The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet (38 page)

Stephanie could feel the certainty growing in her. Horace was her grandmother’s nephew. Bertha Cavendish was probably his wife. Peter was their nephew—her intended
bridegroom. Her spirits, already hovering on the lower end of cheerful, took a steep dive. It was unjust to judge on such brief acquaintance that it was almost no acquaintance at all, but in her estimation Mr. Peter Whoever was a man without even a glimmering of humor. He frowned now.

“I do not believe—” he began.

“Sir.” Mr. Munro cut into whatever it was Peter did not believe, his voice quite decisive enough to command everyone’s attention. And there was no doubt about it now—there was pure ice there. He had turned to Mr. Watkins. “Perhaps Mrs. Cavendish would be good enough to present herself and these other two gentlemen to Miss Gray. And perhaps she would then escort Miss Gray to the drawing room or a salon for tea. Miss Gray has been traveling for many days. I have been her companion for three of those days. I believe it would be appropriate if I had a private word with you.”

Mr. Watkins bowed.

“Well—” Mrs. Cavendish began, her bosom swelling. But Mr. Munro wheeled on her and raised to his eye a quizzing glass that Stephanie had never noticed on his person until now. She remembered the early impression she had had of an arrogant and toplofty gentleman. It was all back, that impression, and clearly Mrs. Cavendish was cowed by it.

“Well,” she said with considerably more civility, “if
you
are satisfied, Mr. Watkins, I daresay we must be too. But how foolish of you, my dear Miss Gray, to leave your employer’s home without the proper escort. And how rash of you to accept a ride with a gentleman when you did not know him and had no maid with you.”

“It seemed preferable, ma’am,” Stephanie said, allowing herself to be led toward a magnificently curved staircase, “to dying of exposure and starvation.”

Mr. Munro had disappeared with Mr. Watkins. She
had not had a chance to speak with him first and to invite him to come to the drawing room afterward or wherever it was that they were to take tea. She must have a chance to thank him properly before he left. And she must offer him dinner and lodging for the night. It would be quite proper to do so when there were obviously other gentlemen staying at the house in addition to Mrs. Cavendish.

It was all very bewildering. But she had arrived at last. The worst was over.

And it was hers. This was all
hers
—if she was married, within the next four months, of course. That might be tricky. She was not going to marry Peter Whoever-He-Was. She had made up her mind on that already. He had been about to say that he was not willing to take on a woman who had just spent three days in company with another man and had doubtless been behaving in quite unseemly fashion with that man.

How dare he.

The very idea!

She would rather go back to being a governess than marry such a man.

Though she hoped—oh, how she hoped—it would not come to that.

E WAS FEELING ALMOST AMUSED
. H
E REALIZED THAT
it was a feeling that would not last—that it was only shock that enabled him to see the humor of a situation that was not in any way humorous for him. But feeling amusement was preferable to feeling stark horror, he supposed.

He followed Mr. Watkins, the solicitor, into a private room leading off the hall—it appeared to be a combination office and library—and waited for the man to close the door behind them.

He had rushed with wide open eyes into a trap of his own making. That had been obvious to him soon after he had helped her down from the carriage. At first he had felt blinding anger against Miss Stephanie Gray. If only she had thought of telling before now the story of the stolen bonnet and cloak and the one about the actors. It seemed to him that she had told him almost every detail of her life history except that one. And it was the one detail that made all the difference.

But perhaps not. Perhaps he would have taken it as one more brazen and clever invention. And he could hardly blame her for not telling him. She was not a prattler. She had talked to him, yes. She had done most of the talking during their days of travel. But everything she had told him had been spoken in answer to his questions.
He had not thought to ask her what had happened during that one night she had spent out of doors.

He should have thought of asking. It
did
make all the difference. Without the cloak and bonnet, he realized now when it was too late, she looked to be exactly what she had said she was—a governess living on the edge of poverty.
Why
had he not set more store by her gloves, which actually had holes worn in them, and on her plain gray dress and shabby reticule?

He had built his whole fanciful image of her around such flimsy evidence as a fuchsia cloak and a pink bonnet with its multicolored plumes.

Oh, yes, he had set the trap for her with careful deliberation, and then he had proceeded to walk smiling into it himself. Yes, it really was funny. Hilarious.

Mr. Watkins cleared his throat. “Mr., er, Munro?” he said. “Are you not the head of that family, er, sir? I have seen you in town once or twice, I believe. Are you not the Duke of Bridgwater?”

“I am,” His Grace said, turning before the fireplace and setting his hands behind his back.

Mr. Watkins made him a hasty and rather ridiculous bow. “This is an honor, Your Grace,” he said. “And an honor for Miss Gray, too. I cannot imagine why—”

“I will, of course,” Bridgwater said, bringing one arm forward in order to toy with the handle of his quizzing glass, though he did not lift it to his eye, “be marrying the lady.”

He knew even as he spoke, even before he saw the surprise on the solicitor’s face, that it was a quite unnecessary gesture. His rank would have protected him. She would have suffered embarrassment and even a measure of disgrace, unless the four people who had greeted her all agreed to say nothing about her manner of arrival at Sindon Park. He would wager that the morally outraged Peter would agree to no such thing—unless he
was bound and determined to marry her at all costs. But nobody would censure the Duke of Bridgwater for walking away from the woman. Nobody would expect him to do anything as drastic as offering for her.

But he had known as soon as the truth dawned on him that he had no choice. There was the annoying matter of his honor.

“You wish to
marry
Miss Gray?” Mr. Watkins said, his eyes starting from his head.

“But of course,” His Grace said haughtily, taking his glass more firmly in his hand and lifting it, though not all the way to his eye. “Do you believe I would so thoroughly have compromised her, sir, unless I intended to make her my wife?”

He was thinking about the law of averages. His best friend and those other two friends of his had all been forced into unwanted marriages—though that was not quite true of Carew, who had married for love only to discover that his bride had married for another reason altogether. All three of those marriages had turned out well. Indeed he might almost use that dreadful cliché of them and say that the three couples were in the process of living happily ever after. He knew—he had just spent a few weeks in their company. Three out of three success stories. Now there were going to be four such marriages. It was too much to hope that there would be four out of four successes. The law of averages was against him.

“I believe,” he said, “that according to her grandfather’s will Miss Gray must be married within the next four months if she is not to forfeit her inheritance?”

“That is correct, Your Grace,” the solicitor said. “But Sir Peter Griffin—”

His Grace set his glass to his eye, and Mr. Watkins fell silent.

“I think not,” the duke said quietly. “I feel a certain
aversion to the idea of allowing another man to marry my chosen bride. Miss Gray is my chosen bride.”

Sir Peter Griffin could go hang, he thought. He was probably dangling after her fortune and this impressive property, but he would never let her forget the impropriety of her arrival at Sindon, dressed like a prize ladybird and with a male companion in tow. The man had looked severely displeased at his very first sight of her and had done nothing to hide his irritation.

Though why he should press his point when there was such an easy solution to his dilemma, the Duke of Bridgwater did not quite know. Miss Gray could marry the baronet, he could be on his way to town and his family and the Season, and they would all live happily ever after. No, she would not live happily. He could predict that with some certainty. And he would not have done the right thing.

He wished suddenly that he had not been brought up always to do the right thing, or that he had rebelled against his boyhood education as he had rebelled during his childhood. Good Lord, he had just spent six years being very careful indeed that nothing of the like would ever happen to him.

But he had walked into just such a situation like a lamb to the slaughter.

Mr. Watkins cleared his throat again, perhaps disconcerted by the silence that had stretched a little too long for comfort.

“We will discuss the marriage contract,” the duke said. “I wish it to stipulate quite clearly that Miss Gray retain ownership of this property and of whatever fortune she has been left besides. I gather, sir, that her choice of husband must be approved by you and by a relative. That would be Mr. Horace … Cavendish, I presume? He is the lady’s husband?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the solicitor said.

“We will have him down here, then,” Bridgwater said briskly, “and have his approval. Then we will proceed to business. I am expected in London and have no wish to delay. I take it I have your approval, sir?” He raised his eyebrows and favored the poor solicitor with a look that had been part of his early education and had stayed with him ever since, a look that brooked no denial and no insubordination. He did not even use his quizzing glass.

“Oh, y-yes, i-indeed,” the solicitor said, visibly flustered. “It is a g-great honor, Y-your Grace. For Miss Gray, I mean. And indeed f-for—”

“Mr. Watkins,” His Grace said, “Mr. Cavendish?”

The solicitor scurried to the door in order to summon a servant.

Lord, the duke thought. Amusement was fading fast. Indeed, it had faded to nothing long ago, he realized. Lord, he was about to marry a governess. A governess-turned-heiress. A stranger. Someone for whom he felt nothing. Nothing at all except a certain lust. And that now seemed embarrassingly inappropriate. Good Lord, she was undoubtedly a virgin—a twenty-six-year-old virgin. A virtuous woman whom he had been planning to take back to London with him as his mistress.

Good Lord! He dropped the handle of his quizzing glass lest he inadvertently snap it in two.

H
ER CLOAK AND
her bonnet had been whisked away—she fervently hoped that she need never see them again, though she felt woefully her lack of belongings. She had been taken by Mrs. Cavendish, who had requested rather stiffly that she be called Cousin Bertha, upstairs to her room. Actually, it was a whole suite of rooms, quite overwhelming to someone who had made her home in a small attic room for the past six years. She had been given time only to wash her hands and pat her
hair into better shape after the removal of her bonnet. Then she had been taken down to the drawing room for tea.

Mrs. Cavendish, Cousin Bertha, presented her properly to Mr. Cavendish, who explained that he was her grandmother’s nephew, son of Grandmama’s sister, and that she must call him Cousin Horace. And she was presented to Sir Peter Griffin, who bowed stiffly and frowned darkly and explained that he had the honor of being Cousin Bertha’s nephew and that he also had the honor of being at her service in the ticklish matter of her grandfather’s will.

It was, Stephanie supposed, his way of offering her marriage. She tried not to be awed by his title. He was the only titled gentleman she had ever met. But apart from the title itself, there was nothing impressive, nothing awe-inspiring about the man. She could overlook his lack of good looks. Though she would prefer a handsome husband if she had the choice, she had to admit, she had been taught from childhood on that a person must not be judged on looks alone. But she could not and would not overlook bad temper. And if Sir Peter Griffin was frowning at her the very first time they met, then one could hardly expect him to smile his way through the rest of the lifetime they might spend together.

Her experience of life might be limited, Stephanie thought, but even she knew that marriage was no easy business, that even the happiest of brides and grooms eventually had to work at achieving contentment and compatibility. Her parents had succeeded, though she could remember arguments and tight-lipped disagreements; Mr. and Mrs. Burnaby had not.

Her companions at tea were at least polite, she found. They appeared to have accepted her story and to have overcome their suspicions that she was an impostor.
Cousin Horace was called away after a while, and she was left to converse with the other two. Cousin Bertha made an effort. Sir Peter concentrated on being silently morose. Perhaps he thought to impress her with a show of masculine power. She was not impressed.