The Desirable Duchess (6 page)

Sometimes Alice had thought of begging her husband for a divorce to free her from the weight of guilt. The fact that she had shamed him at the wedding burned deeper into her soul each day. The mynah never mentioned Gerald’s name these days. It had done so a few times but had quickly found that Gerald’s name meant no fresh fruit. Alice did not know of the gossip about her disastrous wedding that was beginning to circulate. One disappointed mother of a hopeful daughter had told her best friend “in confidence,” and the little ripples of gossip had spread out from this stone and had finally washed up in London. Now her husband was reportedly in love with another woman and must long to be free.

As soon as Alice walked into that musicale, she sensed something in the overheated air. Eyes glanced at her covertly, voices were lowered, people whispered. She was glad to see the bulk of Mrs. Duggan heaving up in her direction.

“You must be the most beautiful woman in London,” said Mrs. Duggan in a bracing way. “We shall sit together and you shall tell me all the gossip.”

Mrs. Duggan piloted Alice to a couple of chairs at the side of the music room. “I do not know any gossip,” said Alice, “or rather, I hear a lot of it, but it goes in one ear and out of the other.”

“Would to God that the rest of society was the same,” said the Irishwoman piously.

Alice looked around. Society was chattering away: men were waving lace handkerchiefs and snapping open and shut snuffboxes; women were waving fans, the older ones flirting automatically, although their days of attracting any man were considered by the cruel to be long over. She leaned forward. “Tell me about Lady Macdonald.”

Mrs. Duggan let out a little sigh. “So you know about that. It was bound to happen.”

“Why?”

“The gossips have it that you humiliated your husband on your wedding day. The Oracle gave forth and named Sir Gerald Warby as your love.”

“I shall never live that down. Never!” said Alice bitterly. “I barely see my husband now. We never talk. And it is the waiting and waiting. We cannot go on like this. Why does he not divorce me?”

“Divorce is extremely rare and a scandalous process. The print shops would have a high old time. Perhaps your husband loves you.”

Alice gave a shudder. “He loathes me. There is worse, you see. Sir Gerald sent me a note on the day of my wedding, asking me to meet him in the rose garden of my home. He told me he had spurned me because my parents had told him to do so. I—I wanted to run away with him. Then Ferrant came on the scene and knocked poor Gerald out cold.”

“Is that all? Sure, ’tis a mercy he did not kill him.”

Alice said in a low voice, “I sometimes feel the weight of guilt too hard to bear.”

“Do you love your husband?”

“No, but I bitterly regret my behavior. We are married in the sight of God.”

“
Tish!
How grim and serious. If you want your husband to care for you enough to cease seeing this Lady Macdonald, then I suggest you begin to cast off your guilt and enjoy yourself. Your very fear and cringing must make him loathe you the more.
He
is not crawling about, head bowed with shame, because of his liaison with Lady Macdonald, now, is he, m’ dear? You are young, and the young are allowed to make mistakes. Lady Macdonald is a full-blown beauty. But you are young and fresh.”

Alice took a slow breath. “I have deliberately avoided going to the same functions as my husband, first because it was his idea and then because I did not want to see him enter the room with Lady Macdonald on his arm.”

“Then go into battle! If you feel you owe him something, then get him out of the clutches of Lady Macdonald. She is greedy and avaricious—and ’tis said she drove poor old Lord Macdonald into his grave.”

“Mrs. Duggan, I do not know how to thank you. I have had no one to turn to for advice. Mrs. Vere is too young and happy to be burdened with my problems. I have been estranged from my parents because I felt they had betrayed me. I know Sir Gerald would not have rejected me had they not interfered.”

“As to that,” said Mrs. Duggan cautiously, “has it ever dawned on you that had the roles been reversed,
you
would never have given up Sir Gerald without a fight?”

“Who knows what they really said to him,” replied Alice impatiently. “They probably told him I loved Ferrant.”

“Did Sir Gerald tell you that?”

“No, but—”

“Shhh. The music is about to begin.” Mrs. Duggan sat back in her chair, well satisfied. She decided she would not pursue the subject of Sir Gerald
Warby, because any criticism of the man might only make Alice stubbornly keep him up on a pedestal.

She closed her eyes and thought instead of her husband, who was stationed in Paris. She would join him in two months’ time, and in that two months, she meant to see if she could make this pretty duchess happy. She had faithfully followed her husband through the rigorous campaigns of the Peninsula, only this year leaving his side to travel to London to see the birth of her first grandchild. Now her daughter and baby were doing well, she could turn her attention to Alice. Strategy, that was what Alice needed. Just like in a military campaign. Mrs. Duggan fell asleep and began to snore gently in a sort of counterpoint to the music.

Alice received a visit from Mrs. Duggan the following afternoon. “I am come,” said the Irishwoman, “to see if you plan to attend the Sandwells’ ball.”

“I planned to go to the opera this evening with Lucy Vere and Edward,” said Alice. “The Sandwells’ ball is to be attended by my husband and so—Oh, I see.”

“Exactly, my love. Into battle. Send a note round to Mrs. Vere and cancel the opera. The Sandwells’ ball it is. You will be chaperoned by me.”

“He might be angry,” said Alice cautiously. “Oh, and I have already told Lady Sandwell that I would not attend.”

“And I told her you had made a mistake and that you would attend,” said Mrs. Duggan. “Have you anything dazzling to wear?”

“I had an enormous trousseau made and have worn some of the gowns only twice.”

“Listen to the chit!” Mrs. Duggan raised her pudgy hands in exasperation. “You are married to one of the richest men in England. You must start ordering the finest gowns. And this drawing room? What d’ye think of it?”

Alice looked about her. It had heavy Jacobean furniture and heavy plum-colored curtains at the windows. A huge oil painting of a stag being savaged by hounds hung over the fireplace.

“In truth, I do not like it very much,” she confessed.

“Then change it! Make your stamp on the duke’s household. The drawing room is always the ladies’ room.”

“I would need to ask his permission.”

“As to that, he’ll give it readily, because at the moment he don’t think he cares what you do.”

Alice’s face lit up in a rare smile. “Mrs. Duggan, I fear you are a disruptive influence.”

“Isn’t that after what Colonel Duggan is always saying! But he always has to admit, my interfering in things always works out for the best. Now let’s go up and look at that wardrobe of yours.”

A few moments later, Mrs. Duggan was shaking her head over the array of white muslin, silk, and satin ball gowns. “All very
jeune fille
,” she mourned. “You need color, and we have hardly any time at all, at all. New just let me send one of your servants round to Madame Duval and we’ll have her round here like a shot.”

Despite her wealthy upbringing, Alice had had stern rules of economy dinned into her head by her parents and governess. It seemed profligate in the extreme to send for London’s leading dressmaker when she already had so many gowns to wear. But Mrs. Duggan had her way. Madame Duval mourned the lack of time, but servants were sent running between her workroom and the duke’s house. Mrs. Duggan left them all to it and went off to her own home to change for the ball, returning in time to see a new duchess, one with large sparkling eyes, wearing a slip of white satin worn under an overdress of French gauze painted with Chinese roses. Ropes of pearls had been twisted into the burnished curls of her auburn hair by the court hairdresser, who had also been summoned by Mrs. Duggan before she had left to go and change her own gown. The gauze overdress floated gracefully about the duchess’s perfect figure and the lowered neckline of the gown exposed the top halves of two excellent breasts.

“I feel very daring… half-naked,” said Alice, with a rueful laugh.

“You are fully armed for the battle,” said Mrs. Duggan, herself resplendent in plum-colored satin.

“I heard Ferrant leave half an hour ago,” said Alice. “We are a trifle late.”

“And isn’t that the idea, child? We shall make an entrance.”

The Duke of Ferrant stood talking to a group of friends, Lady Macdonald on his arm. Contrary to the belief of society, he had not yet shared her bed—but he had more or less made up his mind to accompany her home that very night. She was very attractive, with a seductive, husky laugh. Her perfume was alluring, and he was conscious of the beauty of her breasts, exposed in a way that he would not have allowed in his wife. His wife! That caused a shadow to cross his face. The time was fast approaching when he would need to make up his mind about his marriage. Brief glimpses of Alice looking hangdog and miserable only increased his distaste for the whole sorry farce. Let her go and be happy with her Sir Gerald. The divorce would cause a scandal, but in the fickle minds of society, such things were quickly forgotten. He should have chosen someone like Lady Loretta Macdonald to be his bride, someone mature and poised.

He became aware that all eyes had turned to the doorway and that people were chattering and whispering with excitement. “What’s the commotion about?” drawled Lady Macdonald. “Has Prinny arrived?”

The duke, with his commanding height, looked over the intervening heads. Standing in the doorway, being welcomed by the Sandwells, was his wife. She looked radiant and happy. She looked young and fresh and very beautiful. Beside her, like some sort of squat guardian watchdog, stood Mrs. Duggan, her small periwinkle eyes roaming this way and that as she appreciated the sensation her beautiful companion was causing in the room.

The waltz was announced. “Our dance, I think,” said Lady Macdonald at his elbow.

He murmured something but kept looking at Alice. Someone asked her to dance, a tall guardsman, splendid in his scarlet regimentals. Alice smiled up at him and floated off in his arms. The duke could not believe that the sight of his wife performing the waltz with anyone else should cause him such pain.

“I did not think you an admirer of Prinny,” mocked Lady Macdonald. “Or rather, I assume that is the reason all are gossiping and staring.”

“My wife has arrived,” said the duke, and, putting his arm around Lady Macdonald’s waist, he led her off in the steps of the dance.

Lady Macdonald was merely amused. Scandal was what was causing the buzz of excitement in the room. She had seen Alice once at a distance and had damned her as a provincial miss.

But as the duke swung her round, she had a perfect view of the Duchess of Ferrant and bit back an exclamation of dismay. The duchess was beautiful, with a rare, fresh beauty not often seen in the overheated ballrooms and saloons of fashionable London. The duke, normally an expert dancer, stepped on her toes and muttered an apology. She looked up at him and saw his eyes were fixed on his wife. Lady Macdonald felt a stab of fear. Up until that little duchess had arrived, the road had lain clear before her. He would get a divorce and she would become the duchess. She had heard the gossip about Sir Gerald Warby and had enjoyed it immensely but never for one moment considered this wife to be a rival in any way. Lady Macdonald was thirty, but she enjoyed all the license and freedom of a widow and the admiration of many courtiers—and so she was able to forget her age and feel that in beauty, she reigned supreme. Under the mask of her makeup, her face hardened. Something would have to be done.

The duke felt he simply had to speak to his wife to find out why she had defied his instructions, forgetting that these instructions, conveyed to Alice by his secretary, had merely been put as a suggestion that they did not attend the same events. But her hand was eagerly sought for each dance. He was furious that she appeared to be enjoying herself immensely. He was obliged to take Lady Macdonald into supper, but that lady had little pleasure in his company, for he answered all her flirtatious remarks automatically, his eyes always sliding in the direction of Alice, who was sitting with that wretched guardsman and laughing at something he was saying.

Alice met Mrs. Duggan as she was leaving the supper room. “Time to go,” whispered Mrs. Duggan.

“But why?”

“He’s been trying to secure a dance with you, talk to you. Now let him look for you.”

“But he does not even appear to have noticed me!”

“He noticed you. Now we beat a tactical retreat.”

As Alice climbed down from her carriage outside the duke’s town house, Mrs. Duggan leaned forward. “He will no doubt call on you this night to berate you about something or other. Be cool and dignified.
He
is now the one that is in the wrong. Don’t forget that. Oh, and I am getting up a little party of friends to go to Vauxhall tomorrow night. Come with us. Don’t let him see you sitting about the place, pining.”

“Very well,” said Alice, “but he has never called on me before.”

However, mindful of the Irishwoman’s remarks, Alice put on her prettiest nightgown and a lacy confection of a nightcap and lay in bed reading, waiting all the while for the sound of her husband’s footsteps on the stairs. At last, she heard him coming home. She felt a stab of fear and wondered whether to feign sleep, but then she decided to face him. But although she heard him slowly mount the stairs and hesitate at the top, he turned off to his own quarters. Feeling sad and relieved at the same time, Alice blew out the candle beside the bed, drew the curtains, and fell asleep.

She awoke late in the morning and stretched and yawned and drew back the bed curtains. And then she fell back against the pillows with a little gasp, drawing the blankets protectively up to her chin, for her husband was sitting on a chair beside the bed.