When the Duchess Said Yes (32 page)

“Duchess, Duke, please, please forgive me!” Lady Merton sank in a curtsey before them, the diamonds in her white-powdered hair winking by the candlelight. “I should have been waiting to greet you, but I was called away to an unavoidable emergency among the servants. How very honored we are to have you both here with us this night.”

“We are the ones who are honored by your invitation, Lady Merton,” Lizzie said, in the perfect murmuring voice that a duchess should employ. Clearly she’d drawn on some inner resource of self-possession to overcome her fears, composing herself to stand straight and serene. This must be the work of the harpies, he thought, all their careful training to prepare her for this moment. She’d always been beautiful; now she was almost regal
as well, with all traces of his Lizzie with the grass-stained toes and tangled hair gone. “Your home is most lovely.”

Hawke could only stare, stunned by her transformation. He remembered how once she’d told him how she’d always been overlooked in her family, the middle sister no one noticed. She wouldn’t be overlooked now, nor likely ever again, and it wasn’t because of all those diamonds and rubies, either. She was Elizabeth Wylder Halsbury, Duchess of Hawkesworth, and even in this group of high-ranking ladies she’d stand out. She’d be fine, more than fine.

Which was just as well, because clearly Lady Merton intended to make up for her earlier neglect and claim Lizzie as her prize.

“If you please, Duchess, I hope to prise you away from His Grace so that I might present several other ladies to you,” she said, holding her gloved hand out to Lizzie. “Everyone wishes to offer their best wishes to you on your recent marriage. Besides, I know how the gentlemen do wish to speak of affairs away from our tender ears. Isn’t that so, Duke?”

But before Hawke could answer, Lord Merton appeared, bearing down upon him beneath his tall white wig like a ship-of-the-line under full sail. The earl made a leering, muttered greeting to Lizzie—or rather to Lizzie’s breasts—then turned the full force of his attention toward Hawke.

“I was beginning to think you’d found other amusements than us for this evening, Duke,” he said, his smile more scolding than welcoming. “Though with a bride such as yours, all is forgiven. Here are two other gentlemen I wish you to meet. Lord Cousins, Lord Bonny.”

Hawke bowed politely, swallowing back his rising discomfort. Both gentlemen were cut from the same glittering cloth as Lord Merton: gentlemen of his father’s generation whose lives were concentrated on the House
of Lords and the court, men with shrewd eyes, cold hearts, and ruthless ambition for power.

“We are heartily glad to have you back among us, sir,” said Lord Bonny, his hands resting over a floridly embroidered waistcoat that stretched tight over his abundant belly. “England needs young gentlemen with your experience to help lead her forward.”

“That is generous of you, Lord Bonny,” Hawke said, thinking how his past in Naples, devoted as it had been to art and to pleasing himself, had very little in it that would benefit England. “But I doubt I’ve the kind of experience that you require.”

“Nonsense, sir,” said Lord Cousins, his face reminding Hawke of a half-melted candle. “You are being too modest. You are newly returned from Naples. You will have fresh advice for us on the new king there, and his leanings. Ah, what a tragedy for England that he wed into the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons!”

“The Neapolitan queen appears a fair little lady,” Hawke said carefully, the best information he could muster. “I have seen her at balls, and she danced quite prettily. She’s already given the king a pair of sons and a daughter, too.”

All three men laughed indulgently at that, in a way that irritated Hawke.

“Ah, the bridegroom speaks!” Lord Merton said. “Of course fecundity is on your mind, Duke, and who would dare fault you for it? But we would know of Her Majesty’s other, more useful qualities.”

“Is it true she is conniving and clever?” Lord Cousins asked eagerly. “Does in fact she make the king her pawn? Does she incline the country toward the wishes of the Austrians and her mother, and thereby to France rather than England?”

Hawke cleared his throat, his irritation growing. “I
fear I was never such a fixture at Ferdinand’s court that I would be privy to such information.”

“It is wise to be careful, Duke, especially in a place with so many ears,” Lord Merton said, nodding sagely. “I like reticence in a man. A most necessary quality for profitable relationships.”

“Your father, rest his soul, possessed both wisdom and reticence,” Lord Bonny intoned as if speaking from a pulpit. “How fortunate we are to have his son with us now! What we shall all be able to achieve together, what we shall accomplish!”

Hawke clasped his hands behind his back, the only way he could contrive to keep them from making fists of frustration at his sides. He felt as if he were a schoolboy again, trapped and cornered once more by his father’s expectations.

He glanced past Lord Bonny’s frizzy wig, searching for Lizzie. She stood in the center of a ring of ladies, clearly the center of attention, just as he was here. The only difference was that she was elegant and composed, a perfect duchess, while he was shambling and incoherent. He desperately longed to be there beside her, with her, though it was patently clear that she’d no need of him at all.

He forced himself to collect his thoughts and return to the conversation he’d no wish to pursue.

“You may see many likenesses between my father and me, my lords,” he said, displeasure in his voice no matter how he tried to contain it, “but I fear you would discover in time that there are far more dissimilarities than otherwise, especially regarding political affairs.”

“Oh, that would come swiftly enough, Duke,” Lord Merton said with a dismissive sweep of his thick-fingered hand. “As soon as you take your seat in the Lords—”

“I have taken my seat, my lords, years ago,” Hawke
said, “and then I likewise left it, with little intention of returning to it.”

All three lords stared at him, aghast. Now that he’d begun, Hawke plunged ahead, unable to stop.

“Regrettably for your plans, I do not share my father’s interests, nor likely ever shall,” he continued, each word clipped. “I wish nothing to do with the House of Lords or any other ‘profitable relationships’ here in London.”

“Your frankness amazes me, Duke,” rumbled Lord Merton, attempting to placate. “Surely in time—”

“There will be no time, Lord Merton,” Hawke said curtly. “In fact, I do not plan to remain long in London, but to return to Naples.”

“A wedding trip, eh?” Lord Bonny asked slyly. “What could be more romantic than the southern climes with your lovely duchess?”

“Her Grace will not be joining me, but remaining here in London with her family,” Hawke said, more sharply than he’d intended. “My villa in Naples is my permanent residence.”

My villa in Naples is my permanent residence
. That had always been his private plan, a reassuring notion that he’d clung to ever since he’d realized the restriction of his father’s damnable will. He would obey his father’s wishes, and his reward for doing so would be Villa Collina and his old life. It had always made comforting sense, knowing that he’d a way to outfox his father one final time.

But a private notion and a bold declaration were entirely different things, and even without seeing the shocked faces of the other men he realized at once just how harsh his words must have sounded. How could he be married less than a month, yet already planning a way to part from a seemingly perfect wife?

Doubtless these worldly gentlemen were imagining every kind of explanation behind his words: that the
young duchess had some terrible malady or impairment, or that the duke had no interest in women in general, or perhaps that he’d another, illicit family waiting in Italy. None of their imagined explanations would be right, of course. But what could he possibly say that would be any more logical, or without the unsavory hint of betrayal or abandonment? They wouldn’t understand; they couldn’t.

And if he was honest, he wasn’t sure he understood himself any longer, either. He felt a sudden wave of nausea, the kind that followed an unexpected blow to the stomach.

“Pray excuse me, my lords,” he muttered. Not waiting for their permission, he turned and plunged into the crowd.

He meant to join Lizzie. He needed to, after what he’d just said.

He only got halfway.

“So you are here, cousin,” Brecon said, his smile warm as he caught Hawke by the arm. “Merton told me you were expected—boasted of it, to be true—but I’d begun to doubt his word.”

“Good day, Brecon.” Hawke took a deep breath, not wanting to appear anything but composed before his older cousin. Brecon was as perfectly at ease as he always was, his clothes impeccably stylish without being overdone or French, his manner relaxed and gentlemanly. But with one look at Hawke, Brecon’s perfect smile vanished, and he took Hawke firmly by the shoulders, as if he feared he’d need support.

“What is wrong, Hawke?” he asked quietly. “You’re white as your shirt. Are you ill? Should I call for your carriage to take you home?”

Hawke shook his head, reaching to take a glass of wine from a passing servant’s tray.

“I’m well enough, I promise you,” he said, drinking
deeply. “An unpleasant conversation with company I did not desire. A passing lapse, that is all.”

It was clear that Brecon didn’t believe him, but that he also knew better than to push Hawke. Instead he simply nodded, accepting Hawke’s explanation.

“I am glad to see you among society,” he said evenly. “You and your lovely lady. Marriage agrees with you, yes?”

“Yes,” Hawke said, searching again for Lizzie. She was sitting now, apparently held so rapt by some delicious tattle that she wasn’t moving, her eyes wide and her lips barely parted. It was a very unguarded, very Lizzie expression, and he felt a fresh surge of love for her.

“I can see that it does,” Brecon said, following his glance. “You smile when you look at your wife.”

Abashed, Hawke shrugged. “I’ve always had a weakness for beauty.”

Now Brecon smiled, too. “Don’t pretend it’s not more than that. You love the lady.”

“I do,” Hawke said softly, unable to keep from looking once again at Lizzie. “I do. How could any man not love her?”

“Not any man,” Brecon said. “You’re her husband, and that’s the only one who should.”

They laughed together, a comfortable shared laughter between cousins who happened to be friends.

“That’s better,” Brecon said, clapping him on the shoulder. “And you no longer resemble a corpse. Truly Lizzie must be a goddess, able to raise the dead! Come, I wish to pay my respects to her.”

Together they made their way through the crowd. Lizzie spied them when they were still several paces away, her face lighting in a way that was endlessly gratifying to Hawke. He didn’t need Brecon to tell him he
loved her. The proof was before his eyes, grinning up at him.

“Oh, Hawke, I’m so vastly glad you’re here!” she exclaimed, seizing him in a quick, impulsive hug and adding a kiss for good measure. She wasn’t being a grand duchess now; she was simply being Lizzie, the way he much preferred. “And Brecon! How good it is to see you, too.”

She kissed him, too, a good cousinly kiss, then to Hawke’s surprise pulled forward a small, plainly dressed man with a terrified expression on his olive-skinned face. Hawke supposed he’d every right to be terrified, seeing as Lady Merton had been directing a loud, one-sided conversation at him.

“This is someone you must meet, Hawke,” she said, beaming as she gave the little man a reassuring pat on his sleeve, “not only because he is a genius as an artist, and I know you like artists, but also because you are likely the only person in this room who can speak with him properly. Hawke, Signor Antonio Petrocelli. Signore, my husband, the Duke of Hawkesworth.”

Silently the man bowed low before Hawke—too low, really, for Hawke’s comfort. Signor Petrocelli didn’t need to grovel as if he were some heathen pasha. Yet Hawke could sympathize with his plight. He knew firsthand what it was like to be in a foreign place without the faintest idea of what was being said, and he, too, had had people like Lady Merton shout at him, only in German or French or Arabic, in the misbegotten belief that any language was made more comprehensible by volume. Besides, Lizzie was right: he did like artists. He reached down and took the man’s hand, intending to shake it.

“Good day to you, signore,” Hawke said in Italian. “I welcome you to London, and I look forward to seeing your work.”

Petrocelli gasped, his eyes filling with tears. He bent and kissed the back of Hawke’s hand—a gesture of respect common in Italy, but uncomfortably out of place in Mayfair—and answered in such a torrent of grateful Italian that Hawke could barely make it out himself.

“Merciful heavens,” Lady Merton said, taken aback. “Whatever did you say to him, Duke?”

“Only that I wished to see his work,” Hawke said, “and that I welcomed him to London.”

“He’s just arrived last week from Rome, a fearfully long voyage,” Lizzie explained. “Poor man, he must be overwhelmed by such a journey and by London, too!”

She fetched a sheet of paper from a nearby table and handed it to him. “Look at this, Hawke. I know I don’t see or admire art as well as you do, but doesn’t that look exactly like me?”

The drawing had been quickly done in black pencil, likely for the artist’s own pleasure rather than for presentation to a potential patron. Certainly the way Petrocelli was standing now, waiting for Hawke’s reaction with his palms pressed together before his mouth in agonizing, silent supplication, proved that. Petrocelli must have been drawing Lizzie when Hawke had seen her across the room, when she’d been listening with her eyes wide, for that was exactly how he’d captured her. A few sure lines, an artful smudge or two for shading, and there was Lizzie, with the haste of the sketch reflecting her own vibrancy.

He was impressed, and he felt the first, familiar rush of excitement when he’d discovered an artist new to him. He’d wish to see finished paintings, of course, but if this sketch was any indication of the man’s gifts, then Hawke would happily commission him to paint Lizzie, and perhaps himself as well.