My Dear Duchess (17 page)

Chuffy shook him off and held up his chubby hand. “Now, look here, gentleman. Have you ever seen a man of quality undress?” And without waiting for a reply, he started to calmly divest himself of his boots which he threw to the crowd. Frederica thought Chuffy had gone made… as did their tormenters. “Three cheers for the fat ’un,” roared the leader. “This is better ’n Bartholomew Fair!”

Surrounded by the grinning faces, Chuffy solemnly removed his silk jacket next and threw it down while the ruffians scrabbled and fought over it like dogs. Then he held up his diamond stick pin so that it winked in the light of the flaring, smoking torches. They watched it as if hypnotised and then Chuffy swung it high above his head and threw it as far as he could. He had meant them all to run after it but the leader stayed beside them and the two men holding the horses stayed firm. Quick as lightning, moving with an incredible speed for so fat a man, Chuffy drew his dress sword and leapt down on the leader and ran him through.

He screamed in his death agony and the others came running back as he fought to pull his sword free. Frederica saw the leader’s torch lying on the ground and jumped down from the carriage and seized it, swinging it in a great blazing arc as the ring of faces closed in on them. Chuffy managed to wound two more before he was brought down by a massive blow from a cudgel.

Frederica was left alone. She bravely swung the torch at the circle of men as they closed around her as if keeping a pack of savage wolves at bay. One finally nipped under the fiery arc and, hooking his hand round her neck, pulled her to the ground. Frederica closed her eyes and prayed for a quick death. The stink of bodies as they pressed over her was nigh unbearable.

In final desperation, she found her voice and screamed and screamed. There was a sound of thudding hooves. Leaping down from his horse with his sword in his hand came the Duke with two of his grooms similarly armed. His sword flashed like quicksilver as he brought down two of the ruffians and routed the rest who disappeared off into the yellow curtain of fog like so many demons fleeing back to hell before an avenging angel.

He lifted Frederica very gently to her feet and held her to him for a long moment. “What in hell’s name,” he said in a thin voice, “were you and Chuffy doing ambling around St. James’s in this fog? If one of my grooms hadn’t spied you earlier, I wouldn’t have known where to look.”

“I was sitting thinking,” started Frederica when a low groan made them both turn around.

Chuffy crawled to his feet and with a polite, “Please excuse me,” tottered round the far side of the carriage where he was heard being desperately ill.

“Help him into the carriage,” snapped the Duke. “We will have this out at home.”

The Duke took the reins and drove the sorry pair back to Grosvenor Square. His self control was such that he did not begin his interrogation until Chuffy’s wounds had been bathed and dressed and Frederica had washed and changed.

“Now,” he said sternly, putting a bumper of brandy into Chuffy’s hand. “An explanation if you please.”

“The Duchess said she wanted to think about something,” said Chuffy. “and she was crying. Hope it wasn’t anything I said. I was only talking about horses and I know that can bore some ladies to tears. Well, figuratively speakin’, that is, never
seen
any of ’em actually cry before but still…”

“Will you get to the point,” said the Duke testily.

“You know something,” said Chuffy with an air of great enlightenment, “You’re very like your wife, damme if you ain’t. Well, as I was sayin’, we just sat there in the fog until that band of ruffians turned up. By God, you were splendid, Duchess. The way you fought those men and held them off with that torch.”

“Oh, Chuffy,” cried Frederica, “It was you who were marvelous. The way you sprang from the carriage to kill that horrible man.”

“If I may interrupt this mutual admiration society,” said the Duke coldly, “I would like to point out that you both behaved as if you had windmills in your heads. Do you realize, Chuffy, that if any other man were involved in this and I had been told you had been sitting alone in the middle of a fog dreaming I would have assumed that you were so far gone in love that you didn’t even notice.”

“But you wouldn’t think that about me?” asked Chuffy plaintively.

The Duke laughed with sudden relief. “Chuffy, my boy, one of these days someone is going to think that about you. You seemed to have behaved very creditably. I didn’t know you were a man of action.”

“Well, I was for a bit,” said Chuffy. “Although at one time I thought I’d never see any. I was in the China Tenth.”

“What an odd name for a regiment,” interrupted Frederica.

“Well, we was called that because of the Prince being our Colonel—we was supposed to be handled like porcelain, you know. But of course when he became Regent and couldn’t fight with us that was when the fun began. We were renamed the Hussars and sent to the Peninsula.”

“Were you, By George!” cried the Duke.

His face was alight with boyish enthusiasm as he refilled Chuffy’s glass. Both men plunged into reminiscences of their army days and Frederica realized that this was one of those occasions on which even the most attractive women go unnoticed. When she left them, they were sitting in front of the fire using chess pieces and snuff boxes as armies and battalions, obviously the greatest of friends.

A little of her fear had left her as she retired to her rooms. Had her husband wanted rid of her, he would never have ridden to her rescue. She remembered the feel of his arms about her and hugged that thought to her like a talisman for the rest of the day.

The great fog still rolled around London in huge billowing, choking clouds. Footmen were dispatched to St. James’s to see if the Queen still meant to hold her reception. The Queen most certainly did and social London braced itself for the ordeal.

The Duke and Duchess, arrayed in court dress, sat patiently in their carriage in the long queue of carriages which stretched from the Queen’s House all the way down through the park. It was a different scene from the one Frederica had looked at earlier in the day. The flaring torches of the outriders blazed dimly in the fog as the cream of the top ten thousand waited as patiently as the beggars in the East End waited in the bread line.

Frederica was wearing the regulation court dress of black muslin over an underslip of rose sarcanet and the Duke was attired in black knee breeches and coat and carried his tricorne under his arm. From time to time, he eased his neck in its high starched cravat and cursed the delay.

“What do you call that one?” she enquired.

“This, my dear,” said the Duke, trying to twist his head to look at her, “is a hellish invention which is a cross between the Irish and the Mathematical—two collateral dents and two horizontal ones. Life was easier before Beau Brummel discovered the starched cravat.”

“What an incredible amount of social power Mr. Brummel has, to be sure,” remarked Frederica as the carriage slowly inched its way forward. “Really, it looks as if we shall never get there. Is the Little Season usually so busy?”

“Not usually,” yawned the Duke. “That’s Brummell again. He keeps in town as much as possible, having a dread of cold country houses and blood sports… although he can be a damned arrogant puppy when he
is
in the country.

“Archie Hefford was staying at a country home once when Brummel was a guest. Well, the servant was conducting Brummel to the chilly upper rooms where the bachelors are usually put when Brummel halted and said, ‘Stop! I cannot go up and down these infernal stairs! Is there no room lower? Here for example?’ He opened a door into a very comfortable bedroom. The servant explained that this part of the house was reserved for married couples and this room for an earl. ‘The single gentlemen’s apartments are…’ ‘I know! I know!’ said Brummel. ‘So put the earl in one of them—he is a bachelor. There—bring my portmanteau and dressing case.’

“Well, he was getting ready for dinner when there was a knock on the door and the earl called angrily, ‘Mr. Brummell! Mr. Brummell!’ ‘My Lord!’ Brummell shouted back, ‘I am dressing and cannot be disturbed. I am in my buffs,
in naturabulis
.’ ‘But this is my room, sir!’ yelled the Earl. ‘Possession, My Lord! Possession!’ Brummel replied. ‘You know the rest! You are single, My Lord. I am a married man. Married to the gout.’ The earl went meekly off and found a room elsewhere.”

Frederica laughed. “Mr. Brummell seems such a quiet gentleman.”

“Oh, he can be quite a rake-hell when he chooses,” smiled the Duke, “especially now he’s out of favor with Prinny. Where on earth are we now?” He peered through the carriage window. “The entrance lodge, thank God!”

But it took them a further two and a half hours to get through the colonnade and to the foot of the grand staircase. The heat and stink were oppressive. Society fought and scrabbled on the stairs to get up and those who had paid their respects fought and scrabbled to get down. Dresses were torn, hats were lost among the multitude of hats lying in piles on the entrance tables, and tempers were frayed. Frederica kept close to her large husband’s side, glad of his protection.

At last they reached the top of the stairs and a final thrust from the crowd behind propelled them into the Royal presence where Queen Charlotte sat, forever dipping her finger and thumb into her gold snuff box and mournfully scattering the powder over her small monkey face.

Frederica was too terrified and overawed by the royal lady to hear what the Queen said or what her husband replied. Then back out they went to fight their way down the stairs.

Frederica clung tightly to her husband’s arm amid the pushing, jostling, backbiting throng. He turned and smiled down at her, “We should never have come,” he said. “This is certainly a day for battles in St. James’s.”

Frederica laughed back and grey eyes met black for a long moment. Clarissa was pushing her way up the stairs when she saw the exchange of looks.

It was certainly time that Jack Ferrand was recalled from the country. She swayed artistically and fell against the Duke as he passed her and clutched at the lapels of his coat. “I am so sorry, Henry,” she breathed. “I am feeling faint.”

He handed her over to the care of her mother but not before Clarissa had given him one of her lingering special looks.

The Duke looked round for his wife and then noticed her small figure below him in the throng being pushed and pummelled by the crowd.

With an oath he pushed his way to her side and bundled her into a cloak.

“This isn’t mine!” cried Frederica.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said tersely. “You will never find your own in this crush.” He pulled her out into the night air, fastidiously brushing Clarissa’s powder from his jacket.

“You really must have a word with your stepsister,” he said testily. “Her manner is becoming decidely forward.”

“I must… I mean I shall,” said Frederica, turning a radiant face up to his.

The Duke ruffled her curls affectionately. What an odd little girl she was to be sure. He had just insulted her stepsister and there she stood looking as if it were Christmas morn.

They proceeded back to Grosvenor Square in a tired but amicable silence. The Duke hesitated on the steps of their home.

“I promised to play a rubber of piquet with some friends at White’s. I would stay with you but you look extremely fatigued after your adventures.”

Frederica swallowed her disappointment. She had no claims on his time, after all. “You are right,” she yawned. “I shall go to bed directly.”

“Perhaps we could spend a quiet evening at home tomorrow night,” he said, “instead of all this racketing around.”

“Oh, I would love that,” cried Frederica. He gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek, told the coachman that he would walk, and strode off into the night.

Frederica stood motionless, watching the tall figure of her husband until he was swallowed up in the fog.

The first person the Duke was to meet after he had crossed the threshold of White’s was no other than Jack Ferrand. He had not heard from Clarissa for some time and was anxious to see how the married couple progressed, or rather, did not progress. The Duke greeted him with extra warmth. He had believed Clarissa’s story of Jack Ferrand’s proposal and assumed that the poor man had been rejected.

“Well, Duke, how do we go on?” cried Mr. Ferrand. “And I trust your good Duchess is as lovely as ever.”

“Lovelier,” remarked the Duke simply with a certain warmth in his voice that made Mr. Ferrand narrow his eyes slightly.

But he replied, “Splendid. I shall no doubt have the pleasure of seeing her at the Countess of Buckinghamshire’s tomorrow night. Do you attend Albinia’s housewarming?”

The Duke smiled, “Thank you for reminding me. I must send our regrets. My wife and I have decided to spend a quiet evening at home together.”

Jack Ferrand affected a sudden air of drunken jollity. “Come now, this will never do. If you set the fashion, London will be bereft of pretty ladies. Tell you what. Play you the dice. You win, you stay home. I win, you go to Albinia’s.”

The Duke laughed and tried to pass by into the gaming room but Jack Ferrand seemed to become drunker and jollier, his friendly, open face positively beaming with goodwill. “I am determined on the wager,” he said with an infectious grin.

“Oh, very well,” said the good-natured Henry who was used to the mad bets of the more ebullient of his friends.

Like magic, an ebony box of dice appeared on Jack Ferrand’s palm. “Don… don’t worry ’bout the gamingroom,” he slurred. “We’ll play right here.”

The Duke threw and found himself looking at a three and a two. Jack Ferrand threw with a deft turn of the wrist and turned up a pair of sixes. “I win,” he crowed. “See you tomorrow night.”

The Duke clapped him on the back in a friendly way and recommended the efficacy of several pots of black coffee and went off to join his friends. Archie Hefford rose to meet him. “You’ll find yourself out in the street an’ you persist in gaming in the hallway.”

“Oh, it was only Ferrand, as drunk as a lord,” laughed the Duke.