Читать книгу The Inconvenient Duchess - Christine Merrill, Christine Merrill - Страница 10

Chapter Five

She was still shaking with mingled passion and panic. How dare he? In a church! In front of the vicar! And she had responded like a common whore. If the kiss had been some sort of test of her experience, she’d probably confirmed his worst fears. Her empty stomach roiled and she covered her mouth, afraid to look at the vicar’s wife lest she be sick on the marble floor. It would only have made the situation worse.

And her husband would not have noticed. He was already striding out of the chapel and down the hall, following St John at a safe distance, probably to make sure that he was headed towards the stables and away.

She straightened her back and turned to the vicar and his wife, forcing a smile to her face. ‘Well.’ The word was artificially cheery. ‘I must thank you, Reverend Winslow, and Mrs Winslow, for your concern in the matter of my safety and honour.’

‘Hmm. Well, of course, the concern continues, your Grace.’

For a moment she looked around, expecting to see her husband behind her, and then realised that he was addressing her, the new duchess.

‘Thank you, yet again. But I am certain, now that we are married, I will do well here.’

They continued to stare at her. She had hoped that ‘good day’ was implied in her thanks, but they showed no sign of leaving. They must be expecting something. ‘Well,’ she said again but the cheer in her voice was running thin.

‘Perhaps, over the wedding breakfast, we might speak to his Grace once more. To make sure there is nothing further required of us.’ Mrs Winslow’s pointed remark led the way to yet another problem.

‘Ah, yes. The wedding breakfast.’ Miranda wondered if anyone on the staff had considered guests. She doubted, after watching his mood in the church, that her husband cared to celebrate. Still, if she could not come up with a bit of cake and some champagne, she might as well find a maid to ready a room for the Winslows. They showed no sign of leaving. ‘Let us go back to the house and see what the servants are preparing.’

She walked them back and abandoned them in the drawing room with promises of a speedy return, then ran into the hall and shouted for Wilkins.

He appeared looking as stooped and addled as he had the day before, giving her a long, fishy look that made her suspect he had forgotten who she was.

‘Wilkins.’ Her tone was sharp, hoping to cut through the fog of gin in his mind. ‘I need you to find his Grace and ask him to return to the house to say goodbye to the Winslows. And I need to speak to the housekeeper about preparing a small wedding breakfast.’

‘Breakfast.’ The word had registered, judging by the panic that crossed his face. ‘That won’t be likely, miss. Housekeeper’s off today.’

In a flash, the mess she had landed in spread itself before her. The house was unmanageable, the servants intractable, the duke antisocial and oblivious to the chaos around him.

And, after twenty minutes of rote prayer, she was in charge.

‘First, Wilkins—’ her voice was silky smooth

‘—you will no longer refer to me as “Miss”. After the ceremony in the chapel this morning, my title is her Grace, the Duchess of Haughleigh. Since I doubt you remember my old name, you need waste little time in forgetting it. If the housekeeper is off, than she needs to make other arrangements for the management of the house while she is gone. Who, exactly, is in charge in her absence?’

Wilkins’s blank eyes and furrowed brow were answer enough.

‘Very well. I will assume no one is in charge, since this is certainly the appearance the house creates. Is the cook available? Sober? Alive? Do we even have a cook, Wilkins?’

‘Yes, miss—ma’am—your Grace.’ With each new title, his back got straighter as he addressed her.

‘Then you will inform the cook that, if she values her position here, there will be a wedding breakfast laid in the dining room in forty-five minutes. I do not expect a miracle. Just the most she can manage on such short notice. And a bottle or two of the best champagne in the cellars to take our mind off the food. Please find the duke and ask him to join us in the drawing room.’

The speech must have hit home, for Wilkins toddled off in the direction of the kitchen at a speed as yet unseen by her. Then she turned with as much majesty and command as she could muster and headed back into the drawing room, trying to radiate her half of marital bliss.

The Winslows were perched on the edges of their respective chairs, awaiting her arrival. She informed them of the brief delay and set to holding up her end of the conversation, which was rather like supporting a dead ox. Topics such as family, past, friends, and thoughts for her future had been exhausted or avoided in the morning’s interviews with Mrs Winslow.

Efforts to draw the Winslows out on their own lives proved them to be neither well travelled, nor intelligent.

The clock was ticking by with no evidence of the arrival of the duke. It would serve him right to enter and find himself the topic of conversation. She tried hesitantly, ‘Have you known the Radwell family long, Reverend? For other than connections with the dowager through a guardian of mine, they are strangers to me.’

‘Hmm. Well, yes. I’ve been in the area, man and boy, most of my life. Things were different under the old duke,’ he hinted.

‘How so?’ She doubted such a direct request for information was going to be met with an answer, but it was worth a try.

The vicar shot a nervous glance at the doorway, as though expecting the appearance of the current duke at the mention of his name. But Mrs Winslow was no longer able to contain the dark secrets she knew. ‘The old duke would not have held with the nonsense his sons have got up to. He knew his duty and the land was a showplace while he controlled it. The fourth duke tried for a few years to hold up to his father’s standards, but gave up the ghost after his first wife died, leaving the poor dowager alone to manage as best she could. And Lord St John...’ she shook her head and sniffed for emphasis ‘...has never made any effort to make his family’s life any easier. From the moment he was old enough to distinguish the difference between the sexes and read the numbers on a deck of cards or count the spots on the dice, there has always been a debt that he has been running from. It is my opinion that the dowager died more of a broken heart than anything else.’

‘The current duke...’

And, as if summoned, the door opened and framed Marcus.

The vicar’s wife shut her mouth with a snap.

‘If I might see you for a moment in the hall, Miranda.’

The word ‘now’ was unspoken, but plain enough. And the sound of her name on his lips was strange, indeed. There was something about the way he said the ‘r’ that seemed to vibrate into a growl.

‘If you will excuse me, for a moment, Reverend, Mrs Winslow?’ And she rose quickly to join her husband in the hall.

‘Your Grace?’

‘You demanded my attendance, Miranda?’ He sketched a mocking bow to her.

‘Not demanded. I requested that Wilkins find you and bring you back for our wedding breakfast.’

‘I ordered no breakfast.’

‘I did.’ She glared at him in frustration. ‘Perhaps you see no need to celebrate the day, and I could do without a continuation of this... this...melodrama, but the Winslows expect it of us and will not leave until the niceties are performed.’

‘Damn the Winslows!’

‘Damn them indeed, sir,’ she whispered, ‘but do it quietly. They are probably listening at the door.’

‘I do not care what they hear. If they lack the sense to clear off—’

‘Very well, then there will be no breakfast. And since I am to have no authority in this house I will leave it to you to step into the drawing room and request that they leave. Order them from the house. You seem to be good at that.’

‘Ahh, we come to the crux, finally. This is about St John, is it? I told him this morning that he is no longer welcome here and my decision stands.’

‘St John? Don’t be ridiculous. This is about your unwillingness to live by the proprieties for more than a few minutes at a time.’

‘I followed them when I offered for you. And I married you, didn’t I?’

She forced a smile and muttered through her gritted teeth, ‘And now you must pretend to celebrate the fact, as I am doing. Choke down a piece of cake and a glass of wine. We both must eat something, and it will not kill us to eat it together. Then thank the vicar for performing the ceremony. Pay him. Make him go away.’

The door to the drawing room swung open and the vicar’s head appeared in the opening. ‘And how are you two managing together?’

Her husband smiled with such ferociousness that the vicar retreated behind the protection of the door. ‘As well as can be expected, Reverend. I understand my wife has arranged a feast for us. Let us retire to the dining room and see what the servants have prepared.’

He led the way, Miranda noted in relief, since the dining room was not a place she had had need to visit since coming to the house. It was about as she had expected: dirty and dusty, but with lurid painted silk on the walls, depicting poorly drawn shepherds and shepherdesses bullying sheep up and down the hills.

The breakfast was also as she expected. Weak tea, runny eggs, a passable ham accompanied by another serving from the endless supply of dry bread. She wondered how the cook managed it. Had she found a way to dry it before baking? The wedding cake itself was the most frightening part of the meal. There had been no time to prepare a true cake, and cook had made do with something that had been leftover from another meal. Whose, she was not sure—she certainly had not seen it during her brief stay. The cut edge had been trimmed away and the whole thing heavily iced and scattered with candied violets that were unable to conceal the lopsided nature of the whole.

And Marcus ruled over the table without saying a word, maintaining the same horrible smile he’d shone in the hallway. The vicar offered a brief prayer of thanks, to which Marcus blinked in response, and they all ate.

To her relief, Wilkins had followed her instructions and provided the best champagne that the cellars had to offer. She had never tasted it before and was surprised at how light and easily drinkable it was. And equally surprised, twenty minutes later, that she had downed three glasses of it, and barely touched the food on her plate. She opened her mouth to speak and hiccupped, making the Winslows jump in their seats and bringing a critical glare from her husband. She offered a quiet apology and shielded her glass from any further attempt of the eager footman to fill it.

Shortly thereafter the duke removed his napkin from his lap and threw it on his plate with a note of finality. He stood and advanced slowly on the vicar with an evil grin and such a deliberate pace that all at the table were convinced that they were about to see the poor man murdered and perhaps eaten. The duke reached into the front pocket of his jacket and the vicar cringed against the oncoming blow.

The duke merely produced an envelope thick with bank notes and dropped it on the plate in front of the vicar. ‘Thank you for your assistance in this matter, Reverend, Mrs Winslow. Good day.’

And then he stood there, stock still, above the vicar. And waited. All in all, Miranda decided she much preferred it when he was yelling. But the effect was impressive and it took less than a minute before the vicar’s composure cracked and he was making his apologies and wishing them well before hustling his wife to the door.

She saw them off with an artificial courtesy that she hoped was not too obvious and turned to find that her husband had followed them to the door as well.

‘I trust that was sufficient, madam?’ He stared at her with only the barest trace of the annoyance he’d shown for the last hour.

‘Yes. Thank you.’ She looked up at him and wondered what was actually going through his mind. He was capable of so many emotions, and able to exchange them so quickly.

‘Very well.’ He continued to look at her, as if seeing her for the first time.

She gazed down and clasped her hands together and remembered the ring he had given her and the kiss, and blushed, running her finger over the surface of the gold and feeling safe and warm.

He glanced down. ‘Ah, yes. I had forgotten that. May I have my ring back, please?’

She looked up at him in shock.

‘I have need of it. And it would not do for you to lose it.’

‘Lose it? It’s just that...I thought...’ She stared down at it, unsure what to say. She thought that the gift had meant something. Perhaps not.

And her eyes met his, and she was lost in them. Her fingers relaxed and the heavy ring slipped off and bounced on the marble floor.

He stooped and caught it, before it had rolled too far, nodding as if this confirmed what he had suspected about her negligent care of it. ‘Thank you. And now, if you will excuse me, I’m sure I will see you in our rooms, later.’