The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet (54 page)

“But he did not try to stop you?” he asked.

She smiled at her hands. “He offered me marriage,” she said. “I refused.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because he offered out of kindness,” she said. “He did not love me. And I did not love him. It would not have been the marriage I had always dreamed of.”

He felt uncomfortable suddenly. She might have been describing their own marriage. Except that she had been unable to say no to him.

“What was the marriage you had always dreamed of?” he asked almost unwillingly.

She looked up at him suddenly with cheeks that were at last slightly flushed. It was as if she had just realized the turn their conversation had taken.

“Oh.” She laughed. “It was the dream all girls and very young women dream, I suppose. It seems foolish now and would appear even more foolish to a gentleman—to a duke in particular. I dreamed of romantic love. I believed in that quite ridiculous notion that somewhere for all of us there is that one perfect match, that … Oh, it does not matter. But I am glad I did not marry Tom. I would have always felt that I had”—she winced and caught at her bottom lip, but she had no choice but to complete what she had started to say—“that I had coerced him into it. I would always have felt th-that I owed him an obligation I could never fully repay. I …” She foundered to a halt after all.

It was how she felt about him, of course. She believed she had coerced him into marriage. She believed she had an obligation to him she could never repay. Her marriage was a burden to her. She could never be happy with him.

What would she say if she knew that he had mistaken
her for an actress and a whore? That he had taken her all the way to Sindon not out of kindness and concern, but …

“Tell me more,” he said, “about those games you played, about the exploits and the mischief.” He was hungry to know her. Although she had told him a great deal more than he had ever told her, he still felt that she was a stranger—a stranger who was his wife and his duchess, a stranger with whom he had been intimate last night and would be intimate tonight and tomorrow night and so on through their lives.

“They were not dignified,” she said, smiling quickly at him so that for a moment he had a dazzling glimpse of her dimple and gold-flecked eyes. “Some of them were downright dishonorable, like the time we all crept out at night—Tom, Miriam, Agnes, and I—because Tom had heard and believed the strange story that fish swam on the surface of the stream at night and might be caught in the hands. I believe I was eight years old. We did not see a single fish, let alone catch any, of course.”

He smiled. She told him several more of her adventures that he had not heard before. It was clear that Tom Reaves had been the leader, with Stephanie a close second. He thought of his own childhood. He had been much like Tom, only perhaps considerably worse, until his father, despairing of ever grooming him to take on the ducal title and responsibilities eventually sent him off to school at the age of ten. It seemed to him that he had spent a large portion of his childhood bent over his father’s desk trying not to hear the whistle of his father’s cane, which was always the harbinger of stinging pain.

Let George be the damned duke
, he could remember yelling once, dancing from foot to foot in a vain attempt to alleviate the stinging of his rear end.
All I want to be is a damned soldier or a damned sailor
. All he had got for his act of shocking defiance, of course, had been a
thunderous order to bend over again. And school very soon after that. He had wondered how many people, knowing him now, would guess that he had been such a child.

Would his own eldest son be such a rebel? And would he handle the problem in the same way his father had handled it? His father had been stiffly dignified and humorless, though not lacking entirely in love. Was he like his father? His mother and his sisters said that he was.

He reached out suddenly and took Stephanie’s left hand in his own. It was something he had been wanting to do for an hour or more. She had beautiful hands, with long slim fingers. He set a thumb and forefinger against her ring and twisted it on her finger.

“I believe you will like Wightwick Hall,” he said. “The park is so large that you need hardly be aware of the farms unless you ride out to them.”

“I am sure I shall like it,” she said. She made no effort to reclaim her hand. “I suppose it is much larger than Sindon Park. I shall do my best to fulfill my duties there, Alistair.”

“It is a safe, spacious place for children to grow up in,” he said. “Six generations of my family have grown up there. Our children will be the seventh.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know that the Dukes of Bridgwater have not been without a male heir in all that time. There is a portrait gallery, is there not? Your mother told me that there are portraits of all your ancestors. I look forward to seeing them. And I shall try to see to it that the tradition is not broken. I hope to bear you an heir within the year.”

It was coolly said, without a blush. He wished she would blush, thinking of how the begetting of an heir was to happen. She had shown passion once in Elizabeth’s conservatory. There had been times since when he had wished he had carried that embrace to its conclusion,
dangerous as it would have been in an unlocked room during a ball and grossly improper as it would have been when they had been merely betrothed. Their relationship might have taken a wholly different course if he had not remembered propriety and then reminded her of it in a particularly insulting manner.

He wondered what last night had meant to her. He wondered how she had felt, not just in her body, but in her emotions. He wondered what thoughts had gone through her mind as he had first fondled and then mounted and then worked in her. He wished he could ask her. Why could he not? But there was no point in asking himself the question when he knew that the answer was simply because. Because there was no closeness between them and he did not know how to bridge the gap.

“My mother will have told you,” he said, “that that is your main duty as my duchess—at least until it has been accomplished.” He half smiled at her, but she had looked away. He still thought George would make a quite creditable Duke of Bridgwater, and George already had healthy sons. He wanted children with Stephanie because he wanted a family. His dream was beginning to revive, though it would doubtless have to be a dream based on reality. She did not love him.

“Yes,” she said. “I will begin my other duties as soon as we arrive, Alistair. You must not fear that I will be inadequate to the task. I shall be a diligent mistress of your home. I will visit all your tenants and laborers. And once you have presented me to your neighbors, I will entertain and call upon them as is proper. I believe you will not be displeased with me.”

He brought her hand to his lips and held it there for a few moments. “I am not displeased,” he said. “I am confident you will acquit yourself admirably.”

“Your mother mentioned a summer fête,” she said.
“With games and exhibits both in the village and in the park. And an evening feast and dancing. She described my responsibilities there. I shall look forward to fulfilling them.”

He made sure he was at home each year for the fête. He never particularly enjoyed it since it was an entertainment designed entirely for the local people, and he was no longer able to mingle with them as he had done as a boy. He had been a duke for longer than ten years. He was too far separated from his people socially, even though he was fond of them and he believed that they in their way were fond of him.

It had been different when he was a boy, of course. Even though school had quelled much of his rebellious high spirits and he had learned to be his father’s son even when at home for the holidays, there had still been moments of escape. It had been at one of the fêtes, late in the evening, when his seventeen-year-old self had lost his virginity. He had gone into the hay barn—he was still not sure who had done the leading and who the following—with a merry widow eight years his senior and had emerged three or four hours later with his virginity several times gone, if that were possible. He had been swaggering, thinking himself one devil of a virile fellow, though the memory now of his four vigorous performances during those hours brought a rueful smile to his face.

“The fête is to be enjoyed, Stephanie,” he said.

“Oh.” She turned her head and smiled dazzlingly at him. “I shall see to it that everyone does enjoy it, Alistair. I shall begin planning it as soon as we arrive, though I know there are numerous traditions regarding it that I must follow. You must not worry about it. I shall plan it all myself. You will find that you have a competent duchess.”

He had heard very little. The smile had dazzled him.
He acted without thought. He leaned across her and set his mouth to hers. She was his bride of two days and one night, he thought, and they had traveled side by side for almost a whole day like polite strangers. He had plied her with questions, and she had spoken cheerfully about duty. About bearing his son, as if doing so meant no more to her than a duty that was expected of her.

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. She was perfectly composed, her hands clasped lightly in her lap. She smiled placidly at him. She was being his dutiful duchess. She was fulfilling an obligation she believed would never quite be fulfilled.

“How do you feel about me?” he asked her.

Her eyes widened. “Alistair,” she said, “you are my husband.”

As if that was an answer.

“What do you wish me to say?” she asked when he continued to search her eyes with his own. “I have learned during the past month what will be expected of me as your duchess. But I realize that something has been missed. No one has tried to tell me how to please you personally, except for a few general principles.” She blushed more rosily this time. She would have been told to be obedient and submissive, he thought—particularly in bed. “I want to please you, Alistair. Tell me how. I owe you everything.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “I have only one request, Stephanie. That you stop thinking that. It is untrue, you know. You owe me nothing.” Words that were being spoken one month too late.

“I had enough money left to buy a small loaf of bread,” she said. “During that one night I spent alone outdoors I very narrowly escaped having everything stolen—even my virtue. I was not so innocent that I did not realize they would have taken that too before leaving with my meager belongings. I would have faced
other such nights. Looking as I did when you first saw me, I would not have escaped again. I saw the way everyone looked at me—everyone but you. You were the only one who treated me with respect as well as kindness. And you took me all the way home rather than abandon me to the risk of danger again. Even though you knew that in doing so you would sacrifice your own freedom. I owe you my life and, just as important, my virtue. And you must ask how I feel about you?”

“No,” he said, sitting back again so that he would not have to look into her face. He drew a deep breath. “This will not do.”

“I have tried and am trying,” she said, her voice unhappy now. “I did not please you, did I? But I knew nothing, Alistair. Tonight perhaps I will do better. Please tell me how I may better please you. Pleasing you is the dearest wish of my heart.”

“Stephanie,” he said, “I felt no more respect for you than anyone else. I saw the abominable bonnet and the tasteless cloak and I saw nothing else. And heard nothing else. I thought you were at best an actress and at worst a whore. Probably both. I will not say I intended from the start to have you. I did not. I kept you with me because the parcel of lies I thought you were telling me amused me no end, and I wanted to see your embarrassment when I finally backed you into a corner and exposed you for what you were. That first night I thought you a clever tease and out of my own boredom decided to play your game. But before we reached Hampshire and Sindon Park, I fully intended to have you for my mistress—after I had taken you there and watched to see how you would handle the situation. I trapped myself.
Now
tell me how much you owe me. Now tell me that pleasing me is your dearest wish.”

It was something he had thought never to tell her. He had convinced himself at first—perhaps with some
compassion—that doing so would only humiliate her. But he had seen since that his silence had actually caused something worse. She had been trapped, suffocated, made intensely miserable by the debt she had thought she owed him. He had released her at last. Too late? How was she going to react? But he could not feel sorry that he had spoken the truth.

He turned his head to look at her when she did not immediately speak. Her body was quite rigid. Her hands, still clasped together in her lap, were white-knuckled. Her face had lost all vestige of color. Her eyes were closed.

“It would be absurdly inadequate,” he said, “to beg your pardon. But I am the one, you see, Stephanie, who has atonement to make. You did not have a great deal of freedom anyway, but I took away even the little you had.”

“You believed nothing I said?” She was whispering.

“No,” he said. “A bright bird of paradise standing on a dusty and deserted road told me that she was on her way to Hampshire to take up her inheritance, and I was amused.”

“I was not shown to the wrong room that night, was I?” she said. “It was the right room. I was to share it with you.”

“Yes,” he said.

“I was to share the bed with you too,” she said. “You were going to do to me what you did last night.”

“Yes,” he said.

He heard her draw a sharp breath and hold it. It shuddered out of her after a while.

“Why did you not?” she asked. “Two nights in a row it happened, then. I had narrow escapes twice. Why did you let me escape?”

“For the reason I mentioned a short while ago,” he said. “I thought you had outmaneuvered me, and I chose to humor you.”

“It was not simply because I had said no?” she asked. Her voice was so soft that he could scarcely hear her.

He thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said, “for that reason too. I would never force myself on a woman who had said no.”