An Ideal Duchess (6 page)

             
His bedroom had always been open for her, and she turned the knob without knocking, casting one last look up and down both sides the hallway, before sliding inside. Bron’s room was on the smallish side, though not as small as her own bedroom, but lavishly furnished, with thick, plush carpets stretching from wall to wall, and heavy Jacobean furniture. There was a desk shoved on the space between his bed and the wall, atop which sat rolls of blueprints, pots of glue, pencils, and pieces of aeroplane models. Viola smiled and reached for one of the models, lifting it into the air in imitation of flight. It was rather top heavy, listing towards the nose; a discarded design, she assumed. She set it down and went to unroll one of the blueprints when she heard a step outside the door.

             
Viola darted towards the opposite side of the bed, pressing flat against the wall as Bron and the old duke’s ancient valet, Pettingell, entered the bedroom. Bron held his injured arm close to his chest, having removed the sling.

             
“No, damn you, Pettingell, I don’t need your assistance. Go to back to your room.” Bron sounded weary.

             
Pettingell tottered over to the wardrobe, always selectively deaf to Bron’s protests, and chose his riding attire from the drawers, then tottered over to the bed, where he laid them neatly, almost reverently over the coverlet. Pettingell turned to Bron and waited patiently.

             
“Fine,” Bron sighed. “Draw my bath.”

             
“Very good, Your Grace,” Pettingell bowed and then tottered out of the bedroom.

             
Viola released her own sigh of relief and peeled away from the wall when Bron cut a glance in her direction.

             
“At the risk of sounding rude Vi, what are you doing here?” He sat heavily on the chair beside the fireplace and winced, touching his forehead.

             
She hesitated, her assurance of his welcome disappearing, and she stood awkwardly before him. “I wanted to be sure you were all right, but if you are tired, I can go.”

             
“No, Vi, stay,” He reached for her hand and smiled up at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “It’s this damnable head of mine that makes me act a bear.”

             
“What happened?” She curled her fingers around his hand. “Was it your flight?”

             
“What else?” He closed his eyes. “And Americans and their inability to remain on their own property.”

             
“I don’t understand…”

             
“It was nothing, merely an accident.” He opened them again, gray eyes bright and crackling with excitement. “But I flew, Vi. For a brief moment, I flew!”

             
“Oh Bron, how marvelous!” Viola squeezed his hand. “I knew you could do it; I only wish I was there to see it.”

             
“You shall!” He said cheerfully. “We can go tom—” 

             
His expression darkened and his violent oath filled the charged silence.

             
“What is it?”

             
Bron released a huff of air and pressed his mouth into a thin, white line. “Let’s just say that my head and my arm weren’t only things smashed into dozens of pieces today.”

             
“But what happened? You said you flew and then what? You crashed? You know how to build the glider and you can do it again.”

             
He lifted his brows, his mouth twisted bitterly. “I appreciate your faith in me, but your faith combined my abilities don’t equal to money to rebuild my glider.”

             
“But Bron, surely—”

             
“Four hundred bloody pounds, Vi,” He lowered his chin to his chest and sighed. “Do you how long it took me to scrape together four hundred pounds? I can only imagine what my mother would say if she knew funds that could have gone into repairing this damned roof were gone in an instant?”

             
“If there’s one thing I am certain of, it is Her Grace’s vast fount of forgiveness when it comes to you,” Viola said wryly.

             
Bron cast a sidelong glance at her and smiled. “Do you think?”

             
Viola laughed, grateful for a little levity. She reached to touch the splint on his left arm, her fingers brushing tentatively on the ridged bandages wrapped around the wood slats protecting his fragile arm from further damage.

             
“Don’t fuss, Vi,” He loosened his grip on her hand.

             
She promptly drew her hand back, clasping both tightly behind her back, fingers knotted in suppressed anguish as she stared at his bent head, his unruly hair like the flickering flames in the fireplace.

             
“Well, what are you going to do now?”

             
He lifted his shoulders, but the smile he gave her was reassuring. “To sleep, perchance to dream…”

             
The door opened again before she could reply, and she froze, eyes widened with dismay as Pettingell tottered back into the room with a large, fluffy towel over his arm.

             
“Your bath, Your Grace,” He intoned gravely.

             
The valet tottered towards the toilet table, where he removed a set of soaps and other masculine toiletries.

             
“Ah, thank you Pettingell,” There was laughter in Bron’s voice.

             
Viola narrowed her eyes at him in warning as she inched towards the bedroom door, taking great care when turning the knob.

             
“Good morning, Miss Townsend,” Pettingell called after her.

             
“Good morning, Pettingell,” She stammered.

             
Bron smiled at her and she shook her head, confident that she had restored his good humor, and opened the door to return to Her Grace’s boudoir. However, as Viola sat down to begin typing Her Grace’s correspondence she realized he had not discussed his trip to London.

             
His cryptic remark about Americans tickled her thoughts, and Viola froze over her Underwood typewriter in dawning horror over the prospect of Bron ruining their lives by marrying an American heiress. He would not do such a thing, she thought firmly and continued typing. Bron had principles and was clever enough to save the estate without throwing himself away on some title-mad girl of disreputable heritage. More importantly, he would not give up on them and the promise he’d made to her long before he inherited the title.

*          *          *

              Bron couldn’t put off having a conversation with his mother now that he had finally returned to Bledington, and after a quick bathe and bite to eat, he joined her on her brisk morning ride. His mother’s path never varied: around the chapel, down the Broadwalk towards the Arboretum his grandfather had planted in the ‘seventies, down Lord Bledington’s walk, and back around until she returned to the stables. Avoidance of the deer park was an unspoken verboten, and Bron—atop his frisky Hera—did not cut through it in order to reach his mother. No matter, he realized with a start; Hera’s mouth was so sensitive, she stopped the moment he inadvertently tugged on the reins at the sight of his mother lingering in Lord Bledington’s Walk. She held her gelding’s reins as she awaited his approach. He nudged Hera forward into walk to where his mother waited.

             
The Duchess of Malvern sat tall and proud in her side-saddle, her figure only slightly thickened by age of childbirth, and her thick silvering hair coiled tightly beneath a shining top hat. Bron’s mouth twisted wryly in admiration. She really cut quite a figure for a woman of her advanced years, and could keep up with ladies twenty years younger—and the men too. She lifted her brows as she stared at him from beneath her veil.

             
“Well?”

             
“I’d need Uncle Charlie’s assent to break the entail.”

             
“How absurd that you cannot do so yourself. You are the duke.”

             
“He is my heir presumptive until I sire an heir of my body,” Bron shifted uneasily in his saddle at this thought.

             
“Well, invite him to Bledington and have him sign whatever it is you both must sign.”

             
“It isn’t that simple, Mother,” He said carefully, meeting her eyes. “I don’t know if I want to break the entail.”

             
“Malvern!” His mother frowned in disapproval.

             
“It would require more work than it’s worth, and there is no guarantee that we would receive a fair price for whatever it is we do sell,” Bron interrupted.

             
“That certainly cannot be true, Malvern. I see stories of Americans and Eastern potentates spending vulgar amounts of money for good British heirlooms every day.”

             
“Do you really want to picture the fifth Duke’s Titian hanging over a dining room—that is, if they even have them—in the middle of Montana?” His lip curled at the thought. “Or Grandfather’s Carrara marble sculptures in the Arboretum being carted off by someone who could never appreciate their beauty?”

             
“I didn’t know you felt so strong about it, Malvern,” His mother scrutinized his face. “You haven’t exactly exulted in your new position as the duke.”

             
“Yes, well,” Bron cleared his throat. “I’ve been stricken by an intense wave of patriotism, if not care for how the estate should be handled.”

             
“And if you aren’t going to break the entail, how do you propose to solve our current financial situation? I don’t see it improving in the nearby future without a new source of—pardon my vulgarity—money.”

             
He lowered his eyes then and shook his head with a bitter smile. He looked at his mother. “I’ve met an heiress.”

             
The Duchess of Malvern suddenly appeared as though she were carved from Carrara marble, so still did she sit in her saddle. Her eyes then dropped to the sling cradling his arm.

             
“Don’t tell me this heiress is responsible for that.”

             
“Inadvertently,” He said thinly. “But she would solve both pressing issues—I would have little need to break the entail and break up the estate to replenish the family coffers.”

             
“She would provide you with an heir.”

             
Bron steadied Hera when she reacted once again to his startled grasp of the reins. He nodded sardonically. “That as well.”

             
“I have no love for Americans in spite of their money, and I do not relish the thought of handing over the keys of Bledington to one.” His mother made a moue of distaste. “There must be other options—”

             
“I have no choice,” He said bluntly. “As you said, I am the duke and maintaining Bledington is my responsibility.”

             
His mother looked thoughtful. “I needn’t ask if you’ve made a good impression on the girl. This new breed of American heiresses aren’t as easily led down the church aisle by a title. You need to court them.”

             
Bron snorted in ironic amusement at this—five years ago such a sentiment would have been unheard of so thick on the ground were grasping rich American girls out for a title. But he supposed it must be true, recalling with startling and unsettling clarity Miss Vandewater’s condescending remark about impoverished dukes after her money. He had reacted so badly, he reluctantly admitted, because it pricked his pride. He might be new to his title, but he was the Duke of Malvern, dammit, with the impressive and awe-inspiring Bledington Park as his primary seat. Artists, politicians, royals, and famed beauties passed through its doors, monarchs had slept in its beds, and verses composed to its magnificence. 

             
He glanced through the lime trees planted along Lord Bledington’s Walk to the glimpses of Bledington Park. Its magnificence was a little faded and threadbare, and the Townsends had declined in significance due to a succession of wastrels, but it was his home and his legacy, and he was duty-bound to save it. He smiled sardonically again; courting the American heiress who careened so precipitously into his life would be of little hardship. She was very beautiful and alluring and seemed inclined to like him despite his quick-tempered annoyance. His mother seemed to sense his shift in mood, and nodded, ever in one accord. He tipped his hat to her and they both nudged their horses to continue down the path.

*          *          *

              “Amanda, dear,” said her mother over breakfast, three weeks after the shooting party. “I can’t quite make out the name on this envelope? Do we know of any Melvins?”