The American Duchess (2 page)

“If Adrian said it would all come right, it will,” said Harry, who combined a healthy respect for his brother’s tongue with an almost blind belief in his other abilities. A man, Harry reasoned, who had had three horses shot out from under him at Waterloo and had not got a scratch himself, a man like that could do anything. Putting the noble house of Hastings back on its financial feet would be child’s play to such a man.
He looked at the window and sighed. “If only it would stop raining,”

As promised, Mary screamed.

The Duke of Hastings was, like his brother, gazing out at the rain and, like his brother, he had no doubts that he could find the means to put his house back in order. He had spent several months working with his man of business, and the picture he had been left with was not pleasant. Like Mary, he felt anger at his father. And at his grandfather as well, for the financial downfall of the Deincourt family had not been the work of only one generation. The Duke knew all too much about the follies of his ancestors, which had resulted in an infamous waste of the money that should have come to him.

There had been nothing he could do to prevent his father from gambling. In the end, to avoid the inevitable rows that their proximity always gave rise to, the Duke had taken himself off. He had been the Earl of Hythe then, and as soon as he had come down from Oxford, he had joined the army and gone out to the Peninsula. He had remained on the Continent until his father’s death: in the Peninsula, at the Congress of Vienna, at Waterloo, and then with the Army of Occupation in Paris, serving as aide to the Duke of Wellington. When his father had died in October, he had sold out and come home.

He was now the Duke of Hastings, one of the premier nobles in all of Great Britain. He bore a name that had resonated throughout all of English history. Pride in his heritage, in his race and in his name and position had come to him as part of his birthright. It was his duty to ensure that that name and that position were upheld in an appropriate manner. But that manner required money, and at present money was something he sorely lacked.

It had not taken the Duke long to decide upon his course of action. If he had no money, then his wife should. He felt little, if any, repugnance at the idea of marrying for money. He was the head of his family now, and it was necessary that he act, not for his own pleasure, but for the advantage of the family. Nor did he feel he would be doing an injustice to the lady, unspecified as yet, whom he planned to make his wife. She would be the Duchess of Hastings; that in itself would thrill many women. And he would be a satisfactory husband. It was a question, he thought, of doing the best for one’s self without injury to others. He had little doubt as to his success.

He looked from the window back to the letter that lay on his table.

“My dear Adrian,” it read. “I am giving a small reception Wednesday next week and I should like you to attend. There is a young lady I particularly want to make you acquainted with.”

The letter was signed by his aunt - Georgina, Lady Bridgewater.

In January the Duke had had a very frank conversation with Lady Bridgewater, his father’s sister. “No doubt it will be somewhat difficult to find a combination of all the qualities that I require,” he had said to his aunt with a charming smile. “But I am sure I can rely on you to do your best.”

 As he had remained in Sussex and she had gone back to London, this letter was the first he had heard from her since.
He took out paper to pen a note of acceptance.

Lady Bridgewater had been on the lookout for an heiress for her nephew for months when Teresa Bodmin had swum into her ken. It was not as if there were no English heiresses on the scene. There were at least three of them on the market this particular Season, but Lady Bridgewater feared that none of them would do for Adrian. There was Lady Elizabeth Osgood, but she had buck teeth and a poor complexion. There was Miss Dunleven, who was fat. And there was Miss Morrison, whose vapidity amounted to almost an affliction. Lady Bridgewater knew her nephew. He was fastidious and particular. Neither Lady Elizabeth nor Miss Dunleven nor Miss Morrison would do.

She was beginning to think that Teresa Bodmin would. Her birth was deplorable, of course, but the girl herself was ladylike and seemed well educated. She was extremely lovely, which was an important consideration when one was dealing with Adrian. Her father had certainly given Lady Bridgewater to understand that money would be no difficulty. And Adrian had to have money. All in all, Lady Bridgewater was inclined to think that Miss Bodmin would suit very well.

She had waited for one month before arranging a meeting between her nephew and the American girl. She had wanted to be quite sure that she had not overrated Miss Bodmin. In keeping with her purpose, Lady Bridgewater had constituted herself Tracy’s unofficial chaperone and mentor, had taken her everywhere and introduced her to everyone, and had watched her carefully. If this girl was to be called upon to fill one of the highest positions in Great Britain, Lady Bridgewater wanted to be certain she would fill it adequately.

She had been pleased by what she had seen. There was scarcely a flaw to be found in Tracy’s deportment. The girl moved and spoke and gestured with all the unconscious grace one usually saw only in women of great beauty. Tracy was not a great beauty; her eyes were too widely set, her nose too short, her mouth too full, to qualify her for that category. But when one looked at Tracy, one did not notice these defects; one saw the vitality, the carefree brilliance, the vivid charm. It was generally accepted in London that she was the prettiest girl anyone had seen for quite some time.

It was a pity that she was an American, but Lady Bridgewater had decided to overlook that flaw. There was something faintly exotic in her being an American, the Duke’s aunt decided. And an American was preferable to the daughter of some vulgar cit. Tracy was not vulgar. Nor was her father, though he was certainly different.

It never occurred to Lady Bridgewater to wonder if Tracy might not take kindly to the position she was being considered for so carefully. Adrian St. John Geoffrey George Deincourt was the eleventh earl and sixth duke of his line. He was twenty-six years of age, heartbreakingly handsome and utterly charming. Lady Bridgewater knew all too well the fatal attraction her nephew appeared to exercise upon her own sex. She had observed his behavior with her usual acuteness the winter before last in Paris. It might be an exaggeration to say that all of the women in his circle were in love with him, but then again, it might not.

It was perfectly clear to Lady Bridgewater that any young lady who was offered the chance of becoming the bride of her nephew—her nephew who was as beautiful as a god; who had the bluest blood in England running through his veins; who was the Duke of Hastings, the foremost young man in England, (which meant in the world) —any young lady offered such a chance would thank heaven on her knees and jump at it.

Chapter 3

This is the prettiest lowborn lass that ever

Ran on the greensward.

—Shakespeare

Tracy Bodmin stifled a yawn and replied politely to the observation of Lady Margaret Southington, who was seated next to her on the sofa. The ladies were in the drawing room of Lady Margaret’s house in Grosvenor Square. The gentlemen were still sitting over their port in the dining room. For the last half hour Tracy had been wishing devoutly that she were in the dining room as well. She did not admire the English custom of separating the men and women after dinner. She found English women very hard to talk to.

“Do you like London, Miss Bodmin?” asked her hostess, clearly trying to find the proper way to speak to an American.

Tracy smiled. “Everyone has been most kind
to
Papa and me.”

“It must be so interesting for you, meeting
so
many new people and seeing so many new things,” Lady Margaret smiled with conscious grace.

Tracy looked at that superior smile and felt a flash of temper. The
smugness
of the English, she thought. She had never in her life been patronized until she had come to England.

“It is enjoyable, certainly, to see new people and new things,” she returned pleasantly. “But I guess one always likes most what one knows best.  I shall be glad to see home again.”

Lady Margaret raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You come from Boston, I believe?”

“From Salem,” said Tracy definitely.

“I am afraid I am woefully ignorant of American geography,” said Lady Margaret graciously.

“Really? I’m so sorry,” said Tracy. Lady Margaret stared. It was presumably the first time she had been condoled with upon her ignorance.

The door opened and Tracy felt a surge of relief as the gentlemen came in.

There was an empty chair next to the sofa and three young men headed directly for it. Lord James Belton was the victor and, sitting down, he proceeded to do all he could to make himself agreeable to Tracy. Tracy smiled at him, delighted to be talking to someone who wasn’t Lady Margaret. All the young men she had met in London had been very pleasant, but then that was nothing unusual. Tracy was used to young men who made themselves pleasant. The fact that many of these young men were styled “Lord” something or other meant very little to her. She found the ranks and standings of the English aristocracy vague and basically uninteresting.

Tracy was a true daughter of the American Revolution, a republican to her fingertips. She was proud of her family, proud that her father had worked his way from ship’s boy to where he stood today. If truth were known, her mind was as prejudiced as those of the people with whom she was now consorting, only in the opposite direction. To Tracy there was actually a special virtue in being lowborn; to her mind only the self-made bore the mark of true ability. For those who lived off the wealth of their ancestors she felt something that might with some accuracy be called contempt.

However, there was not a trace of contempt in the flashing smile she turned upon Lord Belton. That young man, clearly bedazzled, pulled his chair a little closer to the sofa. “I say, you are looking awfully pretty tonight. Miss Bodmin,” he said. Tracy laughed and made an appropriate reply.

Later that night, as she was preparing for bed, Tracy went over again in her mind the strangeness of her present position. She had no idea why her father had taken it into his head to come to England, nor, now that they were here, did she understand why they lingered. William Bodmin was clearly enjoying himself, and clearly delighted by their reception in English society. He was, however, the kind of man who always had a purpose. It was not like him to spend his time simply in the pursuit of pleasure, yet that appeared to be what he was doing.

It was not that Tracy begrudged her father his pleasure. It was the oddity of his behavior that concerned her. And she was worried about his health as well. He had a chronic cough that she did not like, and he appeared to lose his breath far too easily. She had had no success in getting him to see a doctor.

“I’m just fine. Trace,” he would say heartily. “Just not as young as I used to be, that’s all.” Which was nonsense, to Tracy’s mind. One did not, at age fifty-eight, suddenly develop a cough. But he seemed to get annoyed when she pushed him, and so she had let the matter drop. But she worried.

In most ways she was enjoying her visit to England. She was moving among people whose ways were unknown to her and she often felt like standing still and just staring at all of them - they seemed so strange and exotic. But the experience was interesting, and many people—especially the young men—had gone out of their way to be friendly. She didn’t exactly
approve
of the English, but she really couldn’t dislike them.

And there was one area in which she admitted, without reservation, that they excelled over Americans. Tracy had a great love for, and an enormous appreciation of, the written word. It was tremendously exciting for her to think that she was in the very country that had produced writers like William Shakespeare and John Milton and Samuel Johnson. Samuel Coleridge, whom she idolized, was actually living in London at the present time, and it was Tracy’s fondest hope that she might meet him. She had recently been reading a newly published poem by a hitherto unknown poet: it was called
Endymion: A Poetic Romance,
and Tracy was in ecstasy about it and about the author, Mr. John Keats. She thought she could forgive much of a nation that produced writers like these.

She picked up
Endymion
now as she got into bed. Her mind was uneasy and she turned, from long habit, to the never failing magic of literature. She read for half an hour and then put out her lamp and went to sleep.

She had a visit the following afternoon that seriously ruffled the tranquility of her feelings toward the English. She and her father were staying at the Clarendon Hotel, and Tracy was sitting by herself reading in the drawing room of their suite, when Lord Belton was announced. No unmarried English lady would dream of receiving a gentleman caller without a chaperone, but Tracy was not an English lady and was accustomed to speaking and walking with a young gentleman just as she might with another young lady. So she put her book down and smiled as Lord Belton came into the room.

That young man took the hand she offered and stood for a moment gazing into her face. Tracy recovered her hand gently but decidedly. “Why are you not at your club. Lord Belton?” she asked. “I thought all English gentlemen spent the day at their clubs.”

“I had much rather come to see you,” said Lord Belton simply. Really, he thought, as he took a deep breath and prepared to take the plunge, really she was quite the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

“That is very nice of you,” she was saying. “May I give you some tea
,
Lord Belton?”

“No.” They were by this time sitting opposite each other on the long sofa. “Actually, Miss Bodmin, I have come here with a definite purpose in mind. It is to tell you how much I love you, so much in fact that I wish to make you my wife.”