My American Duchess (18 page)

A chorus of gasps was heard. Trent glanced at Merry, whose face had gone utterly blank. Surely she realized he was fabricating all this for her sake.

“I am honored!” Mrs. Bennett exclaimed.

“Please do tell us more about your musings, Your Grace!” a woman standing beside her asked.

“I cannot share my thoughts, as I have not been able to make my address,” Trent said gravely. “To this moment, I have no idea whether the lady in question will agree to become my duchess or no. But it was at your dinner, Mrs. Bennett, that I became conscious of the truth of my heart.”

More twittering.

A glance at Merry showed that she was now struggling to hold back a giggle. At least one person realized he wasn’t the sort to muse about passion.

“I feel certain that you will be able to persuade the lady,” Mrs. Bennett said eagerly. “Perhaps I—”

He interrupted her. “Had I remained at your table, my dear Mrs. Bennett, I trust that I could have steered your guests away from devouring the centerpiece. I know that
my
housekeeper would be quite dismayed, Miss Pelford, if you grazed on her elaborate displays.”

“Graze?” Merry repeated, picking up his cue like an experienced actress. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace! Cows
graze
; ladies such as myself do not.”

“I hope the bovine association did not insult you.”

“I am not cross,” she said piously. “Only hurt.” She heaved a dramatic sigh.

“My butler has rented many a pineapple,” Trent said, untruthfully. “I shall warn him about your penchant for the fruit before you dine in Cavendish Square.”

His butler would sink with mortification at the suggestion that the ducal household had ever rented an item of food—or anything else—but, alas, the household reputa
tion had to be sacrificed at the altar of Mrs. Bennett’s redemption.

“I know you Americans think that lemonade is an insipid beverage,” Trent concluded. “Yet I must entreat you not to strip our hostess’s trees. The Chelsea Physic Garden will surely wish them returned with their fruit intact.”

He cleared his throat and glanced about. “It must be time for the supper dance.” The crowd watching them obligingly melted away.

Two ladies pounced on Mrs. Bennett and drew her away, chatting animatedly. He assumed they would spend the rest of the night going over the marriageable damsels on her invitation list. In his estimation, the lady’s reputation would not die, but blossom.

He turned to Merry.

T
he duke had saved her—or rather, he had saved Mrs. Bennett.

For a moment Merry felt nothing but happy relief. But a second later, her spirits crashed as she remembered Cedric’s petty, cruel behavior. She would never have believed him capable of such abhorrent conduct.

Mrs. Bennett had done no more than put on a dinner party in Cedric’s own honor, and he had mocked her. How could she possibly have misjudged yet another man so badly? She was an idiot, a perfect idiot.

Language that no lady should even know, much less utter, ran through her head.

“The performance is over,” said a deep voice at her side.

She looked up at the duke. Her head felt hot and sick, as if a fever was coming on. “I should apologize for being so rude to your brother, but I will not,” she said fiercely. “I
know my reputation is ruined, and I’ve effectively broken off a third engagement, but I don’t care.”

“I don’t believe your reputation is entirely ruined,” he replied, looking unconcerned. “But another public scene might prove the coup de grâce.” He took her arm and guided her through the lemon grove to a secluded bit of space between the trees and the wall. On the other side, the ball carried on without them.

“It’s not as if I have to give him his ring,” Merry burst out. “I can just give it to you, since it is yours!” She began to tug off her long glove, but the duke put his hand on hers.

“Tomorrow.”

“I must find my aunt,” Merry said, giving up the battle of the ring. “Maybe I can persuade her to arrange passage for us on a ship leaving immediately.”

“No, you won’t,” the duke replied.

Merry scarcely heard him. “I shall never come back. The way everyone laughed at poor Mrs. Bennett was despicable.”

Although they were isolated from the ballroom by a screen of trees, she imagined the dancers colliding as they tried to get a look at the two of them, when they should have been minding their steps.

She had no illusions about her status as a spectacle; Miss Merry Pelford and her American ways would be the subject of conversation for years. She’d let down herself
and
her nation.

“I must go,” Merry said. She was shattered. “My aunt will hear the gossip in a moment, if she hasn’t already.”

“My brother was drunk,” the duke said.

Merry turned to face him. His Grace was leaning against the wall next to her, with that careless look he had sometimes, as if he were indifferent to how those around him felt. And yet he had been the only person other than herself to come to Mrs. Bennett’s defense.

“Drunk?” she repeated, frowning at him.

“Three sheets to the wind. Possibly four sheets. Typically, Cedric waits until he arrives home before he permits himself to become quite so inebriated.”

“If you are making an excuse for him, it won’t wash,” Merry said bluntly.

The duke shrugged. “All I am saying, Miss Pelford, is that when my brother is that deep in drink, he’ll say anything for a laugh.”

“I noticed no signs of intoxication.” Weren’t drunken men supposed to stagger and slur their words? All the same, the certainty she’d felt about Cedric’s temperance was no longer unshakable.

“Did he bring you canary wine tonight? I assure you that Cedric was not holding a glass of lemonade.”

“You’re saying that he drinks to excess, even here, but displays no obvious sign of it?”

“I tried to warn you.”

That was true, and she’d dismissed his attempt as the lies of a jealous brother. Lady Portmeadow’s ball might as well have been a century ago, so much had happened since.

Merry stared at the glossy leaves of the lemon tree in front of her, trying to think it through. There had been an odd agitation about Cedric, a raw eagerness that she hadn’t liked.

“But we danced, and he didn’t stagger,” she said, offering the one indication of drunkenness that she knew of.

“Cedric staggers only when he’s into a second bottle of brandy.”

“Second bottle,” she said faintly. “You didn’t say—I didn’t understand.”

“Few people do.”

His expression was so dispassionate that he could have been discussing the weather. Merry scowled at him. “Why
haven’t you done something? You’re his brother. He was
cruel
to Mrs. Bennett.”

“You raise an interesting question. What can I do for my brother? Hide the brandy? I’ve done that already. Cedric shows no desire to limit his drinking, and believe me, he is well aware of my feelings on the subject.”

She lapsed into silence again. He was right. Cedric was an adult. “Does this occur with regularity?”

“Cedric began drinking more and more after our parents died,” the duke said, as casually as if they were talking about a penchant for something as innocuous as collecting rare books. “After a few embarrassing episodes, he more or less learned how to control his conduct in public—although he didn’t succeed tonight.”

“I have appalling taste in men,” Merry said under her breath.

“It does seem that way,” the duke agreed. He was a deeply annoying man, because one moment his blue eyes were chilly, and the next they were so warm that a person—even one like herself, in the depths of despair—wanted to smile.

“I shall leave this ball in even more disgrace than I left Mrs. Bennett’s house last night,” Merry said gloomily. “I might as well get it over with.”

They emerged from the partial seclusion of the trees and started walking the length of the ballroom.

In the back of her mind, she was thinking about the fact that the duke had apparently decided on a bride—or had he? She was desperate to ask whether he had invented his revelation merely to provoke the crowd’s curiosity . . . but she couldn’t think how to phrase such a question.

Surely he wasn’t speaking of Lady Caroline.

Merry couldn’t delude herself about the streak of pure,
blind jealousy she felt in response to that idea. She was the biggest fool in the world. Who goes straight from being besotted by one man to being infatuated by his brother?

The duke may have been Cedric’s twin, but everything about him was darker. They talked differently; they moved differently. Cedric was supple and graceful, his steps in the quadrille a thing of beauty. He twirled and whirled, and other dancers stepped aside to watch him.

She’d never seen the duke waltz, but she would guess that he would hold a lady at arm’s length and lead her around the floor briskly, as if he couldn’t wait for the music to end. She couldn’t imagine him giving a final flourish as he bowed, or spinning his partner one last time as the music faded.

They reached the great doors leading from the ballroom without encountering her aunt or uncle. If she had had any doubts about how fast gossip could spread, the fact that every person in the ballroom turned to watch the two of them walk the length of the room would have dispelled that.

“I have to leave,” she hissed. “I can’t walk through the reception rooms looking for my aunt. This is intolerable.”

The duke nodded, drawing her down the corridor until he opened a door and whisked her through it, closing it behind them.

The chamber they found themselves in was quite dark, save for what little light was emitted by a fire burning low in the hearth; Lady Vereker had no doubt left the lamps unlit in an effort to discourage her more adventuresome guests from straying into the private chambers.

Once her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Merry was able to make out book-lined walls, a large table in the center, and a great many comfortably padded armchairs arranged in clusters.

The duke glanced down at her. “I’ll leave you here, and look for your aunt and uncle myself, Merry.”

“I can’t believe that I’ve done it again,” Merry whispered, her voice catching. “There’s my third betrothal gone. I’m such a fool.”

The duke sat down on a large leather chair and then, before she could react, pulled her into his lap.

“Your Grace!”

“Hush,” he replied, and eased her against his chest. It was very large and comforting chest. She laid her cheek against his shoulder, even though it was monstrously improper.

“Do you think something is wrong with me?” she asked. “Never mind, that was an absurd question.”

“You would have been the salvation of Cedric,” His Grace said, running his hand comfortingly down her back.

“I very much doubt that,” Merry said. “He made it quite clear that he had no respect for me.” She tugged off a glove and used it to wipe away a tear. The duke’s hand paused for a moment and then resumed a slow caress.

“I have effectively purchased proposals from two fiancés,” Merry said, wiping another tear. “It’s so
humiliating
.”

More tears pressed on the back of her throat so she removed her other glove, concentrating on the task so that she’d stop crying.

“I know he didn’t show to his best advantage tonight,” the duke said, “but my brother is capable of great generosity. He did spur the building of the charity hospital.”

“Don’t even dream of trying to persuade me to take him back!” Merry cried. “I shall return to Boston, and I shall never marry, because I have no aptitude for choosing a husband.”

“You shall marry,” the duke said with calm certainty. He pressed a large linen handkerchief into her hand.

“You are that sort of man,” she said damply.

“A marrying man?”

“The sort who always has a handkerchief when one is needed,” she explained, pressing it against her eyes. “My first fiancé, Bertie, was the same.”

“Oh God,” the duke groaned.

“What?”

“You’re not one of those women who always harp on about their previous husbands, are you?”

“I haven’t had any husbands!” Merry objected.

“You know what I mean.” Then, putting on a Cockney accent, “Mr. Watson, he were my first, he were such a good man to me, he were, always took me to the panto at Christmas. Terrible short-tempered, though.”

Merry gave a little hiccup of laughter. Who would have guessed that the Duke of Trent had it in him to sound like a flower seller from the East End?

The duke settled her more securely against his shoulder. She ought to find her aunt. She didn’t move; instead, she just lay against him, thinking about starched linen and wintergreen soap.

“Then there was my second, that would be Mr. Tucker,” the duke said, in a cheery falsetto. “He was all very well in his way, but short with money. Poor as a church mouse, really.”

“I have George,” Merry said, running her finger around one of the duke’s buttons. It wasn’t brass, or inlaid. It was just plain black. “In time I will forget all of my fiancés.”

“The first three, anyway.”

Merry managed a weak smile. “If you would be so kind, I think it’d be best if you found my aunt now.”

Trent knew very well that he should be feeling sympathy, and not lust.

But lust it was.

He had Merry on his lap, and she was a lapful of soft curves. She felt wonderful, and she smelled wonderful, and what’s more, she was no longer betrothed, and thus was free to be kissed.

Naturally, she felt wounded and distraught; she would need time to recover. He could wait. If she hadn’t just gone through a despicable scene with his twin, he would have kissed her so ferociously that she’d have no uncertainty as regards her future.

“You will marry,” he assured her again, giving in to impulse and pulling her so close that his chin rested on a cloud of fragrant hair. “I’m glad you haven’t stuck a bunch of plumes on top of your head. I couldn’t hold you.”

“You shouldn’t be holding me like this.” But she didn’t pull away. “I shall not marry, because I fall in and out of love at the drop of a hat. The truth is that I have a shallow soul.”

“I don’t think you’re shallow.” He could just hear the faint hum of well-bred voices coming from beyond the library’s thick door.

“I am wildly in love at the start. And then the truth grows on me that it’s not love at all, and in fact, I don’t even
like
my fiancés very much. If I am completely honest, I’ve known how I felt about Cedric for some time.”

“You’re proving the point I made at the dinner party,” Trent said with satisfaction. “Marriage should never be arranged on the basis of emotion. It’s a highly unreliable gauge of a potential spouse’s worthiness.”

“Do you agree with Lady Caroline, then, that marriages should be a matter of bloodlines, as if one were breeding rabbits?”

“Where do rabbits come into it?” Trent inquired.

“One of my cousins, the summer when we were both nine, decided to breed a brown rabbit.”

“Why on earth? Brownish rabbits are exceedingly common.”

“He wanted to make his own, using a white rabbit and a black rabbit. He got the idea because his father breeds racehorses.”

“Did it work?”

“Not exactly, but after a few generations if you stood a fair distance away and squinted, the babies almost looked brown.”

Trent decided that he
would
kiss Merry, and be damned to the whole idea of giving her time to recover. He could be respectful. Gentle.

“Why are we discussing brown rabbits?” he asked.

“Lady Caroline thinks of marriage as if it were as logical as pairing rabbits by the color of their fur.”

“In that case, she’s attracted to my fur. She informed me earlier that she was giving me the supper dance and I had the distinct impression that she would announce our betrothal if I were fool enough to show up for that dance.”

“You might want to avoid being as kind to her as you are being to me,” Merry said, nodding. “She told me that the two of you were ideally suited.”

“No one will ever trap me into marriage,” he replied calmly. “That’s one good thing about being a duke. I don’t give a damn what anyone says; I’ll not marry a woman merely to satisfy society’s dictates, any more than I would marry for love, if I were to feel that emotion.”

Merry twisted to look up at him. “We should not be even in private together. Your future bride would not be pleased. But just so you know, Your Grace, I would never make any assumptions on the basis of your kindness.” She lapsed back against him and resumed tracing circles with her finger.