An Ideal Duchess (22 page)

             
“Delicious, isn’t it?”

             
Maggie nodded, chewing tartlet.

             
“There’s nothing wrong with breaking a few rules every now and then,” She picked up a piece of fried salmon and examined its contents, then took an experimental bite.

             
“
Ladies
can break rules, Your Grace,” Maggie swallowed the tartlet. “A servant is ruined forever should they lose their character.”

             
“The English are so melodramatic—‘ruination’. Look at Diana,” She retrieved her novel. “I believe she was based on Caroline Norton, who defied society to obtain a divorce from her brute of a husband. She wasn’t ruined—she went on to marry a splendid gentleman.”

             
“A
lady
, Your Grace,” Maggie shook her head. “I don’t think there’s any stories of servants having good endings. Always bad ‘uns.”

             
“You simply haven’t read the right books,” Amanda took another sip of her tea. “It’s likely there are a whole manner of books published where servants and their ilk triumph. What of ‘Barbara, Lady’s Maid and Peeress’ by Mrs. Alexander?”

             
“Never heard of that, Your Grace,” Maggie looked skeptical. “Besides, what would I be wantin’ with America? Begging your pardon.”

             
“Why…anything! Everything. There is little to limit you in America should you work hard for it.”

             
“Begging your pardon again, Your Grace, but it’s curious that you married an Englishman if America is so wonderful.”

             
“Touché—it means you’ve made a point that damages the one I’m trying to make,” she explained with a grin at the housemaid. “This isn’t about me you silly goose, but to be completely frank, I would have married His Grace had he been a…a Chinaman!”

             
Maggie giggled. “Oh Your Grace, I can’t imagine you living one of those funny houses I’ve seen in the
Daily Mail
.”

             
“Pagodas. I’ve been inside one once; they’re very elegant and comfortable. And I can’t believe Fowler allows the
Daily Mail
into the vaunted halls of Bledington Park!”

             
“He don’t know, Your Grace. Cedric buys it from the village and sneaks it into the servant’s hall when Mr. Fowler isn’t looking.”

             
“Naughty Cedric. I’ll have to ask him if I may read his copy when we meet in the dining room.”

             
“Don’t Your Grace! He’ll be ever so cross if he finds I’ve been tattling.”

             
“Alright, Maggie, I was only teasing. I could probably order Fowler to purchase a copy for me.”

             
They both snorted with laughter at that thought. Amanda set her tea cup on the tray and gave Maggie a searching look. “I am serious, you know. America would be so wonderful for you. You’re very intelligent and will be quite pretty when you grow up.”

             
“Your Grace,” Maggie gasped, blushing a bright red.

             
“I mean it,” Amanda selected another sandwich to sate her hunger. “You have, as my mother’s chiropodist would say ‘good bones’.”

             
“I don’t know what bones has to do with prettiness,” The housemaid said skeptically. “Besides, I couldn’t go to America, Your Grace, and leave my family.”

             
“His Grace said something about your family…” Amanda wrinkled her brow. “Oh yes, that Wilcoxes have served Malverns for seven generations.”

             
“Yes, Your Grace. My Da and Mum have farmed on the estate for thirty years, and my grandda and his wife for thirty years before that!”

             
“How singular! You must have dozens of siblings and cousins about the village and the estate, then.”

             
Maggie nodded. “But there’s just my Da and Mum, and my three brothers at Wilcox Farm now.”

             
Amanda sighed ruefully. “At least visits between Bledington and the farm are easier to make when compared to Bledington and New York.”

             
“Do you miss your family terribly, Your Grace?” Maggie peeped shyly at her.

             
“Terribly!” She exclaimed, sitting back in the settee. “Particularly now that I’m expecting a baby.”

             
“Oh Maggie, don’t be so prudish!” She laughed when the housemaid darted a glance at her belly and then flushed. “I don’t understand why expectant mothers are hidden away and treated like some shameful secret.”

             
“Perhaps, Your Grace,” Maggie paused, flushing again. “It’s because people start to wonder about the circumstances of getting that baby.”

             
“Maggie, you magnificent darling!” Amanda laughed at the housemaid’s unexpected perceptiveness. “Now tell me everything about your family; I’m insatiably curious about everything to do with Bledington.”

             
“We aren’t anything special, Your Grace. My Da and two of my brothers work on the farm, and Mum tends to the house.”

             
“And the other brother, what does he do?” Amanda leaned onto the arm of the settee and folded her hands under her chin.

             
“Jacky,” Maggie’s face lit with pleasure. “He was hired on as a groom at Challoner House, but he’s desperate to be a sho-a sho—”

             
“A chauffeur, you mean? A driver of motorcars?”

             
“Yes, Your Grace! Jacky’s wild about motorcars—and aeroplanes. He’s always got his head in one of them auto magazines and he’s even seen a balloon race in Gloucester.”

             
“Oh, so he works for Anthony Challoner…” Amanda said thoughtfully, half to herself, as she narrowed her eyes. “I’ve meant to speak with His Grace about purchasing a motorcar—”

             
“Your Grace! That would be wonderful. Then Jacky wouldn’t be so far away from Mum.”

             
“Would it really, Maggie?” She sat up, pleased by the housemaid’s reaction to her sudden inspiration.

             
“If it weren’t asking too much, Your Grace. I know there’s plenty of better sho-sho—drivers—His Grace might hire before our Jacky—”

             
“Don’t worry about His Grace, Maggie. I shall make sure to recommend your brother as a chauffeur, if he is as passionate about them as you say. His Grace admires passion.”

             
“Oh, Your Grace, you’re an angel!” Maggie bounced on her toes, clapping with obvious delight.

             
“I’m not, really. I shall write to Malvern at once about the motorcar.” Amanda protested wryly and straightened, preparing to rise from the settee. “Oh goodness, Maggie would you mind helping me up?”

             
The housemaid came to her side instantly, and after a few brief moments of struggle, Amanda managed to stand on her feet. “Thank you, Maggie. I cannot wait until this baby makes his appearance. It’s such a torment not being able to move about as much as I like.”

             
“Are you hoping for a boy, Your Grace?” Maggie asked, shy again.

             
Amanda gave her a look of horror as she walked towards the secretaire to retrieve her stationary and an ink pen. “Hope? I’m under the strictest orders by Her Grace herself that this child will
be
a boy!”

             
Bron had chosen the most inauspicious moment to deliver his maiden speech in the House of Lords: Whitsuntide. Those few lords and bishops who had not adjourned for the week’s end, most likely to Saturday-to-Mondays in nearby country houses, lounged on the long scarlet leather benches, many of them visibly struggling to retain interest in Bron’s short, tersely-worded homily on The Colonies and Preferential Trade. A few had already given up, their snowy beards pressed into their chests, which rose and fell with the inhale and exhale of their gentle snores. One particular member was rather infamous for his naps, and so Bron could not be too offended when the Duke of Devonshire yawned, leaned his head into his hand, and fell promptly asleep.

             
Surprisingly, he did not feel at all nervous as his eye wandered over the House of Lords and then up to the Strangers’ Gallery where Viola sat, hands clasping the gilded rail. For a brief moment, he wished Amanda had accompanied him to London and sat in Viola’s stead, but he shook off that notion, feeling it best for his ardor that she remain in Bledington to await the birth of his child. Once again, the thought of becoming a father was jolting and more than unnerving. What the bloody hell did he know of it besides the custom set by his father towards his own sons? He felt more entrapped than enthused, and another wave of regret and panic washed over him, this reaction having intensified the more he realized his marriage to Amanda was ceaselessly binding first by their marriage license and now the heir she was to bring into the world.

             
He rushed through the end of his speech and sat down on his scarlet leather bench the moment the Lord High Chancellor acknowledged his closing remarks. He tucked the crinkly pages of his speech beneath his arm and slid his hands into his pockets. He listened to the remaining speeches with half an ear, only snapping to attentiveness when the other members rose to give the vote on some uninteresting issue. He tramped dutifully to the lobby where a teller counted his vote—”Content”—with a white wand, and then through the Peers’ Lobby and the Peers’ Corridor. He was stopped many times by elderly and middle-aged peers who knew his father, and exchanged nods with those who were a few years ahead of him at Eton, before reaching the Central Lobby. He spotted Viola making her way through the small crowd of ladies and gentlemen, and started towards her until he felt a strange hand on his arm.

             
He turned into the dark, intense expression of a woman, whose red hair (brighter, bolder than his own) was swept up beneath a plain black hat and veil. Her clothing was rather unadorned as well, all grays and blacks in a severe, mannish tailored suit.

             
“May I be of assistance?”

             
“You are the new Duke of Malvern, yes?” Her slight accent was musical.

             
“I am,” He turned to face her fully, wary rather than curious.

             
“Damn,” She swore, taking him by surprise and then smiled at his reaction. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a man so easily shocked, Your Grace.”

             
Her tiny sardonic, superior smile made him less and less inclined to linger.

             
“If you’ll excuse me—”

             
But her hold tightened on his arm. “What was your vote on Chinese Labor in the Transvaal?”

             
“I don’t believe that is any of your business.” Bron tugged on his arm, but her grip remained tight.

             
“I’m sorry,” She smiled, genuinely this time, and loosened her grip. “Irene Rosenthal Hesketh of The Sunday Observer.”

             
He stared warily at her outstretched hand before shaking it.

             
“Now that we have those formalities out of the way, you may feel free to discuss your maiden speech, your stance on the act, your vote…” She trailed off, her smile sharpening.

             
“The Times will have the full speeches and results of the vote tomorrow morning, Miss Hesketh—”

             
“Mrs.,” She interrupted. “And I am aware that The Times will print the speeches in full; I’d like your opinion, as an unproven and unfamiliar element in the House of Lords.”

             
Bron looked over Mrs. Hesketh’s head as the Central Lobby began filling with members of the Commons. He saw that Bim, who raised a hand in greeting, had waylaid Viola, much to her apparent irritation. He saw no other way of ridding himself of the inquisitive Mrs. Hesketh before they arrived and so reached into the breast pocket of his tailcoat.

             
“Here is my card,” He said shortly. “You may call on me at Anthony Challoner’s chambers at Lincoln’s Inn.”

             
“Would that be the Conservative Member for Rendcomb?” Mrs. Hesketh looked self-satisfied as she accepted his card.

             
“Yes. If I may be excused?” He raised a brow at the persistent journalist.

             
“Of course, Your Grace. And how long shall you be staying in London, if you don’t mind my asking?”

             
“The week, I presume. Good day Mrs. Hesketh.” He tipped his top hat to the woman and stepped around her, meeting Bim and Viola halfway through the crowd.