When the Duchess Said Yes (38 page)

“The Neapolitan monkeys must wait,” Hawke said, relishing the feel of Jack in his arms. After an afternoon in the carriage, Jack had a decidedly moist feel to him, but Hawke had long ago put aside his squeamishness where babies were concerned. Shirts could be washed, and it was well worth the pleasure he found in holding his son. “It’s high time Jack saw the English lions at the Tower.”

“He has a great many English things to see in London,” Lizzie said, untying her hat and tossing it on a chair. “Most specifically, he must be introduced to all his relatives.”

“I’m sure the harpies cannot wait to make his acquaintance,” Hawke said, teasing Lizzie. Much to the consternation of his grandmothers and aunts, Jack had been born not in London but in Naples, an English lordling who’d yet to breathe English air. “In fact, I’m sure he’ll set to breaking female hearts as soon as he lands.”

Lizzie laughed. “Of course he will. He’s your son.”

She stood on the balcony, leaning her elbows on the railing as the breeze rippled her gown around her. Once Hawke had believed this view of the bay to be the most beautiful in the world. Now he realized it was even more lovely than he’d dreamed, because his wife was the centerpiece.

“Come into the library, sweeting,” he said. “I’ve something to show you.”

“It had better be everything packed and removed to the ship,” she said, coming to loop her arm around his waist. “Captain Weathers will have us strung up from
the yardarm if we delay him even one moment beyond his tide.”

“A pox on Captain Weathers,” Hawke said cheerfully. “I’m certain we’ll be aboard ahead of his precious tide. My sailor-wife will see to that. Here, Lizzie, now look. Do you approve?”

She stopped in the doorway and gasped, and if he’d any doubt about whether she approved or not, he’d only to see the tears of happiness that had instantly appeared in her eyes—which, if he was honest, had been his reaction as well.

The new portrait showed the three of them sitting on the same balcony, with the bay and Vesuvius in the distance. Hawke stood behind Lizzie’s chair, his arm resting protectively on her shoulder, and little Jack nestled in the crook of her arm.

“It’s us,” Hawke said softly, all he needed to say. “It’s us as we are.”

“Or as we were,” Lizzie said, leaning her head fondly on his shoulder.

Hawke sighed. “The painter did his best, sweeting. But considering how fast Jack grows, it’s not possible to show him exactly as—”

“It’s not Jack,” she said, looking up at him from beneath her lashes. “I mean that by Christmas, we’ll likely need another painting to show all our family.”

“All?” Hawke’s brows rose with surprise. “Another child? You are sure?”

She nodded. “Jack was begun in London but born in Naples. This babe will be just the opposite.”

Hawke laughed with happiness, and kissed her so soundly that Jack squawked in protest.

“I don’t care where they’re born,” he declared. “London, Naples, or the moon.”

“The place where I’m meant to be,” she said. “With you, my love. Always with you.”

Read on for an exciting preview
of Isabella Bradford’s next novel
,

When the Duke Found Love

London
April, 1764

Diana Wylder, the third and final daughter of the late Earl of Hervey, had never particularly believed in fate.

That is, she hadn’t, until the afternoon that Mama had explained to her about Lord Crump.

The afternoon began well enough, with a planned drive and perhaps a stroll through St. James’s Park with her mother and her older sister Charlotte. They were already waiting in the front hall as Diana hurried down the stairs, for of course Diana was not precisely on time. This time it was her hat’s fault, not hers: a splendid new hat with a wide, curling brim and a crown covered with white ostrich plumes and coral satin bows and small sprays of pink silk flowers, too. This hat required a great deal of strategic pinning so that the brim would tip at the exact fashionable angle over her face, yet still permit Diana to see (barely). Her maid had taken a quarter-hour to get it right, and though Diana considered this time well spent, she couldn’t help but feel guilty as she saw Mama and Charlotte waiting for her.

“Forgive me,” she said breathlessly, pulling on her gloves as she joined them. “I didn’t intend to take so long.”

“So long as you’re ready now,” Mama said. “But don’t you think you should push your hat back a bit?”

Ever helpful, she reached out to adjust the hat herself, but Diana scuttled backward.

“No, Mama, please,” she said, holding the curving brim defensively. “Mistress Hartley assured me that this is the way all hats are being worn this spring in Paris.”

“You should care more for how hats are being worn in London, Diana, considering that is where you live,” Mama said, but sighed wistfully to show she’d already resigned herself to defeat. “I only wish you wouldn’t hide your pretty face behind a hat.”

“She looks lovely the way she is, Mama,” Charlotte said firmly, looping her arm fondly through Diana’s. “Now come. It’s far too fine a day to waste standing inside discussing hats.”

That should have been a warning of sorts, for Mama generally wished Diana to show less of her person, not more, just as Charlotte, her older, married sister and the famously beautiful Duchess of Marchbourne at that, could seldom resist suggesting improvements to be made in Diana’s dress. But Diana was in too good a humor to be wary, and instead she simply grinned and followed her sister and mother from the house and down the steps.

The sun was shining as it rarely did for April in London, and the air was so warm with the first true breath of spring that the side windows were down in the carriage. Charlotte’s footmen, gorgeous in their pale-blue Marchbourne livery, hopped to attention as soon as the women appeared, holding the carriage door open and the folding steps steady as they climbed inside. As the youngest, Diana faced backward and slid across the feather-stuffed seat to the farthest side, claiming the window where she could see and—more important—be seen. She’d no wish
to have that splendid new hat be wasted where no one could admire it.

“I do like riding in your carriage, Charlotte,” she said happily as they began. “Much better than Aunt Sophronia’s.”

“It’s very kind of your sister to invite us to share it,” Mama said, settling her skirts around her legs. Mama was still young to be the mother of two duchesses—she wasn’t even forty—and with her golden-blond hair and wide blue eyes, still sufficiently beautiful that people often mistook her for one more of the Wylder sisters instead of their mother. “It’s also generous of March to have given Charlotte such a comfortable carriage for driving about.”

“I like how everyone sees March’s crest on the door and makes such a fuss over us because of it,” Diana said, watching how even now people on the pavement were bowing and curtseying as they passed by. “It’s as good as being a duchess, but without any of the responsibilities.”

“You could do with a few responsibilities, Diana,” Charlotte suggested gently. “You’re eighteen now, no longer a child. It wouldn’t hurt you to concern yourself with more important things than new hats.”

Diana looked dolefully at her sister. Ever since Charlotte had married four years ago, she’d become more serious, more proper, more, well, dull, and it was all because of
responsibility
. To Diana, Charlotte’s entire life now seemed so dutiful and ordered, without even a morsel of excitement. Charlotte’s and March’s marriage had been arranged long ago by their fathers, and already well sealed with the birth of an heir, plus two other babies besides. As March’s wife and duchess, Charlotte oversaw his four households, his servants and his female tenants and their children, his journeys, his charities and subscriptions, his dinners for his friends, and likely
many other things that Diana didn’t know about. From what Diana observed, Charlotte worked harder at being a duchess than her maidservants did in the scullery, and Diana didn’t envy any of it—except perhaps this carriage.

“Don’t make a face like that, Diana,” Mama said. “Charlotte is only speaking the truth. Unless you wish to return to Ransom Manor—”

“I’m not going back to Ransom,” Diana said quickly. Ransom Manor was the only true home that Diana had known: a rambling, ancient house on the southern coast where Mama had retreated from London to raise her three fatherless daughters, or more accurately, where they’d raised themselves. It had been a splendid childhood, filled with pony-riding and boat-rowing and tree-climbing and numerous pets, and very little of the education expected for the daughters of peers. But there were no suitable young gentlemen near Ransom. Not one, especially when compared to the absolute bounty of them to be found in London. “You can’t expect me to go back there unless you wish me to marry a—a
fisherman
.”

“Really, Di,” Charlotte said mildly, opening her fan. “As if anyone would expect that of you! Though an honest fisherman might be considered an improvement over some of the other rogues you’ve let attend you.”

“They weren’t rogues,” Diana said, folding her arms over the front of her bodice with bristling defense. It was true that she’d been guilty of a few minor,
minor
indiscretions, but nothing worse than most young ladies indulged in to amuse themselves. “They were all gentlemen, every one of them.”

“It’s of no consequence now,” Mama said quickly. “Those, ah, those gentlemen are all better forgotten.”

“Exactly,” Diana said, pleased that for once Mama had taken her side. “
Much
better to think of all the
other ones who will be riding through the park today, ready to admire my hat.”

She grinned, tipping her head to one side as if already displaying the hat’s magnificence. On the seat across from her, Mama and Charlotte exchanged glances, which only made Diana smile more. They knew there would be young gentlemen striving to capture her attention in the park, just as she would be smiling winningly at them in return from beneath the curving brim of her hat. Such attention followed her everywhere she went in London—in parks, in shops, in theaters and playhouses, at the palace, and even in church—and it had been like that since she’d first come to London to stay two years before. No wonder Diana found her life so amusing, and no wonder, too, that she smiled now at the prospect of the afternoon before her.

But Mama wasn’t smiling in return, and neither was Charlotte.

“Diana, my darling girl,” Mama said, a disconcerting tremor in her voice. “I know it’s been my fault for letting you be so free, but now I hope to make it up to you in the best possible way.”

“Nothing’s been your fault, Mama,” Diana said, confused. “You don’t need to make anything up to me, not now or ever.”

“But I do,” Mama said, pulling a lace-edged handkerchief from her pocket. “If your poor father had lived, he would have seen to this long ago, as he did for Charlotte and Lizzie. You’re my baby, you see, my youngest and my last, and I haven’t wished to let you go, even though I should.”

“But you’ve always let me go wherever I pleased,” Diana said, still not understanding. “You are not making sense, Mama, not at all.”

“Yes, she is,” Charlotte said. “Mama has accepted an
offer for your hand from the Marquis of Crump. He is going to join us in the Park, so that you may meet him.”

“But I do not
wish
to marry!” cried Diana, stunned. “Not now, not yet, and certainly not to a man I have never met!”

“You’re more than old enough, Diana,” Charlotte said, shifting across the carriage to sit beside Diana, taking her hand. “You’re eighteen, the same age as Lizzie and I were. And we hadn’t known March or Hawke, either, and look how splendidly everything turned out for us.”

“But I thought I would choose my own husband,” Diana protested. “I want to marry for—for love, not because I’ve been
offered
for!”

“Choosing is not always for the best,” Charlotte said. “You do recall how narrowly you escaped the disaster of Lieutenant Patrick.”

Diana blushed furiously. She had in fact been embroiled in a near-disaster with the very handsome (and as it was discovered, very rapacious) Lieutenant Patrick, but usually, by tacit agreement, his name was never mentioned in the family.

“But that was last year, Charlotte, when I was but seventeen. I’d never make the same misjudgment now.”

“Oh, my dear,” Mama said, also squeezing onto the seat beside Diana. “I know this must seem something of a shock, but Lord Crump is known to be a most kind and generous gentleman. He has the patience and gentleness to be able to guide you as a wife and lady, something none of those younger rascals could ever do for you, nor does he care about any of your past indiscretions.”

“You mean Lieutenant Patrick,” Diana said, unable to keep the wounded reproach from her voice. “First Charlotte, and now you, too, Mama. Then you said it
wouldn’t matter, that everyone would forget, and now—now you’re reminding me because of—of this!”

Mama sighed. “We can put the misfortunes of your past behind us, Diana, because we love you. But others have not been as, ah, charitable, and you know how skittish gentlemen can be when it comes to choosing a wife. It’s most admirable that Lord Crump has chosen to ignore the tattle, and offer for you in spite of it. A sure sign that he will try his best to make you happy.”