When You Wish Upon a Duke (19 page)

The business that March had claimed to take him to his club was not exactly business. He had gone there hoping to find his cousin Brecon, and his hope had bordered on desperation. His marriage was barely a day old, and already it was making him uneasy. He’d blundered badly on his wedding night, and though he thought he’d mended things this morning, he clearly hadn’t. His first day as a married gentleman had only gone rattling downhill after breakfast, and he had a distinct suspicion that it hadn’t reached the bottom yet. He’d only to recall how Charlotte had practically leaped from the carriage to get away from him and back to her family to understand that.

No, the sooner he could speak to Brecon, the better.

Fortunately, his cousin was a creature of habit, and March found Brecon where he always was at this time of day, sitting in the same leather armchair in the same corner of the upstairs parlor. He’d a glass, his pipe, and an open book, the perfect picture of a contented man, without any taxing strife in his house to disturb him. March envied him.

“Ah, the happy bridegroom,” Brecon said, closing his book as March joined him. “I’m surprised your lady parted with you so soon.”

With a groan, March dropped heavily into the next
chair. He was glad they were off in this corner, away from anyone who might overhear them. It was one thing to speak of Charlotte to Brecon, but quite another to bandy her name about the club, and he wouldn’t do it.

“The lady is back in the dragon’s lair,” he said, “where she would much prefer to be than with me.”

Breck’s brows rose with surprise. “Not to stay?”

March shook his head. “I’ll gather her back within the hour. She hasn’t abandoned me. Not yet, anyway. Though I wouldn’t wonder if she refused to come out to me when I call for her again.”

“But what has happened? When I waved you two away in your carriage yesterday, I could not imagine a happier pair.”

A waiter appeared to offer March wine or other refreshment, but he quickly shook his head. After last night, he wasn’t sure he’d ever wish to drink again.

“We were happy as we left St. Paul’s, and happier still as we dined. Brecon, I’ve never known another lady who was more agreeable, more amusing, more charming in conversation, more—”

“Until you landed in her bed,” Brecon said shrewdly, pointing the stem of his pipe for emphasis. “That’s it, isn’t it? Were you too forcefully ardent for the lady? Did she weep and beg you to cease?”

March dropped his head back against the chair and looked up at the ceiling, unable to meet his cousin’s gaze.

“I’ll admit it freely,” he said. “You don’t have to say it. I didn’t follow your advice. I didn’t woo her, and I forgot the pretty compliments.”

“Was it really so bad as that, cousin?” Brecon asked. “Compliments aren’t everything, however pretty. Perhaps you are remembering it worse than it was.”

“I was halfway to being drunk before we even sat at the table,” March admitted. “We both drank more—a good deal more—without eating. Then we stumbled
to her bedchamber, where I tore away half her clothes, shoved her on the bed, and took her.”

“And for this performance, you were likely rewarded with tears and wailing,” Brecon said. “Not that I could blame the lady.”

March paused, still staring at the ceiling and wondering exactly how much to say, even to his cousin. After his own deplorable behavior, Charlotte should have been expected to cry and wail, as Brecon said. But she hadn’t. Instead he would have sworn that she’d found her pleasure, too, which had only added to his own shame. Innocent that she was, she’d trusted him so completely that she hadn’t even realized that what he’d done to her was wrong.

“We were both in our cups,” he said finally. “I don’t believe she was entirely, ah, aware.”

He dared to glance at Brecon. He wished he hadn’t. His cousin was glaring at him with a mixture of contempt and disgust.

“You poured wine down the poor lady’s throat until she was too drunk to notice that you’d ravished her?” he said, incredulous. “
That
was your wedding night? No wonder she’s retreated to her aunt’s house. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she’d run clear back to Ransom. Who could fault her?”

“I apologized this morning,” March said quickly, leaving out how Charlotte had been the braver one, making the first step by coming to his rooms. “I promised last night’s, ah, excesses would never be repeated, and that we would begin anew, as if they hadn’t happened.”

Now it was Brecon who groaned. “Cousin, cousin! Women are constitutionally incapable of pretending an event didn’t happen. Their very beings cannot permit it. On the contrary, they will never forget anything, particularly any injustice perpetrated by a man.”

At once March recalled the grim time with Charlotte
earlier today in the carriage. No matter how cheerful and respectful he’d attempted to be, Charlotte had only looked at him with the saddest possible eyes.

“Perhaps that explains it,” he said slowly. “I’d thought she’d accepted my apology, but today she’s made me feel as if I’ve kicked a puppy.”

“Elaborate apologies don’t work,” Brecon declared. “The grander they are, the less women are inclined to accept them. Worse, they’ll suspect you for them, too. And there is also the likelihood that despite the participation of Bacchus, she recalls a good deal more of last night than she has admitted to you. She may be as queasy with guilt and remorse as you are, and heartily wishes you’d stop reminding her of her part.”

March frowned and leaned forward, lowering his voice even further. “She was a virgin, Brecon. I’d proof of that, and I won’t have you say otherwise.”

Brecon rolled his eyes. “I never did say that. I said she might have felt guilty after your, ah, initiation, which implies a nicely developed conscience.”

March sat back in his chair, not entirely convinced, but Brecon was already circling back to his first topic, like a country preacher turned dogged with his sermon.

“No, no, cousin,” he said. “There must be no histrionics, no breast-beating or gnashing of teeth. ’Tis much better to make your apologies heartfelt but brief, and then move along. Distract the lady from her wounds with a pretty bauble and then take her to some public place so she can display her trophy.”

March nodded. Dogged or not, his cousin did make sense. He’d kept out a few more of the family’s jewels—necklaces, bracelets, and earbobs—that Carter and Boyce had brought for his inspection. He could give Charlotte one of those tonight, as she dressed. A sizable pair of pearls for her ears would surely count as a peacemaking
bauble, and they’d be most handsome swinging against her neck, too.

“Here now, March, I’ve a notion,” Brecon said, leaning forward. “Why don’t you come as my guest to the old Theatre Royal tonight? Introduce your lady to the delights of the playhouse. I’ve seats in my box that will go begging if you don’t, and you know how women love a good play.”

Actually, March didn’t. Once he’d passed the age of ogling actresses and dancers with his friends when they’d come down to town from university, he’d lost interest in the gaudy foolishness of the theater, and he never had attended a play with a lady.

But attending a play with Charlotte would be different. If his cousin recommended a diversion, then there couldn’t possibly be anything more diverting than this. To enter the Duke of Breconridge’s private box on the arm of her new husband, to have the whole playhouse turn to gaze at her as the new Duchess of Marchbourne and admire her clothes, her beauty, her general good fortune—what lady could wish for more?

“That is a fine idea,” he admitted, imagining Charlotte’s excitement. He was almost certain she’d never seen a play, and he liked being the one to take her to her first. “I’ll accept your offer.”

“It
is
a fine idea, and I cannot tell you how proud I shall be to have you as my guests.” Brecon grinned and tapped the stem of his pipe against his cheek. “You’ll see. After she makes merry with us and receives the admiration of the world, she’ll go home in as delightful a humor as any woman ever can.”

At last March smiled, his first honest smile of the afternoon. He’d much prefer to have Charlotte in a delightful humor than gloomy as a sad-eyed puppy.

“And then, cousin,” continued Brecon, “when you return to your house and your lady invites you to join her
in her bedchamber—why, you, sir, will be the beneficiary, as well as the most contented bridegroom in London.”

Although tonight’s play wasn’t new—a revival of Otway’s old
Venice Preserv’d
—the famed Mr. Garrick himself was again playing Pierre, one of his best roles. Every ticket was sold, and the crush inside the playhouse was rivaled only by the crowds on foot and in carriages outside in Drury Lane.

“Hurry, March, hurry,” Charlotte said as they slowly made their way up the stairs to Breck’s box. “I don’t want to miss a moment of the play.”

“We’re going as fast as we can, Charlotte,” he said, and in fact they were going faster than most others trying to get to their seats. Not only did they have footmen and ushers before them to clear their way through the crowd—for, as Charlotte was still learning, such was the power of a duke’s rank and wealth—but they’d an added advantage in specifically being the Duke and Duchess of Marchbourne.

March would stand out in any crowd by merit of his height and presence, but tonight, dressed as he was in a magnificent suit of dark red silk, Charlotte was sure he must be the most gloriously handsome gentleman in all London. She liked how he refused to powder his dark hair or wear a fashionable wig, and she liked even more how he smiled only at her, no matter how many others greeted him.

But as she let him lead her through the crowd, she realized that just as many of the people were staring at her. She wore a gown so new that it had been delivered from Mrs. Cartwright’s shop that afternoon. It was her first in the French style, a true
robe à la française
with a deep square neckline and graceful pleats that flowed down the back, drifting behind her as she walked. The silk was a pale gold stripe with puffs of lace and ribbon
zigzagging along the two sides of the overskirt, and there were more ruffles and ribbons on her petticoat. Her stomacher was embroidered with pink silk carnations framed by gold lace, and she’d more lace at the deep cuffs on her sleeves.

Yet as grand as her gown was, it paled beside the earrings that March had presented to her while she’d been dressing. Teardrop pearls swung from clusters of diamonds, the pearls so large that if she’d seen them anywhere else she would have been sure they were glass. Of course they weren’t, not from March. As she’d hooked them into her ears, he’d solemnly explained how the ladies in his family had always been famous for their pearls, and now she would be, too.

Best of all, as she’d sat before her glass after Polly had finished dressing her hair, he’d come behind her. She’d been sure he meant to admire the pearls, but instead he’d bent to kiss her on the nape of her neck, a place so sensitive that she’d gasped from surprise, and spread her fingers with pleasure against the edge of her dressing table.

He’d said nothing, nor had she, but the glances that they’d exchanged in her looking glass had been so intense that she’d blushed. She didn’t believe that such a kiss qualified as unfit for a wife by Aunt Sophronia’s rules, not after March had given her the astonishing pearls. At least she prayed it didn’t, and as she followed his broad shoulders through the crowd, she dared to hope that that single kiss might lead to much more later that night.

“Here we are at last,” March said as the usher bowed ostentatiously before the last little door in the hall. “Like fighting our way through Bedlam, that was.”

Charlotte turned sideways to squeeze her hoops and skirts through the doorway, then caught her breath as she saw the scene before her. To Charlotte the curving rows of boxes seemed like some shopkeeper’s fanciful
display, with ladies and gentlemen dressed in so much finery that the crowd glittered and sparkled by the scores of candles. The stage was still empty, but below them the orchestra was already playing some spirited, exotic music that set the mood for the play to come.

“Ah, Duchess, I am honored,” said March’s cousin, the Duke of Breconridge, stepping forward to greet her. “Surely my box has never been graced by such a loveliness as yours.”

He took her hand, kissing the air over the back of it, and gave her fingers a small fond squeeze for good measure. Charlotte had already determined that Breconridge was March’s favorite cousin and his closest friend as well, and for that reason she’d resolved to like him, too. But then it was easy to like Breconridge: he was charming and droll, his eyes always full of merriment, and where March could be solemn and perhaps a bit too ducal, Breconridge’s good nature could put a stone statue at ease.

Also unlike March, Breconridge cheerfully embraced the full extravagance of the French court’s fashion, his suit embellished with winking brilliants and silver embroidery. On a lesser gentleman, the glittering effect might have dimmed the wearer, but not on Breconridge. He’d so much masculine confidence and presence that he could have been wearing the crown jewels, and all anyone would recall afterward was his intelligence, his wit, and his easy laugh. With so much grandeur about his own person, it didn’t surprise Charlotte that Breconridge noticed her new earrings at once.

“If you please, Duchess, closer to the lights, so that I might admire your jewels,” he said, peering at the earrings as he led her to one of the chairs at the front of the box. “March, are those the Medici pearls?”

“They are,” March said. “She wears them well, doesn’t she?”

Charlotte smiled and shook her head to make the heavy pearls swing. As pleased as she was by March’s gift, she was happier still to hear the pride in his voice and to see it, too, as he looked at her.

“She does indeed,” Brecon said. “Yet as extravagant as those pearls are, Duchess, they only enhance your own beauty.”

Charlotte blushed. “You are most generous, Duke.”

“Please, call me Brecon,” he said with a bow. “After all, we are cousins now, too. Come, you must show your earrings to Mrs. Shaw, while I pray she won’t crave a pair for herself.”