My American Duchess (35 page)

M
erry endured her labor in her own inimitable American fashion, from Trent’s point of view. He had the vague idea that British ladies were given laudanum and slept through the whole experience.

The Duchess of Trent, however, had read an article that suggested that laudanum might have ill effects on the child, and refused it.

Instead, she howled and clung to her husband’s hand, and swore at the midwife when the woman suggested it was time for His Grace to leave the room.

Thus, Trent was the first man in his acquaintance to be present for the gory, astonishing experience of childbirth.

To be truthful, he would rather not have been there. But it did mean that he got to hold his son within a minute of his birth.

Trent had accepted the alarming passion he felt for his
wife, but still worried that he wouldn’t be able to muster it for a baby. But he no sooner looked at the annoyed, red face of the seventh duke—who had his nose, poor scrap—and he knew that he would do anything for Thomas, who was named after his wife’s father. Thomas Cedric John Allardyce, the future seventh Duke of Trent. His heartstrings were tied to a little scrap of humanity as tightly as they were to Merry.

He looked up, his heart full, and found her smiling at him.

“He looks just like you, doesn’t he?” she asked softly.

So much joy filled his heart that it felt as if it might crack. He sat down beside her, arranging Thomas so that he could see his mother. Or could see his mother if he cared to open his eyes.

“I love you,” Trent whispered. “God, Merry, I love you so much.”

She reached up, and he leaned down, and their lips met in the middle. It was the sort of kiss that carried a husband and wife through bad times and good times. Or perhaps it was the love they shared that did it.

That love got them through another baby, Fanny, and then a third, Peter. After Fanny learned to walk, she loved nothing more than to pull a small red wagon containing her brother Peter.

No one except Trent understood why his wife laughed so joyously at the sight of her beautiful children trundling about in that shiny red wagon.

It got them through the sad day when Snowdrop died, and all three children were inconsolable. George did his best to comfort them, with help from three butterball-shaped puppies named John, Thomasina, and James, after the next three American presidents. Merry was raising her children to honor both English
and
American traditions.

And finally, Merry and Trent’s deep love was there on the joyful, miraculous day when Lord Cedric Allardyce strolled through the door of the townhouse in Cavendish Square, healthy and hearty, his clear blue eyes set off by skin tanned to the color of dark honey.

He was hand-in-hand with a smiling black-haired young woman whose skin was darker yet, a color that no English lady—no matter how many times she forgot her bonnet—could attain.

But that’s a tale for another day.

A Note about Americans in London

This novel began as a simple story, a novella about an American marrying a British lord. I thought up the plot because I was living in London for a year with my family, running Fordham University’s London program. But Merry and Trent demanded far more space than a piddling hundred pages, especially after the rented pineapple made its appearance.

I discovered that fascinating phenomenon during a tour of the marvelously preserved Georgian townhouse, No. One Royal Crescent, in Bath, England. The museum had set the dining room for an elegant party—and somehow my family and I ended up talking with the docent about why a pineapple sat in the place of honor. After that, I turned myself into a pineapple expert, even attending a
lecture on the history of the Chelsea Physic Garden, the better to learn about pineapple stoves.

If pineapples were rare in 1803, so were American heiresses; the phenomenon of these young ladies marrying into high society actually began around twenty years later. The most famous American duchess is Consuelo Yzagna, who became Duchess of Manchester in 1876. But she was not the first; in 1828, the American heiress Louisa Caton married the heir to the Duke of Leeds. Louisa’s grandfather had signed the Declaration of Independence.

While this novel owes a great deal to the historical sites I visited in England, it is just as indebted to the dear friends I made during the year. Rachel, Cecile, and Jessie tirelessly listened to stories of Merry, lending their stories of culture clashes to my experiences as an American abroad. Thank you, my dears!

Edward Reeve may be the son of a marquis, but he’s more interested in the hurly-burly world of business than the rules of high society. However, when Ward inherits two young half-siblings whom he never knew existed, he realizes they need a governess.

He hires someone from the very best registry, Snowe’s—but quickly discovers that what he really wants is Mrs. Eugenia Snowe herself, a witty, beautiful widow.

Sparks fly as Ward pursues Eugenia with charm and determination, but Eugenia refuses him at every turn. She was married to a man she adored, and in her opinion, nothing could surpass those years of bliss.

But Ward will take any risk to prove Eugenia wrong. He’ll stop at nothing—not even kidnapping—to convince her that they’re meant to be together. He promises her heaven, if she’ll just give him a chance . . .

She’ll give him seven minutes.

Click
here
to buy
Seven Minutes in Heaven
.

W
hile each of my twenty-five novels has fans, one series has proved a particularly enduring favorite: the Essex Sisters quartet. A few years ago, a reader named Jody Gayle proposed an e-book companion volume that would include my introduction to the series, the “extra chapters” I wrote in response to reader requests, and a series of essays exploring Regency fashion, horse racing, and publications.

Over the last two years, I wrote a hundred-page introduction that traces the writing process from my first idea to publication. Then we faced a vexed decision.
Kiss Me, Annabel
exists in two versions; the last two hundred pages of my original draft are sharply different from the published novel. In essence, I had written two novels. We decided to include the original pages in the companion, so you can come to your own conclusion about which
Kiss Me
is your favorite.

Once I was deep in the Essex Sisters world, I wanted to spend time there! The companion also includes a brand-new short story with an appearance by Josie and the Earl of Mayne. And what’s more,
A Gentleman Never Tells
, a full-length novella, will be published in tandem with the companion. Josie and Mayne appear again, this time with their daughter!

If you loved the Essex Sisters novels, I hope you will enjoy diving into the companion. If they’re new to you, all four novels are being reissued by HarperCollins with gorgeous new covers, just in time to accompany the companion.

Following this letter is an excerpt from
A Gentleman Never Tells
, as well as an excerpt from
Much Ado About You
, the first novel in the Essex Sisters quartet. I hope you enjoy them!

With all best wishes to you and yours,

August 13, 1826

Telford Manor

Fontwell, Sussex

“I
would prefer to take supper on a tray.” Lizzie didn’t look up from her book, because meeting her sister’s eyes would only encourage her.

She should have known Catrina wouldn’t back down. “Lizzie Troutt, your husband died over a year ago.”

“Really?” Lizzie murmured, turning a page. “How time flies.” In fact, Adrian had died eighteen months, two weeks, and four days ago.

In his mistress’s bed.

“
Lizzie
,” Cat said ominously, sounding more like an older sister—which she was—with every word, “if
you don’t get out of that bed, I shall drag you out. By your hair!”

Lizzie felt a spark of real annoyance. “You already dragged me to your house for this visit. The least you could do is to allow me to read my book in peace.”

“Ever since you arrived yesterday, all you’ve done is read!” Cat retorted.

“I like reading. And forgive me if I point out that Tolbert is not precisely a hotbed of social activity.” Cat and her husband, Lord Windingham, lived deep in Suffolk, in a dilapidated manor house surrounded by fields of sheep.

“That is precisely why we gather friends for dinner. Lord Dunford-Dale is coming tonight, and I need you to even the numbers. That means getting up, Lizzie. Bathing. Doing your hair. Putting on a gown that hasn’t been dyed black would help, too. You look like a dispirited crow, if you want the truth.”

Lizzie didn’t want the truth. In fact, she felt such a stab of anger that she had to fold her lips tightly together or she would scream at Cat.

It wasn’t her sister’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault except her late husband’s, and he was definitely late—i.e., dead.

“I know you feel ashamed to be in company,” her sister continued, energetically digging her own grave, as far as Lizzie was concerned. “Unfortunately, most people are aware of the circumstances of your marriage, not to mention the fact that Adrian was so imprudent as to die away from home.”

That was one way of putting it.

Imprudent.

“You make it sound as if he dropped a teacup,” Lizzie observed, unable to stop herself. “I would call the fact that Adrian died in the act of tupping Sadie Sprinkle inconsiderate in the extreme.”

“I refuse to allow you to wither away in bed simply because your husband was infatuated with Shady Sadie,” Cat said, using the term by which the gossip rags had referred to Adrian’s mistress. “You must put all that behind you. Sadie has another protector, and you are out of mourning. It’s time to stop hiding.”

“I am not hiding,” Lizzie said, stung. “I take fresh air and moderate exercise every day. I simply like reading in bed. Or in a chair.”

Or anywhere else, to tell the truth. Reading in a peaceful garden was an excellent way to take fresh air.

“Moderate exercise,” her sister said with palpable loathing. “You used to ride every day, for pleasure. We would practice archery on a fine day like this, or roam about the countryside, not sit inside reading.”

“Adrian’s stables were part of the entail, and went to his cousin,” Lizzie said, turning the page. She hadn’t read a word, but she was hoping that a show of indifference would drive her sister from the room.

“Not the mare that Papa gave you when you turned fourteen!” her sister gasped.

Showing masterly control, Lizzie didn’t roll her eyes. “A wife has no true possessions,” she said flatly. “Under the law, they belong to her husband, and Perdita was, therefore, transferred to the heir.”

“Oh, Lizzie,” Cat said, her voice woeful.

“It wasn’t so terrible,” Lizzie said, meaning it. “I went to the auction, and Perdita went to a family with a young girl. I’m certain that she is well cared for and happy.”

“Do you realize that by staying home and wearing black, you give the illusion that you are grieving for your husband?”

Lizzie’s hands tightened around her book. “Do you know what being a widow entails, Cat?”

“Wearing ugly black dresses for the rest of your natural life?”

“It means that I never again need put myself under the control of a man—
any
man. So, no, I have no interest in joining you at dinner. I know perfectly well that Lord Dimble-Dumble has been summoned to audition as my next husband. I don’t want him. I’d be more likely to come to dinner if you had invited the butcher.”

“I couldn’t do that,” Cat said, in a sudden digression. “Mr. Lyddle has developed a most unfortunate addiction to strong ale, and he’s regularly found lying about in the gutter singing, rather than butchering meat.”

“Who does the butchering now?” Lizzie asked, deciding to take a walk to the village and see this interesting musical event herself.

“His wife. My housekeeper says that she can get better cuts at a lower price these days. You’re trying to distract me with talk of singing drunkards,” Cat said, unfairly. “Let’s discuss your future.”

“Let’s not.”

“We might begin with the fact that you were never in love with Adrian.” Cat began walking around the bedchamber, waving her hands as she waxed eloquent about her late brother-in-law’s flaws.

She was preaching to the choir, so Lizzie stopped listening and just watched Cat pacing back and forth. How could it be that her older sister was positively frothing with life and energy and passion, while Lizzie felt like a tired, pale shadow?

Her hand crept toward her book. It wasn’t the most interesting novel in the world, but it had the inexpressible charm of being new.

Over the last eighteen months, Lizzie had read every novel she owned three times over. She would be quickly bankrupted if she bought more than two books a week, so one of the best things about visiting Telford Manor was access to her sister’s library.

Cat appeared to be hopeless at arranging a refurbishment of the manor—which desperately needed it—but she was very good at ordering novels. And clothing. If Lizzie looked like a black crow, Cat was a chic French peacock.

Lizzie raised her knees, surreptitiously propped her book against them, and slipped back in the story of Eveline, a sixteen-year-old girl being forced to marry an old man. She herself had been twenty when she walked down the aisle.

On the shelf.

Beggars can’t be choosers, her father had told her.

Her book suddenly vanished. “No reading!”

Cat was holding the novel above her head, for all the world as if they were children again. Lizzie used to hope that someday she’d grow up to be as commanding as her sister, but she had given up that idea long ago.

It wasn’t just a question of height. Her sister was the type of person who gathered everyone in a room around her, and Lizzie was the type of person whom they walked over on their way to be with Cat.

That sounded resentful, but Lizzie didn’t actually feel bitter. She would hate to be the center of attention. She wound her arms around her knees and propped her chin on them. “Cat, may I have my book back, please? It was a hard journey, and I’m tired.”

“What do you mean, a hard journey? It can’t have been more than a day and a half!”

“My coach is over twenty years old and the springs are worn out. It bounced so hard on the post road that I
couldn’t keep my eyes on the page, and my tailbone still hurts.”

“If your jointure won’t extend to a new vehicle, Joshua or Papa would be happy to buy you a coach.”

Lizzie turned her head, putting her right cheek on her knees, and closed her eyes. “No.”

She heard her sister drop into the chair by the side of the bed. Then she heard a sigh. “Papa is getting old, Lizzie. He made a terrible mistake, and he knows it. He misses you. If you would just pay him a visit . . .”

“No.”

Why would she visit the father who had turned her away when she ran to him in desperation? The father who had known precisely what a disaster her marriage would be, but didn’t bother to warn her?

An hour or so after their wedding ceremony, Adrian had brought Lizzie, still wrapped in her bridal veil, to his mother’s faded, musty house, and informed her that he had no intention of living with her.

Not only that, but he was late to meet his lover for tea.

It had happened almost six years ago, but she could still remember her stupefaction. She’d been such a silly goose.

“But where do you live?” she had stammered.

“I bought Sadie a house, and we live there,” Adrian had said casually. When she frowned in confusion, he had added impatiently, “
Sadie
. Didn’t your father tell you her name?”

“Sadie?”

For the first time—and in her experience, the last time—her husband had been a little defensive, even a trifle ashamed. “I never lied. He knows perfectly well that we will lead separate lives.”

“Perhaps you should explain to me,” Lizzie had said, “because my father unaccountably forgot to mention it. As did you, I might add.”

Adrian had unemotionally laid out the terms of her marriage. It seemed her father had paid a great deal of money to buy his daughter the title of Lady Troutt. For his part, Adrian had wed her for her dowry, and because he needed someone to care for his mother.

“The estate is entailed,” he had told her, glancing around the musty sitting room. “It goes to some distant cousin, along with the title, of course. I told your father that I wouldn’t be averse to trying for a child, once we’ve had time to get used to each other.”

Lizzie had just gaped at him.

“But we can’t bother with that now,” Adrian had told her briskly. “Sadie is upset about this mess, naturally enough. I promised her I’d be home by four. My mother takes her luncheon on a tray. There are a couple of maids, but it would be good if you could bring it in yourself. She complains of being lonely.”

After that, he left.

A few minutes later, Lizzie left as well. She went home.

Only to be sent back to her husband’s house.

There was no point in revisiting her father’s line of reasoning. Suffice it to say that no woman—even one who had abundant sensuality and beauty, which Lizzie did not—was capable of seducing a man who didn’t return to the house for a fortnight.

A man who doesn’t bother to consummate his marriage until he’s suffered a heart seizure and has, as the vulgar might put it, been given notice to quit.

A man who despises his lower-class wife, and never bothers to hide it.