Читать книгу Christmas With The Duchess - Tamara Lejeune - Страница 10

“We have so many treasures here at Warwick, I hardly know where to begin,” she said smoothly as she led him back out into the brightness of the corridor. “My father-in-law, the ninth duke, was an avid collector of fine porcelain, I seem to recall. Do you like porcelain?”

“We always made do with crockery on board,” he said apologetically. “The captain did have a you-know-what with Bonaparte’s face at the bottom, now I think of it. I’m pretty sure that was porcelain. I shouldn’t have said that,” he added, catching sight of her startled face. He turned beet red. “Forgive me, ma’am! I’m afraid we sailors are a rather coarse lot.”

“Not at all,” she said faintly. “It was very amusing. Perhaps you would like to see some of our paintings?” she suggested as they walked. “We have a very good collection of the Flemish masters, and a rather important Raphael.”

“I love paintings,” he told her. “My father was an artist.”

“Really?” Emma began, breaking off as she caught sight of a group of officers at the other end of the hall. “Let us go this way,” she said, hurrying into another room. “As you can see, we have quite a few paintings in here,” she said, closing the door behind them. “Portraits, mainly.”

She looked around the room, puzzled. She could not recall seeing it before. The walls were paneled in green silk. The wainscoting was painted a dazzling white. There was no place to sit, but a big round table stood at the center of the room, supporting a tall vase of hothouse flowers. The windows faced full west. Other than showing off a few dozen overly large portraits, the room seemed to have no purpose at all.

“My father did portraits,” Nicholas said, looking up at a life-sized portrait of a Restoration gentleman wearing a long curly brown wig and scarlet knee breeches. “Who’s he when he’s at home?” he asked her, laughing.

“That would be King Charles the Second,” she told him. “Did your father ever paint anyone famous?”

“No,” Nicholas said, chuckling at the very idea. “Mostly he did miniatures of people, sailors mostly, on bits of ivory. The sort of thing a man sends to his sweetheart when he goes to sea,” he added, coloring faintly.

“Oh, how lovely,” said Emma.

“My father was disowned when he married my mother,” Nicholas told her. “She was not considered good enough, I suppose, for the younger son of an earl. My father couldn’t afford to paint big canvases after that. I remember his last painting. He couldn’t pay our rent. He had to give it to the landlady at the Barking Crow. She hung it in the taproom, though,” he added proudly.

“It must have been a very good painting,” Emma said kindly.

“Aye, it was. A ship at sea. A gentleman offered her ten shillings for it once, but she would not sell.” With two fingers, he dug behind his collar, coming up with a cream-colored pendant on a long piece of brown twine. “I carved the frame myself, out of whalebone,” he told her as he placed it in her palm.

It was a crude locket, made along the lines of a clamshell, with a design of hearts carved into the lid. Emma opened it gingerly. Inside was a tiny, delicate painting of a doll-like young woman with big blue eyes and yellow curls.

“Is this your sweetheart?” she asked him.

Nicholas looked surprised. “My mother,” he said.

“She was very beautiful,” Emma said gently.

“She was a kind soul,” said Nicholas. “She died too young. They both did. When my father died, I was put to sea. The Royal Navy is Portsmouth’s orphanage, you know.”

“Did you not know that your grandfather was the Earl of Camford?” Emma asked.

He shook his head. “I had no idea. My father never spoke of his family. I believe he blamed them for my mother’s death.”

Emma carefully closed the locket and gave it back to him. Nicholas kissed it quickly before tucking it away under his shirt. “Who’s that fellow over there?” he asked.

Emma spun around, fearing that another person had come into the room.

“I like his mustaches,” Nicholas went on, walking up to another painting. “Very useful for straining soup, I should think.”

Emma laughed. “I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t the slightest idea. I’m only a Fitzroy by marriage,” she reminded him. “If you’re really interested, I could summon the housekeeper. The servants know everything.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” he said quickly.

“I’m a very poor guide,” she said ruefully. “To be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure I can find the Raphael.”

“I know I couldn’t,” he said. “And I’m sleeping in it!”

Emma laughed. “You’re sleeping in Westphalia,” she told him. “Raphael is the Italian Renaissance painter.”

Nicholas flushed with embarrassment. “Raphael,” he murmured. “Of course. He painted battle scenes, I believe.”

“No,” she said, laughing. “He painted madonnas, saints, and angels.”

“That would have been my second guess,” he muttered. “You must think me so very ignorant.”

Emma shrugged. “I prefer nature to art myself.”

“So do I,” he said eagerly. “I confess I hate to be indoors.”

“Then, by all means, let us go for a ride,” Emma suggested. “We keep an excellent stable here. It will take but a moment for me to change into my habit.”

The grounds of Warwick Palace were extensive, and she knew a great many lonely, beautiful places where she could take him and seduce him.

Nicholas sighed. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t ride. I’ve never had the opportunity to learn,” he went on, in answer to her obvious surprise. “There are not many horses at sea.”

“No,” she smiled. “A nice, long walk, then?”

“I would love a nice, long walk.”

Emma rang the bell and sent the responding footman for her gloves, her cloak, and her walking shoes. Another footman brought her a chair. Nicholas watched in astonishment as the footman knelt at her feet to remove her high-heeled slippers. “You have servants for everything,” he remarked.

“Well, he is a footman,” said Emma, wiggling her toes. “Why do you think they’re called footmen?”

“I have never thought about it.”

Emma jumped up, her feet now encased in sturdy walking boots. “Shall we?” she said brightly, fastening her sable-lined cloak at her throat.

They went out onto a small terrace at the back of the house. Ornamental gardens and bright green lawns stretched out before them, and, in the far distance, shadowy woodlands crowded the horizon. The quiet enormity of it made it seem bleak. To Nicholas it lacked the dangerous energy of the constantly moving sea.

“Let us go out to the secession houses,” said Emma, deliberately leading him into an obscure, rarely traveled path screened by tall, beautiful lime trees. “We will be hungry by the time we get there. Have you ever tasted a pineapple?”

“Oh, yes,” he answered immediately. “Many times.”

Emma was slightly vexed. “Oh. What about a nectarine?”

“Of course.”

Emma frowned as she tried to come up with something even more exotic. “Breadfruit?”

Nicholas chuckled. “I have been all over the world, ma’am,” he told her. “We sailors learn very quickly to eat whatever we can get in the local markets when we put to shore. When one is subsisting on hardtack biscuits, salt pork, and watery rum, fresh fruit and vegetables are like manna from heaven. Have you ever eaten a carrot, ma’am? Raw, I mean.”

Emma stared at him. “You mean…right out of the dirt?”

“Well, washed of course,” he amended. “They’re nice and crunchy.”

“That doesn’t sound at all healthy,” Emma said disapprovingly.

Nicholas laughed.

Though her intentions had not been honest, Emma had not lied about Lady Anne and the Miss Fitzroys. The journey from Plymouth had indeed exhausted them, and, just as she had told Nicholas, they were sleeping in.

Octavia Fitzroy was the first to rise. A stately young woman of twenty-four, she was the eldest of Lord Hugh and Lady Anne’s five daughters. Intelligent, cold, and pompous, she commanded more obedience from her sisters than their nervous mother ever could. While Lady Anne sat up in bed, nursing a splitting headache, Octavia herded her sisters into the room for a council of war.

Apart from herself, only Augusta was dressed.

“It was a mistake to bring all of us to Plymouth to meet Cousin Nicholas,” Octavia declared while the younger girls were still rubbing their eyes. “By the time we got to Warwick, he was heartily sick of us all.”

“Cousin Nicholas is not sick of me,” declared Julia, preening. At fifteen, she was the youngest, and, with her lively, dark eyes, bright red hair, and flawless alabaster skin, she was the only sister with any claim to beauty.

“Yes, he is,” Cornelia, the third daughter, said spitefully. “He told me so.”

“Liar! You’re just jealous,” Julia said, quite accurately. “I can’t help it if he likes me best. I am the prettiest.”

“Cousin Nicholas treated you as a mere child,” Octavia told her bluntly, “which is, of course, what you are.”

“I am not a child!” shrieked Julia, causing her mother to wince in pain.

“You are not yet Out, Julia,” Octavia told her firmly.

“Well, you cannot have him, Octopus,” Julia retorted. “You are engaged already to Cousin Michael. Not that he seems eager to claim you,” she added spitefully. “The war has been over for months. Surely he could have gotten a furlong or whatever by now, if he wanted to.”

“Obviously, we are not talking of me, Julia,” Octavia said coldly. “I am spoken for. But one of you must make a push for Cousin Nicholas. If all of you try for him at once, it is very likely that none of you shall get him.”

“Cousin Nicholas will choose me,” Julia said. “I have only to crook my little finger.”

“It would be unseemly for you to marry before your elder sisters,” snapped Octavia.

Augusta, aged twenty, spoke up. “May I go to the stables, Mama?” she begged. “Cousin Nicholas is not likely to choose me, and I don’t want to be married, anyway.”

Lady Anne gasped. “Miss Augusta, that is a wicked thing to say! You know your papa and I are depending on you girls to marry well. Your papa has some very pressing debts.”

“You mean he’s gambled away our dowries,” Octavia corrected her.

“If Augusta don’t want Cousin Nicholas, then I should have him,” said Cornelia, sitting up taller. Like her two elder sisters, she had a long, horsey face and auburn hair, but she lacked Octavia’s intelligence and Augusta’s positive energy. She fancied herself a musician, but she was too lazy to practice. She scratched her head, scattering curl papers to the floor.

“You! What about me?” demanded Flavia, the fourth daughter.

“I am the next in line,” Cornelia informed her. “After Augusta, I am the eldest.”

Lady Anne looked at her third and fourth daughters doubtfully. Cornelia was only tolerable looking, and poor Flavia had been cursed with horrible teeth and greasy, spotted skin. “Oh, I do hope your Aunt Susan has not brought any single ladies with her,” she cried weakly. “What if Nicholas should fall in love with someone else?”

“She has not,” Octavia said with authority. “I have already made certain of that. My Aunt Bellamy has only invited married ladies.”

Lady Anne started up as a new, horrifying thought occurred to her. “What if Nicholas should fall in love with one of the governesses? His father had such low taste in women.”

“Both your brothers had low taste in women,” Octavia said. “At least we were never obliged to meet Cousin Nicholas’s mama. The indignity of having to curtsey to my uncle Camford’s wife was quite the outside of enough.”

Lady Anne’s hollow chest heaved with righteous indignation. “Haymarket ware!” she said, becoming quite animated. “When I think of that—that woman taking my mother’s place at Camford Park—! How I endured the humiliation, I shall never know. If Nicholas should marry an unsuitable female, I do not know what I shall do!”

“I will wear my blue muslin at dinner,” Julia announced. “Cousin Nicholas will want something pretty to look at while he eats. If he looks at Flavia, he will lose his appetite.”

“This will not be a family dinner, Julia,” Octavia told her harshly. “Aunt Bellamy has invited all the officers and their wives. You will have your dinner in the nursery with the other children.”

“What!” shrieked Julia. “Mama!”

“I’m afraid your sister is right, my love,” Lady Anne said, cringing. “Your father would never allow it.”

“Then I will just have to make the most of luncheon and afternoon tea,” Julia huffed. “I’m still allowed to have tea, ain’t I?” With her nose in the air, she swept from the room.

Cornelia hopped up. “I believe I will write Cousin Nicholas a love letter. If he thinks my heart is breaking, perhaps he will marry me out of pity!”

“That is an excellent idea, my love,” said Lady Anne.

“But I was going to write him a love letter!” cried Flavia. “You stole my idea!”

The two girls bolted from the room, pushing and shoving one another as they went.

Augusta stood up and quietly left the room. Lady Anne knew the impossible girl was going to sneak off to the stables, but she hadn’t the energy to stop her. Alone with her eldest daughter, she wrung her hands. “Oh, what is to become of us? If only you were not engaged, Octavia! I am certain you would get Nicholas to come to the point. You are so clever.”

“Yes,” Octavia agreed. “It is a great pity that Cousin Michael was not killed in the war. Then I would be free. He is a duke’s younger son—that is something, I suppose. But I should have liked to be a countess.”

Lady Anne stared at her, shivering. “Octavia!” she protested weakly. “Y-y-ou cannot mean it.”

Octavia looked at her scornfully. “Oh, don’t be such a lily-liver, Mama,” she said.

From the window of her bedroom, Lady Harriet Fitzroy watched Lord Camford disappear into the Lime Walk with the Duchess of Warwick. Emma had donned a dark cloak for the excursion, but it was unmistakably she.

“Well, well,” Lady Harriet said aloud. “That did not take long.”

Smiling faintly, the old lady sipped her tea.

It was half-past two by the time Emma and Nicholas left the greenhouses. The afternoon was as fine as the morning had been, crisp and sunny. Apart from the occasional breeze, Emma had no real need for her cloak. Their bellies were full of raw fruit and vegetables.

“Shall we go on to the lake?” Emma asked him as they reached the heights of a small hill. “Or shall we go back to the house?”

Even from two miles away, the huge house dominated the landscape, cold and white as a sepulcher.

“I suppose we’d better go back,” Nicholas said reluctantly. “My aunt and uncle will be wondering about me. I’m supposed to have tea with them in the main drawing room.”

They had strolled out to the secession houses in a leisurely manner, keeping up a light conversation as they went, but as they started back the way they had come, Nicholas’s stride was brisk and purposeful. Emma had to struggle to keep up with him as they hurried past the old tennis courts.

“Do you know the game, Nicholas?” Emma asked, slowing him down. “I’m told it is beneficial exercise. I prefer badminton myself.”

“Badminton, ma’am?” he said, fidgeting.

Deliberately, she leaned against the stone wall of the tennis court. An expression of agony flitted across his face. “Are you late for an appointment?” she asked him coolly. “Or just eager to get away from me?”

“No, ma’am!” he said with reassuring violence. “You have been everything charming.”

“Then why are we running like jackrabbits?” she wanted to know.

Nicholas’s face slowly turned crimson.

“Oh,” Emma murmured, as the light dawned. “You need to answer a call of nature? Why didn’t you say so? You can go behind the hedge,” she told him kindly. “I’ll wait for you here. Go on.”

“I couldn’t,” he stammered. “What you must think of me!”

“I think you are flesh and blood,” she said, smiling. “Really, there’s no need to be embarrassed. Besides, what is the alternative?”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, running behind the hedge.

Emma lifted her face to the sun and closed her eyes. She had not slept well the night before, and she was tired. She was physically drained, too, having walked more in that one day than she had in weeks. She wondered idly if it was too early in the relationship to ask the gentleman to carry her back to the house on his back.

Presently, she heard the rustle of branches as he came back to her, but her eyelids felt too heavy to open. He took her hand and pressed it to his lips.

“Mmmm,” Emma said lazily.

With both hands at her waist, he drew her close to him. He smelled pleasantly of a light scent, of tobacco, and horses. How odd, she thought, as his lips found hers, that he should smell of horses when he doesn’t ride.

Her eyes popped open, looking directly into the pale green, oddly tilted eyes of Lord Ian Monteith. “Monty!” she gasped, throwing off his hands and shrinking back against the wall. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

“I love you, Emma,” Monty announced loudly. “I have come here to make love to you. I burn with desire for you. Take pity on me. I am your slave.”

“What?” she snarled under her breath. “What about my brother?”

Monty blinked at her. “It was his idea,” he explained, lowering his voice. “Do you see those officers over there? Don’t look, for God’s sake!” he cried, seizing Emma’s face. “They are watching us. So we’d better put on a nice show for them.”

“Go away,” said Emma. “Take your hands off of me.”

“Do you think I want to kiss you?” he said impatiently. “Is that it? Because I don’t. It’s only to avert suspicion.”

“This is not a good time, Monty,” Emma said crossly.

“What do you mean? It’s the perfect time.”

“I’m busy.”

“No, you’re not.”

Lunging forward, he pinned her struggling body to the wall with his own. “Let’s make love,” he shouted, battering her face with loud, clumsy kisses. “Don’t be shy. Give yourself to me, angel! We’re completely and utterly alone.”

“Not quite,” said Nicholas, tapping him hard on the shoulder.

Startled, Monty whirled around, his nose connecting nicely with Nicholas’s fist. The Scotsman went down, bright red blood spraying from between his fingers as he clutched his nose. A group of officers came running up. Two of them grabbed Nicholas while a third helped Monty to his feet. “You broke my nose,” Monty complained.

“If you liked your nose, you should not have insulted this lady,” Nicholas answered, struggling to get free. “Apologize at once, or prepare to meet me on the field of honor.”

The officers scoffed. “This is Lord Ian Monteith,” one of them said. “He isn’t going to fight a nobody like you.”

“Is that so?” said Nicholas. “Well, I am Lord…I am Lord…Damn it! I’ve forgotten the name of the bloody place.”

“He is Lord Camford,” Emma said clearly. “Now take your hands off of him before I call the servants.”

“And who are you, pretty?” one of the officers demanded, but he was instantly silenced by one of his companions.

“It is the duchess,” the man whispered. “I have seen her portrait in London, in the National Gallery. It is she.”

Nicholas was released. “Apologize,” he said, glaring at Monty.

Monty now had his handkerchief pressed over his nose. “I beg your pardon, Lord Camford,” he groaned.

“Not to me, you fool! To the lady.”

“I am sorry, your grace. I was run away by my feelings.”

Nicholas took Emma’s hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. “He doesn’t sound very sincere,” he said, scowling. “I think I’d better shoot him.”

“Please, my lord!” Monty cried. “I am contrite! I will never speak to the lady again. I swear it.”

Emma pressed her face against Nicholas’s coat. “Please don’t shoot him, my lord. I abhor violence. Will you be good enough to take me back to the house? Suddenly, I am cold.”

“Of course,” said Nicholas. As he led her away, he glanced back at the officers. “Get that man out of here before any of the ladies see him,” he snapped.

“Yes, my lord,” they said. “Thank you, my lord.”

Nicholas hardly heard their obsequious replies. “You’re shaking,” he said gently, rubbing Emma’s gloved hand between his own. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” she said. “You won’t leave me alone, will you?”

“Not for an instant,” he assured her.

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Nicholas. You’re not going to start milording me now, are you?” he complained.

“I might,” she said, smiling up at him. “I just might. You were very heroic.”

“Heroic? No,” he said. She could tell that he was pleased.

“Indeed, you were,” she insisted. “I’m afraid to think what would have happened if you hadn’t been there,” she added mendaciously, covering her face with her hands. “That man—”

“I will not let him hurt you, Emma,” he murmured, taking her in his arms. “He will never go near you again.”

“I feel so safe with you, Nicholas,” she said softly, lifting her face to be kissed.

“You are safe with me, Emma,” he told her very seriously.

To her disappointment, he meant it.

Lord Hugh Fitzroy entered his wife’s sitting room at precisely half-past four. Anne and her brood were already assembled there, dressed to go down to the main drawing room for tea.

“Good afternoon, Papa,” the young ladies chorused.

“Well?” he said. “What progress has been made with Cousin Nicholas?”

“What progress could there be?” cried Lady Anne. “We have not seen him today.”

Lord Hugh flew into a rage. “What do you mean you have not seen him today?”

“Harriet had him last,” Lady Anne said, desperate to avoid his wrath. “Ask your sister where he is.”

He looked amazed. “Ask my sister—! Am I to understand you have not seen your nephew since last night? What in God’s name have you been doing with your time?”

“I have had the headache,” Lady Anne whimpered.

“The headache! I will give you the headache, madam wife!”

“I wrote him a love letter, Papa,” Flavia said quickly.

“Well, I am glad someone is thinking of the main chance,” said Lord Hugh.

“It was my idea, Papa,” Cornelia shrieked. “Flavia stole it from me.”

“I am wearing my blue muslin,” Julia pointed out. “It is very low cut, and I am not tucking lace.”

“We can see that for ourselves,” Cornelia sneered. “Your chest appears to have exploded.”

Julia preened. “They are called bosoms,” she informed them. “They are Out, even if I am not.”

“Papa,” Octavia said sternly, “tell your youngest daughter she cannot go to tea looking like that.”

“It is not my fault that I have a chest and my sisters do not,” Julia argued.

Lord Hugh took out his pocket watch and looked at it impatiently. “I need not remind you idiotic females that time is not on our side. One of you must be engaged to him by Twelfth Night. If he makes it to London, some scheming adventuress will be sure to trap him. And then, what will become of us? When he comes of age, we’ll be nothing more to him than poor relations! He can turn us all out into the snow if he likes.”

“I know, Husband,” Lady Anne whispered.

“Then why have you been idle all day?” he snapped.

“I thought he was with you!” she cried.

Lord Hugh scowled at her. “With me? Why should he be with me? He is your nephew. I have been playing cards with General Bellamy.”

“Oh, dear,” Lady Anne said foolishly. “I hope you did not lose very much, Husband.”

The veins bulged in Lord Hugh’s forehead. “What does it matter if I did?” he demanded. “I have ten thousand pounds coming to me.”

Lady Anne clapped her hands together. “Husband! That is excellent news. Why, that is two thousand pounds for each of our girls. They shall have dowries.”

“Two thousand pounds is no fitting dowry for a Fitzroy,” Lord Hugh sniffed. “I should be ashamed to offer such a paltry sum to a gentleman. I would rather they find husbands who will take them for nothing.”

“We shall have to, at this rate,” Octavia said dryly.

Lord Hugh spun around to glare at her. Unmoved by his bullying, Octavia gazed back at him with chilly politeness. “You did say, Papa, that you would take Cousin Nicholas on a tour of the house,” she reminded him. “We all thought he was with you.”

“Indeed, we did, Husband. For no one knows the palace as well as you do.”

“True,” he said, somewhat mollified by his wife’s flattery. “I daresay, Nicholas has made some friends among the officers. I daresay we will find him in the drawing room.”

Julia jumped to her feet. “I’m so hungry I could eat the whole croquenbouche.”

The door opened and Lady Susan sailed into the room. “Well, here’s a to-do!” she said, her small eyes glinting. “Lord Camford and Lord Ian Monteith have been fighting—I should say brawling—in a most unsavory contest for the favors of a certain…er-hum!…lady.”

Lady Anne jumped to her feet. “Oh, no! Was my nephew very badly injured?”

“He had to be carried back to the house,” Lady Susan said ominously, freely embroidering on the truth.

Lady Anne fell back in her chair. Lord Hugh shook his fist at her. “This would not have happened, madam, if you had taken better care of him.”

Julia was confused. “But I do not know Lord Ian Monteith,” she said. “Why should he be fighting for my favors? He must have seen me in the window as I was dressing.”

“It is the duchess, I mean,” Lady Susan said irritably. “The Whore of Babylon herself!”

“But Nicholas doesn’t even know the duchess!”

“You should have been more careful with him,” Lord Hugh accused his wife. “The harlot will turn his head, and he will never think of marrying any of the girls.”

Lady Anne clutched her chest. “Oh, Husband! Surely she would not marry him herself?”

“She’s far too old for him,” Julia sniffed.

Lord Hugh looked at his wife with contempt. “Marry him! And give up her dower portion? Not bloody likely! That’s twenty thousand pounds a year she gets from the estate. Would you give that up? Of course you wouldn’t, you imbecile.”

Lady Anne crumpled before his contempt.

“In any case, the boy is still a minor. He cannot marry without my permission, not until he comes of age. I’m not likely to let him marry her, am I? But she may very well distract him.”

“You mean seduce him!” Julia whispered eagerly.

“Oh, dear! We should not have let him out of our sight, Husband,” Lady Anne wailed.

“We, madam?” he said coldly. “Are you suggesting that I follow your nephew about like a Bow Street Runner? That is your duty, madam, and you have failed.”

Octavia’s voice cut through the air. “Is Cousin Nicholas badly hurt, Aunt Bellamy? Has the surgeon seen him?”

Lady Susan took her time answering. “He will live,” she said finally. “But I understand it was very near thing, very near. He was unconscious for several hours.”

“But why did no one tell us?” cried Lady Anne.

“I’ve only just heard of it myself from Mrs. Camperdine,” said Lady Susan.

“Well, don’t just sit there like a bunch of wallflowers,” Lord Hugh shouted, turning on his wife and daughters. “Go to him quickly before he recovers. He will be in a vulnerable state. Nurse him back to health, and he may reward one of you with his hand in marriage. Hurry! Must I think of everything?”