An Unlikely Duchess (2 page)

“I wish I could say something,” she said, “to make you realize the mistake you are making. I curse all those titles of yours, Paul, and the fact that Papa was foolish enough to stand under that tree during a thunderstorm before he could inherit more than one of them. And I wish Grandfather had not died before you could even reach your majority. He might have lived until he was at least seventy. You were too young at seventeen to take on all the responsibilities of the dukedom. Paul, dear, you have never had a chance to live.”

He crossed the room to her, smiling, and leaned across her bulk to kiss her cheek. “Go and find some beggar in the streets—they are not hard to find, Angie—and ask him if a man who owns five large states, not to mention other, lesser holdings, and who draws in forty thousand a year from rents alone, and whose least significant title would earn him a place of prominence in the
ton
, is a man who has never had a chance to live.”

“Oh,” she said, “you do not understand what I mean, do you? And you are going to do it, are you not? You are going to marry that dreadfully dull girl and live the rest of your life in dreary propriety.”

“I might reject your adjectives,” he said. “But yes, Angie, l am going to do it, as you put it. And now. I never put off what must be done, you know, for then it might never get done and I would have neglected a duty. Shall I give you my arm and take you back to Mama?”

“No,” she said with a sigh. “I think that commotion in the hallway must be Adrian arriving to take me home. I shall go and cry on his shoulder and he will tell me as he always does not to try to interfere in my family’s affairs. For it is a hopeless task. You and Mama and Grandpapa—all of you bound and determined to do what ought to be done. Well, I am thankful that Adrian found me when he did.”

“And so am I,” he said with a smile. “Don’t be cross with me, Angie.”

“Well, I am cross,” she said. “I love you, and I want you to be happy.”

“Don’t be cross,” he said again.

She paused in the act of leaving the room and walked back to his side to kiss his cheek before laying her own against it.

***

“He is the Duke of Mitford,” the Earl of Rutland repeated for surely the dozenth time, “and the Earl of Newman, and a half dozen other things. And estates strewn all over the kingdom. And forty thousand a year. You will be made. Our own little Jo, a duchess. My own darling little puss.” He opened his arms and enfolded his granddaughter in them, also for the dozenth time.

“Yes, Grandpapa,” the Honorable Miss Josephine Middleton said meekly. “I am much obliged to you for arranging it.”

He looked down at her and beamed with goodwill. “Did you think your grandpapa would not have an eye to your future?” he said. “And I will do as well for Sukey and Penny and Gussie when it comes their turn, see if I don’t. Though I cannot promise them each a duke, I suppose. But I could not settle for less than that for my little puss, now could I?”

“You are very kind, Grandpapa,” she said.

From her grandfather’s sitting room Josephine was summoned directly to her father’s study. He was standing before the desk waiting for her, a younger version of Grandpapa, like a great big smiling, cuddly bear.

He opened his arms to her. “Well, half-pint,” he said, “come and be hugged.”

Josephine went obediently and was hugged.

“Grandpapa had to be the one to tell you,” he said. “And I could not deny him the pleasure since it was he who arranged it all. So my little girl is going to be a duchess and too grand a lady to pass the time of day with her papa, I doubt not.” He laughed heartily and tweaked her nose. “What do you have to say, girl?”

“It is what you really want for me, Papa?” she asked, lifting her face to his.

He bent his head and dealt her a smacking kiss to the cheek. “It is a dream come true, half-pint,” he said. “You know I have never wanted to take you to London to be ogled by all the fops and dandies who have nothing better to do with their time than eye the ladies. But it is time you had a husband. You are twenty years old already, even though you still seem like Papa’s very little girl. I have been concerned about it.”

“You did not need to be,” she said. “I have been happy at home with you and the others.”

“And now you are to be happy for the rest of your life, Jo,” he said, beaming happily down at her. “A duchess. My half-pint with forty thousand a year. Are you happy, girl? Tell your papa how happy you are.”

“Yes,” she said. “It was very kind of Grandpapa to think of me, was it not, Papa, when he met his friend Lord Ainsbury in Bath?”

“He loves you,” he said. “As much as I do, though I cannot imagine it can be quite, quite as much.”

“Yes, Papa,” she said, hugging him. “Thank you, Papa.” And finally she was free to run up to the old schoolroom, which was no longer a schoolroom since Gussie, the youngest, was now fourteen. But that was where they spent most of their time indoors, Josephine and her brother and three sisters.

The Honorable Bartholomew Middleton looked up from his book and swung the leg that he had draped over one arm of his chair. “Well, Jo,” he said, “what was it this time? Left the gate of the pasture open again, did you, and let out all the cows?”

“No,” she said, standing so still inside the door that she caught the attention even of her sisters, who had been engrossed in a conversation that had them all for once in perfect agreement. Mr. Porterhouse, who was visiting the Winthrops, was without a doubt the most handsome gentleman on the face of the earth. “Grandpapa has found me a husband and Papa has approved his choice and he is to come within the week to pay his addresses to me.”

Bartholomew laughed while Susanna jumped to her feet and Penelope and Augusta gaped.

“Not Phipps?” Bartholomew said. “Oh, poor Jo.”

“Not Mr. Porterhouse?” Susanna asked. “Oh, no, Jo.”

“The Duke of Mitford” Josephine said, “whoever he may be.”

“Mitford?” Bartholomew frowned. “Can’t say I met him when I was in London, Jo.”

“The
Duke
of Mitford,” Susanna said. “A duke, Jo? A real duke? Are you sure?”

Josephine swallowed. “He is also the Earl of Newman,” she said. “And I think a few other things, too. And he is as rich as Croesus.”

“Oh, Jo,” Susanna said, her eyes glowing, “how very wonderful for you. How happy I am for you.”

Bartholomew chuckled and threw his book at the windowseat close by his chair. “That’s famous,” he said. “Our Jo a duchess. We had better hope that there are no coronations and no royal weddings and such for the next fifty years or so. Jo would doubtless trip over her ermine robe and pitch her coronet at the feet of the king or the bride or whoever.”

“Oh, Bart,” Josephine cried, picking up a cushion, which was the best weapon she could lay hands on at that precise moment, and hurling it across the room at him. It missed him by three feet. “Do stop cackling in such an imbecilic way. This is serious!”

“Don’t tell me you are on your dignity already,” he said. “You’ll never keep it up, Jo. Poor Mitford, whoever he might be.” He resumed his laughter.

“Oh, Jo,” Augusta said, her eyes wide enough to pop from their sockets, “do you suppose he will buy us all gifts when he marries you?”

“Do watch your manners, Gussie,” Penelope said. “Grandpapa always says it is vulgar to talk of money.”

“But it was Jo who mentioned a fortune,” an injured Augusta said.

“Yes,” Josephine said gloomily, “and it was Grandpapa who told me. Or was it Papa? I can’t remember. They were both so bubbling with happiness. Oh, Bart, what am I to do?”

“Find a tree to swing from in delight at your good fortune, I imagine,” her brother said, rising from his chair and stretching. “Just do it far enough from the house so that Grandpapa does not see, Jo, there’s a good girl, or we will all be subjected to a lecture on propriety at dinner.”

“But what am I to
do
?” Josephine said, her voice taking on a note of hysteria that had her brother pausing in mid-stretch. “I can’t marry this duke.”

“Can’t marry him?” Susanna said. “Can’t marry a duke, Jo? But why not?”

“A duke!” Josephine said. “A duke, Sukey. Can you honestly see me marrying a duke? He is bound to be stuffy and toplofty and anything else you may care to name. I hate the very thought of him. I can’t marry a duke.”

“But, Jo,” Susanna said, “you don’t know those things about him, do you? Perhaps he is quite the opposite. Perhaps he will be the gentleman of your dreams. Would it not be wise at least to see him before judging?”

Augusta’s face lit up. “If you don’t want him, Jo,” she said, “perhaps I could have him instead. Perhaps he would wait two years for me.”

Her brother threw back his head and guffawed with merriment.

“Oh, very sorry, your grace,” he said in a tolerable imitation of their father’s best hearty social manner, “but Josephine will not have you because you are stuffy and toplofty. You will not mind having Augusta instead, will you? She is fourteen, you know, and will be quite ready for marriage when she is sixteen.”

Penelope glared at Augusta.

“Well,” Josephine said, thoroughly aggrieved, “it is very unkind of you to make a joke of it, I must say, Bart, and foolish of you to think of something so nonsensical, Gussie, when I am in such distress. And you need not stand there looking so disapproving, Penny.”

“All you have to do, Jo,” Penelope said with the greatest good sense, “is tell Papa immediately that you do not want the duke. If you tell him without delay, he will probably be able to stop his grace from even leaving home, and no harm will be done. I am sure Papa will understand that you would prefer to live out your life as an old maid.”

“I don’t want to be an old maid,” Josephine said crossly. “I just don’t want to be a duchess. But how can I tell Papa or Grandpapa that? They are both so very pleased for me. I could not possibly disappoint them.”

“You have a simple choice, Jo,” Bartholomew said, completing the stretch that had been interrupted a few moments before. “Either you disappoint Papa and Grandpapa, or you live out your life as the Duchess of Mitland.”

“Mit
ford
,” Josephine said, correcting him. “The Duchess of Mitford. Oh, goodness gracious me, I couldn’t possibly. I would sooner die.”

It was a sentiment that she felt even more strongly later that evening after talking to Mr. Porterhouse at the Winthrops’. Mr. Porterhouse was a distant cousin of the Winthrops, who lived most of his life in London, and who was so fashionable a gentleman that he looked rather like someone from a different universe. He was also the most handsome gentleman ever to have set foot in the neighborhood, the proverbial tall, dark, and handsome paragon of manhood.

He had favored Josephine from the moment of his arrival the week before, sitting by her at various assemblies, turning the pages of her music when she played the spinet, taking her on his arm during walks. Susanna was disapproving.

“I don’t like him, Jo,” she had said more than once. “I don’t trust a gentleman who smiles quite so much. Do have a care.”

But Josephine had laughed at her. “I like him,” she had said. “But you need not fear having him as a brother-in-law, Sukey. I cannot find him attractive. He makes me feel like a veritable child. I don’t reach even near to his shoulder.”

“Well, he cannot help being so tall,” Susanna had said sensibly.

“And I cannot help being so very small,” Josephine had said. “But he is and I am, and I cannot feel any attraction to him.”

“I am glad of it, then,” Susanna had said, much relieved. “For he does single you out for marked attention, Jo. And I know you do not always think wisely before you act. I would not have you fall prey to his charms.”

“Besides,” Bart had said to Josephine’s indignation, “the man is only after Jo’s dowry. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. Why else would he be rusticating except to find himself a rich and innocent bride?”

“Perhaps to visit his cousins,” Josephine had said with as much dignity as she could inject into her voice.

She could not help liking Mr. Porterhouse even if she could not sigh over him. He was very attentive and very kind, and he smiled a great deal. And he knew the Duke of Mitford. Penelope had mentioned the duke earlier in the evening. “So you are to marry Mitford,” he said, when the two of them were talking late in the evening beyond the earshot of everyone else. “I am cut to the heart.”

“How foolish!” Josephine said with no trace of flirtatiousness in her manner. “Yes, it seems that I am to marry him, though it was very wrong of Penny to mention it since he has not paid his addresses yet.”

“You do not sound very pleased, ma’am,” he said. “Do you know him?”

“No,” she said. “And neither does Grandpapa nor Papa, nor anyone else for that matter. But he must be eligible, you see, because he is a duke, and because his grandfather and mine have been friends all their lives.”

He sighed.

“Do you know him?” she asked as an afterthought.

“I am afraid so,” he said.

He did not want to say more, but Josephine had not had a brother all her life without learning how to wheedle out reluctant information.

“He is excessively handsome,” he said. “Blond and blue-eyed, you know. Quite like a Greek god.”

Josephine gulped. “And tall?” she asked.

Mr. Porterhouse looked measuringly at the diminutive lady seated beside him. “About my height,” he said, “or taller. I am afraid he is very well aware of his looks. He is a great favorite with the ladies.”

“Of course,” Josephine echoed. “He is very rich, is he not?”

“And squanders his money,” he said. He hesitated. “On women, mostly.” He took her hand suddenly, the hand that would not be seen by anyone else in the room. “I am so very sorry for you, ma’am. It is a heavy cross you will have to bear. But what am I saying?” He smiled with warm sympathy into her wide eyes. “Of course, he has never been married. When he is, and to you, then of course he will change. Of course he will.” He squeezed her hand reassuringly and relinquished his hold on it.

Josephine was summoned the next moment to play a game of spillikins with Augusta and Henrietta Winthrop.