An Ideal Duchess (28 page)

             
“Sylvia,” He greeted her curtly.

             
“I was introducing myself to your wife, my new cousin, since no one saw fit to bring the two of us together.”

             
“For a damn good reason, I might say.”

             
Amanda narrowed her eyes at Bron when he took her arm. “Sylvia and I have been getting along famously; we ought to invite her to a real house party. You did say you wanted me to begin hosting my own entertainments.”

             
  “Oh? Is Ursula finally moving to the Dower House? It must be so inhibiting having her and Miss Townsend constantly underfoot.”Sylvia drawled.

             
Beside her, Bron flushed a dull red, his gray eyes narrowed into angry slits, and his freckles standing starkly against his skin. Amanda grew alarmed by his reaction to Sylvia Montague, who merely shrugged coolly.

             
“Did you want something of me, Bron?” Her voice sounded flatter than she intended, and he switched his attention to her, his anger dissipating to leave him pale and impassive.

             
“No. I don’t want anything of you.”

             
She was stunned, and then furious, as he released her arm and continued around the table to his mother, bending down to kiss the cheek she offered.

             
“A word of advice, my darling duchess—don’t ever expect anything from a Townsend.” Sylvia set her coupé on the sideboard. “They’ll never allow you to grow too close and will always preserve themselves before they think to assist you.”             

*          *         *

              Sylvia Montague’s word of advice troubled the remainder of Amanda’s day. Thankfully, she had been excused from the hunt on account of her “illness”, and she escaped in her new motorcar, which her father had gifted her before returning to America after the christening, and drove down to the village. She had four large baskets filled with warm clothing and food nestled in the passengers seats, which Reverend Newton mentioned were sorely needed for the poor of the parish.

             
Bledington, like its namesake country house, was beautiful and ancient, all creamy gold and faded slate gray stone. Festoons of ivy and yew adorned the front of every cottage and building, and maple leaves, burnished the color of russet by the changing season, and privet hedges were covered with ripe elderberries and tiny white flowers. She waved to a few of the villagers who paused on the narrow kerbs in Bledington’s equally narrow and winding streets to gawk at her automobile, and for the most part, many of them raised their caps or curtseyed back.

             
She slowed as she drove down Bledington’s small High Street, along which lay the village shop, post office, the two rival public houses, the grocer, the baker, and the blacksmith. She knew from her first exploration of the village when she first arrived, there was also Mr. Sewell’s grammar school, which took two hundred pupils, and the cottage hospital further down the street. She smiled at the skipping and capering children, who were obviously excited by the approach of Christmas Day, and the surprising bustle of people darting in and out of the shops carrying wrapped packages and bundles. Gifts at Bledington were ordered from the heaps of large, leather-bound catalogues sent from Harrods and the Army & Navy Stores, or from the advertisements in copies of
The Sketch
and
Tatler
.

             
There was none of the fun she’d had in New York of visiting the palatial department stores and spending hours wandering about the miles of floors with her parents in search of the perfect gift.

             
She continued on to the heart of the village, where the ornate church in which her sons were baptized was situated. Its spire topped the low, thatch-roofed buildings, and the sonorous ringing of bells subsequently broke the early evening hush. Inside the church, its Christmas decorations increasing the luxuriousness of the nave, chancel, and stained-glass windows, Reverend Newton directed his young daughters, Penelope and Primrose, in the placement of the spicy, pungent boughs of holly.

             
The source of the bells was a group of parishioners practicing their bell-ringing for the church service, who paused briefly to nod their heads in greeting. This alerted Reverend Newton to her presence, and he hastened down the nave to greet her, his usual harried expression relaxed and cheerful.

             
“Your Grace, how wonderful to see you,” He clasped her hand warmly.

             
“I recalled your request for donations of clothing and food for the less fortunate in Bledington, and have four hampers in my motor,”

             
“Well,” The vicar cleared his throat, but looked pleased. “I do appreciate your generosity, Your Grace. Shall you stay for a cup of mulled wine? Mrs. Sewell’s cook brews it for me each winter.”

             
“I wish I could,” Amanda glanced wistfully at the bell-ringers and the vicar’s daughters. “We have guests for dinner, and I don’t want to be late.”

             
“The offer remains, nonetheless, Your Grace,” Reverend Newton again clasped her hands. “Thank you for your gifts.”

             
Two of the male bell-ringers were dispatched to collect her hampers, which she bade them to keep after distributing the charity, and she climbed back into her motor after giving the crank a starting jerk. The brisk snap of the winter air stung Amanda’s cheeks, and she looked up in the rapidly darkening sky to see puffy white clouds that threatened to release the snow that so far, had not fallen.

             
Instead, the weather had been chilly, but sunny, with thick layers of frost covering the windows and thatched roofs of the village. She drove back through the village, hands tight on the steering wheel to make her way back to the manor house. An indigo darkness had fallen like a quiet shroud over Bledington by the time she reached the courtyard, and her teeth chattered lightly in the frigid air. Fowler opened the door with an impassive lift of his eyebrows, but he said nothing when she handed her motoring coat and goggles to him, and she stepped from the portico to the Saloon, pausing to admire the luxurious Christmas tree she had insisted Bron find.

             
This at least was a reminder of Christmas in New York.

             
Someone was playing the piano in the music room, and she hastened to the door, expecting to find Bron, who claimed he had little time to play for her, but found a few members of the family chaffing one another as Lady Charles played Christmas hymns. Anthony was there as well, squeezed between Beryl and two of her mother-in-law’s spaniels, in a loveseat.

             
Bron was nowhere to be found, and she swallowed her suspicion over the possibility that he could be holed away with Viola somewhere. She brushed that irritating thought aside when, after arriving in her bedroom, she heard him speaking with Pettingell through the connecting door. She moved to warm herself by the fireplace. She had redecorated the Duchess’s suite—over the objections of both Bron and the dowager—and the warm reds and pinks were infinitely more soothing than the chillier décor favored by her mother-in-law.

             
The door between them opened, and Bron stepped through, clad in evening dress, his expression strained above the whiteness of his high collar and tie.

             
“Where the devil have you been?”

             
“To deliver donations to the vicar,” Amanda said coolly as she unbuttoned her tweed coat.

             
She pulled each arm out of its sleeves, and held the coat by the collar, walking to her tall, mahogany and inlaid wardrobe. She opened the mirrored door in the middle and hung her coat neatly on the covered hanger. She closed the door and in the reflection, saw Bron step over to the tasseled cord hanging beside her bed and pull it hard.

             
“Have your maid do that,”

             
“I can undress myself,” She began to peel her gloves from her hands.

             
“Not swift enough to dress in proper evening gown and come down to dinner,”

             
“I’m not coming down for dinner. Give everyone my apologies.” She opened the narrow side door of her wardrobe and laid her gloves into the long, flat drawer designated for their storage. After witnessing the simplicity and genuineness of the village, the thought of going downstairs to pretend she was content and happy made her nauseous.

             
“May I ask why not?” He asked stiffly, his jaw working.

             
“I don’t feel up to it,” She turned away from his reflection to face him squarely. “I didn’t feel up to coming downstairs this morning either.”

             
“But you did.” He stalked towards her. “And so you must come down for dinner. It is your duty.”

             
“My God, Bron, is that the only reason you can give to me for anything I must do? My duty?”

             
“You are the Duchess of Malvern; what you do affects our dependents and reflects upon the house.”

             
“I don’t feel like the Duchess of Malvern,” She brushed past him, but he caught her arm, forcing her to look at him square in the face.

             
The harsh planes of his face softened as his anger receded to reveal the perplexed expression in his gray eyes.

             
“Your mother, Bron,” She said curtly. “How can I be the Duchess of Malvern if the other Duchess of Malvern remains in residence?”

             
“I can’t throw my mother out of the only home she’s known.”

             
“The Dower House can be repaired if you actually decided to put money into its restoration. I’m sure she has long expected being replaced by your wife—or by your brother’s wife—as chatelaine of Bledington Park.”

             
“What about my brother?” His expression hardened. “What did Sylvia say to you this morning?”

             
“Bron, you’re hurting me,” She looked down at her arm, where his grip had tightened like a venomous cobra coiled around its helpless prey.

             
“Tell me,” He said silkily, his eyes narrowing.

             
“Let go of my arm.” She was ashamed by the fearful, breathy catch in her throat.

             
He released her arm, leaving a throbbing, tender ring around her bicep. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of wincing from the pain, and moved away from him, reaching behind to unbutton the high collar of her blouse. She caught his reflection once more in the mirror over her dressing table and averted her eyes to the row of brushes, jewelry boxes, silver-framed photographs, and dried flowers over its burnished surface.

             
“I’m sorry,” He said flatly. “But I must know what Sylvia said to you about my brother.”

             
She spun around, her arms braced behind her and her hands clutching the pointed ends of her dressing table. “Nothing that I don’t already know—that he killed himself three years ago, and that you were the one who found him.”

             
He blanched and seemed to take a half step back in fear, his hands clenching and unclenching at his side. “What else? What other gory details did Sylvia add to the narrative to thrill your prying ears?”

             
“No gory details, Bron, only a warning against you Townsends,” Amanda turned back around, her shoulders slumping as she was suddenly so, so tired of this conversation.

             
“Oh?”

             
“I’m tired, Bron. Please give my regrets to your mother’s guests.” She lifted her hands wearily to unscrew the pearl earbobs from her ears.

             
“They are your guests just as much as they are hers.”

             
She opened the jewelry box and placed the pearls into its velvet depths. She met Bron’s eyes in the mirror. “You truly believe that, don’t you?”

             
“My mother has been nothing but kind to you—”

             
“Kind? She smothers me with her kindness. Her kindness took my sons from me, her kindness never allows me to choose my own meals or my own servants or my own anything in my own blessed house.”

             
He seemed to be scrutinizing this, turning it over in his mind, but his next words said otherwise.

             
“Perhaps you are right, you are tired.” He turned, walking towards the door. “I shall give our guests your regrets.”

             
Don’t patronize me, Bron. But the words hung unspoken on her lips, and she closed her eyes, her hands flat on her dressing table, as the door closed quietly behind him. She opened them when the door opened, and she straightened, pushing away from the dressing table as Maggie peeped into the door and then walked hesitantly inside.