When You Wish Upon a Duke (22 page)

What malicious devil inspired him to desire his own wife like this?

“I do like to ride,” she continued blithely, no notion of how she was depriving him of his wits each time she jogged her toe to keep from dropping her mule. “I’m good at it, too. My sisters and I used to race one another on the beach. We didn’t ride on ladies’ saddles, either, so we could go every bit as fast as any of the men. Once I overheard an old man at church call us the Wylder she-devils for riding like that, which was terribly shocking and rude, but very funny, too.”

She paused long enough to lick a large drop of jam from her finger, running her tongue neatly along its length, then grinned at him.

He watched her licking that jam and understood perfectly why that old man in Dorset had called her a she-devil. The Wylder she-devil. Most appropriate.

“I should like to race you, too, March,” she said, her eyes widening with anticipation. “I promise I’ll ride properly, like a lady, so I’ll be slower, but I’ll wager I’ll still beat you, so long as I have a good, fast horse.”

The idea horrified him. “Good horse or not, Charlotte, I won’t have you risk your neck racing through Green Park,” he said. “I’ll see that you’ve a proper horse and would be delighted to have you accompany me, but no racing.”

“Very well, then, not in the park,” she said. “But the next time we visit Greenwood, where I won’t shock anyone, we’ll see which of us is the faster. I’d venture you’re a horseman, because it will be in your blood. I know next to nothing of your great-grandfather’s politics, but most every picture in this house shows him on a horse. I know he was a racing king, and rode the courses himself.”

“He did,” March said, relieved to shift the subject to his royal ancestor on horseback. “He was faster and more daring than many of the hired jockeys.”

“Well, yes, but who is going to dare to beat the king? A silver cup for your trouble, sirrah, and now off to the Tower you go.” She used the jam knife for a vivid representation of the executioner’s axe. “Besides, you have his royal thighs. I saw that from the pictures, too. A gentleman cannot be a good rider without possessing well-muscled thighs.
Royal
thighs.”

That made him gulp his coffee and splutter it back into the saucer with some decidedly unroyal coughing. She jumped up with her napkin to blot his waistcoat, cooing and tut-tutting over the outrageous heat of the coffee, as if spilling it weren’t his own damned fault.

And hers.

Stepping back, she lowered her chin to look up at him from beneath her lashes. “Did you mean what you said before? You will let me ride with you?”

“I will,” he said as evenly as he could, “so long as you vow not to ride like a she-devil.”

She grinned and ducked her head, something he’d learned meant she was pleased, which in turn pleased him. He did like the idea of riding with her. He’d have her company, but without any of the seductive hazards of a closed carriage.

“I’ve one more question, March,” she began, and the way she was blushing before she’d even asked made him wary. “I know you wish me to be your proper wife and duchess and all, and I am trying to be so. But that picture behind you, March—I vow, that shepherdess is wearing my pearl earrings, and I do not think she looks entirely proper.”

As if he, too, were seeing it for the first time, March turned in his seat to look at the painting in question. The shepherdess wasn’t proper, nor had the painter intended her to be, and the incongruous pearl earrings were the least of her impropriety. With eyes half closed and the most wanton of smiles, she lounged provocatively on a mossy stone, her gauzy chiton looped high over her bare legs and so low on top that one plump, round breast was completely uncovered. To make certain no one overlooked this bare breast, she cupped her fingers beneath it, as if offering it to the viewer—which March had always believed was the entire point of the picture.

“That’s my great-grandmother, Nan Lilly,” he said. “She’s painted as a shepherdess, yes, but she was really an actress. And, of course, my great-grandfather’s mistress, and the first Duchess of Marchbourne. Because of all that, it’s quite a famous picture, but it’s also one of my favorites, which is why I have it hung here. That’s the king on the other wall.”

With fresh interest, Charlotte turned to study the portrait of his great-grandfather, and March did as well. Being a royal portrait, it wasn’t nearly as informal or
appealing as the shepherdess—how could it be, with a crown and all that ermine besides?—but March had always liked the sly, rakish twinkle to his dark eyes that the king hadn’t quite been able to suppress, even while wearing a crown. That was the reason he’d hung the two portraits across from each other, so the pair could remain together, and he gave a little bow of respect to the king, as he always did.

But Charlotte had already turned back toward the other portrait.

“Nan Lilly.” She tipped her head to one side, thoughtfully touching one of the tear-shaped pearls. “Did the king give her the earrings before he made her a duchess, or after?”

“Before,” he said, looking up at Nan’s face. “In the portraits of her after she’s a duchess she’s, ah, more completely dressed.”

Charlotte rose and went to stand before the painting. “But of course she and the king never married.”

“Of course not,” March said. “Nan never married anyone. She was a duchess in her own right, without a duke.”

“So while she was faithful to the king, he wasn’t constant to her,” she said. “I mean as constant as he could be to her, along with his true wife, the queen.”

“No, he wasn’t constant,” he admitted. He generally avoided speaking of his family’s scandalous history, but with Charlotte it wasn’t difficult at all. “Breck’s family descends from another mistress, and I’ve two more cousins, Hawkesworth and Sheffield, who can say the same. They were his favorites. I’ve heard there are at least a score of others whose bastards weren’t legitimized or granted titles. It’s what makes my family so different from those of other peers.”

She looked back over her shoulder at him, the pearls swinging gently against her cheek.

“I suppose the rules are different for kings,” she mused. “But do you know if he gave Nan the earrings as payment to her for being an accomplished strumpet, or as a gift because he loved her, enough to make her a duchess because she couldn’t be his wife?”

“How can I answer that, Charlotte?” he said, mystified by why she’d ask such a curious question. He left his chair and came to stand behind her, resting his hands lightly on her shoulders as he, too, looked up at the portrait. “Everything happened a hundred years ago, and I doubt anyone knows the truth now, least of all me.”

“I hope he loved her,” she said with a fervor that startled him. “I hope he loved her passionately, and with all his heart.”

“I hope she loved him as well,” he said. He did, too, and he always had, though he doubted he’d ever said it aloud. “Nan was said to have been a merry, cheerful creature, able to make the king laugh no matter how grim his royal duties.”

“If she hadn’t, then we wouldn’t be here today, together in this house, would we?”

“No, we wouldn’t,” March said. “It’s a strange, disgraceful conundrum on which to base one’s entire family and fortune.”

“It is,” she said softly. “How strange, too, to consider how very little difference there is between an actress and a duchess, or a bad woman and a good one.”

Abruptly she turned to face him, resting her palms on his chest to smile up at him. “High time we dressed and began our day, yes?”

Their day did begin, another full day that included wedding calls, visits to her mantua-maker and his bookbinder, and a dinner in their honor given by some of his friends. Everywhere they went, Charlotte was her usual charming, beautiful self, dazzling all she met, and when he was congratulated again and again on his good fortune
to have gained such a prize of a wife, he could only agree, and grin like the happy bridegroom that he was.

Yet throughout the long day, he couldn’t help but feel as if their conversation before the painting somehow lingered with Charlotte. He hoped she didn’t have second thoughts about joining a family with such a shameful history, not that anything could be done to change that now. He understood if she did; there’d been plenty of times at school when he’d fervently longed for a more ordinary pedigree. True, his children would carry Nan’s lowly blood, but they’d also have a share of the king’s stock as well, and there could hardly be any shame in that. At least he’d always believed the one compensated for the other, and he prayed that nothing as foolish as a century-old scandal would come between him and Charlotte.

There was no doubt, however, that something wasn’t right between them, and he couldn’t begin to fathom what it might be. He’d followed Breck’s advice to the letter. Not even his royal ancestor could have treated her with more kindness or generosity.

Yet once again when he’d gone to her bed and performed his duty toward her in the most respectful way he could, she’d wept. Not with sobs or wails, but quietly, as if she’d known she’d no cause for complaint. She hadn’t complained, either, even when he’d asked what was wrong.

Nothing
, she’d said,
nothing
, even as the tears slid silently down her cheeks.

And afterward, as he’d walked the long hall back to his own bedchamber, he’d never felt more helpless, nor more alone.

“Are you certain you’re at ease in that saddle?” March asked, his brows drawn together with concern as once again he nudged his horse closer to hers. “An unfamiliar saddle can be the very devil, especially a sidesaddle.”

“March, please,” Charlotte said, no longer able to hide her exasperation. She’d been excited beyond measure to come out this morning with him. As he’d promised, he’d surprised her with a smart chestnut mare, and she’d surprised him with her new scarlet riding habit, tightly fitted and bristling with brass buttons like a soldier’s uniform in the very newest fashion, and topped by a quite magnificent black plumed hat. The sun had just risen, the dew still sparkled on the grass, the park was nearly empty, and everything looked so new and fresh that anything seemed possible—or it would if only he’d stop acting as if this were the first time she’d ever climbed on a horse’s back, and insisting they walk at this ridiculous snail’s pace.

“I’ve told you before that I’ve been riding forever, March,” she said as calmly as she could, which, under the circumstances, wasn’t very calmly at all. “I am not an idiot on a horse. If the saddle weren’t right, I would have said so in the yard. The saddle is right, the bridle is right, the horse is divine, and the weather and the morning are perfect.”

“I’m glad you are pleased, and I thank you for it,” he said. “Though I can take neither fault nor praise for the morning.”

She sighed, wishing he wouldn’t be quite so serious. “That is true,” she said, “and if I topple from my horse, then it would not be your fault, either, but entirely mine.”

“I don’t wish it to be anyone’s fault,” he said. “What I wish is that it won’t happen at all.”

“Well, then, I’ll grant you that wish.” She shifted her reins to one hand and fluttered her fingers toward him like a country fair conjurer. “There, Your Grace. It will not happen.”

Still he didn’t smile. “I’m only trying to make you happy, Charlotte.”

She sighed, and despite the glorious morning, her heart sank a little lower. If he truly wished to make her happy, then he would have stayed with her the night through, instead of leaving as if she were somehow distasteful to him. Yesterday things had gone so well between them. She’d loved how he’d trusted her enough to tell her about his great-grandmother and the king, and she’d loved, too, that he’d given her Nan Lilly’s pearl earrings. He spoke so seldom about his family that she’d realized the significance of that confidence, and it had pleased her far more than the earrings themselves.

And if he saw no real shame to Nan’s humble beginnings and her illicit love for the merry old king, then perhaps, too, he might be persuaded to be a bit more merry himself, especially in the bedchamber. For her part, she certainly wouldn’t have objected to being a little less like a duchess and a little more like an actress. But he hadn’t been merry, not at all. If anything, last night he’d seemed even more respectful and somber, as if she were made of twice-glazed porcelain instead of flesh and blood. She
couldn’t begin to think of it again from fear that she’d begin weeping with despair here in the park.

Instead she forced herself to smile. “I
am
happy, March. I only wish that we could—”

“Halt, Charlotte, please,” he ordered, guiding his horse directly before hers so she’d have no choice. At once he dismounted, bending down to peer at her boots. “There’s something not quite right about that stirrup.”

But to Charlotte’s mind, there was something not quite right about everything, and at last she could bear it no longer. She dug in her heels and cracked her reins, and before March could stop her, she was gone.

The mare was equally happy to rebel, as Charlotte had suspected she would be, and given rein, she flew across the dewy grass. Charlotte didn’t know the park and she didn’t know where she was headed, nor did she care. For the first time since she’d left Ransom she felt free and alive, and the exhilaration overcame everything else. She could forget propriety and being a duchess. With the wind in her face and the reins in her hand, she was once again simply Charlotte, and it was a glorious feeling.