Clear consommé was drunk from the bowl; other soups were not. One should delicately lift the finger bowl from the plate and place it to the left. And so on.
She could do this. American women regularly forged paths through the wilderness. A London dining room was hardly the wilderness, even though her uncle Thaddeus had come to the conclusion that Englishmen in groups resembled a pack of jackals. “Red in tooth and claw,” he kept repeating darkly, refusing to accompany them to Mrs. Bennett’s.
Would it be possible to fend off a jackal with a hat pin? Merry shook herself and dove into a chapter entitled “On the Peculiarities of Dress, with Reference to the Station of the Wearer.”
A few minutes later she dropped the book to the floor.
She and Bess had spent three months in Paris before traveling to London. While in France, they had spent many pleasurable hours poring over French fashion plates, Dutch lace, and Italian linens—and that time and attention were reflected in the wardrobe Merry had brought across the Channel.
The watered silk she intended to wear in the evening was trimmed in pearls and silver lace. It cost the earth but was worth every penny.
It was better than a hat pin.
It was like a suit of armor.
Chapter Twelve
Mrs. Bennett’s dinner party
Merry and Bess walked into Mrs. Bennett’s drawing room that evening to find it already populated with philanthropic gentlemen and ladies. Footmen moved among the guests, offering drinks on silver trays.
Lady Caroline was posing in the center of the room, though no one stood near her. She had the air of a Greek goddess who finds herself unexpectedly without acolytes.
“Look at that,” Bess muttered. “Englishmen are not as foolish as one might take them to be. They’d rather talk to each other than suffer that woman’s lisp.”
“She is quite attractive,” Merry replied, keeping in mind her vow to be a better person.
“What does she attract? Pond life? There’s your Cedric.” Aunt Bess nodded toward a man at the far end of the room with his back to them.
“No, that’s the duke,” Merry replied, without hesitation. His Grace was notably sturdier than his twin; the duke’s shoulders had to be a third again as broad as Cedric’s. In fact, he was bigger from head to toe.
“I do love pantaloons,” Aunt Bess murmured, as the Duke of Trent turned around, revealing gray silk stretched over powerful thighs.
Other male guests wore embroidered coats in a dizzying array of colors, but the duke’s black coat wasn’t even fashionably tight. It looked as if he could shrug into it without help from a valet.
Merry bit back a smile thinking of the battles Cedric must wage with his brother over sartorial matters. Her fiancé took the art of dressing very seriously.
The duke, on the other hand, couldn’t have done more to make it clear that he was uninterested in the whole business. These days, most younger men didn’t powder their hair, but they used pomade to coax it into waves approximating a wig’s curls. Not His Grace, whose tousled hair showed no signs of a valet’s hand.
Catching her glance, he raised an eyebrow by way of greeting.
Raised a dark, sardonic eyebrow, and then turned back to his conversation.
“Not polite,” Bess said with a sniff. “He can be charming if he wishes, but he doesn’t act like a duke, for all Mrs. Bennett looked as happy as a boa eating a goat.”
Their hostess had not endeared herself to Bess when she greeted them with the whispered information that they would find a duke and a duke’s daughter in her drawing room. “Very shabby genteel to boast about one’s guests,” Bess added.
“Hush,” Merry said, declining a glass of lemonade. She was determined to be fashionable in every respect.
Her aunt ignored that. “All this fawning has led to His Grace thinking he’s the cock of the walk.”
“Please don’t use that word in public, Aunt,” Merry said, through gritted teeth.
“You’re turning into a regular Puritan,” her aunt retorted, taking a sip from her glass. “For goodness’ sake, Mrs. Bennett’s cook must have used one lemon for the entire punch-bowl. As watery as Communion wine. Oh, there’s Mrs. Avedon. I must compliment her on her elegy to a dead rabbit.”
“A dead rabbit?”
“Quite heartbreaking and difficult: a hundred lines, all in rhymed couplets. What rhymes with ‘rabbit,’ after all?”
Merry sighed and went over to greet Lady Caroline. “I hope you are quite well?” she asked, dropping a deep curtsy that acknowledged the lady’s lineage. She positioned herself with her back to the duke, facing the door leading to the entrance hall. Surely Cedric would appear any moment.
Lady Caroline greeted her with a smirk and a bob of her knees. “I cannot complain.” Her accent, in combination with a slight lisp, made her sound like a parrot that’d been trained to talk. “Cannot” turned to a high-pitched “cawnawt.”
“Your gown is lovely,” Merry observed, unable to think of anything else to say. “I am partial to whitework embroidery.”
“I wear only white,” Lady Caroline remarked. She lowered her voice and added, “In England, it is seen as a mark of one’s station; in fact, my mother turned away her maid for wearing a white gown.”
“That seems unfair, considering that gentlemen are free to dress like peacocks,” Merry said.
“A lady must be particularly careful to avoid vulgar display.”
Her pointed glance suggested that wearing pearls on one’s sleeves constituted just such a vulgar display.
“I am glad that we Bostonians do not adhere to the same precepts,” Merry said with a smile. “White is so difficult to wear, as it makes my skin look sallow. Though not yours, of course.”
The footman came around again. “Juice is ruinous for the waistline,” Lady Caroline declared. “I shall take a glass but I won’t allow even a drop to touch my lips.”
Merry promptly changed her mind and accepted a lemonade. At least drinking it would give her something to do.
“You do see that your future brother-in-law is in attendance, don’t you?” Lady Caroline whispered. “Such a shame that the duke didn’t deign to greet you, but, well, one cawn’t blame him, cawn one?”
“One cawn,” Merry said, unable to stop herself.
Lady Caroline didn’t notice. “His Grace rarely attends society events, but my father has long intended to promote a match between our houses. Imagine, Miss Pelford, that would make us sisters.”
She didn’t summon up a smile at that thought, and neither did Merry.
“A consummation devoutly to be wished.” The deep voice came from behind Merry.
Really?
Did everyone in London deem it necessary to fling around big words?
Lady Caroline smiled lavishly. “Your Grace!”
Merry turned. The duke was bowing, so she curtsied in reply, taking care not to spill her lemonade.
“That wasn’t very graceful,” Lady Caroline said with a giggle. “You look like a chambermaid caught in the hallway with a pile of sheets. Not that I mean to imply the least similarity.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Merry agreed. “Your Grace, might I ask you to translate your greeting for me? What is a ‘consummation’?”
His eyebrows rose again, and Merry felt her cheeks turning hot as she suddenly remembered that consummations were the natural consequence of weddings.
Lady Caroline tittered and flipped open her fan. “Really, Miss Pelford! Your plain-speaking American ways are disquieting to those of us accustomed to a more circumspect manner of speech.”
“It was not I who raised the subject,” Merry said, giving the duke a hard look.
“I was quoting Hamlet,” he said apologetically.
Was it a requirement of British subjects that they commit to memory the entirety of the Bard’s work? Lady Caroline launched into a speech about how she so, so loved Shakespeare’s plays while Merry puzzled over the duke’s quotation.
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Could he really have meant that it would be a good thing if she and Lady Caroline became sisters-in-law? That implied he intended to marry the lady. Her heart sank. When she and Cedric married, Lady Caroline would presumably become part of her circle of acquaintances, but it would be awful if she became part of the family.
Lady Caroline had started twittering on about how the weather cawn’t have been better at some house party she’d been to—which allowed her to emphasize the circles to which Merry had no entrée.
“You really should have gone, Your Grace!” she cried. “I cawn’t tell you how lovely it was, so, so comfortable because it was all people like ourselves, if you take my meaning.”
A grin tugged at the corner of the duke’s lips, which was a very good look for him. He did not appear to be regarding Lady Caroline with anything resembling romantic fervor. But if Merry was interpreting his Shakespeare quote correctly, he had to be considering marriage to her.
Unless he had rattled off the line without thinking about it.
“‘Devoutly to be wished’?” she mouthed, nodding toward Caroline. “Sisters?”
Merry watched as that sank in. His jaw tightened. Apparently, he hadn’t considered that she and Caroline could only become as close as sisters through a marriage that involved himself.
She grinned. “‘A consummation devoutly to be wished,’” she mused, taking advantage of a momentary pause in Lady Caroline’s monologue. “You do grasp the import of His Grace’s quotation, don’t you, Lady Caroline?”
“I certainly do.” The lady sniffed. “Shakespeare’s immortal words run through the veins of every English subject. Even more so in my case, since those plays were written by one of my distant relatives. Everyone knows that the Earl of Essex was the real author of the plays.”
The duke was glowering at Merry, likely because he was afraid she would explain the whole “consummation” business—which Lady Caroline would instantly translate into a proposal.
If the duke were wearing a ring, she’d probably rip it right off his finger and put it on her own.
“Shakespeare was not the Earl of Essex,” the duke stated.
Oh dear me. His Grace was feeling a little irritable.
Merry beamed, letting her eyes reveal how much she enjoyed having him in her power. “We Americans are woefully ignorant. All I remember is that my governess said Shakespeare was a glover’s son. And wasn’t there something about how his father was fined for having a dunghill outside his house?”
She and Miss Fairfax had toiled through Romeo and Juliet, after which Merry had relegated drama to the same category as wax flowers; to wit, best avoided.
Lady Caroline sighed gustily. “Really, Miss Pelford, I must ask you to refrain from talk of dunghills. I gather that all sorts of vulgarity are acceptable in the Colonies, but not here.”
The Colonies? The war had ended twenty years ago, for goodness’ sake.
“During his lifetime, everyone in London knew Shakespeare,” the duke said. “They saw him writing in pubs, and they talked about him.”
Lady Caroline was clearly torn between offending an eligible duke and burnishing her claim to Bardian blood. Nature prevailed over policy. “No man of low blood could have written such immortal lines,” she pronounced. “Why, you might as well say that he was—” She stopped.
“That he was American?” Merry suggested. She tapped her chin with her finger. “Why didn’t I think of that? Perhaps I, too, am descended from the Bard!”
She took a sip of her lemonade, which might as well have been plain water, just as Bess had said.
“Is that canary wine?” the duke asked, rather grimly.
“Canary wine?” Lady Caroline repeated, mystified.
Merry gave the duke a wry grin. “Do you think me Cherry Merry, Your Grace?”
“Cherry Merry?” Lady Caroline echoed, sounding more like a parrot every moment.
“Drunk,” Merry explained. “When I was little, people would tease me if I stumbled, calling me Cherry Merry.”
Lady Caroline sniffed and turned up her nose. “I am happy to say that no one has ever entertained the idea that I might be fuddled by alcohol.”
Chapter Thirteen
It wasn’t Trent’s business if Merry Pelford was as drunk as a lord, which she clearly was not. But then she gave him that smile again, the one that sent lust roaring down his legs—and there was something a bit inebriated about it. Damn it.
He snatched the glass from her hand and took a swig, not because he truly believed his future sister-in-law was addicted to the grape, but because—well, because he wanted to see her mouth open with surprise and her eyes widen.
He was as capable of a spontaneous gesture as the next man.
“I had no idea you were so thirsty,” Lady Caroline cried. “You must have my glass as well, Your Grace. I assure you that my lips have not touched the rim.”
That was when he realized that his real motive was that Merry’s lips had touched the rim.
Just now she pursed her lips to blow a stray ringlet out of her eyes, and he had to choke back a growl because of what happened to his body at the vision.
“I’ll take my empty glass back so that you can drink more of this refreshing beverage,” Merry said cheerfully.
She was being purely devilish, because the lemonade tasted like dishwater, but there was no help for it. He took Lady Caroline’s glass and drained that as well.
“Your Grace?” Lady Caroline began.
She had an odd lisp. Trent arranged his face into an approximation of a smile. “Yes?”
“You must be so, so thrilled that Miss Pelford has consented to marry your brother.”
“I am, I am,” Trent agreed.
He was interested to see Merry’s smile vanish.
“Generally speaking, those of our rank don’t see many love matches,” Lady Caroline went on. “But it has been so, so romantic to watch Lord Cedric win Miss Pelford’s heart and hand.”
“Indeed,” Trent responded.
“The third time is the charm!” Lady Caroline said brightly, managing to insinuate all sorts of things with one short sentence.
Merry’s eyes rested thoughtfully on the lady for a moment, and then she said, “In truth, I erred in my first two choices. I find that men are like walnuts: you never know if there’s anything rotten inside until they’re cracked.”
God, she was magnificent.
“Whereas I think that marriage is like religion or medicine,” Trent countered, handing Lady Caroline’s empty glass to a footman, then taking Merry’s and giving that over as well. “All three have to be taken on blind faith.”
Lady Caroline’s head swiveled between them. She must have been taught that charm meant perpetual smiling.
“You have been neither married nor betrothed, am I right, Your Grace?” Merry asked, as her eyes met his over the fan she had just unfurled.
“That is correct,” he allowed. That errant ringlet had fallen over her forehead again. She had so much hair that a man instinctively pictured it spread across a pillow.
No.
What was he thinking? Sister-in-law.
Sister-in-law.
It was time to change the subject. “Why on earth hasn’t my brother arrived yet?”
Lady Caroline looked around with an unmistakably eager flutter of her lashes. It could be that Cedric had indeed undersold himself. Perhaps he could have married a duke’s daughter.
“His carriage may be snarled in a crowded street,” Merry said, fiddling with a circlet of pearls and diamonds at her wrist.
For God’s sake, how rich was the woman? Not that he cared, except as regarded her ability to support Cedric. If he were marrying her, he’d make her put her money in a trust for their children.
He would support his own wife.
He shouldn’t be thinking along those lines.
Nor should he be looking at the contours of Merry’s body. She would tempt an archbishop, though. She couldn’t be wea
ring stays; her gown was designed so that the slightest touch would have pushed her bodice below her breasts.
It was clear to everyone that her breasts were round and high, as if they naturally presented themselves for kisses. For adoration.
“If marriage is indeed like religion, I think it will be a paradise,” Lady Caroline chirped.
Trent and Merry turned to her at the same moment.
“How very quixotic of you,” Merry said.
“In fact, I believe that romance is possible in daily life,” Lady Caroline breathed, her eyes roaming over Trent’s face and straying down his neck and arms.
Perhaps Cedric did not have a chance.
“For those of our station, marriage is, of course, a matter of bloodlines and family connections,” the lady continued. “Yet love is certainly possible within the bounds of that agreement. In fact, I think that marriages amongst ourselves are far more likely to flourish than amongst servants, whose pairings are the result of animal instincts.”
Merry seemed to be grinding her teeth. Interesting.
“Don’t you agree with my broader point about marriage, Your Grace?” Lady Caroline asked.
“To some extent,” he said, thinking of the romantic streak that Merry thought she saw in Cedric. “I believe that a man and woman are far more likely to live in harmony if emotion plays no role in the choice of spouse. On either side.”
He glanced down to find that Lady Caroline had laid her hand on his sleeve.
“It is such a pleasure to realize how much we are in agreement, Your Grace. You are so wise in comparison to us two foolish women.”
Merry’s jaw tightened again.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that you are foolish, precisely,” Trent said, baiting the tiger.
“How kind of you,” Merry said. “I imagine we only seem so in contrast to your wisdom.”
Lady Caroline’s lashes fluttered some more. She took her hand from his sleeve about a second before he was going to shake himself free.