The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet (40 page)

“Yes, sir,” she said.

His lips quirked briefly so that for a moment she was reminded of the man with whom she had traveled for the past three days. Her feeling of unease lifted. But then he straightened up and left the house without another word or backward glance.

Stephanie took a deep breath and held it for a long time. She felt as if she had been caught up in a whirlwind one week ago and was still spinning helplessly about, waiting to be dropped to earth again. She wondered if it would be a soft landing or if she would be dashed quite to pieces.

Somewhere along the way she seemed to have lost herself. It was a bewildering thought.

HE
M
ARCHIONESS OF
H
AYDEN AND THE
C
OUNTESS
of Greenwald were sitting with their mother, the Duchess of Bridgwater, in the drawing room of her town house. The Duke of Bridgwater was present too, though he was on his feet, pacing more than he was sitting down. They were waiting for the arrival of Mrs. Bertha Cavendish and Miss Stephanie Gray to take tea.

“Do sit down, Alistair,” his mother said, looking up from her embroidery at him. “You remind me of a bear in a cage.”

“I beg your pardon, Mama,” he said stiffly, seating himself in the nearest chair.

“I still cannot believe what you have done, Alistair,” the marchioness said, frowning. “A parson’s daughter. A governess. And you a duke. You know very well that a duke rarely looks below an earl’s daughter for a bride.”

“But she
is
an heiress, Lizzie,” the countess said gently. “A very wealthy one, apparently. And she is a gentleman’s daughter. You speak as if she were entirely beyond the pale. I am sure she is quite lovely and quite refined. Else Alistair would not have offered for her.”

“Thank you, Jane,” the duke said dryly, getting to his feet again and taking up a brief stand before the fireplace.

“But we know very well, Jane,” the marchioness said,
“that he offered because he felt he had compromised her. How can a duke compromise a governess? I would like to know. Hayden says—”

“I offered,” the duke said firmly, fingering the handle of his quizzing glass and looking rather haughtily at the elder of his two sisters, “because I wished to, Elizabeth. And I do not recall granting you—or Hayden—permission to question my wishes. Miss Gray is no longer a governess. She is, as Jane has pointed out, a considerable heiress, owner of Sindon Park. And she is soon to be the Duchess of Bridgwater. You will doubtless keep those facts in mind when she calls.”

“The only significant fact,” the duchess said, setting her embroidery on a small table beside her, “is that Alistair is betrothed to Miss Gray and that her cousin has brought her to town and is accompanying her here this afternoon to make our acquaintance. We will remember, all three of us, that within a month Miss Gray will assume my title as Alistair’s wife, that she will be the leading lady of this family, superseding even me. I will be merely the
dowager
duchess. We will treat her accordingly, both this afternoon and for the rest of our lives. I trust that is understood?”

“Yes, Mama,” the countess said, smiling. “I am sure I am going to love her. I have been despairing of you, Alistair.”

“Of course, Mama,” the marchioness said more briskly. “You can always count on me to behave with good breeding and to do what is correct. Hayden always says—”

“Ah,” the duchess said as the drawing room door opened, “here is Louise at last.”

Lady George Munro, the Duke of Bridgwater’s sister-in-law, hurried into the room, bent over her mother-in-law to kiss her cheek, and smiled a greeting at everyone else.

“I thought I might be late,” she said. “Caroline is cutting teeth and was fretting at being left with Nurse. But I would not have missed coming here for worlds. Alistair, you are looking positively green. George says he cannot understand what possessed you. You are always so very high in the instep—his words, not mine, I assure you.” She laughed lightly. “We thought perhaps you were waiting for an available princess, having judged every other lady beneath your notice.”

The Duke of Bridgwater’s hand closed about the handle of his quizzing glass, and he raised it to his eye, pursing his lips as he did so.

“Ah,” he said, “then you have been proved wrong, Louise, have you not? You and George both.”

But she only laughed merrily. “Oh, do put the glass down,” she said. “You cannot cow me with it, Alistair. Henry can imitate you to perfection, you know. He can have us in stitches with laughter.”

The duke lowered his glass and raised his eyebrows. His eleven-year-old nephew was growing into too impudent a wag for his own good. And George and Louise were encouraging him in such insubordination? So much for favorite nephews and the gratitude they owed a doting uncle.

The ladies settled into a dull and cozy chat about children. Among the three younger ladies, there were enough children to provide topics of conversation to last a week or longer. But they were not content with just their own.

“Cora is in town with Lord Francis and the children,” the countess said. “Did you know, Mama? I was delighted beyond anything when she called yesterday. Do you remember the Season when she stayed here with us and you brought her out? The year Charles and I became betrothed? The year she married Lord Francis? And what a famous heroine she was?” She laughed at
her memories even before the others began discussing them.

“Dear Lady Francis,” Lady George said fondly. “She saved Henry’s life. How could I ever forget her? How are her children, Jane? Four, are there not?”

But Bridgwater was no longer listening. He had crossed the room to the window and stood looking down on the square below, waiting for the appearance of another carriage.

In his mind’s eye he could see her rather tall, slender figure. He could see her auburn hair thick and wavy like a cloud about her head and shoulders, as it had been that first night, which he had expected to spend with her. He knew that her eyes were hazel with golden flecks. He remembered that she had a dimple in one cheek—the left?—and very white teeth. He remembered that her smile lit up her face. He knew that she was pretty.

But he could not for the life of him put the pieces together in his mind in order to form a clear image of her. He even wondered foolishly if he would recognize her when he saw her this afternoon.

It had been ten days.

Ten days since he had fallen into his great madness. It seemed unreal, looking back. It was hard to believe that it had actually happened—all of it. That strange journey south with a bright bird of plumage, whom he had mistaken for a ladybird with a vivid imagination. His insistence on seeing the adventure through to its end so that he might enjoy her discomfiture when all her lies were finally exposed for what they were. His sudden realization, after they had arrived, that everything she had told him was true, and the accompanying realization that he had hopelessly compromised a lady. His offer. His insistence that she accept it.

Yes, he had insisted. She had tried more than once to refuse. She had quite categorically released him from
any sense of obligation he might feel. She would not have been ruined if she had. The other occupants of the house would have kept their mouths shut—even Sir Peter Griffin. Yes, he especially. He would have kept his mouth shut in the hope of marrying her himself.

And yet the insistence. And her final acceptance.

He had not even corrected her on the assumption that had seemed to be at the heart of her acceptance. She had assumed that he had behaved throughout their acquaintance with the utmost gallantry. She had called him kind. She had thought his decision to take her all the way to Sindon had proceeded from his concern for her safety. She had said he had been the only person to treat her with respect for who she really was since she had acquired those atrocious garments. Lord, if only she knew!

He had not disabused her. It had seemed unmannerly to do so. It would have hurt her. Besides—dared he admit it?—she would have thought the worse of him if she had known.

He felt a little guilty for not admitting he was not quite the hero she thought him.

Yes, it was hard to believe that it was all true. Except that the memories of shocked disbelief among his family were very fresh indeed and very real. His mother, who now appeared to have accepted the inevitable, had been worst of all. He could not possibly so disgrace his name. She would not believe it of him. But she had believed eventually and had decided to stand by him.

And now the female members of his family were gathered behind him, waiting to meet his betrothed. The announcement was ready to go into tomorrow’s papers, and St. George’s had already been booked for the wedding in one month’s time.

He watched almost dispassionately as a plain carriage entered the square and drew to a halt before the doors
of his mother’s house. He watched the steps being put down and two ladies being helped to the pavement—one middle-aged, one young. Neither looked up. Both ascended the steps of the house and disappeared inside.

He had intended calling on them yesterday or this morning. Yet, when he had made inquiries late yesterday afternoon, they had still not arrived at the Pulteney. This morning Mrs. Cavendish had sent a card to his mother, and his mother had sent word to him. He was to come here this afternoon, she had written. Mrs. Cavendish and Miss Gray were coming to tea. And so he had waited for the afternoon. He wished now that he had made arrangements to call for them and to escort them here.

He had been very firmly head of his family for longer than ten years. No one, least of all he, had been in doubt about that. But today he felt like a boy again, unsure of himself, subject to his mother’s will. He drew a deep breath and let it out on a silent sigh. The door had opened behind him, and his mother’s butler was making the expected announcement. He turned. All the ladies were rising to their feet.

He stood at the window like a spectator. She and her cousin both curtsied. His mother hurried toward them, greeted the older lady courteously, and then held her hands out to the younger, who took them.

“Miss Gray,” his mother was saying graciously, “what a pleasure it is to meet you. The past week has seemed interminable. I do hope you had a comfortable journey up from the country and that your hotel is to your taste? You must tell us all about it. Allow me to present you to my daughters and my daughter-in-law.”

They buzzed. They talked. They laughed. Mrs. Cavendish buzzed and talked and laughed back.

And then his mother turned to him, a smile on her face. “Alistair?” she said.

He came forward at last. “Ma’am?” he said to Mrs. Cavendish, bowing over her hand. “Miss Gray?” He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. It was cold, even a little clammy.

Her dress was pale blue rather than gray. Her hair, dressed in a simple knot behind, was slightly flattened from the bonnet she had left downstairs. Her face was pale, her eyes slightly shadowed. There was not a glimmering of a sign of her dimple or her white teeth.

“Your Grace,” she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

She looked every inch a governess.

He felt the nervous urge to laugh. Where were the fuchsia cloak and the plumed bonnet? Without them she seemed to be robbed of identity.

“Alistair,” his mother was saying, “you will show Miss Gray to a chair? Mrs. Cavendish, do take the seat beside Lady George. Here is the tea tray.”

He seated her on a love seat. He should have taken the place beside her. The occasion called for it. He should have engaged her in a tête-à-tête conversation, as far as politeness would allow. It would be expected of him. Instead, he walked to the fireplace a short distance away and stood with his back to it, his hands behind him.

She was a stranger. She was a clergyman’s daughter, a governess. He did not think of her as his social inferior—just as his social opposite. He was a duke. There was a whole way of life his duchess would be expected to fit into with grace and ease. This woman just would not be able to do it. She already looked like the proverbial fish out of water.

By insisting that she marry him, he had ensured her unhappiness—and his own. He pursed his lips and set himself to being sociable, the perfect host. The role was second nature to him.

*  *  *

C
OUSIN
B
ERTHA AND
Cousin Horace had fawned upon her for longer than a week. Unkind as the word was, Stephanie could think of no more suitable one.

She was to marry a
duke
, the Duke of Bridgwater. They did not seem to tire of exclaiming over the fact and reminding her of her good fortune. How provident it was that they and Mr. Watkins and Sir Peter Griffin had all been at Sindon to witness her arrival with His Grace. Had there been no one but servants at home at the time, he would doubtless have withdrawn quietly and dear Cousin Stephanie might never have netted him. But he had seen how disconcerted they were, of course—how could they help but be outraged even if he
was
a duke and everyone knew that members of the aristocracy were a law unto themselves? For very decency’s sake he had been forced to offer for dear Cousin Stephanie. She had done very nicely indeed for herself.