Marry Christmas (Zebra Historical Romance) (8 page)

Elizabeth entered the Gothic Parlor wondering if the duke was aware how appropriate such a gloomy room was for what was about to transpire. It struck her that she was about to accept the proposal of a man she hardly knew and disliked immensely. She knew only that he dressed well, was tall and a duke. He could be overbearing and direct, but she’d rarely seen him smile, and the only time she’d heard him laugh was when she was being completely rude to him. She didn’t know his favorite food or color or whether he enjoyed sweets as she did. She didn’t know anything of this man who she would spend the rest of her life with. And she was the only person in the world who seemed to think that mattered.

She found him staring out onto their garden, watching a gray squirrel chase another around a large oak tree. For some reason, the fact that he smiled gently as he watched them play put her slightly at ease.
A cruel man would not smile at squirrels playing.

“Your Grace,” she said, dipping a curtsy.

He turned, smiling still, and for just an instant she saw what other women saw: a spectacularly handsome man. She pushed that thought firmly from her mind.

“Miss Cummings,” he said, giving her the smallest bow. “Thank you for joining me.” His hands were by his sides, then he thrust them into his pants pockets, with drawing them instantly only to shove them behind his back.
He’s nervous,
she realized, and that made her feel slightly better as well. Elizabeth managed a small smile, and it was shaky at best. Her nerves were a jangled mess, and were not helped in the least by her father’s interview that morning and her bout of tears after. She realized, of course, that she did not hate the duke nor truly dislike him personally, if she were completely honest.

She loathed that she was being forced to marry him, but probably not the man himself. See? She was being enormously munificent. She could admit she didn’t know him well enough to have even formed any opinion of him. She only knew she hated what he represented: an end to her dreams, her childhood, her life in America.

An end to everything she’d known or ever hoped for, and he stood before her smiling as if he were bestowing upon her the greatest gift.

“Please, sit,” he said, indicating a heavily carved chair with gold embroidered cushions and lion claw feet.

The phrase “throw her to the lions” spun through her head and she had to stifle a bit of hysterical laughter.

Still fighting a grin, Elizabeth dutifully sat, all her training being brought to the fore for this momentous occasion. She would not embarrass herself or her mother by showing one iota of emotion. She would act with the deportment of a future duchess—or at least a well-brought-up American girl.

With a sense of inevitability, she watched as the duke got down on one knee and brought out a ring, and felt her stomach clench almost painfully.

“I will try to be a good husband to you,” he said, his eyes on the ring. “We shall make the best of this.”

Ah, the romance.

He let out a small laugh. “I rehearsed what I was going to say. Something to put you at ease, perhaps make you smile. But I see I had better just get this over with.” He took her hand and opened her fingers gently, placing the ring in her hand. Elizabeth stared down at the ring, a pretty thing with a pink stone surrounded by diamonds. It wasn’t grand or gaudy or even very impressive. It was simply a very pretty ring. She slipped it on finding it only a tiny bit too large.

“Will you do me the great honor of being my wife, my duchess,” he asked formally.

Elizabeth swallowed past a growing lump in her throat. “Yes,” she said. She lifted her hand and couldn’t quite believe she had just agreed to become the Duchess of Bellingham. “What is this stone?”

She looked down at him and found him studying her intensely, almost as if he were waiting for her to change her mind. “It’s a tourmaline.”

“It’s very pretty,” she said, feeling she ought to say something nice to him. She wasn’t a completely horrid person, after all.

He stood and dragged a matching chair next to hers and sat in it. He was so close the skirt of her pale blue day dress covered his shoes and she had to stay the urge to pull away.

“I am not such an awful man, am I?” he asked, tilting his head and smiling.

At that moment, she felt she was the awful one. For what, really, had the duke done to her except show up and offer to make her a duchess. She knew other girls would have been thrilled, other girls who had never fallen in love or made silly dreams in their heads of marrying their true love. “I have acted horribly, not you,” she said, looking down at her hands.

“I daresay you had your reasons.”

She looked up to him, surprised that he was attempting to understand her reluctance to marry him. His eyes were gray, a dark, smoky gray that could have been mistaken for almost any color from a distance. He had obviously shaved before their meeting, for his jaw was smooth with only the hint of a beard and she wondered, just for a moment, whether it felt smooth as Henry’s face always had.

“In two weeks I shall be departing Newport. Lord Hollings and I plan to see a bit of America before the wedding. Your father has told me your mother is planning a Christmas affair, so that gives us a good amount of time to see the sights.”

“Yes, it should,” she said, trying to hide her relief that he’d be leaving shortly. She had no illusions that Henry would reappear in her life, but she was so sick of pretending to be happy in public when she was not.

“I think we should take those two weeks and try to get to know one another. I understand there are many more balls. And your father would love to get me out on that yacht of his.”

Elizabeth felt beyond guilty that he should be trying so hard to act as if they were any other couple. She simply could not bring herself to do the same, not when that very morning when she awoke she’d believed with all her heart she’d be marrying another man. But she had to say something to him.

“I will try,” she said softly, and saw something flicker in his eyes, as if he were disappointed with her answer. Or angry.

“Well, then,” he said, standing. “Why don’t you go tell your mother you are about to become the newest duchess in England.”

He seemed so pleased with that statement when all it did was make her feel slightly ill. “I will.” Elizabeth rushed from the room feeling his eyes burning into her back.

“She acts as if I am sentencing her to death. Or at least torture. I do not know how long I can remain patient with her,” Rand said, pushing back his second brandy. He was not a drinking man, so already he was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol, a warm soothing relaxing sensation. Perhaps he would become a drinking man, at least until this wretched wedding was over.

“Apparently you’ll have to be patient with her until at least Christmas,” Edward said, eyeing his friend carefully.

Rand scowled, staring at his brandy as if it were offensive. “Have you noticed that all these American cities are named for cities in England? New London, Bristol, Boston, York. Oh, they’ll put a ‘new’ in front of it as if it’s delightfully original, but it’s all the same. I’ll bet not one of these people has even been to York. And I’ll further bet their
new
York is nothing like the original.” He paced back and forth in their small library, a place where, to Rand’s great irritation, Edward enjoyed holing up.

“Providence.”

“What the deuce does providence have to do with anything?”

“The city of Providence. We don’t have a Providence back home,” Edward said in that distracted way he had when he didn’t really care what Rand was spouting off about.

“There’s one, then.”

“Newport.”

“We have a Newport,” Rand pointed out triumphantly. “On the Isle of Wight. I’ve been there, actually, for a wedding. Blasted dreary affair it was, too. A sixteen-year-old girl marrying a fifty-five-year-old earl. Now that’s something to be upset about. That’s something to cry about.”

Edward lifted his head from his book. “Miss Cummings was crying?”

“No. But it was quite apparent she had been. I’m surprised she didn’t cry when I gave her that ridiculous ring. I couldn’t bring myself to explain it, but I could see she was confused by its inferior quality. Everything’s been sold. Everything. Hell, it was the best I could do given the circumstances. I haven’t gotten a check yet from her father,” he said bitterly. Apparently, the brandy was making him feel sorry for himself, something he completely abhorred even though he found himself of late falling into that trap. He put the glass down in disgust.

“What does it really matter how she feels?” Edward asked, marking his page, then closing the book and setting it aside. “You didn’t agree to this marriage for any reason other than you needed money. I’m beginning to think you have illusions of turning this into some sort of love match.”

Rand shook his head. “It’s not that. Believe me. It’s that she seems to be so opposed to the marriage.”

“And you wanted her to fall at your feet in gratitude for bestowing upon her such a lofty title.”

“Yes,” Rand said, brightening a bit. “I think that’s it exactly. It’s as if she doesn’t have the least notion how rare it is for someone who is not wellborn to marry a title. One of her ancestors was an indentured servant. It’s as if she is doing
me
the grand favor and it is
I
who should be grateful.”

Edward chuckled.

“If not for the fact that I needed the funds, I would never consider such a low marriage. And neither would you,” Rand accused, immediately wiping the smile off Edward’s face.

“True enough.”

“For generations we have carefully guarded our titles, our inheritances, being careful who we marry, who bears our children. And now, based only on dire financial need, I am being forced to lower my standards. And I am the one who should be grateful and apologetic. Bah.”

Edward raised one brow. “Were you?”

“Was I what?”

“Apologetic. Good God, I hope not.”

Rand felt his cheeks tinge slightly and hoped his friend thought the alcohol to blame. “Not in so many words, but I expressed my sympathy that she cannot marry the man she wants. I should have told her to beg for
my
hand in marriage.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he realized how absurd a statement it was and burst out laughing. “I really can be such an arrogant ass.”

“I will not argue that point,” Edward said.

“I rather wish you would,” Rand said glumly.

“It is one of your finer attributes.”

Rand smiled grimly. “I cannot wait until the next two weeks are over and we are on our own. Can you think of anything more tiresome than attending these American entertainments?”

“Now there’s a positive attitude.”

Rand walked over to the bank of windows and wished he were anywhere on earth but where he was. How he longed for the days when he was in London wearing his uniform, doing his duty for the queen and believing that all was well in his world, when he was responsible only for himself and his men. “I miss the guards, don’t you?”

“Fiercely.”

Rand let out a sigh, thinking about the girls who batted their eyes at him, the married women who threw themselves at him. He didn’t want to think of those days of near debauchery because it made him want to pick up his drink again. Or find a woman.

“I am getting maudlin, Edward. And I don’t like the feeling at all.”

“Women will do that to you.”

Rand threw himself down at the large couch, putting his hands behind his head and gazing up at the ceiling. “They never have done that to me in the past. I rather enjoy their company.”

Edward chuckled. “Try seducing your fiancée.”

For a moment, Rand was shocked to hear that he had a fiancée, and then intrigued by the notion of seducing her. “It would be wrong of me, not to mention nearly impossible with her mother hovering about.”

Edward let out a small grunt of agreement.

“It would be very wrong,” he repeated.

“Oh, no, Rand, I was only joking. You cannot think to seduce her. It is still too far from the wedding.”

Rand agreed completely and said so. But now that the idea was planted in his head—and other parts of his body—he knew he would not be easily rid of it. Seduce her. Get her to fall in love with him. Or at least not loathe him. He could think of nothing worse than standing at the altar with a woman crying silently beside him as if facing a death squad. If she loved him, marrying her would be far more palatable. It might even take the bitter taste from his mouth when he lied before God and promised to love her ’til death.

The American Beauty roses began arriving the morning after the announcement of her engagement appeared in the
Newport Daily News.
Elizabeth let out a bubble of laughter when she saw the massive amount of roses. The smell was so intense, the maids had opened all the windows and doors to dilute the sweet scent.

She read each card, smiling at the happy sentiments they contained. Everyone was so thrilled at her news, so happy, so congratulatory, it was difficult to remain completely morose.

And then she saw it and knew and her heart stopped for an instant.

A single rose lay upon a side table between other, much grander bouquets. There was no card, just the rose, stripped of its thorns. Henry. It could only have been from him. She picked it up, smiling softly, and held the bloom to her nose inhaling deeply, as if she could somehow breathe him into her. He still loved her, still loved her. Still loved her.

She heard a familiar laugh behind her and turned to see Maggie. “My goodness,” she said, still laughing. “I thought Mother was being original sending you these roses. Have you even found our arrangement yet? I swear I haven’t seen so many roses in all my life.”

Maggie walked over to her and Elizabeth fought the urge to push the single rose behind her back. It was too late, for her friend’s gaze drifted to her rose and her smile slowly disappeared. “It’s from him, isn’t it.”

Elizabeth calmly placed the rose back onto the side table. “There was no card,” she said.

“Oh, Elizabeth, why must you torture yourself this way?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you can be talking about.”

Maggie gave her a sly look. “Well, then, since you have so many roses, may I have just that one? I do so love American Beauties. They smell so wonderful.”

Maggie walked over to the table and reached out her hand only to be blocked, rather forcefully, by Elizabeth.

“Don’t you dare,” Elizabeth said, laughing. “You know very well who it is from. And it is of no consequence whatsoever. I am marrying the duke, Henry has returned to New York. And that is that.”

Maggie frowned. “Then why is he torturing you by sending you a flower right after your engagement is announced?”

Elizabeth shrugged, trying to look nonplussed. “I suppose he wanted me to know he wishes me well.”

Maggie rolled her eyes.

“It’s true,” Elizabeth said, sagging a bit. “I’ve realized that no matter what I do or say, short of killing myself or my mother, I am going to marry the duke. But I can tell you, I will not be happy.”

Maggie let out a burst of laughter. “You sound like a little girl who won’t eat her creamed spinach. I say you should make the best of things.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not being forced to marry someone you don’t know. Or like.”

“I daresay if I was forced to marry someone like the duke, I wouldn’t make such a grand fuss of it all,” Maggie said, leaning toward one of the larger bouquets and taking a deep breath.

“Then you marry him,” Elizabeth shot back good-naturedly. “Better yet, marry that friend of his. The earl.” Elizabeth’s eyes widened when she detected the smallest blush on Maggie’s cheeks, and she pounced on the idea of happily torturing her best friend. “You like him,” she declared.

“Of course I do,” Maggie returned, slightly indignant. “Who would not? He’s charming and handsome and supremely wealthy. And an earl. I am not, if you will remember, shopping for a husband. I know for certain that he is not shopping for a wife. He told me so himself.”

Elizabeth screwed up her face. “He did? You hardly had a conversation with him and the topic of marriage came up?”

“You know how I talk when I’m nervous.”

“Or excited or happy or sad or angry or…”

Maggie gave her a face. “I asked him if he were here looking for a bride like his friend the duke. He was actually quite rude about it, now that I recall. He said the last thing on earth he wanted to do was marry, and particularly not an American girl.” She turned thoughtful. “At the time, I didn’t really think about it, but that was rather rude of him to say, wasn’t it?”

“It certainly was. Perhaps he wanted you to get the word out to all the mamas that he’s not in the marriage market.”

“Or perhaps he just wanted to get the word out to me,” she said, sounding remarkably glum for Maggie.

Elizabeth gave Maggie’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Come on, help me pick out a gown for the Vanderbilt ball tonight. Mother wants me to wear that awful green gown and I want your opinion.”

Maggie Pierce wanted to throttle her best friend within an inch of her life, but restrained herself from doing so because that would have been contrary to everything everyone thought of her. She did not get outwardly angry, she rarely cried, she hardly ever raised her voice or even acted as if anything in the world was of great concern to her. But inside, good Lord, inside she was a seething stew of emotions that she never, ever allowed out.

And so, when Maggie rushed over to Elizabeth and told her how beautiful she looked in her gown purchased in Paris and designed by Charles Worth himself and Elizabeth wrinkled her nose in distaste while looking down at said gown, Maggie did, indeed, want to throttle her. The gown was magnificent, with a broad collar that left much of her chest and shoulders bared. Instead, she said: “I would adore a dark green gown to wear instead of these tedious pastels that Mama makes me wear. I’m older than you and she still dresses me as if I were sixteen and at my very first ball. But I do love this gown,” she said, twirling a bit and watching her pale, pink gown move about her.

“I do love that you’re here,” Elizabeth gushed, making Maggie feel slightly guilty for wanting to strangle her friend just moments ago. “I don’t know what I would have done if your family had foregone Newport this year.”

“Mama is still holding out hope that I will attract a husband. Speaking of which, is the duke here?” Maggie asked, really wanting to know if the earl was there. She enjoyed his company and felt completely at ease with him since he had told her in no uncertain terms that he was not looking for a wife. Because of that, he was the safest man to be with, for Maggie’s mother was pushing her toward one of the Wright boys and she disliked every one of them—or at least disliked the idea of any one of them as a husband. If they thought an earl had captured her attention, they were sure to give up on her. Mama was ecstatic that she’d danced with the earl twice at the Astors’ ball and had walked out with her as well. She didn’t have the heart to tell her that the earl was only a ploy to help her escape those boisterous Wright boys.

“He’s here,” Elizabeth said, scowling, looking across the vast ballroom at the duke. Unlike the Astors’ Beechwood, the Vanderbilts’ summer cottage, The Breakers, was ostentatious, opulent, and vast. The ballroom was massive and would have looked completely at home in any grand European manor house. The ceiling was painted to look like a summer sky at sunset, puffy white clouds tinged with yellow. Massive chandeliers dropped from the ceiling lighting a brown marble checkerboard floor that gleamed beneath the lights.

“Really, Elizabeth, you should at least attempt to pre tend you are happy with the engagement. I do wish Henry had simply left without sending you that rose, then you would be in a much finer mood tonight.”

“But that rose is the only thing that is making me happy,” she said, which further made Maggie want to growl at her friend. She’d never told Elizabeth what she knew about Henry Ellsworth and she was fairly certain she never would. Being the bearer of bad news never worked out for the bearer, her mother always told her.

Mama was a stickler for what could and could not be said in public, the greatest of these was that, upon threat of death, one should never, no matter how tempted, remark that a son did not look like a father. It had never occurred to Maggie until very recently why this was such an important rule. When she’d shared her mother’s wisdom with Elizabeth, they’d spent the entire after noon trying to figure out just who really was Roger Taft’s real father because he didn’t look anything like the man claiming to be his sire.

“Look, they’re by the fountain,” Maggie said, hooking her arm in Elizabeth’s reluctant one. “And they’ve seen us see them and are heading this way. Smile, dear.”

Elizabeth plastered on a beautiful smile that only someone who was completely oblivious would not know was completely false. Alas, Maggie thought, Elizabeth did not share her talent.

“I see you are playing the happy fiancée tonight. Thank you,” the duke said sardonically as soon as they reached the two girls.

Maggie burst out laughing, stopping only when she noted that Elizabeth’s smile had disappeared.

“I’ve come to claim my dances, Miss Cummings,” he said, and Maggie found herself liking the duke far more than Elizabeth did. How she could not fall head over heels with someone as handsome and charming as the duke, she just didn’t know. And that was just another reason for her wanting to strangle her friend. Honestly, any woman of even the smallest intelligence would choose the duke over Henry Ellsworth, the conniving cad, and Maggie knew Elizabeth as having far more intelligence than the average person.

Henry, long before he’d begun his ardent pursuit of Elizabeth, had pursued her. It wasn’t until she’d discovered he’d made some rather indiscreet inquiries into her lack of fortune that he smoothly backed away. That had been the year before when Elizabeth was on her European tour and had missed the summer season in Newport. She would have warned Elizabeth outright, had her friend not been completely in love by the time she discovered they were secretly courting. And then, to Maggie’s dismay, it did actually appear as if Henry was as smitten with Elizabeth as she with him and she didn’t have the heart to say anything against him. It became obvious to her that Henry had never felt for her as he felt for Elizabeth, so she kept her doubts to herself, something she now deeply regretted. Maggie could have prevented her friend so much pain had she simply gotten the courage to break the bad news to her friend that Henry was the fortune hunter everyone feared he was. She’d heard it directly from her own brother the day after Elizabeth’s secret meeting beneath the beech tree. Samuel was always right about such things.

“The first waltz, of course,” Elizabeth said demurely, and Maggie almost laughed again for Elizabeth was not demure in the least.

“All the waltzes,” the duke said, causing Elizabeth to jerk her head up in surprise.

That is when the earl pulled Maggie aside on the pretense he wanted to secure his dances with her. He was looking very fine in his formal attire, which emphasized his athletic build. He was nearly as tall as the duke, but slightly slimmer, and Maggie couldn’t help but think how fine he must have looked in his military uniform. His sandy hair, usually a tad disheveled with a tendency to curl up a bit in Newport’s humidity, had been brutally combed back revealing a rather nice forehead. Unlike Papa, the earl was not losing his hair and did not look as if he ever would.

“Thank goodness you’re here, sir, for the Wright brothers have just arrived en masse,” Maggie said, smiling up at the earl.

“I shall save you from their pursuit,” Lord Hollings said gallantly.

“I do have to warn you, though, that your mission is fraught with danger,” she said with an air of secrecy. “My mama is, even as we now speak, gossiping furiously with her friends and is planning an English wedding.”

“Do you think we can carry out our mission, given its perils?”

“Failure is not an option,” she said, sounding brave even though her eyes twinkled with laughter.

The earl grinned in that easy way of his. “You would make a wonderful spy,” he said. “Though I daresay you should better school your features. You appear to be having far too much fun thwarting your mother. What shall she do when I leave in two weeks never to return?”

“Why, she will have to buy me a new gown to help mend my poor broken heart,” Maggie said with drama.

“You are very devious for such a pretty little thing.”

Maggie felt her heart swell just the tiniest bit and silently called out a warning to herself. This was simply a game. It would be pure disaster if she actually allowed herself to develop any real feelings for the earl. Then she truly would be left with a broken heart that a trunk load of new gowns couldn’t cure. “Spies and the like must be devious to survive,” she said pertly.
And they must not ever begin to believe that their secret life is real.

“I’m afraid our companions are not having as grand a time as we,” Lord Hollings said, turning grim.

“Well, how would you feel if you were being forced to marry?”

“She would do better to get used to the idea,” Edward said rather curtly.

“I was speaking of the duke,” Maggie said with bemusement. “You may unbare your teeth, sir.”

Lord Hollings let out a chuckle. “I’m afraid I am loyal to a fault.”

“How could loyalty ever be a fault?” Maggie asked, even though her loyalty nearly sent her friend off with a fortune hunter.

“Blind loyalty is certainly not an attribute I would wish to possess,” he said pointedly.

Maggie looked away, sensing he was berating her for her loyalty to Elizabeth only because he did not know she had been the one to betray her best friend. She prayed Elizabeth would never know that she was the one who warned her father. She simply couldn’t bear to know Elizabeth was headed for disaster. Still, she felt anger surge through her at his subtle criticism that she was blindly loyal and she felt her face heat slightly.