Miracle (4 page)

Guests had begun arriving hours ago: women in low- necked, high-
waisted
satin dresses, attended by white-
stockinged
gentlemen in
ultrafine
dress milled about the grounds sipping milk punch and, no doubt, wagering on the outcome of this entire affair. The duchess, at eighty years of age, and having spent her entire life living under the haughty, aristocratic eye of her own family and peers, knew beyond any doubt what the intrigued group would be discussing.

The bride didn't belong: not with
her
background,
her
lineage, which, if rumor could be believed, made her as nameless as she was penniless.

Ah, but the future bride was beautiful—no one could deny that. The ton could rattle their jewels and waggle their purses all they wanted, but all the shillings in their gilded coffers could not purchase her comeliness and kindness. The girl, with her surreal looks and her unique way of regarding the world without jaundice, had a way of melting the coldest of hearts and the narrowest of minds. The duchess of Salterdon, known for her unbending sense of purpose, could vouch for that. At the duchess's advanced years, one would think that she had learned all there was to know about life and people, about love, death, anger, and betrayal. After all, she had dealt with them all throughout her life. While her world perceived her as dour and stony, with a backbone as rigid as a ship's mast, she had learned over the past weeks to bend—even to weep.

Bah! She was becoming a sentimental old fool; had to be, else she would never have stooped to such a shenanigan in the first place. Must be something in the mind that became a bit crusty when one grew to her age. It somehow inhibited better logic. Turned iron will into jelly. Cold resolve
into . . .
a warm puddle of contrition. Perhaps it was simply an old woman's need to know her grandchildren were happy before she died, that she had not failed in her ability to mold their young minds and souls into what their world would deem as acceptable.

Not that she was terribly worried. Trey, the firstborn and therefore the heir to his father's title, was capable of attaining everything he wanted out of life—and had— several times, before he lost it all in bad investments or gambling or tossed it away on the incorrigible lot of ne'er- do-wells who hung upon his purse like suckling jackals. She loved Trey. How could she not? And while she was hard-pressed to approve of his hedonistic lifestyle and friends, she could not help but blame his parents—and, to a certain extent, herself—for his foolishness and foolhardiness. As heir to the dukedom at only ten years of age, he had never known a moment's uncertainty about his future, while Clayton . . .

The duchess moved to a chair and eased into it. She sat with her back erect, her bejeweled hands lying lightly upon the chair arms, her gaze fixed on the oil portrait on the wall—Clayton Hawthorne.

Clayton was and always had been her favorite. She had recognized it from early on—the differences in the lads— even when their parents had not. While the boys' mother and father had lavished the older son with everything the security of his position provided for him, Clayton had contented himself with his own kind of survival. He had been born with a gift—something that Trey's station in life, his wealth, and his security, could not buy him: honor, self- respect, and ambition. A great deal of ambition.

Clayton had established himself as one of the wealthiest men in England. He'd amassed enough land and estates to feed and house a good portion of five counties. He had a mind thirsty for knowledge and a heart achingly gentle enough to worship even the lowliest of creatures. While

Trey reveled in society's often corrupt and jaded world, Clayton shunned it. He chose, instead, to fill his few idle hours with nature. He craved the sun on his face, became intoxicated by the smell of dirt on his hands. Undoubtedly, Clayton Wyatt Bishop Hawthorne, Lord Basingstoke, marched to the beat of a different drummer.

Therein lay his problem—and hers.

While there wasn't a woman in England or any other country who would not have swooned with the mere thought of marrying the somewhat unconventional young lord—many having contrived all kinds of ploys to win him—none had managed it. Certainly, there had been sweethearts and mistresses aplenty, but none had lasted overly long. The moment their eyes had become starry with the prospect of luring him into matrimony, he had bid them a fond farewell and sauntered off into the sunset. When the duchess had time and again called him on the carpet about it, demanding to know what, exactly, he was doing to guarantee the perpetuation of the Hawthorne name, he had responded with that typically arrogant shrug of his shoulders and lopsided smile. "I assure you, grandmother, you can feel confident that I am hardly the laggard concerning the pleasurable act of procreation. However, concerning my refusal to marry so far, I will tell you again what I've told you repeatedly: I have yet to meet a woman who was not predictable, boring, vain, vapid, and a money-hungry she-devil with the personality of oatmeal. It will be a cold day in hell before I allow some eyelash- fluttering vulture with an overly voracious appetite for bonbons and Parisian couturiers to ride on the coattails of my success." Then he had added with a flourishing bow that was as impertinent as it was respectful, "I don't intend to pluck up just any little mouse to marry, darling, so don't bother feigning another one of your heart spells. You're healthy as a bloody mule and will undoubtedly outlive us all, much to Trey's consternation. If you're so hell-bent on seeing one of us married before you die, then you should direct your interest toward him. He, after all, is the firstborn—the duke of Salterdon. I, madam, am simply a lowly farmer."

Farmer indeed.

A door opened. She tensed and gripped the chair arms fiercely. The door slammed, rocking the windows. Turning her head, she watched through the glass as one of her grandsons stormed across the lawn, scattering servants and flocks of peacocks in his angry march toward the distant stables. Guests paused in their promenades and, with their heads together, no doubt debated in whispers if this tantrum were only a hint of the no doubt scandalous trouble that was about to erupt around them.

"Idiots," the duchess grumbled under her breath and wondered, much to her perplexity, which of her grandsons it was striding out across the lawns, white shirt molded to his body by the breeze, his hair a wild array of dark curls. Of course it was Clayton. Trey wouldn't be caught dead in polite company garbed in such a disreputable fashion.

Behind her, a door opened and quietly closed. Footsteps, then a man moved into her line of vision. Tall, elegantly dressed in his finest black tailcoat with its rolled collar of black velvet, the duke of Salterdon was breath
takingly
handsome—and arrogant and infuriatingly aloof—a dignified mirror image of the recalcitrant buck stalking off into the distance. Often, throughout the years she had raised the intractable pair, the dowager duchess had pondered on the idea that, had each brother inherited a few positive traits from the other, they might have turned out to be perfect gentlemen . . . thoroughly decent human beings . . . quintessential examples of what God had intended for the aristocracy.

Salterdon walked to the window and, like the duchess, regarded his brother's exodus across the gardens.

"I fear I touched a nerve," he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his black trousers.

"Are you surprised?" she replied.

"I thought he might take it better."

"Would you?"

At last, the duke turned to face her. His eyes, as usual, reminded her of cold steel, even as one corner of his mouth turned up in a smug grin. "He dropped the gauntlet, you know. Flung it at my feet. Demanded that we meet at dawn so he could at last have done with my 'bastardly tendencies.' I told him to name his second."

"Poppycock." The duchess drummed her fingers on the chair. "He'll marry her, of course. No reason not to."

"Certainly there is. To spite you, of course. You know Clay has prided himself on avoiding your obvious attempts to manipulate him—much better than I have, I confess—or I wouldn't be in this predicament now. I'm certain he feels quite scalded to discover you've gulled him at last."

Directing her gaze back to the portrait on the wall, the duchess pursed her lips.

Salterdon moved to her side, leaned upon her chair, and lowered his lips to her ear as he whispered, "My darling grandmother, we both know that Clay's the master of the counter blow—"

"He loves her!" the duchess barked.

"How better to gall you than to humiliate you in front of your guests—all of whom are waiting for the sky to open and hail consequences on your beautiful, noble, and devious head."

Turning her gaze back to her grandson's, the duchess raised one lofty eyebrow. "I should speak cautiously, Your Grace. With one swipe of my pen, you could find yourself penniless . . .again."

They exchanged flat smiles before Salterdon moved to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink. "He'll go through with it," he said thoughtfully. "He'd be a fool not to. After all, the lass is quite . . . extraordinary."

"Is that a note of wistfulness I hear in your tone?"

"Perhaps."

The duchess looked back over her shoulder at him. Their eyes met.

Setting down his drink, Salterdon said, "You have that guileful glint in your eye again, grandmother. I'm not certain I like it."

"If Clayton, that foolish boy, won't go through with it—"

"Surely you're not suggesting—"

"No one will ever be the wiser."

"Except her. The moment she suspects—"

"It'll be too late. She'll be married to the duke of Salterdon. What woman wouldn't warm, eventually, to the idea of someday becoming a duchess? Of inheriting everything I own?"

"Obviously, you don't know Lady Cavendish as well as you think."

"She's a woman, isn't she? Beneath that inculpable veneer is a fox no less eager to experience the rewards and amenities in life than the rest of us. Besides, I'll make it well worth your effort."

"Well worth?"

She nodded.

"I wasn't aware that having great-grandchildren meant so much to you," the duke said.

"I shall bounce the
bairn
on my knee before I die. I want to mollycoddle him. Indulge him. Cater to his every desire."

For an instant, humor lit the depths of Salterdon's gray eyes, and he threw back his handsome head in laughter. "My darling grandmother, you never mollycoddled us, nor catered to our every whim. In truth, had we ever been treated to anything other than your strict obedience to aristocratic norms, we might have turned out to be passably decent human beings."

"My reasons for coddling the children are hardly estimable, my impertinent and disrespectful young pup. I simply wish to raise them in a way that you—as their parent—will be forced to deal with their
militantness
, as I have had to deal with yours for the last twenty years. Now, tell me, how would you really feel married to the girl?"

Salterdon
stared down into his port, a smile still on his lips.

"That's what I thought," the duchess declared. She pushed up from her chair, straightened the velvet sleeves on her tunic, then patted the plaited coil of gray hair that was wrapped around the back of her head. "The wedding will take place three days from now, with or without—"

"A bride," came the unexpected, breathless voice from the door.

The dowager duchess, as well as the duke, turned abruptly toward the intruder. Clayton Hawthorne stood in the threshold, long, black-clad legs planted firmly apart, his hands fisted at his sides. His lace-up, finely sewn shirt of India cotton lay open over his brown chest, and his shoulders were dusted with hay particles as was his mass of dark hair. He breathed heavily. Hot color suffused his high, sun-kissed cheeks as he regarded them both with eyes the color of hot ash.