When the Duchess Said Yes (11 page)

Reluctantly Lizzie turned the painting, wishing she could keep Hawke’s gift entirely to herself. She wasn’t precisely sure who Hawke’s “hopeless Philistines” might be, but she could guess that Aunt Sophronia would be one.

“Gracious, that is a curiosity,” her aunt said, her painted brows arching with bewildered dismay. “I know taste is a variable quality in matters of art, but couldn’t Your Grace have found a painter with more ability for so important a gift for my niece?”

Lizzie didn’t answer, but at once looked to Hawke, who was already looking at
her
, and making it clear without any bothersome words that he was thinking exactly the same thing as she.

Finally he sighed deeply, a sigh of commiseration that was also meant for Lizzie alone, and reluctantly turned to her aunt.

“Your niece shows a wondrous appreciation for fine painting, Lady Carbery,” he said, adding a slight bow to deflect notice from how he’d just insulted Lady Sanborn’s own lack of taste. “With your permission, I should like to invite her to call upon me at Hawkesworth Chase, so that I might show her my collection of pictures.”

“Certainly not, Hawkesworth,” Lady Allred said sharply before Lizzie or her aunt could reply. “It would not be proper. If after you are wed you insist on showing those
pictures
of yours to your wife, then I could not protest, but now—”

“Then I will marry her at once,” he said, taking Lizzie’s hand. “Will Thursday suit you, Lady Elizabeth?”

“Thursday, Your Grace!” exclaimed Aunt Sophronia with genuine horror. “That is but three days away. No
decent wedding can take place with only three days’ notice.”

“You are being ridiculous, Hawkesworth,” said his mother, equally outraged. “Even three months would be a prodigiously short time to arrange a wedding between persons of your rank.”

But to Lizzie’s infinite joy, Hawke’s expression did not change, nor did his resolve falter. After all, he was a duke, and accustomed to getting whatever he pleased.

“Three weeks, then, three weeks from this day,” he said evenly. “There, I’m the very spirit of compromise. Is that agreeable to you, Lady Elizabeth?”

What was three weeks when she’d marry him in three minutes if she could?

“Yes, Hawke,” she said, her smile wide and her heart full. “Oh, yes.”

“A ruby?” asked Brecon with surprise. “For Lady Elizabeth’s wedding ring?”

“Yes, a ruby,” Hawke said as Mr. Boyce, the jeweler, carefully placed the ring on the velvet-covered tray before him. “A ruby full of fire, like her.”

But Brecon, sitting at the jeweler’s table beside him, could only frown. “Diamonds alone, white and pure, would be a more suitable choice,” he suggested. “She’s your wife, Hawke, not another of your little Neapolitan inamoratas. Surely there must be scores of diamonds in your family waiting for you.”

“There are,” Hawke said. “As you can well imagine, Mother attempted to force them upon me in the name of tradition. But I’d rather my wife had a new stone, without any family entanglements. She’ll be the first to wear it, and she’ll make it hers.”

Carefully Hawke took the ring between his thumb and forefinger and held it up to the sunlight coming through the shop’s window. Countless shades of red danced from the square-cut center stone, flashing this way and that as he turned the ring. The ruby was surrounded by two rows of diamonds, and the stones were set in heavy gold, with a band fashioned like a swirling vine around the finger. He’d had the jeweler make it
from his own description to be sure it was unique. It was a substantial ring, a ring meant to catch attention and be noticed, exactly like Lizzie herself.

Brecon sighed, unconvinced. “I trust you are right, Hawke,” he said. “But then I’ve no notion at all of what would please a lady of her tender years.”

“Pray hope that I do,” Hawke said. Yet just as he’d been sure Lizzie would like the old painting, he was equally certain that she would like this for her wedding ring. He couldn’t explain why. Even he would have to admit that he didn’t know his bride, and yet he had not a single doubt as he handed the ring back to the jeweler. “All you need do now, Boyce, is add the engraving inside.”

The jeweler puckered his mouth with worry. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but is that wise? We have not fitted the ring to the lady’s finger, and if an adjustment must be made after the wedding, then the sentiment will be marred.”

“Bad luck in that, Hawke, no mistake,” warned Brecon. “The ladies will be all aflutter over that. Better to wait and have the sizing made right, with the lady’s finger here to measure.”

“It’s right as it is,” Hawke said confidently. “Go ahead, Boyce. Mark our initials on the inside, and have it sent to me tomorrow.”

The jeweler bowed and retreated into the next room, leaving Brecon to let out a small
harrumph
of disbelief.

“Aren’t you the cocky bastard, Hawke,” he said, and only half in jest. “First you choose your bride’s wedding ring, then you declare you know the very breadth of the finger it will grace.”

“I should know it,” Hawke said defensively. “Procuring Lady Elizabeth’s ring is the only task I’m permitted in this entire rigmarole of a wedding, and if that is all, then I intend that ring to be as perfect as it can be. What
else am I to do? Three weeks, Brecon, only three weeks between the day I agreed with the lady and the day we are to wed, yet I’ve never had time stretch so interminably long.”

Brecon shrugged. “You shall survive,” he said. “Three weeks is a veritable wink of an eye compared to the whole span of your wedded life with the lady.”

“But that is just it, Brecon,” Hawke said, exasperation in his voice. “I had always heard that betrothed men and women were supposed to be together, and yet I have seen Lady Elizabeth but once in the last fortnight, and that was with the harpies hovering.”

“By ‘harpies’ I suppose you mean your esteemed mother and Lady Sanborn,” Brecon said wryly. “Really, Hawke. Likening those dear ladies to the foul, vicious creatures that plagued the Greeks is a bit harsh. Did you know that March calls Lady Sanborn ‘the dragon,’ likely for much the same reason?”

“Most appropriate, too.” Restlessly Hawke drummed his fingers on the jeweler’s counter. “I cannot fathom how much worse it will be when Lady Elizabeth’s mother finally arrives tomorrow.”

“Lady Hervey?” asked Brecon with surprise. “Oh, Lady Hervey’s no harpy, nor dragon. You’ll never have meddling from that quarter. She’s a lovely lady, more like another sister than a mother.”

“Well, then, the others are bad enough,” Hawke grumbled. “They invent a score of empty reasons for me not to see her alone. Even my letters to her have been returned unopened, my very pen and paper having been deemed too ‘inflaming’ for her so close to the wedding. Inflaming, for God’s sake! I should show them true fire, and then they’d have genuine cause for worry.”

Brecon smiled. “Clearly they fear you already, cousin, else they’d not take such care guarding their little innocent.
But likely they are engaged in their preparations as well. Ladies live for weddings.”

“There’s less effort to launching a fleet than to make one lady presentable for the altar,” Hawke said. “Damnation, Brecon, our fathers arranged this marriage years ago. You’d think these women would have at least begun their infernal preparations, wouldn’t you?”

“Not women,” Brecon said succinctly. “Ladies. There’s a world of difference between the two, especially as far as spending goes.”

Hawke nodded glumly. Brecon was right: he’d never conceived of such an absolute orgy of spending as that surrounding his bride. He’d previously considered himself wise in the many ways of feminine spending, but after watching his future wife’s family pillage the finest of London’s shops and its tradespeople’s wares, he realized he’d understood nothing. In these three weeks, an entire wardrobe had been cut, stitched, and fitted for Lizzie. He was told of countless trips to milliners, mantua makers, jewelers, and likely other female shops that he didn’t know existed. Vast quantities of linen, china, and plate must all be purchased, as if he’d none in his house already.

“Hymeneal hysteria,” Brecon said sagely. “All the ladies wallow in it, from the most ancient dowager to the youngest girl in the nursery. Be grateful your engagement will last for only three weeks, and not two years or so.”

Hawke shook his head, still unable to find the reason in this. “But why is it necessary for her to have an entire phalanx of women to guard her from me? Her sister, her aunt, my own confounded mother and sisters, and now her mother and another sister of hers, newly arrived from the country to join in the hennish excess. I vow they seem to multiply by the day.”

He had never been more frustrated in his life, nor
could he ignore the irony of his situation. Lady Elizabeth Wylder was unlike any other woman he’d known. Of course, the others in his life had been very much of a piece: obliging, beautiful, and far beneath him in rank, slipping from his bed and his life as easily as they’d slipped into it, leaving happily with a monetary remembrance. They’d expected nothing more, and beyond the obvious, they hadn’t offered much, either.

But Lizzie was different. She could tease him, make him laugh, and make him think, too. Even more astonishing, she’d responded to the little Florentine painting with exactly the same fervor that he himself had. He’d seen it in her eyes, the excitement that a picture or statue could make him feel. He’d been amazed, and shocked as well. Before that afternoon in Lady Sanborn’s drawing room, he’d simply assumed that women didn’t respond to art the same way as men did. Seeing Lizzie’s face light up had been a
revelation
.

Her beautiful face, of course, and the beautiful rest of her as well, a rest of her that his imagination had pleasingly undressed over and over from her snug-laced stays and modest gowns. He had only kissed her twice, but those two kisses had haunted him day and night, driving him half mad from wanting her. That amazed him, too. If anyone had asked him on the voyage from Italy how he intended to spend his last nights as a bachelor, he would have jovially predicted that he could be found in the choicest brothel in London and would not budge until his wedding day. Yet he was so fascinated by his future wife that he’d lost all interest in bacchanalian revelry. The devil only knew why or how, let alone how long his interest would last, but for the present, Lizzie had simply ruined him for other women.

In short, she
deserved
that ruby ring.

“You’re besotted, cousin,” Brecon said, his smile wide as he echoed Hawke’s own thoughts. “Ten minutes we
have sat here, and I’ll wager you thought it ten seconds, so lost were you in dreaming of your bride.”

“I’m not some wretched mooncalf, Brecon,” said Hawke, his sharpness betraying how close Brecon was to the mark. “And I’m done dreaming.”

Brecon laughed indulgently, not at all what Hawke wished to hear in the circumstances. “True enough,” he said. “The wedding’s almost here, and your wedding night with it.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Hawke said as the jeweler returned with two more boxes. “I’ve plans. Are these the other pieces, Boyce?”

“Yes, Your Grace, exactly to your specifications.” Boyce set the larger box on the table and with a showman’s finesse slowly opened the lid. Inside lay an elaborate necklace with gold-set rubies and diamonds to match the ring. The diamonds were arranged to look like ribbon bows, with the large rubies dangling from them like cherries from a tree.

Brecon whistled low with approval. “Did you raid the Tower for the crown jewels, cousin?”

“Almost,” said Hawke, holding the necklace up to the light. Even to him, the sum that Boyce had told him when Hawke described what he wanted had been staggering, likely enough to support a small village for a year. But he intended to marry only one wife, and he wanted to do it properly.

“Most excellent, Boyce,” he said with satisfaction. “I can already picture this around Her Grace’s throat. Is that the bracelet?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the jeweler said, opening the second case. The bracelet inside matched the necklace and the ring, with more diamonds and rubies glittering against the dark velvet. He particularly liked the clasp, made to look as if it were the bow tying the bracelet
around the wrist. “Pray, shall I have it sent with the necklace?”

“Thank you, no,” Hawke said, taking the necklace from the case. Briefly he held it to the light, as he had the other pieces, and then tucked it into his waistcoat pocket. He rose from the chair, giving his pocket an extra little pat as safekeeping. He
had
made plans, his own special touch to enliven wedding preparations that had been entirely too regimented. He was weary of being kept apart from Lizzie, and believed that seeing her—one way or another—was completely within his rights.

“The previous arrangements will stand, Boyce,” he continued. “I thank you for your swift service in this matter. Brecon, I shall see you tomorrow. Good day.”

“Hold now, you cannot dismiss me as easily as that,” his cousin said, hurrying to follow him from the shop. “What do you intend to do with that bracelet?”

Hawke smiled, though he’d no intention of telling Brecon anything. “I told you,” he said. “I’ve plans.”