When You Wish Upon a Duke (18 page)

He took a deep breath. This was not going to be easy.

“Charlotte,” he began. “Charlotte, there are certain things that I must say to you.”

For the first time she said nothing, waiting in silence for him to continue.

“Charlotte, my dear,” he started again. “My wife. I must apologize to you for last night.”

She ducked her chin low. “For leaving me as you did?”

“For what I did before that,” he said quickly, not wishing
her to misconstrue. “I failed to treat you with the respect that you deserve, and for that I can never forgive myself.”

She blushed, bewildered. “But there is nothing to forgive, is there? What you did—what we did—that is what husbands and wives are meant to do, isn’t it?”

The devil take him, he was blushing now, too. “The act, yes, of course. But the manner in which I, ah, engaged, was not as befits you as my wife.”

“No?” She seemed to be shrinking into herself. “I did not please you, March?”

“That is not the issue, Charlotte,” he said. “The transgression was mine, not yours. You were entirely innocent, and I was in the wrong. But I give you my word of honor that it will never happen in that way again. When I come to you again in your bed, I vow to be the husband you and our children deserve, and address you only with the greatest respect.”

There, he thought with relief, that was it, every word of the speech he’d so carefully planned. He smiled warmly. He expected she would thank him for his apology, or at least be grateful that there would be no recurrence of their barbaric wedding night fiasco.

She did neither. “Is that truly what you wish, March?” she asked, her voice pitifully small. “Because if it is, why, then I will agree.”

“It is, Charlotte,” he said firmly. “As your husband, you must trust me to know what will be best for us both.”

She stared down into her cup, tracing her fingertip around and around the porcelain edge.

“I will trust you,” she said finally. “Because you ask it, I will trust you. But it always returns to that, doesn’t it? It’s always a matter of trust.”

She pushed back her empty cup and rose, drawing her dressing gown more tightly about her as if she were
chilled. “Is that all, March? I should begin to dress if you wish to leave at eleven.”

“That is all, that is all,” he said heartily. “And I’ll be proud of you whatever you wear.”

“You are … 
kind
,” she said softly, then slipped around him to leave.

As she passed, her skirts brushed against his foot, and he nearly caught her arm to stop her long enough for a kiss. He wouldn’t deny that he wanted to, nor did he doubt that she’d kiss him in return. But at the last moment he stopped himself, and wisely, too. How much would his word of honor as a gentleman mean if she couldn’t walk through a room without him kissing her?

Instead he watched her go, the soles of her high-heeled slippers slapping gently at her bare feet as her dressing gown flicked through the doorway.

He told himself he should feel virtuous and noble. In truth he felt neither.

It was always a matter of trust.

Although the rules for new brides of a certain rank were not written down or published, they were as clear as any other law of the land to those forced to obey them. Both Aunt Sophronia and Mama had explained these rules to Charlotte, and even a male like March seemed completely familiar with their intricacies.

As the newly minted Duchess of Marchbourne, Charlotte was expected to call upon every other important lady in London society, over two hundred in all. The calls themselves were not of importance. A quarter hour in each drawing room and a swallow of tea accompanied by the most general conversation would do. What mattered was that Charlotte present herself in her new role, and with her presence grace those drawing rooms.

If the Dowager Duchess of Marchbourne still lived, then she would have accompanied Charlotte, easing her
way and making the proper introductions. A FitzCharles sister or sister-in-law could have performed the same role. But since March had no female relations, he offered himself as Charlotte’s companion for the first few days, until she learned how the calls should be done. While this was an unusual gesture for a husband, one sure to be much remarked and whispered about, no one dared say anything to his face. He was, after all, the Duke of Marchbourne, and entitled to do as he pleased.

On that first day, Charlotte was grateful to have him with her, too. She did not enjoy the calls. The other ladies were all at least as old as her mother, and most were of an age to match Aunt Sophronia, and equally intimidating. The conversations were almost exactly the same. The state of the weather was followed by polite queries about the wedding and congratulations on the good fortune of the match. They recalled her parents and his in the most general way. They admired her ring and clothes, and purred and praised her to March as if she were some costly, precious new acquisition.

Finally there was the inevitable, excruciating subject of an heir. The appraisals of Charlotte’s form for child-bearing (“Forgive me for remarking it, Your Grace, but you do appear a slender lady for producing sons.”), the comments about her breeding pedigree (“Your mother had only daughters, did she not? Pity.”), and the predictions of pregnancies (“I vow, Your Grace, that you will be brought to bed nine months from this day.”) pretended to be good-humored. But to Charlotte the comments were all not-so-subtle reminders of why she and March had married in the first place. She found them mortifying, and she was sure that March must feel the same.

That is, she guessed he must, but she did not know for certain. How could she? Though they had spent the entire day in each other’s company, he had behaved like
a well-mannered stranger. He had smiled with obvious admiration, and complimented her, and held her hand when they walked together, and listened to what she said with polite attention, but there had been no intimacy to any of it. He had steadfastly kept to the carriage seat opposite hers, and the extent of their kissing had been his mouth hovering over the back of her hand.

He could speak as much as he wished about how she had not displeased him last night, but how could she think otherwise, when the proof was right before her?

By the end of the afternoon, she was exhausted and perilously close to weeping before him. The last call had been to an elderly marchioness in St. James’s Square, and as they left, she looked longingly across the square to Aunt Sophronia’s house. Knowing how disorganized Mama always was, she wondered if their coach had already left for Ransom Manor, or if Mama and her sisters might still be within.

“I know we haven’t planned it, Charlotte,” March said, taking note, “but I have a bit of business to look after at my club, and if you’d like to visit your aunt while I—”

“Oh, yes, please!” she cried, then realized too late how that must have sounded. “That is, March, I would enjoy such a visit very much, if it is agreeable to you.”

She wished he hadn’t been quite so quick to agree, nor that he had looked so relieved to be rid of her, either. They’d only been married a day, she thought sadly. How could they already be tired of each other’s company?

As she climbed the familiar steps to Aunt Sophronia’s house, a footman in Marchbourne livery with her, she resolved to keep her sorrow to herself. She didn’t want to worry her aunt or her mother, nor did she wish to seem like a selfish, spoiled bride by complaining that her husband was too thoughtful and kind. March didn’t deserve that. All she longed for was a few comforting minutes in a familiar place, with family who accepted
her as she was and wouldn’t ask her if, after one night, she was already with child.

But she soon learned from the butler that Mama and her sisters had in fact left at dawn, as they’d planned. Her disappointment was so overwhelming that, combined with everything else about this miserable day, she promptly burst into tears as soon as she saw Aunt Sophronia in her parlor.

“Why, Charlotte, what is this?” her aunt said, rising with surprise. “What reason have you to weep so?”

“I—I haven’t any,” Charlotte said, her voice squeaking upward with tears, and when her aunt held out her arms to her, she fell into them, sobbing against her shoulder.

Aunt Sophronia let her cry, patting her gently on the back while her small white dogs barked and raced about from excitement.

“There now, there,” she said when at last Charlotte was too exhausted to weep more. “Now tell me the reason for this. Don’t say that there isn’t one, because you wouldn’t be spilling such torrents if there weren’t. What’s amiss? Where is the duke?”

“He—he’s at his club,” Charlotte said, fumbling for her handkerchief. “I can only stay for a little while.”

“Every gentleman retreats to his club when he tires of women’s company.” Her aunt pressed her own handkerchief into Charlotte’s hand. “Is that all this is? You are disappointed that he has not made you the entire sphere of his life?”

Charlotte shook her head, scattering her tears. “Last—last night, he came to my bed and—and loved me, and it was perfect and wonderful and I—I believed myself to be blessed to have such a husband.”

Her aunt smiled. “Well, then. Most ladies would beg to have such troubles.”

“But that
is
my trouble, Aunt!” Charlotte cried forlornly, pressing the handkerchief to her eyes. “Because
I thought what we did was wonderful and fine and perfect, and he did not. Last night, he—he left me as soon as we were done, and then this morning, when I went to him at breakfast in—in my new pink dressing gown, he only told me that he—he had behaved disrespectfully toward me in my bed, and that he was very sorry, and promised that he would never be that—that way again, when that is what
I
would wish!”

“The duke did not enjoy making love to you?” Aunt Sophronia asked, her mouth tight with dismay.

Charlotte shook her head forlornly, pressing the handkerchief into a tight, soggy ball.

“At first I thought that he did, but now I know he didn’t,” she confessed. “All this day he has kept to his word, and been very honorable, and not touched me or kissed me once. And—and I would rather it were the other way. Oh, Aunt, I must be such a harlot, to feel so!”

“Hush, don’t say such a thing, even in jest,” Aunt Charlotte said quickly, “because it cannot be true. You’re a Wylder. You’re not a harlot.”

“Then why doesn’t he desire me?”

“He hasn’t said that, my dear,” Aunt Charlotte said. “At least not how you’ve told it to me. What is more likely is that the duke, being a young man in the deepest throes of passion, fears that he treated you not as a lady but as a harlot.”

Charlotte blotted her eyes with the wadded handkerchief, yet still the tears came. “That’s exactly what he said.”

Her aunt nodded sagely. “All his carnal experience will have been with courtesans, concubines, actresses, and other harlots, you see, as it would be with most bachelor gentlemen. Even a gentleman free of scandal such as the duke will have resorted on occasion to low congress with unfortunate creatures in brothels and bagnios. It gives
gentlemen satisfaction and bodily relief, but no notion of how to treat their lady wives.”

Charlotte nodded. She did not want to think of March with low creatures in brothels, but she couldn’t deny that it was possible. While she had liked the way that, in their urgency, they hadn’t bothered to undress all the way, even she could understand how that had not been entirely genteel.

“But what can I do now?” she asked, mystified. “How can I make him desire me again?”

“Oh, he already desires you,” Aunt Sophronia said gravely. “I should think after last night’s performance you should have little doubt of that. He was wrong to arouse you in the way he apparently did. But he is aware of this, gentleman that he is, and clearly he is trying to correct his errors.”

“He is,” Charlotte said slowly. What her aunt was telling her made perfect sense, and the more she considered it, the more relieved she felt.

“You must do your part, Charlotte,” her aunt continued. “You cannot act like a slattern. You must turn that desire into a more honorable regard. A single glass of wine at supper and no more, so you do not lose hold of your own passions. Receive him to your bed as a lady would, and remember to remain so. Don’t wail or thrash about, or use profanity or other lurid expressions only fit for Covent Garden. The duke is your husband and will be the father of your children. There is no need to entice him with brothel tricks.”

Charlotte nodded eagerly. “So I should wear my new nightshift tonight?”

“I can think of nothing better.” Her aunt smiled warmly, and patted her cheek. “The finest white linen, decorously embroidered, is exactly right for a duchess. Arrange your hair simply, and have your face scrubbed clean, without any paint. Give him nothing that will stir memories of
those wretched women from his past. He will respect you the more, and in time love you for it as well.”

“That is all I really wish for,” Charlotte said wistfully. “For him to love me.”

Aunt Sophronia smiled. “How can he not, when you are so eminently lovable? In time he will love you. I am sure of it. A bit of patience, a fine show of wifely virtue, and his love will be yours.”