When the Duchess Said Yes (17 page)

“If we are alike, then why can’t we keep our love burning together?” she asked. “Why must it die?”

“Because wedded life does not permit it, not even for a duke and duchess,” Mama said firmly. “There will be heartache as well as joy, and grief to balance the rapturous bliss. A mistress can insulate a gentleman and keep trouble away from their little nest for a week, a month, a year. For that matter—and though I do pray it not be so!—you could be the one who strays, lured by some handsome lieutenant you’ve met by chance.”

“Mama!” Lizzie said, genuinely shocked. “I would never do such a thing!”

Mama smiled in spite of herself at Lizzie’s reaction. “No one can tell the future, Lizzie, nor what strange fates are planned for us,” she said. “But an honorable wife has the responsibilities of a household and children that a mistress will never have, and she needs her husband’s support, just as he needs hers to manage his own affairs. Such things will keep a marriage strong long after an empty
affaire de coeur
has run its shallow course.”

Another hot tear of confused misery slipped from Lizzie’s eye, down her cheek, and fiercely she blotted it away. Marriage, as Mama was portraying it, sounded grim indeed, a dreary, dull existence bound by duty alone. No wonder Hawke would not be content with such a fate. Neither would she.

“If all of what you say is true, Mama,” she said, “then I would do better to throw myself from London Bridge and spare both Hawke and me the curse of this sorrowful, burdensome marriage.”

“Hush, hush, none of that,” Mama scolded. “And
that, too, is exactly what I mean about your passions running wild. Listen to you! You sound as if you were some hysterical, invented creature on the common stage, rather than a resourceful young lady of intelligence and breeding.”

“But what else am I to
do
?”

“You will be strong,” Mama said. “For Hawke, and for your children, but most of all for yourself. It will go against your nature, I know, and it will not be easy, but you can do it. You must be strong, and purposeful, and keep your husband content within your marriage even as you steer the course that you shall take together.”

Lizzie stared at her mother, incredulous. Hawke was nearly ten years her senior and a sophisticated man of the world, while she had scarcely escaped from girlhood, and a country girlhood at that. How was she supposed to achieve so much? Mama might well have told her to sprout wings and fly like an eagle to the moon and back.

And Mama—Mama laughed.

“My sweet little goose, do not gape at me that way!” she said. “I would not tell you to do this if I didn’t believe you capable of it. Mind you, Hawke must share the challenge. You must work together. But if you can, if you will, then I know you will be happy all your years together.”

She set down her tea and opened her arms wide to Lizzie. At once Lizzie went to her, curling close as if she were still a little girl in need of cosseting over a skinned knee rather than an almost-duchess with her wedding day before her.

“Oh, Mama,” she whispered, her eyes squeezed tight. “I do not know if I can do all that.”

“You can, you and Hawke together,” Mama said, her arms warm about Lizzie’s back. “So long as you never lose your love for each other, I am sure of it.”

Lizzie didn’t answer, striving to store up the comfort of this moment for all the times she’d need it in the future. She would, too; she’d no doubt of it. To become a strong wife, a devoted lover, a mother to an heir (with luck) and other children besides, a conscientious duchess who would guide her duke down only the most righteous of paths—oh, it seemed far too much for her to even consider, let alone resolve to do.

But in two more days she would marry the Duke of Hawkesworth, and at last—at last!—her new life would begin.

Saturday dawned as perfect as only an early summer day in England could be. The skies over London were the brightest of blues, without so much as a scrap of cloud or trace of coal smoke to mar it. The sun offered the exactly perfect degree of warmth, neither unpleasantly hot nor shiveringly chill. The breeze was only of the most gentle variety, seeming to carry the sweetest fragrances of grass and flowers directly from the country. A light dew had fallen in the night at an hour to be of no inconvenience to anyone, but had remained to add the slightest glisten and polish to every blade of grass in the parks and on every brick in every wall. It was, in short, a perfect day, the perfect day for a wedding.

Though Charlotte had longed for Lizzie to be wed from Marchbourne House, Lady Allred had insisted the ceremony be held in the same church where Hawkesworths beyond counting had been wed. St. Barnabas-of-the-Fields had no more relation to open fields than Hawkesworth Chase had to hunting, but together the parish and the old house had somehow miraculously survived. The original church had perished in the Great Fire, but with substantial aid from the Hawkesworth family, a newer, grander one had swiftly been put up in its place, designed by the esteemed Sir Christopher Wren
himself. It was not perhaps as entirely fashionable as it once had been (churches and their parishes being no more immune to fashion than other, less spiritual organizations), but it would still make a splendid setting for the wedding.

It was to be a small, family affair, or at least as small an affair as a wedding could be with the bishop of London presiding and the Duke of Hawkesworth as the groom. From fear of gawkers and scriveners from the papers, the guests were limited to the immediate family, and the chapel had been sealed off to all others for the past two days. Still, well-wishers and those who were simply curious had begun to stake out spots in the streets around St. Barnabas the night before, and the guards His Grace had hired to keep the peace were already busy. Everyone wished to catch a glimpse of the bride, to see her beauty, her gown, and her jewels.

At this hour, the bride was standing before her looking glass with her arms outstretched as a pair of feverish seamstresses tacked her flounced lace cuffs inside her sleeves. It was the last step to be done. Lizzie’s hair had long ago been dressed into a tall, curling mass atop her head, and the dark weaves sprinkled with sparkling brilliants and pearls. Her veil had been pinned to the crown, drifting like a lace cloud behind her. Her shoes were white silk, with high curving heels and diamond buckles. Her gown was silk damask, a rich, creamy white that made her pale skin glow, and edged with gathered poufs of more lace and silk roses; at least the gown was to be worn once again, when she was presented at court.

The only color in her dress came from the ruby and diamond bracelet on her wrist. Over the past three days, the bracelet’s fame had grown like a mushroom in the rain and had become the most tangible (and most valuable)
part of the glorious tale of the robber bridegroom, stealing his beauteous lady away from her family.

But for now the bride stood as dutifully still as the two seamstresses demanded, with a large linen napkin tied around over her gown to protect it while her sister Diana carefully fed her slices of oranges and the other women of her family fluttered around her.

“I vow, Lizzie,” said Mama, “if you get so much as one drop of juice on that gown, then I shall expire. I am serious, you know. Why must you eat an orange now, when you are dressed?”

“Because I am hungry, Mama,” Lizzie said, as if this were the only explanation in the world. “I’d no interest in the eggs or sausages or toasted muffins that Charlotte tried to stuff down my throat earlier, but an orange is exactly what I desired.”

“You wouldn’t eat earlier because you feared they couldn’t lace your stays tight enough to fit your gown,” Charlotte said shrewdly. “Now you’re likely famished, aren’t you?”

“Not at all,” Lizzie declared. “I am exactly as a bride should be.”

Which was to say that she felt both elated and terrified, eager and reluctant, boldly confident and shy. She hadn’t been as worried about her stays not lacing to fit her gown as that, when the laces were tightened, all the butterflies in her belly might have suddenly flown upward and she would have been shamefully ill. Most of all, she longed for the ceremony to be over and for she and Hawke to finally be alone together. With Hawke as her bridegroom, she was positive that her wedding night would be by far the best part of their entire wedding day.

“Look, Lizzie, another gift for you,” Diana said as a footman appeared with a silk-wrapped box. “I wonder what this will be.”

“That’s no ordinary gift,” Charlotte said, who had seen the livery on the footman who delivered it. “It’s from Hawke. You must open it now, Lizzie, open it at once! You know it’s bound to be something most extraordinary.”

Pulling aside her makeshift bib, Lizzie hurried to take the box. Inside the white silk was another box, wide, flat, hinged, and covered in dark blue leather with gold embossing, the kind of box that could only contain jewels.

“That box is from Boyce’s,” Aunt Sophronia said with approval. “I’ll grant you the Duke does have exquisite taste.”

“Not to mention an exquisite purse to match,” Mama said. “To be sure, everything from Mr. Boyce’s shop is very beautiful, but also very dear.”

“Pearls,” said Aunt Sophronia sagely. “That is the only gift proper for a bride from her groom on her wedding day. I’ll wager it’s a triple strand of flawless pearls.”

Lizzie’s fingers trembled with excitement as she unhooked the box and slowly opened the lid.

It wasn’t a simple strand of pearls.

It was a necklace, yes, but an extravagant necklace of rubies and diamonds to match the bracelet. Large, round rubies hung from intricately looped bows of diamonds set in gold, and even to Lizzie’s inexperienced eye, the size of the stones and the quality of the workmanship
were
extraordinary, exactly as Charlotte had predicted.

“Cherries,” Lizzie said with delight as she held the necklace up to the window to catch the sunlight. “Hawke remembered that I like cherry tarts above all things, and that’s what this is supposed to be. Cherries.”

“Cherries!” Aunt Sophronia sputtered with outrage. “Those are not cherries, my dear, but rubies so fine Her Majesty herself will covet them. I cannot conceive what His Grace must have paid for that necklace, but there is
no question of a lady of your age wearing such a piece, especially not for her wedding.”

Lizzie stared, speechless with disappointment. She understood exactly why Hawke had chosen this necklace for her, and she didn’t give a fig as to whether it was suitable or not. She was eighteen, and if she was old enough to be a duchess, she was old enough to wear a necklace given to her by a duke.

Yet if Aunt Sophronia insisted, she’d have no choice.

“What vulgar demon possessed His Grace to send such an inappropriate bridal gift?” Aunt Sophronia was saying, growing more strident with every syllable. “Wrongful it is, indeed, and—”

“It doesn’t matter, Sophronia,” Mama said, coming to stand behind Lizzie. “His Grace has given the necklace to his bride, and if she wishes to wear it, then she shall.”

Aunt Sophronia drew back with shock. No one in the family dared question her authority in what was correct and proper for all situations.

“Lizzie has the dark beauty to wear rubies well,” Mama continued, taking the necklace from Lizzie and fastening it around her throat for her. “If they have special meaning between her and the Duke, then all the more reason for her to wear them now.”

She gave the clasp a little extra pat. The stones were heavy and cool on Lizzie’s skin, and she touched them herself, settling the unfamiliar weight of the ruby drops against her collarbone. She stepped back before the glass, sighing with happiness at what she saw. She wasn’t sure how Hawke could have known, but the necklace was quite, quite perfect.

Mama’s face showed in the reflection beside her, her own smile so bittersweet that tears stung Lizzie’s eyes. At once Lizzie turned and hugged her mother, too overwhelmed for words.

“There, Lizzie, there, no weeping,” Mama said, though
she, too, was smiling through her tears. “We want no red noses today to shame the Wylders.”

“The carriages are here, Lizzie!” exclaimed Diana from the window. “It’s time. It’s time!”

It
was
time, and with one last touch to the rubies for luck, Lizzie stepped forward to her wedding.

Six weeks ago, Hawke would have given half his fortune not to be here, in this place. Now he couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be, because the prize he’d receive was Lizzie.

He stood beneath the trumpeting marble angels that crowned the chapel, and tried to focus on the words the bishop was saying. They were important words, after all, words that were changing his life forever, words that deserved his full and thoughtful attention.

Yet his entire supply of thoughtful attention was being completely diverted to the slender white fingers he held in his hand, and the fingers’ owner, who knelt beside him, so close that her skirts brushed against his leg and over his shoes. Those fingers were damp with nervousness, or perhaps anticipation. He liked to think it was anticipation, the same anticipation that he was feeling himself.