When You Wish Upon a Duke Page 11

  The tall double doors were held open for them by tall footmen in powdered wigs and plum-colored livery laced with silver. The lanterns in the entry hall had been lit, though they barely began to light the cavernous space. The floor was a checkerboard of black and white marble, with richly carved woodwork and polished brass everywhere she looked. Huge gloomy portraits stared down from the walls, men on horseback with long flowing hair and women with old-fashioned ruffs around their necks.

  But most daunting to Charlotte was the long line of servants waiting to meet her, from the butler and housekeeper at one end to the lowest scullery maid in the distance. They stood as straight as any regiment of soldiers, and though they all wore the white ribbons with sprigs of sweet pea pinned to their breasts in her honor, she still felt not welcomed but thoroughly intimidated.

  One by one, March presented each servant to her, and each in turn either bowed or curtseyed with a deferential “Your Grace.” March had no difficulty reciting their names and duties, but he hadn’t presented more than a half dozen before Charlotte, overwhelmed, had already forgotten the names and faces of those who’d come before.

  Only one was familiar: Polly, from St. James’s Square. Since she hadn’t had a lady’s maid of her own, Aunt Sophronia had “given” Polly to Charlotte to take with her to Marchbourne House. When Charlotte came to Polly in line, she very nearly hugged her from pure relief. Very nearly, but not, for she’d already determined that March wouldn’t have approved of such a display, and besides, it could have gone ill for Polly below stairs.

  Instead she simply waited until Polly had finished her curtsey. “Good day, Polly,” she said. “I’m glad to find you here.”

  Polly’s pale cheeks pinked, but she did not smile. “Thank you, Your Grace. I’m most grateful and honored to serve you.”

  And that was all that March expected her to say, too.

  “Now the parlor maids,” he said, guiding Charlotte away from Polly to stand before the next well-scrubbed young woman.

  At the end of the line, Charlotte nodded and smiled at March as confidently as she could.

  “It appears to be a most excellent staff,” she said. “I suspect it will take me a bit of time to learn everyone, but in a week or two, I promise to have the house running to your satisfaction.”

  March’s brows rose with surprise. “A week or two?”

  “Three at the most,” Charlotte said. “You might not credit it, March, but I am a good household manager, and wise with money.”

  His brows rose higher. “That’s not necessary, Charlotte,” he said. “Nor is frugality, not for us.”

  She flushed. Of course he’d think that way; he was one of the wealthiest peers in the realm. “Frugality is always necessary, March,” she insisted.

  “It’s a kind of virtue, and part of running a house well, no matter how large or small. I’m certain that once I’ve had a chance to look over the accounts, I’ll find all kinds of small economies for us, as well as instances of tradesmen not being as honest as they should be in their reckonings with us.”

  “My own wife.” He smiled, all fond indulgence. “I’m glad that you wish to help me in this way, but just as you are no ordinary wife, this is no ordinary household. Perhaps in time, when you are older and more experienced, you may wish to occupy yourself with domestic affairs, but it’s unnecessary at present.”

  “But I wish to prove myself useful to you, March, as a wife should.”

  “All I ask is that you be happy,” he said, and though he smiled still, it was clear he considered the question settled.

  She sighed, for it wasn’t settled at all as far as she was concerned. She’d simply have to wait until she could prove to March that she wasn’t too young to be useful to him and not simply ornamental.

  “Now doubtless you would like to refresh yourself before we dine together,” he continued. “Polly will show you to your rooms, and I’ll join you again in half an hour’s time.”

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, his gaze never leaving hers. Perhaps bookkeeping and household accounts could wait. There were other, more interesting ways she could please her new husband, weren’t there? As his lips lingered on her hand, a fresh little ripple of desire shivered through her, and she grinned.

  “Only half an hour, March,” she whispered. “Until then.”

  Charlotte followed Polly up the staircase and down a long, echoing hallway. She’d never been in a place like Marchbourne House. Through the open doors, she saw beautiful rooms filled with valuable paintings and furnishings, yet not a soul within, like a haunted palace. She couldn’t imagine how March could bear to live in such silence, and she resolved that they must fill these empty rooms with friends and acquaintances to give them life.

  And children. She hoped she and March would have many children, and not just the required sons, either. She had always loved having sisters, and she knew her mother believed that only her children had kept her from losing her wits entirely when their father died. Now Charlotte in turn wanted to fill this huge, echoing house with the sounds of laughing children at play, and as soon as possible, too.

  “These are your rooms, ma’am,” Polly said, showing her into the last door on the hall. “I was told that these have always been the duchess’s quarters. Her Grace the late dowager duchess—His Grace’s mother—fancied things brought clear round from China, and that’s how everything’s still done now. Of course His Grace expects you to change it to suit yourself. This is your receiving room.”

  Charlotte caught her breath. She wouldn’t dare change anything, for surely this must be one of the most beautiful rooms she’d ever seen. The room filled one corner of the house, with tall windows on two sides and a view of the sun setting on Green Park. The curtains had yet to be drawn for the night, but because the daylight was nearly done, there was a cheerful fire in the grate and the candles had been lit, both in the silver candle stands and in the chandelier overhead. Green silk patterned with swooping gold and pink cranes was hung on the walls, and a pair of large red and gold lacquer cabinets, open to display a collection of porcelain figures, flanked the chimney.

  There was a lady’s desk before the window and several well-cushioned armchairs, and bouquets of fresh flowers perfumed the air. The flowers again were all bridal white, and Charlotte’s heart swelled when she thought how March must have ordered those for her sake, too.

  “In here is your dressing room, ma’am,” Polly continued, showing Charlotte into a smaller chamber lined with chests of drawers and cabinets and a large, gold-framed looking glass. Swiftly Polly opened and shut the drawers to show that Charlotte’s new clothes had already been unpacked and put away. A washstand stood to one side behind a tall, black-lacquered screen, and a lace-draped mahogany dressing table and bench were arranged before the window for the best light.

  “And this last room, ma’am, is your bedchamber,” Polly said. The walls were hung with more of the same pale green silk, with an enormous, opulent bed, crowned by a deep tester suspended from the ceiling and hung with embroidered curtains.

  “The housekeeper called that bed by its French name, ma’am,” Polly said proudly, as if by being Charlotte’s maid these rooms and their contents now belonged to her as well. “It’s a lit à la duchesse, and she said it’s the only one like it in all London.”

  But Charlotte wasn’t listening. Instead she was standing before the fireplace, drawn to the life-sized portrait that hung over it. It was clearly March as a boy, perhaps of eleven or twelve, and a beautiful boy at that. His cheeks were still childishly round, his dark hair long and falling over his shoulders. He was dressed in an informal version of a gentleman’s suit, with his waistcoat exotically patterned to mimic a leopard’s skin. His pose was studied, and he stood with one elbow leaning on a broken marble column, with more classical ruins behind him.

  But what Charlotte noticed most was the openness in his face, how as a boy he hadn’t had the guarded reserve that he stood behind now. What ha
d happened between the boy and the man to put that guard into place? What had changed him so dramatically?

  “That’s His Grace’s Roman picture, ma’am,” Polly said. “He went all the way to Italy when he was a boy like that, with his father, the late duke.”

  Charlotte turned to face her. “What else have you heard in the servants’ hall, Polly? Does this seem like a happy house?”

  “Happy enough, ma’am,” Polly said, choosing her words carefully. “It’s a proud house, that’s for certain, but then it would be the same with any duke. His Grace likes things done most particular, they do say that, yet they’re fierce loyal to him. And they’re very happy he’s wed you, ma’am, very happy.”

  Charlotte smiled. At least that was good news. Her role as the new duchess was going to be difficult enough without having to face a mutinous household. She glanced back at March’s portrait.

  “Have you seen any pictures of His Grace’s parents?” she asked. “His mother who had these rooms, or his father?”

  “No, ma’am, I haven’t,” Polly said quickly, so quickly that Charlotte suspected there was more that she wasn’t telling. “But oh, ma’am, mark the time! If I am to have you dressed to sup with His Grace, then we have not a moment to spare.”

  Charlotte let herself be shepherded into the dressing room, and stood in the center while Polly efficiently unpinned and removed her wedding gown.

  “Is the duke coming here to join me?” she asked shyly. “That is, to dine?”

  Through the open door, she could see her enormous new bed. Aunt Sophronia had told her that few titled couples shared a bedchamber, but that the husband would visit the wife’s. She knew, too, what happened once he arrived. Growing up in the country among animals had put an end to that mystery. Mama had long ago explained the details where men and women were concerned, with Aunt Sophronia contributing a few more blunt instructions during the last few days.

  But it was a considerable leap from knowledge in theory to knowledge in practice. Charlotte tried to imagine kissing March and then imagined the rest, all happening upon that very bed: having him undress her and touch and caress her as he pleased, and then finally take her maidenhead, and perhaps make their first child, too.

  It wasn’t that she was exactly frightened about tonight. March was a gentleman, and she trusted him too much for that. But she was uneasy, and worried that she would somehow not do things as a lady should to please her husband.

  Wistfully she looked from the bed to the table beneath the window. She seldom thought of how her life could be otherwise than what it was, but oh, how much less complicated her wedding night would be if she and March were ordinary newlyweds!

  “Perhaps His Grace and I could dine here,” she suggested. “Things could be brought upstairs, and we could dine in our dressing gowns.”

  “His Grace sup here, ma’am? In your bedchamber?” asked Polly with surprise. “Forgive me, ma’am, but His Grace always takes his meals in the dining room, dressed properly as a duke should dress, as befits his station.”

  Now Charlotte was surprised. “He dines by himself in full dress for evening?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he does, and he will expect you to join him there,” Polly said, briskly pulling out one of Charlotte’s new gowns. “I’m told the duke is a very particular gentleman about time, and he won’t like to be kept waiting. Will this yellow silk polonaise please you, ma’am?”

  Bewildered, Charlotte nodded. “That will do, yes.”

  “Very well, ma’am,” Polly said, swiftly beginning to dress her. “I will be waiting for you here to help you undress, ma’am, whenever you and His Grace are done with your supper and return upstairs, and I’ll take care that the maids turn down your bed.”

  Again Charlotte nodded, and wondered glumly if she was to be permitted ever to do anything for herself again.

  Fifteen minutes later, the tall case clock in the hall was chiming the hour as she hurried through the long hallways and down the staircase to the dining room. She was flustered and flushed, but at least she was dressed as March expected and she was on time.

  Or she had been until the footman at the door of the dining room informed her that His Grace was already within, and then insisted on announcing her as if there were a hundred guests waiting.

  Blast, blast, blast, so now she was late! She raised her chin and struggled to compose herself, the way everyone else in Marchbourne House seemed perfectly able to do. She thought of Mama and reminded herself that she had always been a lady, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Hervey. Becoming a duchess would never change that. She was still who she’d always been, and with one final deep breath, she entered the dining room.

  Another large, beautiful room—she was becoming numb to them now—with white walls covered with swirls of plaster garlands and more paintings. The endless mahogany dining table, covered in a damask cloth, could have seated sixty, with fifty-eight chairs pushed in close to the table. Branched silver candelabra marched the length of the table, their candles fluttering. At the distant end of the table, in an armchair that looked almost like a throne, sat March.

  As soon as he saw her, he rose, and his face lit with such open pleasure that she was instantly relieved.

  “My dear Charlotte,” he said, coming forward to take her hand. “As foolish as it sounds, I cannot tell you how much I’ve missed you.”

  It was the first endearment he’d spoken to her as his wife, and small though it might seem, she treasured it.

  “I’ve missed you, too.” She smiled, feeling suddenly shy, exactly as she had earlier in St. Paul’s. He was so magnificent. He, too, had changed his clothes for evening, and now wore a dark blue suit embroidered with gold vines, the linen of his shirt flawlessly white. But no matter how richly March was dressed, he still always outshone his clothes. He had a physical presence that she couldn’t quite explain, and a male power that she couldn’t resist—especially now, when he was regarding her with that same intense, hungry interest that he’d shown in the coach. It made her feel desired and oddly, pleasantly warm all over, with her heartbeat quickening just as it did when he kissed her.

  “Sit here by me, as close as can be,” he said, and she slipped into the other armchair across the corner of the table from his. “It’s pathetically romantic, I know, but I pray that’s forgivable on our wedding night.”

  “Oh, yes,” she breathed. “It’s entirely forgivable, and you are entirely forgiven.”

  At once a footman appeared to push her chair forward, then remained standing slightly behind it. Another stood behind March’s chair, and three more stood ready at the sideboard. Her goblet was instantly filled with wine, and a plate with the Marchbourne arms was placed before her. Charlotte remembered how March had said he was never alone, and now with dismay she realized how accurate he’d been.

  “I hope you’ll also forgive me depriving you of your rightful place at the end of this table,” he said, covering her hand with his own. “But I wanted to be able to do this.”

  She turned her hand over so their fingers intertwined. Without looking away from her face, he began tracing small circles with his thumb on the inside of her wrist, in exactly the perfect place to make her catch her breath.

  “That—that would be the least of it,” she said, reaching for her wine with her other hand. “If I were clear down there, then you would have had to shout to converse with me.”

  “I would have done it,” he said. “Mind you, I’ve climbed a tree for you already. But this is much easier. A toast, Charlotte.”

  She nodded, pausing with the heavy goblet in her hand. There had never been wine or strong waters at Ransom, and only in this last week had she first tasted wine. But Aunt Sophronia had advised that wine would help ease the wedding night, and for that reason Charlotte was determined to drink it.

  “To you, my dearest bride and duchess,” he said softly as he held the glass toward her. “To my Charlotte.”

  “To you, too, March,” she said, “my dear
est, dearest bridegroom and duke and—and everything else.”

  He raised a single dark brow, teasing. Perhaps he was following Aunt Sophronia’s advice, too. “You would outdo me?”

  She blushed but did not back down. “I won’t outdo you, no. But I will match you.”

  “To you, then, Charlotte.” He laughed and drank, and she did the same, emptying the glass.

  “Goodness.” She blinked, startled by the taste of so much wine in such an abrupt volume, and set the goblet down on the table with a thump. Instantly it was refilled, and she steeled herself for the next toast.

  “To your beauty and grace,” he declared, grinning at her reaction. “Never was there a more lovely bride.”

  “Nor was there a more handsome bridegroom,” she said promptly. “To your handsomenessnessness.”

  He set his glass down. “That’s too many ‘nesses,’ madam. I cannot drink to an invented compliment.”

  “Very well, then,” she said. “You are comely, sir. Can you drink to that?”

  He winced. “I’m not sure ‘comely’ is an appropriate word for a bridegroom.”

  She frowned and tapped her finger on the stem of the goblet. The wine was making her feel exceptionally witty and daring, too. “Then what of ‘virile’? Will that do? To my virile bridegroom?”

  “Virile?” He widened his eyes with surprise and laughed. “You’d call me that?”

  She laughed with him, though she wasn’t sure of the source of his amusement. “Am I wrong to do so? Isn’t that the proper word?”

  He laughed even harder. “I should hope it’s the proper word.”

  “Well, then.” She raised her glass. “To my very virile bridegroom. Very, very virile.”

  She drank it down, before he could protest again, and he drank his as well.

  But even after their glasses had been refilled, he still didn’t offer a reply.

  Charlotte scowled. “What, can you not think of an equal compliment for me?”

  “I can think of a great many,” he said, “but not one I’d wished spoken aloud of my wife.”