When the Duke Found Love (5 page)

“But I am not you, Brecon,” Sheffield protested. “Not at all.”

“No, you most certainly are not,” Brecon agreed, so quickly that in any other circumstances Sheffield would have been offended. “His Majesty suggests the oldest daughter of Lord Lattimore as being suitable, and I agree.”

Abruptly Sheffield rose and went to stand at the mantle, staring into the fire. He’d always known he must marry. Producing the next generation of little Dukes of Sheffield was really the only obligation he had to fulfill. Noblemen were paired with noblewomen, like two-legged thoroughbreds. Future duchesses could never be the daughters of coal merchants or tavern keepers. Nor, God forbid, could they be mere actresses or milliners, no matter how charming those ladies might be in their person. Pedigree always trumped charm and beauty, and most especially it trumped love.

Love was never taken into account with noble matchmaking, yet Sheffield had always hoped it would be, at least for him. Was it such an appalling sin to actually love the woman one was to wed? For butchers and bakers and candlestick makers, it wasn’t. Dukes didn’t have that luxury, nor were they expected even to have romantic ideals. Sheffield’s own parents had been the exception. They had fallen in love and scandalously eloped, and because it was a suitable enough match, their astonished families had not protested the marriage. Sheffield remembered their love, and how much more demonstrative they’d been with each other than any of his friends’ parents. He also remembered how happy and secure their love had made his childhood, and equally how devastated he’d been when they were killed.

He’d always wanted—even coveted—the same sort of love and marriage for himself, expecting that when the proper time came, he’d fall in love and marry himself. Now it seemed he wouldn’t. This match that Brecon proposed was inevitable, his fate, his doom, his curse, and he felt completely entitled to be melancholy about it. He was only twenty-four. He wasn’t ready to marry, and he certainly wasn’t in love with a young woman he’d never met. But if the king himself wished it, then he’d no choice. None.

And what the devil must be wrong with Lord Lattimore’s daughter if she required a royal command to acquire a husband?

“You planned this, Brecon, didn’t you?” Sheffield asked glumly, still staring into the fire. “I can see it now. That trumpery about the countess’s daughter needing to wed, and all the time you’d begun crying the banns for me instead.”

“The purest of coincidence,” Brecon said, with such confidence that Sheffield didn’t believe it for an instant. “At least there is not quite the same urgency as there is with a lady. No one is going to ruin you.”

“No,” Sheffield said, glumness turning to out-and-out gloom. “I’m already thoroughly ruined, thank you. What do you know of Lord Lattimore’s daughter?”

“Lady Enid?” Brecon smiled warmly. “She’s a fine, handsome lady with a pleasant manner. You will meet her and determine for yourself on Friday night at Lady Fortescue’s rout. You’ve been invited, you know.”

“Blast you, Brecon,” Sheffield said with more resignation than genuine anger. “‘A handsome lady with a pleasant manner’? How woeful must she be if that is the best you, the most charitable man I know, can say in her favor? A pleasant manner?”

But Brecon only smiled. “I do not wish to predispose you. All I ask is that when you meet Lady Enid, you bear in mind that duchesses are not to be judged by the same standards as, say, a French marquise.”

Sheffield didn’t answer. Though Brecon wouldn’t believe it, the fact that Lady Enid was evidently no beauty—how could any woman named Enid be one?—did not distress Sheffield nearly as much as the cold-blooded nature of the arrangement. She was as much as being delivered to him on a silver charger, a respectable lady-wife, while he was doubtless being presented to her as the duke and fortune she should be honored to marry. It would be a match made by solicitors and other men of business, with the king hovering over all like a royal Cupid.

There’d be no chase, no hunt, no seduction, not an iota of the things that Sheffield enjoyed most to do with women. He liked the excitement of pursuit infinitely more than the predictable satisfaction of possession, and this sort of match would be unspeakably dreary.

He tried to think only dutiful thoughts, of how this was what he must do, but instead his thoughts insisted on running willfully off on their own, imagining all manner of inappropriate women whom he’d much rather be pursing.

No, one inappropriate woman, one with a chuckling laugh and gold-colored hair and high, plump breasts that truly did belong on a woodland nymph—likely the most desirably inappropriate woman his imagination could muster before the undoubtedly plain face of Lady Enid.

“You’re quiet,” Brecon said at last, making Sheffield start and wonder how long he’d been lost in his own reflections. “Are you stricken speechless by the prospect of behaving like a gentleman?”

Sheffield tried to smile. “How can I not be, when I feel the noose tightening around my throat already?”

But Brecon was no longer looking at him, or listening, either. Instead he was staring downward, to the vicinity of Sheffield’s feet.

“What, pray, is
that
?” he demanded, simultaneously both mystified and appalled. “A
pig
? Have you brought a pig into my library, Sheffield?”

Sheffield looked down as well, to where Fantôme lay blissfully curled close to the fire’s grate. Sheffield had to admit that, from where his cousin was sitting, the dog likely did resemble a small white pig, his well-rounded sides basking in the warmth. As if on cue, Fantôme rolled inelegantly onto his back and began snoring, his long pinkish ears fluttering gently. Sheffield smiled and slipped the toe of his boot beneath the dog’s back, gently rubbing against his spine until Fantôme’s snores became mixed with heady canine groans of pleasure.

“He’s a dog, not a pig,” Sheffield said fondly. “He’s my dog, and his name is Fantôme.”

“Fantôme,” repeated Brecon, staring down at the groaning dog. “French?”

“Mais oui,”
Sheffield said, unable to resist.

“Mais non,”
Brecon said dryly. “You have no more taste in your dogs than you do in your mistresses.”

“Now, now, Brecon, pray do not be unkind.” Sheffield bent down to scoop the dog up into his arms, cradling him there like a fat baby. “If I vow to keep an open mind when I meet Lady Enid, then you must do the same with Fantôme.”

“Sheffield, please.” Brecon’s expression was pained. “To speak Lady Enid’s name in the same breath with that creature, even in jest, is ridiculous. Yet if it will make you consider the lady fairly, then I will gladly do the same for that—that handsome and noble dog.”

The handsome and noble dog yawned, snuffled, and gave a leisurely swipe of his tongue across his crumpled nose.

Sheffield ruffled Fantôme’s ears and sighed. He could, turn his back on all that Brecon had said and the king had suggested. This was the eighteenth century, not the fifteenth, and he didn’t have to marry His Majesty’s choice of a bride or risk being tossed into the Tower until he obeyed. He wouldn’t lose his titles or his lands. He could leave England anytime he pleased, and forget entirely about these marital expectations.

But if he didn’t care what the king said, he did care about Brecon’s opinion. Indeed, he cared more than he’d likely ever admit. Brecon was the closest thing he had to family, to both a father and a brother, and Sheffield would never sever that attachment, not for all the willing ladies in France. Brecon was also the most honorable gentleman he’d ever met, and ever since Sheffield was a boy, he had always wished to be like Brecon. He hadn’t come close to succeeding, but he’d tried, and he was willing to try again in regard to Lady Enid.

Gently he set Fantôme back down on the carpet. He squared his shoulders, resolved to smile, and held his hand out to Brecon.

“As you wish, cousin,” he said softly. “Regarding the marquise, and Lady Enid, and this ball, and marriage, and all the rest. Whatever you wish.”

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

“There now, Diana, you look quite perfect.” Charlotte gave a final critical tweak to one of the ruffles on Diana’s gown. “Lord Crump will be dazzled.”

“Lord Crump will take no notice at all,” Diana said. They were standing in the small room that Lady Fortescue had set aside for ladies to leave their cloaks and make general repairs before they joined the rest of the company. The air was thick with the scent of perfume and the drifting dust of hair powder. They were far from the first guests to arrive for the rout, and the room was crowded with ladies all striving to stand before the same looking glasses at the same time.

All, that is, except Diana. Her gown was lovely, a cream-colored silk damask embroidered with pale pink carnations, her hair had been perfectly arranged high on her head in a cascade of curls, and her coral and pearl necklace and earrings made her pale skin glow. Charlotte had overseen two lady’s maids and a hairdresser to make sure her youngest sister looked her best this evening, but Diana hadn’t cared at all. Why should she, when Lord Crump wouldn’t, either?

“I could be wearing a ragged scrap of homespun and he’d say nothing, Charlotte,” she said. “If he had no opinion on my hat the other day, he won’t even see my gown.”

“He might not see the gown, no,” Charlotte said, tucking a stray wisp of her own hair beneath a spray of diamonds and feathers pinned into it. “But he will see you in it, and that’s far more important. March never really notices my gowns or hats or shoes, but he is very aware of the overall effect. I’m sure it’s the same with Lord Crump.”

“Lord Crump is not March, Charlotte,” Diana said firmly. “Not at all.”

Two days earlier, when she’d rejoined him in the park, he had told her of his conversation with his friend Lord Merton. He hadn’t apologized to her for abandoning her, nor had he asked how she’d spent the time when he’d been off with Lord Merton.

Which, if Diana were honest with herself, was probably for the best. She was not good at dissembling, and if Lord Crump had inquired too closely about her time alone, she doubtless would have told him about the fat white dog and his handsome master. She’d certainly thought enough about the dog’s owner, about his broad shoulders in the bright blue coat and the wicked, sly glint he’d had to his eyes, and how she’d made her laugh and blush. She’d thought, too, how vastly sad it was that this handsome, nameless gentleman might be the very last she could think such things about. According to Charlotte, once she was wed, she’d have to banish all charming gentlemen like him not only from her life but also from her very thoughts—though Charlotte also said that once she loved her husband, that would take care of itself.

“Lord Crump is more like March than you know, Diana,” Charlotte said, straightening the heavy pear-shaped pearls, crowned with diamonds, that hung from her ears. “When we first wed, he was so stuffy and proper that I despaired. But I persevered, and you see how love has changed him.”

“But March is handsome,” Diana protested. “Even if he was stuffy and proper, he was pleasing to gaze upon. There’s nothing pleasing about Lord Crump.”

“Nothing that you’ve yet discovered,” Charlotte said. “I’m sure he has his qualities. I’ve told you before, Diana. A flirtation can happen in an instant, but love takes time to build. Which would you rather have: a bright flower blossom that withers and loses its petals and scent after a day or two, or a diamond that must be wrested from deep in the earth but which, once possessed, keeps its beauty forever?”

“The diamond,” Diana admitted grudgingly, then looked at Charlotte’s earrings. “But I’d much prefer a flesh-and-blood husband to either.”

“Oh, Diana, please.” Charlotte rolled her eyes with dismay. “I pity Lord Crump having to cope with you! Now come, let’s join the others, and pray try to be agreeable to that poor gentleman.”

With a sigh, Diana followed her sister from the tiring room. As far as she was concerned, she’d much rather have the instant pleasure of flirtation that she’d discovered with the stranger beneath the trees than endure the stupefying process of finding something lovable in Lord Crump.

Lady Fortescue was known for her fashionable entertainments, and her grand old house—one of the last along the Strand to remain from the former century—was arranged almost entirely for the accommodations of large numbers of guests. Each of the spacious rooms opened into the next, creating a long, lavish space for dancing, dining, drinking, and conversing. Most important, Fortescue House was unrivaled for displaying one’s self to the very best advantage, with large looking glasses to reflect both the candlelight from the chandeliers and London’s most fashionable society as its members strolled from one room to the next.

Even though Lady Fortescue had characterized this evening’s gathering as only a rout, not a full-fledged ball, there were still plenty of jewels. Most of the ladies were dressed formally, with wide, swaying hoops beneath their skirts. The gentlemen were every bit the male peacocks, their jackets and waistcoats glittering with silk embroidery and jeweled buttons.

Charlotte moved confidently through the crush, the crowd always making way for the Duchess of Marchbourne. Diana followed in her wake, as was both proper for their ranks and necessary, since with their wide hoops it was almost impossible for them to maneuver through a crowded room side by side. Since she’d turned seventeen, Diana had been accompanying Charlotte more and more in public, and she no longer gave thought to deferring to her older sister as a duchess.

Yet tonight Diana sensed that things had somehow changed. Was she imagining it, or were the other guests looking at her differently, with a new interest and respect, because of Lord Crump? Were they whispering behind their fans about her, not Charlotte? She should have known that word of their match would have raced through the small circle of well-bred London. Only a few days had passed since she herself had learned of his proposal. Had she already made the subtle shift in society’s eyes, moving from being one more unmarried younger sister to a lady with a peer as her intended?