The Duchess War

  Chapter Sixteen

  Robert should have guessed what the gossip would bring, but the next morning’s visitor still came as a surprise. He was on the verge of going out—had just stepped outside his door, in fact—when a carriage drew up in front of the house. A servant leaped from the back and placed a stool on the pavement.

  The door opened, and his mother disembarked. Her eyes landed on Robert. She didn’t frown. She didn’t squint. In fact, the duchess did not show any emotion at all. Instead, she simply stepped onto the pavement and floated up the steps.

  “Clermont,” she said in greeting.

  He inclined his head a half inch. “Duchess.”

  She swept in the open door as if he were holding it for her. Without asking permission, she accosted a passing maid and ordered tea. He followed in bemusement. Two minutes later, she’d seated herself in his front parlor. She waved her own maid away and faced him.

  “I take it,” she said, “that you haven’t made a general practice of debauching genteel young women of the middle class.”

  She said the words middle class as if they smelled of rotten eggs.

  “You are referring to the events of last night?” he said, matching her tone. “I make it a habit to ruin a pair before tea. I find the anticipation makes the morning hours pass with delightful alacrity.”

  She sniffed. “That is the sort of joke your father would have made.”

  Robert’s hand clenched in his glove. “No,” he said. “That is the sort of thing my father would have done. He would never have joked about it, not in mixed company.”

  She waved a hand in acknowledgment. “This is not the first I have heard your name coupled with that of Miss Pursling. Tell me you are not considering anything untoward.”

  “I don’t see why you should care. You never have.”

  The Duchess of Clermont simply shrugged. “Your actions, such as they are, reflect on me.”

  Of course. She wasn’t taking an interest in him; she never had. She was simply seeing to her own reputation, worrying about the difficulties that he might cause her. He’d waited his entire life for her to notice him.

  He’d studied hard when he first went to school, earning praise from all his tutors. He’d written her in excitement, hoping that she’d read his letter, that he would have done enough to make her proud.

  But his first letter had received no response. So he’d tried harder. If he was not just good, but great… Surely then his mother would be proud of him. So he’d studied harder, tried more, achieved even more. He’d written her again after four months, shyly placing his accomplishments before her.

  The post had brought an endless round of nothing.

  Undaunted, he’d tried harder. He’d sent his third letter at the end of the year, informing her that he’d been first in his class. For a week that summer, he’d held his breath every day when the post arrived. For a week, he’d been disappointed.

  And then, one day, he’d received a one-line response.

  Tell your father that this strategy won’t work, either.

  It had been a matter of principle to continue on as he had before—to prove that all that effort hadn’t been for her. Even so, it had taken him years to break the habit of hoping.

  “Well?” she said, studying him now. “What is it that you intend with the girl?”

  Robert stared across the room. “I believe,” he said slowly, “that a son ought to defer to his mother. To answer her queries, because he owes her respect for the years of care she has given.”

  Her whole form tensed.

  “I’m feeling generous. I shall answer one question for every month you spent in my company as a child.”

  He looked over at her. Her lips thinned. Her fingers tapped an angry rhythm against her saucer.

  Robert stood up. “As you are no doubt aware,” he said, “that leaves you with no questions at all. This interview is done.”

  And so saying, he stood and left the room.

  A proposal of marriage, Minnie realized, shouldn’t make her feel ill. Especially when she actually liked the man. But she couldn’t argue with the truth of her body. Her stomach cramped just thinking about what marriage to him would mean. It wasn’t a falsehood when she told her great-aunts the next morning that she needed to lie down.

  She’d promised to consider the advantages of his proposal, but all attempts to do so were swept away by visions of angry faces surrounding her. “Fraud!” they yelled, and “Devil’s spawn!” Duchesses attracted crowds. Duchesses attended parties. Duchesses didn’t faint when too many people looked at them. If they did, they’d always be collapsing.

  She could imagine the private portion of their relationship all too well. Her skin burned with the hope of that. They had too many kisses between them now for her to pretend she didn’t want him. But while she might have done well as Robert’s lover, the thought of being a duke’s wife made her feel ill. And eventually, any private understanding they might have would be overshadowed by the inevitable public disaster.

  Her reverie was interrupted in the afternoon by the clatter of wheels on the drive. She propped herself up on one elbow so that she could see out the window and watched in bemusement as four matching dark horses drew up in front of her great-aunts’ cottage. A servant jumped off the back, opening the carriage door, setting down a stool upholstered in bright colors. And the Duchess of Clermont stepped out. She looked around in every direction, her nose upturned. No doubt taking in the cabbage fields beyond the house, the paint peeling off the barn to the left, the rust on the hinges…all the signs of poverty waiting just on the edge of vision.

  She wore a pale pink gown, frothed with lace at the cuffs and hems as if she were a fancy cake in a baker’s window. The duchess shook her head as if to dispel the commonplace sight of the house before her and swept up the walk. One of her servants glided before her and sounded the knocker.

  It was starting already. The crowds. The dubious looks. The recrimination.

  Minnie was hardly surprised when Great-Aunt Caro came to see her a few minutes later.

  “Minnie,” she said in awed tones, “I know you’re feeling poorly, but the Duchess of Clermont most particularly wishes to see you. Shall I send her away?”

  Obviously, the duchess had heard the news from her son.

  “No,” Minnie said. “I had better see her.”

  Caro helped her lace her dress and smoothed her hair into a bun. She didn’t say anything as she worked. She didn’t ask why the Duchess of Clermont would call, nor did she question Minnie’s illness. Minnie could fault her great-aunts for a great many things, but they let her be and trusted her to make her own decisions.

  “Minnie,” she finally said, when she’d put down the brush and pronounced her gown presentable, “if you needed anything—anything at all—you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

  Her great-aunt was wearing a dress she’d turned for the fifth time. Half the lines in her face were likely Minnie’s fault. If anything happened to Eliza, Caro would have nowhere to go. And still she trusted Minnie.

  It didn’t matter what would happen if Minnie became a duchess. It didn’t matter that she would be terrible at the endeavor. The choices had all been whittled away, one by one, and there were worse things than feeling obligated to marry a man that she liked.

  “No,” Minnie said. “I wouldn’t tell you. It’s long past the time when I should be depending on you. You should be able to trust in me.”

  Her great-aunt’s eyes grew shadowed.

  “Oh, Minnie,” she said in a choked voice.

  Minnie squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry about me.” She drew a deep breath and went down to do battle.

  Up close, the duchess’s gown was even more stunning. Four layers of the finest lace ringed her hands. The fabric was a print of delicate flowers, tucked and embroidered and layered upon itself with cunning stitchery far beyond Minnie’s own skill. She could see no hint of Robert in the woman’s face. Her nose was small and
turned up, and her mouth seemed set in an eternal grimace.

  Minnie ducked her head and curtseyed low in the doorway, all too conscious of her own well-worn frock: a plain, serviceable gray with black cuffs that had been turned once to hide the fraying. The duchess surveyed her in silence, no doubt cataloging her every deficiency. She didn’t need to say a word. That raised eyebrow, that slight widening of the eyes in surprise—they all said the same thing. How dare you think you can marry my son?

  No matter what Minnie’s decision might be, she wouldn’t cower before this woman. She met the other woman’s gaze straight on, refusing to look away.

  “Well,” the duchess finally said. “I understand what he sees in you.”

  The words were so surprising that Minnie forgot her resolve. “You do?”

  The duchess stood up and strode over to Minnie. “Poor,” she said, tapping the worn cuffs of Minnie’s sleeves. “Scarred.” She indicated her cheek. “No bearing, no deportment, no sense of proper manners. You’re his charity project.”

  After the turmoil of the past day, it was a relief to feel cold, simple anger. Minnie’s chin lifted. “And yet he has not offered me a single pound.”

  “Marriage to him would be worth more than a few guineas.”

  Minnie set one hand on her hip. “If you think your son’s interest in me extends to mere charity, you don’t know him very well. There are surely more deserving victims than I.”

  The duchess shook her head. “I know my son,” she said with a low growl. “He looks so much like his father that it took me years to realize the truth. He’s far too much like me.”

  “Like you?” Minnie looked at the woman again. Other than the pale color of her hair, there was nothing of her in her son. She could not have been more than fifty years of age, but already frowns had burrowed harsh lines in her forehead. Her mouth was set in an expression of permanent dislike. “He’s nothing like you.”

  Pearls slid on the duchess’s wrist as she waved her hand dismissively. “Like I used to be,” she said. “Soft. Yielding.” Her lips became even harder. “Gullible. He’s an utter romantic—don’t deny it. He has to be, asking a woman like you to marry him.”

  “A woman like me.” Minnie felt her own mouth curling in distaste. “What do you mean, a woman like me?”

  “For the rest of his life, everyone will be looking at him and wondering why he married you, whispering about how terribly the Blaisdell family name has been besmirched.”

  “I should think that would be his lookout, not yours.”

  The other woman’s eyes flashed. “Do you know how much I gave up so that my child would be born with every advantage? For years I suffered through marriage to his cretinous, adulterous lump of a father. I had his bastard thrown in my face. I had to—” She cut herself off and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I gave up everything so that my son could have this life. Everything. You cannot conceive what I had to bear. I did not make a sacrifice of my entire life so that he could throw himself away on a nobody.”

  From that Minnie surmised that Robert’s mother didn’t know about his hope to abolish the peerage.

  But the duchess’s tirade went on. “You bring nothing to the match—no family, no money, no land, no power.”

  “I am aware of my assets, Your Grace.”

  “And you’re going to marry him anyway,” the duchess said scornfully. “I know my son. He’s likely caring about right and wrong, wanting so desperately to belong to something. He’ll hurl himself at whatever cause he so blindly chooses, heedless of the harm to himself.”

  Perhaps the duchess knew Robert better than Minnie had initially supposed.

  The duchess sniffed. “He probably thinks he’s saving you from a life of drudgery.”

  Minnie’s cheeks flushed as the other woman once again took in her too-simple gown. The duchess’s gaze traveled down to Minnie’s gloves, up again to the simple knot Caro had made with her hair. Minnie stood straight, staring right back at her.

  “He is saving you from a life of drudgery,” the duchess concluded. “I can’t blame you for letting him do it.”

  “Who said I’m letting him?” Minnie snapped. “I’d not want to find myself in your shoes. Not for any one of your ridiculously indulgent gowns.”

  Surprisingly, that brought a smile—one that warmed the other woman’s face, making her appear decades younger. “Really? Then you may have an iota of sense.” The woman set a beaded reticule on the table. “I know I sound harsh, but he is my only child. Such as we are.” She let out a sigh. “I am not entirely unfeeling. I once found myself in your position.” Her lips curled up, but there was no smile to the expression, only snarl. “It turns your head, to be courted by a duke. A young, handsome duke. I knew Robert’s father had a black reputation, but I was certain I could cure him of all that ailed him. He’d stop gambling and drinking to excess, and if he had me…why, he’d never look at another woman again.”

  The duchess removed a single glove and folded it before meeting Minnie’s eyes.

  “I had all my romantic notions beat out of me by the time I was twenty. But it wasn’t just the duke who was responsible. It was everyone I encountered. All of high society saw me as nothing more than a purse for the Duke of Clermont. I was told every day for years and years and years, in whispers that were not quite behind my back, that I was not my husband’s equal. It didn’t matter that he had no sense and no money. I was beneath him, and the fact that I dared to oppose him… Nothing my husband did ever caused a whisper, but my insistence that I be treated with respect? That was a scandal. When he visited whores, it was nothing to society. He struck me because I insisted on marital fidelity, but the only thing the ton found outrageous in that was that I dared to question him.” The duchess’s voice shook. “At least I had money. What do you think it will be like for you?”

  Minnie swallowed. “Robert isn’t like that.”

  The duchess’s hands compressed around her solitary glove. “I have read Pride and Prejudice. I know precisely what role you’re casting me in—the officious Lady Catherine, foolish meddler, who believes that Darcy must marry her miserable daughter.” Her lips pinched. “Maybe that is my place. I should sit here and shriek at you, ‘Are the shades of Clermont House to be thus polluted?’”

  Minnie blinked in surprise, and the woman smiled.

  “I did tell you I was once a romantic,” she said. “So maybe I am to be Lady Catherine. But I see so much of my foolish, younger self in him—that gallantry, that certainty of love, that hope for the future. I would not wish my life on anyone.”

  This conversation had not gone as Minnie had first imagined. Instead of enraging her, the duchess’s words brought a sort of cold clarity to the situation.

  “You must love your son very much,” she said.

  “No,” the other woman said softly. “I suppose I could have, once. But there’s only so often a boy can be used as a knife to your heart before you stop feeling anything at all. I hadn’t any choice about it, and…” She shrugged. “I haven’t the emotion to browbeat you much further, or to beg. I will just ask, as nicely as I can.” She looked into Minnie’s eyes. “Please don’t do this to my son.”

  The duchess, Minnie concluded, was an odd woman. Extremely odd. She felt a twinge of compassion for her.

  “He’s a gentler boy than his father was.” Her lips pinched. “When he sees how they treat you, he’ll be miserable. He never could stand for mistreatment.”

  “All very well,” Minnie said. “If I were a better person, I suppose I would agree and refuse his suit for his own good. But you said it yourself. I have no fortune, no family, no future.” She smiled awkwardly. “You’ve already heard rumors connecting me with your son. How do you suppose my reputation will fare in his absence?”

  The duchess’s eyes narrowed. “Has he…”

  “I’m not ruined,” Minnie continued. “And the gossip thus far is only outraged. But even a hint of a dark spot is all I need. Nicety of pr
inciple is a luxury for the wealthy. I can’t afford it.” She shook her head. “I know how utterly disastrous it would be to marry him. More than you could imagine.”

  The thought of being the duchess—of fielding those whispers, feeling the weight of everyone’s stare everywhere she went—made Minnie feel dizzy. But she had the opportunity to provide for herself, for her great-aunts, for good. She shook her head. “I know it would be a disaster. But I have no choice. I must do it.”

  She looked up to find that the duchess was actually smiling at her. “How refreshing,” the other woman said. “Here I thought you would wail and beat your breast amidst protestations of love. But you’re singularly unromantic.”

  Minnie gave a sharp jerk of her head in denial. “I can imagine castles and dukes as much as any woman.” But she would never have imagined Robert. He was better than any prince. She could see the gleam in his eye as he told her he wanted the peerage abolished. If it were just the two of them, she might have fallen in love with him. It was a miracle, given her past, that she’d met someone she could come to love—and who seemed to return her regard in some form. Rejecting that felt dangerous. Some gifts might not come around a second time.

  And yet proclaiming herself a duke’s wife? That was the kind of pride that went before not a mere fall, but a tumble off a steep cliff.

  She could see every jagged stone waiting at the bottom.

  She was well and truly caught between hope and hubris.

  “I could be romantic,” she said softly. “But romance is also a luxury I can’t afford.”

  “How ironic.” The other woman stared at her. “I actually think you’d be good for him, if only you were someone else entirely.”

  Minnie laughed and shut her eyes.

  The duchess leaned forward. “So let us see how your principles fare when you have a choice. I’ll give you five thousand pounds.”

  Minnie’s eyes jerked open. She looked at the woman—she was sure she had to be joking. But the duchess watched her with all seriousness.

  “You will,” Minnie said, dazedly. Five thousand pounds—it seemed an impossible amount. Enough to live on. Enough to assure her great-aunts’ future. Enough to form a reasonable dowry, if that’s what she wanted, or for her to move to the continent. It was too much money.

  But then she considered the gown the duchess was wearing—all that fabric, yards and yards of lace, the careful stitchery. That gown itself probably cost more than a hundred pounds.

  “I’ll have to refuse him for it, I suppose.”

  The duchess shrugged. “I can’t pretend that I can offer you enough to compensate you for marrying him. He would probably settle more on you in marriage than a mere five thousand. But… I told you, I know him. He’s rather too persistent for a bare refusal.” The woman looked off into the distance, as if remembering something. Her lips compressed in distaste. “He tries, and he tries, and he tries again. With Robert, he won’t give up until you slap him in the face as hard as you can. Betray him once, and he’ll never look your way again.”

  The duchess had said she didn’t love her son. But she was an odd woman—cold and angular one moment, fragile the next. She was a shard of stained glass, casting colors about the room, and yet capable of slicing everything she touched. In one moment, she seemed to care about her son. In the next…

  “You can’t actually want me to hurt Robert,” she said. “You cannot be asking me to do that.”

  The duchess shrugged. “It would be good for him, I think. He’s too romantic as it is. Too trusting.” She looked up at Minnie and shrugged without an ounce of apology.

  A strange, hard woman. Maybe Robert could be made into a creature like her…

  “I don’t know that I can do that,” Minnie said hoarsely. “Hurt him so badly that he…”

  But she was already envisioning how it might be done.

  “You seem a capable woman,” the duchess said with a frown.

  Minnie’s own secrets had once been thrown wide to the world. How could she do it to someone else? How could she do it to him?

  But how could she marry him?

  Minnie met her gaze. “I don’t know,” she repeated, “that I can do that.”

  After the duchess left, after Minnie fended off Caro and Eliza’s well-meaning questions, she went up to her bedroom. The house on the farm was not large; Minnie had a small chamber in the front, just above the ground-floor parlor. From here, she could see the acres of cabbage fields, picked over in preparation for winter, waiting to be plowed under. But her view was mostly occluded by the barn. On cold days, the heat from the cattle would release steam when the doors were opened. Today, only little wisps of white escaped the barn, scarcely visible through the rain that had begun.

  The property had once been a hunting box with some attached acreage. Caro and Elizabeth had made it into a farm. They’d pooled what little money they had been between them, had hired men to lay the fields and plow the ground, year after year. Even with all that work, though, the land wasn’t truly theirs. Caro had been left the hunting box for her lifetime only. After she passed away, the property would go to some distant cousin.

  With five thousand pounds, Minnie might purchase her great-aunts’ farm when the time came.

  With five thousand pounds, she could do that and go very far away. Wilhelmina Pursling might disappear. She could go where nobody had ever heard of her. Somewhere where she wouldn’t have to make herself small to try and please a man. All she would have to do to get that safety was precisely what she’d promised Robert in the first place. She would have to be his enemy.

  But the alternative…

  She could simply tell the duchess no. For all the woman talked about knowing her son, Minnie didn’t believe she had any notion of who he was. Robert wouldn’t be happy with some proper peer’s daughter. She’d seen the light that came into his eyes when he talked about his plans for the future. If she did this, she couldn’t pretend it was for his benefit.

  It was for hers. Because she would rather betray a man she could come to love than face the crowd again.

  She could see her pale reflection in the window glass, superimposed on the farm. She looked herself over—those too-pale cheeks, the scar on her face. Eyes that shifted around, refusing to fix on any one spot. She held up her hand and watched it tremble.

  “You’re only considering this because you’re scared,” she told herself.

  But that wasn’t quite true. It was because she was terrified.