taken root on the path of crushed shell. He simply could not go forward.

“Courage, cousin, courage,” Brecon said softly beside him, taking him by the upper arm to nudge him forward. “It’s only March.”

It was indeed only March, striding toward them. He’d never seen March look so relaxed or so informal, in his waistcoat without a coat, the sleeves of his shirt rolled carelessly to his elbows. He also appeared happier, too, his smile wide and easy. Clearly whatever insult Hawke might have caused at Ranelagh had been forgotten and forgiven.

“I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you here,” March said, grasping him fondly by the shoulders. “Here in my home, and here, too, in London. But come, there is someone I wish you to meet.”

Hawke’s smile grew stiff and forced as they walked to the summerhouse. The young woman put aside her stitchery, bowed her head, and curtseyed deeply. Hawke supposed that was proper. After all, how often would any woman, even one of rank, ever be confronted with three dukes at a time? He swallowed hard. Usually he’d
no trouble at all addressing women, but his brain had frozen and every word had fled, leaving him with a fixed, sickly smile pasted on his face.

“My dear angel,” March said proudly. “Peg, present the young fellow.”

The woman stepped into the summerhouse and returned cradling a small baby in her arms. The child had a round-cheeked face with huge, staring blue eyes, and yet even amidst the yards of trailing linen, he still somehow bore an unmistakable resemblance to March.

“My second son, George,” March said, carefully taking the baby from the nurse.

So the stern-faced woman was the infant’s nurse, not Lady Elizabeth. Hawke almost laughed aloud from relief, and at his own folly.

“He is named for His Majesty,” March was saying, rocking the child gently against his chest with astonishing familiarity. At least it astonished Hawke, who happily had no familiarity with babies in any form. “Always useful to honor the king, isn’t it, Georgie?”

He tickled the baby’s cheek with the back of his finger, and at once little Georgie smiled, a beautiful, toothless smile, with a string of drool trickling from his chin.

“Aren’t you the hearty young gentleman?” March said, clearly besotted. “Aren’t you a proper rascal? Three months old, and look at the size of him!”

“A most excellent lad,” Brecon agreed. “You and Charlotte have every reason to be proud of that brave little one. Hawke, the next babe will be yours, yes?”

“I should hope not,” Hawke said, so quickly that the other two laughed. How could a mere baby make him feel such a fool?

“That’s how I felt, too,” March said, “until the child was my own. A shame you weren’t in time to meet the twins, but since they’d both begun to wail, the ladies took them in with their nurses. I expect Charlotte and
Lizzie to be back any moment. Here, Hawke, why don’t you hold Georgie, just to get the proper feel of being a father?”

Before Hawke could protest, March had placed the baby into his arms, a transfer received with such stiff-armed clumsiness on Hawke’s part that he marveled that March would trust him with his son. The baby never stopped moving, kicking and wriggling and waving his small impotent fists in Hawke’s face while making the most alarming chirps and small cries.

“I do not believe he likes me, March,” Hawke said, desperately wishing March would take his offspring back before Hawke caused some hideous harm to it.

“He likes you fine,” March assured him. “If only Lizzie could see you now! There is nothing that melts a woman’s heart faster than the sight of a large man with a small baby.”

“Lizzie?” Hawke repeated, not daring to take his gaze away from Georgie. “Is she another nursemaid?”

Again March and Brecon laughed. “No, no, that’s what we call Lady Elizabeth within the family,” March said, “and so you shall, too, once she gives you leave.”

But Hawke was too occupied with watching the infant, who likewise stared at him, until at last the child decided to concede the contest. Georgie blinked twice and squawked, then spit up a dramatic amount of foul-smelling curdled matter directly onto the front of the coat that Giacomo had so lovingly prepared.

Instantly Peg reappeared. “Pray permit me to take his lordship, Your Grace,” she said briskly, carrying the baby away before he launched another assault.

“Well, now, you’ll forgive Georgie for that, won’t you?” March said apologetically, handing Hawke his own handkerchief for mopping. “At least he gave you a proper salute.”

“A salute?” Hawke said, aghast. No mere blotting
with a handkerchief would redeem his coat, and the more he tried, the worse the mess seemed to become, the smell now clinging to his hand as well as his coat. If this was what baby heirs did, then his mother could find her grandchildren beneath a cabbage leaf, for he wished nothing further to do with the creatures. “That is what you call it? A
salute
? Damnation, March, I reek worse than a sailor at the dog end of his leave, and I—”

“Ah, at last,” Brecon said pleasantly. “Here are the ladies to join us.”