To Marry The Duke (12 page)

Chapter 9

It was done. He was betrothed to an heiress.

James returned to his carriage. He sat alone, listening to the horses’ hooves clopping over the cobblestones as they drove slowly through Piccadilly, clogged with traffic.

Why did he not feel more satisfied? he wondered with some apprehension. He had been determined to win the race, to acquire the dowry every other man in London was coveting, and this morning he had triumphed. He had secured the prize. Yet still, he felt displeased with himself when there was no logical reason to feel displeased. Why?

Perhaps it was because everything he had said to Sophia that morning was true. In all honesty, his proposal had not been about the money. Not when he was looking into her eyes and telling her he wanted to make her his duchess, that if she said yes, she would make him the happiest man alive.

Imagine that. Him, the happiest man alive. Good God, he had been carried off on a huge wave. He had blathered on and on to her about how much he adored her—he’d sounded like a damned schoolboy. He had never intended to be so romantic about it. It was supposed to be a business arrangement.

But she was the most beautiful woman he had ever known, and it was exactly as he had said—he simply had to have her. Bloody hell, he wanted her now. He wanted her here in the carriage beside him. In his arms.

Perhaps that’s why he felt a lack of satisfaction. He knew deep down that he had not really triumphed. In truth, he had lost the fight against his impulsiveness, given in to his desires, and there was nothing he could do about it now except live with what had suddenly become his future and somehow survive it without descending into hell.

What a morning. And he still had to break the news of his engagement to his mother.

James squeezed the ivory handle of his walking stick while the carriage continued to clatter through the noisy London streets.

A half hour later, he was entering his own London house.

Her Grace, his mother, was sitting in the morning room, sipping tea. Her harsh gaze lifted when she sensed his presence in the doorway. “James,” she said, somewhat startled.

He moved into the room and took a seat on the chintz sofa, deciding that there was no point putting off the inevitable. No need for idle chatter. He would be direct.

“I have news, and I thought you should be the first to know before you read about it in tomorrow’s paper.”

“Tomorrow’s paper. Oh, good gracious.” His mother leaned back and rested a hand on her heart as if she had been shot. “Don’t tell me… not the American.”

James crossed one long leg over the other. “As a matter of fact, yes. The American.”

She rolled her gaze heavenward. “Oh, my dear.” She stood up and walked to the fireplace. “No, no, I don’t understand. You’ve been so difficult to move on the matter of marriage. Wait…” She faced him. “Is this some kind of childish rebellion against me? To hurt me? Because if it is, you have succeeded.”

“It’s not rebellion.”

“What is it, then? How in the world did this happen? This girl—in barely more than a fortnight—lured you away from any number of lovely English girls from excellent families. There must be a reason. If it’s not to hurt me…” She glared at him. “Surely James, you have not given it adequate thought.”

“I have given it more than adequate thought, and even if I hadn’t, the machine is in motion. There is no turning back now. I’ve already placed the formal announcement in the newspaper.”

He’d never imagined he would receive such perverse pleasure from this moment, but there it was.

“Good heavens.” She sank into a chair. “She’s not in the family way, is she?”

“Now you’re being ridiculous, Mother.”

“Well…” She waved a frivolous hand about, as if to say, “You never know with these Americans.”

“I told you her grandfather was a bootmaker, didn’t I?” she said.

“Yes, you told me.”

“And her other grandfather slaughtered pigs.”

James stood. “I beg your pardon, Mother, but there is business to attend to this morning. I must go.”

He started toward the door, but she stopped him with another question. “Have you set a date?”

He turned to face her. “August 25.”

“
This
year?”

“Yes, there’s no point prolonging the engagement. Sophia’s parents will be returning to New York after the Season. Rather than send her back with them, I would prefer that she accompany me to Yorkshire.”

His mother laid a hand on her chest again. “I can’t bear to imagine the gossip when the servants see her. She dresses like an actress, James.”

“She has style, Mother, and that is the last time you will insult her. She is the next Duchess of Wentworth.” With that, he left the room.

He went upstairs to write to his agent, Mr. Wells, to instruct him to at once make the arrangements to have the roof over the state room fixed, and while he was at it, to at long last have the lake dredged.

“You bastard,” Whitby said, stopping halfway up the stairs at Parliament to grab James’s arm.

James turned to look down at his old school chum, who stood on a lower step. He yanked his arm out of Whitby’s grasp. “Get ahold of yourself, man.”

“Ahold of myself? I think you are the one who should have gotten ahold of something. You forced your hand on her, and you know it.”

James straightened his tie and resumed his ascent up the stairs. “I know no such thing.”

Whitby followed beside him. “Where were you at the assembly the other night? You disappeared with her for half an hour.”

“We were with Lily.”

“Not the entire time. I saw Lily later, and you weren’t with her.”

“I returned Sophia to her mother.” He stopped at the top of the stairs and met Whitby’s heated gaze. “Why am I even explaining myself to you?”

“Maybe because you fancy that you are an old friend of mine, and you feel guilty for stepping in on a woman I was openly pursuing.”

James pointed a finger at Whitby. “She was not spoken for.”

“I had spoken! Privately to you, of course, but I had thought we were friends. I thought you understood that I was asking you to back off.”

James shook his head at the ridiculousness of this conversation. He started walking again, down the long Gothic corridor of the building. Their angry footfalls echoed off the arched ceiling. “You had no right to ask that.”

“But you had assured me at the Bradley assembly that you were not looking to marry. That you would never marry. How did that change completely in a matter of weeks?”

“I had simply not met the right woman.”

“You mean you hadn’t met a rich enough woman.”

James stopped. He stabbed a finger on Whitby’s chest. “You’re crossing the line.”

“I think it is you who has crossed the line.” Whitby lowered his voice. “You don’t love her. You’ve never loved any woman, not even any of the ones you’ve bedded.”

“I would oblige you to make your point.”

“You’re a cruel man, James, if you think you can take her to Yorkshire and toss her to your mother to look after. That woman will have her for breakfast.”

“Sophia can take care of herself.”

“And that’s why you proposed to her, I suppose. So she can take care of herself, and you can forget you’ve ever been married. You said it yourself. That’s what you wanted.”

James started walking again. He had the distinct feeling Whitby was looking for a fistfight, but he would not get one. Those days were over. If not for Whitby, at least for James.

“I would have loved her!” Whitby called out after him, his voice full of fury, and James felt the words like a knife sailing through the air and puncturing his back.

Nothing less than a wedding gown by Worth would do for England’s newest duchess—for Monsieur Worth didn’t just sew a dress for a woman, he created a whole new look—so Sophia and her mother packed up and left for Paris. They met her sisters there, accompanied by an aunt, for they, too—being Sophia’s bridesmaids— required Worth gowns for the ceremony.

Clara and Adele were astute enough to bring stacks of New York newspapers with them in their trunks, for news of the upcoming nuptials had hit the headlines in America, and Sophia and her mother were anxious to read them.

The stories dripped with delicious details of the couple’s romantic first encounters at London assemblies and balls. The Wentworth family tree, illustrated with coats of arms and portraits, and augmented with sketches of the castle in Yorkshire, filled column after column of every society page. As well as flattering misinformation about the bride’s family history.

Even in Paris, journalists scurried out from behind shrubbery and parked carriages outside Sophia’s hotel, hoping for a chance to ask her questions and have her pose for a picture. She had become an overnight sensation in the papers, and she could still barely believe any of it was happening. She found it all quite distressing and tried to remind herself that life would soon settle down once the wedding was over, and she and James retired to his country estate for the winter, where they could finally be alone together as man and wife.

Late one evening, Sophia sat up in her bed in the Paris hotel, wearing a white nightdress and reading the inside pages of a New York paper by the light of a gas lamp. She rose from the bed, however, when she came across a disturbing editorial piece.

“Clara, Adele, listen to this.” She began to read aloud: “It is an affront to our flag that so many hard-earned American dollars are leaving our country to fill the bare bank accounts of British nobles, who know nothing of proper work ethics or proper morality for that matter. Our wealthy American brides are victims of greed and laziness; the girl’s value is appraised only by how much she can do to restore the decaying castles of a decaying England. It is no secret that the English nobles squander their rent-roll money in the gambling houses of London with careless abandon, for they have never had to lift a finger to earn it.”

Feeling a lump form in her belly, Sophia lowered the paper. She looked beseechingly at her sisters, who had been combing each other’s hair. They were staring blankly at her now. “Have you heard this sort of thing before?” she asked them. “Is this what they’re saying in New York?”

Clara rose from her chair to take Sophia’s hands and reassure her. Clara had always been sensitive to everyone’s feelings. She was an emotional girl who understood mental torment. In all honesty, sometimes Sophia suspected her sister of actually enjoying it. She liked melodrama in any form.