My American Duchess (16 page)

“But Lady Caroline made it sound as if Cedric had received money in return for his proposal,” Merry said. “She was only referring to the dowry, then?”

To her alarm, Bess hesitated.

“No,” Merry breathed.

“It isn’t the way it sounds,” her aunt said hastily. “Not a penny of your fortune has gone to your fiancé, and none shall until you’re fast married.”

“Then?”

“Your uncle did pay some of Lord Cedric’s bills.”

“Bills? What bills?”

“Oh, merely some accounts at the tailor’s and so on.” Bess waved her hand dismissively. “So that the two of you can begin married life with a clean slate.”

“How much money did Cedric owe?”

“As to that, I really couldn’t say. If your uncle wishes to make you a wedding present, he is well within his rights to do so.”

“The debts must have been quite substantial if everyone knows that they have been paid.” Merry straightened, and asked fiercely, “When exactly did Uncle Thaddeus pay those bills? Was it a condition of my betrothal?”

“Oh, goodness, no!” her aunt cried. “Never think that, my dear. Your uncle found out a week or so ago that Lord Cedric had a couple of annoyingly persistent creditors. He paid the debts and gave his lordship some sound advice about not going into arrears.”

That sounded like her uncle: generous to a fault, though prone to giving advice where it might not be welcomed.

In Boston, one did not order French gowns unless the
money was readily available to pay the dressmaker. Cedric, it seemed, took a more cavalier attitude toward balancing his accounts.

“I’m certain it was a trifling amount,” her aunt concluded.

“You don’t think that I’ve once again betrothed myself to a man with no money?” Merry asked. She had a sinking feeling.

Bess shook her head firmly. “Your uncle made certain of that. Lord Cedric is not penniless. Though he does not currently live there, he owns a house in Berkeley Square, which is an excellent address. He has an income inherited from his mother. Your uncle wished to make the gesture of settling some minor debts, and I approve of it.”

The gentlemen had only just left their port when she and her aunt made their farewells, so Merry had done no more than nod and smile at Cedric. By now he would have learned about the pineapple fiasco, in fact, probably the moment the front door closed behind them.

Lady Caroline, if no one else, would detail every faux pas Merry made that evening, undoubtedly while announcing that the finger bowls were at risk.

Never mind what her aunt thought; her third betrothal was clearly in its death throes.

Their carriage became caught behind some farm wagons, and after a while Bess slumped into the corner and went to sleep.

Merry remained bolt upright, thinking about Cedric.

The problem was that her mind kept snapping back to the way the duke had looked at her when they encountered each other upstairs.

He had almost kissed her. But that didn’t mean she had the option of marrying him.

No man would ever marry a woman who was once be
trothed to his brother. And no duke would marry someone like her. Not only was she American, but her reputation was already damaged; imagine what would happen if she discarded yet another fiancé.

She had only two choices.

She could marry Cedric, or she could jilt him and return to Boston.

T
hat night Merry dreamed that the pineapple turned into a golden egg sitting on the table of an ogress who shouted “Fe, Fi, Fo, and Fum!” and threatened to grind her bones into a loaf of bread unless she turned the egg into an omelet. She woke up with an echo of that furious ogress in her ears.

George had hopped off the bed and was dancing around the feet of her maid, wagging his tail.

Lucy was at the window. “You must rise, miss,” she said, struggling to pull back the heavy velvet drapes. “Your aunt is making such a fuss as you wouldn’t believe. She sent a footman out for a peenacle and when he came back without one, she was not happy. Luckily, he finally managed to find two.”

“Not ‘peenacle,’
pineapple
,” Merry said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

“That’s right, pineapple. You’d think they was made out of gold. They’re that dear.”

“So I understand,” Merry said with a sigh. George danced back over to her and rolled onto his back.

“The boy’s waiting out in the hallway for the puppy.”

“Where’s Snowdrop?”

“Mr. Pelford took her for a drive. That dog is a terrible flirt. She’s even trying to make up to Mr. Jenkins!”

Lucy liked Snowdrop, but she had not succumbed to George’s charm, probably because Jenkins was always on the alert for an impending accident. The household always took its tone from the butler.

Merry pulled on her wrapper, opened the door, and handed over the wriggling puppy.

“Your uncle is less than pleased that both pineapples were delivered to someone’s house, given how much they cost, but the missus said they were by way of apology.” Lucy’s eyes were gleaming with curiosity.

There was no need to keep it a secret; Merry supposed that the better part of fashionable London was aware of her faux pas by now. “Last night, at Mrs. Bennett’s house, I asked a footman for a slice of pineapple.”

Her maid’s eyes widened. “Are they poisonous?”

“Not at all; they’re delicious. The problem was that Mrs. Bennett had rented the pineapple. It was temporarily decorating the table on its way to another dinner party.”

Merry wasn’t the only one who hadn’t heard of rented food. Lucy just kept repeating, “Why, I never.”

As she waited for her bath to be filled, Merry added “Avoid Lady Caroline” to her etiquette list, and underlined it for emphasis. Just below it, she wrote, “Avoid pineapples.”

She kept thinking about those new rules while she soaked in the tub. They weren’t precisely matters of etiquette. They could be termed guidelines for survival.

All the same, she was losing faith in her list. She was exhausted by the pursuit of perfection. Miss Fairfax had probably been right: she wasn’t capable of cultivation of mind.

The truth was that Cedric didn’t want someone like her for a wife. If they married, she would be chipped into little pieces by his disapproval before their first anniversary.

She had to return the ring Cedric didn’t buy her. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought—but it didn’t crack. If anything, she felt relieved.

Recognition of her own fickle nature caused the most painful wrench in her heart. Twice before, she’d concluded that she could not bring herself to marry a man after solemnly promising to do so.

And now she had reached that conclusion a
third
time?

Maybe she was heartless and unable to truly love.

Or perhaps she was incapable of loving one man for her entire life. She had truly believed that she was in love with Bertie. She had loved his enthusiasm, and the way he called her his “best girl.” And then she’d swooned over Dermot’s golden hair, the same as all the girls had. And then Cedric . . .

Yet in every case, she had discovered later that she didn’t really like, let alone love, her future spouse.

Not for the first time, she felt an aching wish for the mother she’d never known. Bess and Thaddeus were very dear, but they weren’t the same as parents.

Maybe that was the problem. She had a coldness in her heart from being orphaned. But it sounded like an excuse, the kind of thing a fickle woman would tell herself in order to soothe her guilty conscience.

She couldn’t stay in the bath forever, and in any case, the water had grown cold. It was time to get dressed and face the day.

She wouldn’t be surprised if she were about to get those callers her aunt had missed—though now they would come for the wrong reasons.

Just in case, she dressed for a jury of her peers, putting on a blush-colored morning gown copied from a Parisian fashion plate. After the debacle of her first broken engagement, she had discovered that French fashion was a great help in assuaging anguish.

The gown was styled for morning wear, but it was silk rather than the usual muslin, and it fell gracefully from its high waist and swirled a little at her ankles. But the
coup d’éclat
were the matching shoes. They were made of pink kid, slashed to reveal stripes of the same glossy silk as her gown.

Not only were they exquisite, but they had heels. She fancied that her bosom looked a bit more in proportion when she wore them.

Merry stared at the glass and felt more like herself than she had in a month. Last night she’d lost her temper, but all the same, she had drawn a line in the sand.

In Boston and New York, people
liked
her. They considered her reasonably witty and kind, and not unattractive.

But in London . . .

English polite society determined one’s worth by criteria at which Merry would never excel. Her awkward manners and frizzled hair all seemed of a piece, somehow. Right then and there, she made up her mind that there would be no more curling irons. Her natural curls would have to do.

Once downstairs, it appeared at first that her pink shoes had been donned in vain. Uncle Thaddeus informed her that they would accept no callers because the excitement of the morning—the initial inability to find a pineapple followed by the footman’s successful acquisition of two—had sent Bess back to her bed with a sick headache.

After her uncle left for his club, Merry informed Jenkins that she was “at home” for Lord Cedric Allardyce.

Uncle Thaddeus would not approve of Merry’s entertaining her fiancé without a chaperone. But unlike Bertie, who would have toppled her onto a sofa in five minutes, Cedric would never take advantage of the opportunity. And it was essential that they talk.

She felt much better after playing with George in the back garden. Cedric might not think she was perfect, but George made it clear that
he
thought she was absolutely splendid.

When they returned to the drawing room, she sat down at the escritoire and George slumped onto his stomach, put his head on her shoes, and fell asleep.

For a while, Merry just stared through the window at Portman Square. Cedric would presumably pay her a call soon. If he didn’t, she’d have to summon him. Her throat felt as if it would close, thinking of the conversation that lay ahead of her.

She just kept telling herself that Cedric didn’t want her. It wouldn’t be like Bertie, whose eyes had filled with tears. Or Dermot, who had spat out his intent to sue her, and had done just that. Cedric would be happy to see the back of her.

Finally, she forced herself to take out the design for a new garden at her uncle’s summer house that she had put to the side with the excitement of coming to London. She wanted blossoms to cascade down the hill in front of the gazebo constructed the summer before.

That was one happy aspect of breaking her third betrothal: she could create the new garden. She could watch her apricot tree mature. Maybe she’d even acquire one of those pineapple stoves, whatever they were, and bring it back with her.

At precisely eleven o’clock, carriages began to roll up in front of the house. Grooms rushed from carriage after carriage, calling cards in hand; the front door opened and shut repeatedly as Jenkins politely turned them all away.

When Merry finally heard the noise of Jenkins actually ushering someone into the house, she sprang from her desk. She was shaking, but desperate to get it over with.

Her fingers curled around the back of a chair as she told herself that she could work on her uncle’s gardens for the rest of her life. She had no need of a husband. Her hand closed so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

She was almost certain that she would have no need to say a word. Cedric was surely devastated by her last, largest gaffe. As a gentleman, he could not call off the engagement, but they could dissolve the betrothal with only a few words.

As Cedric walked through the door, she swallowed hard. Should she open the subject? Would he say something?

No sooner had Jenkins tucked George under his arm and left, than Cedric stopped, flung out an arm, and demanded, “Am I a connoisseur of the best the civilized world has to offer, or am I not?”

Merry’s heart skipped. “I beg your pardon?”

He strode toward her, fell back a step, and swept her a magnificent bow. “‘Oh nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered!’”

“
What?
” Merry cried.

He straightened and said with a shrug, “The analogy doesn’t quite work, but that’s no matter.”

“What is an ‘orison’?”

“An eye. No, no, what am I saying? A
prayer
.” He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips, his eyes holding hers captive. “You have the power to forgive my sins.”

“I have what?”

“Merry, you are not simply in fashion,” Cedric cried. “At the moment you
are
the fashion!”

She felt as if the world was reeling around her. “Why? Surely not because I ate Mrs. Bennett’s pineapple?”

“Precisely!” His smile was toothy . . . triumphant. “I will not pretend that I haven’t had moments in which I doubted my judgment, fearful that you would not join me at the pinnacle of society. Moments when I wondered whether the role of Lady Cedric Allardyce might prove overtaxing for an American.”

Merry sank into the chair she’d been clinging to.

He took the chair next to hers, and angled it so that their knees brushed. “You have pointed up the empty pretentiousness of households such as Mrs. Bennett’s. I am shocked to think that I accepted her invitation.”

Cedric didn’t seem to notice that Merry had been struck dumb. “Last night you conducted yourself as befits the wife of a duke’s son.
Everyone
is talking about it. Prinny himself—the Prince of Wales—congratulated me on finding a wife with such a clear sense of propriety, not to mention the ability to give a withering set-down that rivals Brummell’s. He particularly enjoyed your comment about a ‘pilfered pineapple.’”

“What? I said nothing of the sort!” Merry cried, finding her voice.

“Unimportant,” Cedric declared, waving his hand in the air. “Everyone is saying you did. The story of your victory is circulating all over town.”

“I thought you would be angry with me.”

“One mustn’t always rigidly adhere to rules,” Cedric announced. “We leave that to the lower classes.”

That was not what he, or anyone else, had intimated to
Merry before today. Her heart was beating so fast that she felt ill.

“With one small gesture, asking for a slice of pineapple—the
rented
pineapple—you revealed the true colors of Mrs. Bennett’s shabby gentility.” Cedric sprang from the chair and crossed the room in order to straighten his neck cloth in the Venetian mirror. “The woman pushed her way into the highest circles by means of that hospital committee, but believe me, no one will fall for her pretenses again.”

“Is everyone speaking of Mrs. Bennett in such terms?” Merry’s stomach clenched.

Cedric turned back to her. “I shall be most interested to see her reception at the Vereker ball tonight.
If
she dares to attend. In the future, I intend to demand a slice of pineapple whenever I see the fruit on a dining table. Those airing an empty pretentiousness that merely gestures at our ranks must be put in their places.”

“Oh no,” Merry cried. “I would never want Mrs. Bennett’s reputation to suffer through my ignorance.”

“She brought it on herself.” Cedric paused. “The five pineapples delivered to her house this morning might have been a touch heavy-handed. One must avoid vulgar display even in service of a well-deserved snub.”

“My aunt didn’t mean it as a snub,” Merry gasped. “She sent the pineapples to Mrs. Bennett with her most sincere apologies, and there were only two.”

Cedric laughed. “Brilliant! From the mouths of babes, et cetera.” He waved his hand again. “On that same subject, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised when my brother actually behaved like a man of his rank and left Mrs. Bennett’s table after being roundly insulted by his hostess. I would have expected him to lounge at the bottom of the room and demand a mug of ale.”

Merry came to her feet. “I cannot allow Mrs. Bennett to suffer from my foolish error!”

“It was
her
foolish error. She placed a duke below the salt, and she boasted of pineapples that weren’t hers. Now she’s a pineapple pariah.” He laughed. “‘Pineapple pariah.’ I amuse myself.”

“But Cedric—”

“Admitting no callers this morning was also a brilliant stratagem. All of London will be desperately attempting to befriend you at the ball tonight.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “You must utter another such riposte. Perhaps I shall steer Algernon Webbling in your direction. He has that hilarious stammer. Alas, I regret I must be off, but I am certain that some clever bon mot will come to you. You might plan it this afternoon.”

“No, don’t go,” Merry cried, catching his sleeve, though she dropped it instantly when Cedric glanced at her hand. “We must talk.”

“I am due at my tailor’s thirty minutes hence,” he said. “I ordered a new coat for the ball.”

Merry couldn’t think straight. She had to figure out a way to make amends for her insult to Mrs. Bennett. And there was the matter of their betrothal to discuss. “Could you possibly delay the trip to your tailor?”

“Alas, no,” Cedric said firmly. “My coat was ready yesterday, but brass buttons have become entirely too common. As you might have noticed, even Kestril was wearing them last night, and he is no more than a country bumpkin. I told my tailor that he had to swap the buttons or I wouldn’t pay a ha’penny for the coat.”