Merry’s casual assertion that she would follow him anywhere sharply twisted something in the region of Trent’s chest. It took an effort to stay where he was.
She was peering at a bust of King Henry VIII that his father had adorned with an eye patch because he said the old Tudor was as close to a pirate as a monarch could be.
“I have a new marital rule,” Trent said, once he remembered how to speak.
“Goodness gracious, England is such a rule-bound country.”
Unable to stop himself, Trent strode across the room to her and took her face in his hands. “I am deadly serious, Merry. I want you to promise me that you will never get into a vehicle if you know the driver has been drinking.”
“Unless Mr. Goggin’s milk is intoxicating—” She stopped when she saw the look in his eyes. “I promise that I shall not.”
He took her by the arm and guided her toward the door. “In fact, I’d prefer you never enter any carriage not driven by myself or Roberts, my coachman.”
“That promise seems impractical. But I don’t see why I’d be anywhere without you in the evening, anyway. You aren’t planning to go on long trips without me, are you?”
“Would you mind traveling to Wales now and then?”
“Of course not.” A minute earlier, they had been standing in front of the fireplace in his study; now they were headed up the stairs. “Jack, where are you taking me? I promised Mrs. Honeydukes that I would inspect the linens.”
“I see the necessity,” he said, pushing open the door to his bedchamber and giving her a gentle shove.
The door clicked shut as Merry turned, rather surprised. “You do?”
He was stripping off his coat.
“Your Grace,” she said with a gurgle of laughter, “you do nothing but take that coat on and off all day.”
“Now I know that you are merely trying to provoke me. I gather you wish for a kiss . . . Duchess.”
His shirt was already over his head; it billowed and fell to the floor. He prowled toward her, his eyes intent and his hands doing something at his waist.
“We cannot return to bed!” she said, falling back a step.
“I beg to differ. You want to inspect the linens, and I want to make love in such a way that you will have a very close view of them.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that, Your Grace,” Merry cried, falling back another step and holding out her hand for good measure. “I bathed twice yesterday. I cannot ask the poor men to carry cans of water yet again!”
“Watermen are hired to haul water,” he said, swooping down on her. “I’ll have to have pipes installed.” His lips slid up her neck and Merry shivered despite herself.
“Not if it means you’ll have to discharge the watermen,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “They’ve probably been watering you and your family their entire lives.”
“That’s how it is,” he said with a shrug. “I wouldn’t dismiss them. They could become gardeners; there’s always a place or two open somewhere. But now I mean to tup my wife, and the only thing that might save you is if you tell me that you are still too tender to allow it.”
The Duchess of Trent was a woman who never lied, and her husband knew it. So he discovered in her eyes exactly what he hoped to find.
His arms tightened ruthlessly.
Mrs. Honeydukes sat in the housekeeper’s room waiting, but no linens were inspected that day, in any room other than the duke’s bedchamber.
Chapter Twenty-nine
At four o’clock the following afternoon, Trent glanced out his study window as a carriage trimmed in shiny brass pulled into the drive. The Pelfords had arrived.
Before his marriage, Trent was not the sort of man who contemplated his state of being on a regular basis or, indeed, ever. But he had been giving his new circumstances an unusual amount of thought, and had decided to make it absolutely clear to Merry’s relatives that the marriage had indeed been consummated, and they should not dream of taking her home with them.
A few minutes later, the door to the study flew open and Merry poked her head in. “Jack!” she cried. “I suppose you didn’t hear the carriage, but my aunt and uncle have arrived. Do come greet them!”
A duke did not greet his guests in the entryway. But neither did a duke bow, greet his new relatives, and then wrap an arm around his bride as if concerned that she might be stolen from him.
His gesture did not go unnoticed. Mrs. Pelford beamed and said, “Now didn’t I say you’d be as merry as bees in clover? Didn’t I, Thaddeus?”
“You did,” Mr. Pelford confirmed.
“Thaddeus and I are too old and American to adapt to English ways,” Mrs. Pelford said. “Neither of us likes being around people without greeting them, and that’s a fact.” She looked at Trent expectantly, but he was at a loss.
“My aunt believes that entering a room without greeting its occupants is akin to treating people like wallpaper,” Merry whispered.
“That is remarkably progressive thinking, Mrs. Pelford. May I introduce my butler, Oswald, along with Albert, Thomas, and Oliver?”
Oswald showed himself to be more flexible than Trent would have predicted, insomuch as he’d been butlering for some thirty-odd years. He shook hands with alacrity and mentioned that he considered America a marvelous country.
“Really,” Mrs. Pelford said. “Now why is that, Oswald?”
Apparently Oswald admired an American scientist named Benjamin Franklin, who had received a medal from the Royal Society years ago.
“One of our nation’s founders,” Thaddeus Pelford said, rocking back on his heels. “If I’d had anything to say about it, I would have kept him away from politics and set him to doing nothing but thinking up inventions. Waste of time, politics!”
“Isn’t he the man who flew a kite to catch lightning?” Merry asked, joining in.
Mrs. Pelford paid no attention to the resulting conversation but turned back to Trent, and said, “Now, Duke, you mustn’t worry about our comfort; I shall have a bit of a rest, and I imagine Thaddeus will as well.”
Trent tried to imagine his father’s response to being reassured that he ought not to worry about his guests’ comfort, and failed. No one could have imagined that the duke had any such concerns.
“Mrs. Honeydukes has prepared a lovely suite for you,” Merry said, turning around. “You’ll feel as if you are in a novel, Aunt Bess. I will take you there myself.”
Trent thought his wife had adjusted remarkably well to the bridegroom switch, but he guessed that her aunt was in for an uncomfortable hour. “I shall look forward to seeing you this evening, Mrs. Pelford.”
“We’re family now,” she said, tapping his arm. “You’ll call me Bess, and Mr. Pelford, Thaddeus. But not to worry, we’ve no disinclination to addressing you as Your Grace.”
Trent could feel the fascinated eyes of three footmen and one butler behind him. “My family addresses me as Trent,” he said, bowing. “I would be honored if you would do the same.”
Trent was really the practicable choice: Octavius sounded like an emperor, and Mortimer as an unpleasant uncle . . . and Jack was a private name.
“Trent,” Bess tried. “It sounds like a river, but it’s a good, strong name.”
“Your niece said precisely the same thing,” Trent observed.
“Aunt Bess really is my mother,” Merry put in, “so you’ll have to expect it. When I grow older, I might begin spouting verse. Couplets before tea, that sort of thing.”
Trent was looking at Bess and he saw her eyes grow misty, but the lady turned away quickly and bore down on Oswald like a genial siege engine, informing him that her husband’s gout required a list of foods that ranged from asparagus to herring.
“Aunt Bess,” Merry said, “do allow me to bring you to your chamber now.”
As Trent watched them go up the stairs, Thaddeus turned to him with a little shudder. “Wouldn’t want to be in Bess’s shoes, explaining the whole marriage business,
” he said frankly. “My wife is fond of creative solutions. Her intuition is generally right, though.” His eyes searched Trent’s face.
A duke rarely smiles.
Trent couldn’t stop himself.
“Right,” Thaddeus said, nodding. “Well, that’s set, then. Why don’t you show me your stables, Duke? It’s best to leave the two of them to sort it out on their own.”
The minute they entered Bess’s chamber, Merry put her hands on her hips. “I am very, very annoyed with you, Aunt,” she stated. “You raised me to be honest and straightforward, but I can only characterize your own behavior as sly.”
“I’m so sorry, dear.” Bess looked agonized—but resolute. “You would have got your back up, and marched back to Boston. Then you’d have hidden in the garden, reputation ruined, or worse—fallen in love with another unpleasant fellow.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to make a game of my wedding!”
“Your uncle had every right to choose your spouse,” Bess pointed out. “We allowed you your choice three times.”
Merry wilted onto a sofa like a deflated balloon. “And I made a dreadful decision each time.”
“Yes, you did,” Bess said baldly. “If you jilted a third fiancé, the scandal would have marred your entire life. The duke’s offer was a godsend.”
“As far as you knew, he could have been simply scoring points against his brother,” Merry said.
Bess huffed and sat down beside her. “Do you have even the faintest belief that a brother or anyone else could force His Grace to do something against his wishes?”
“No,” Merry admitted.
“You may not be in love with your husband, but to my mind, that’s an advantage. To be frank, my dear, you’ve got a fickle streak. You no sooner have a man at your feet than you start to think he smells like a seven-day herring in velvet slippers.”
It was true. Merry knew it was true. Her aunt was saying precisely what the duke had said—and what she herself had worried over for weeks.
“I say that as one who loves you as much as I ever could a daughter of my own flesh and blood.” Bess leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Probably more.”
“I love you, too.” Merry’s voice caught.
“The duke not only offered to marry you, but he brought along his solicitor, who wrote up the most favorable settlement that I have ever seen. I like Trent, Merry. I like him far better than Lord Cedric, to tell the truth.”
“I do as well,” she whispered.
Bess cleared her throat. “The duke also led me to believe that there had been some imprudent behavior that suggested you would be a happy couple.” She raised her hand. “Do not tell me the details, Merry. I shudder to think what your governess would say of your behavior.”
“Miss Fairfax would collapse at the idea a duke even spoke to me,” Merry pointed out.
“He wouldn’t have admitted it, of course, but I’d say that His Grace was close to desperate to marry you,” Bess said with obvious satisfaction.
The word “desperate” spread like warm honey through Merry’s veins.
“Of course, we argued that he could follow you to America and woo you there. But he wanted you now, not a year in the future. And that, my dear child, is the real reason why Thaddeus and I believe the two of you will be happy.”
Merry leaned against her aunt’s shoulder. “How can I have been in love with Cedric a mere month ago, and now be married to his brother?”
“Why not? The duke would do well in Boston, and Lord Cedric, for all his polish, would not.”
By the end of the first week, Trent was growing accustomed to a new feeling that he examined in quiet moments in his bath, or in the middle of the night, and which he determined was happiness.
He and Merry spent their days apart, she out of doors and he in the study or even farther afield, riding the estate with his estate manager. But they often came together at midday, and always at day’s end.
He had always exhibited a blithe indifference to scheduled hours for meals, and as such had habituated the kitchen to leaving out bread and cheese. Now he astonished his household with his attention to time.
His valet had been accustomed to his returning home in breeches and a broadcloth coat, after which he ate in the study before bathing and going to bed.
No longer.
On occasion, Trent was unable to take luncheon at home, but he was always back in the house in time to bathe, change for the evening, and join the family for dinner. He, who had rarely taken breakfast before, now joined his duchess and the Pelfords every morning.
“It’d be a scandal if they weren’t so right pretty together,” the cook, Mrs. Morresey, told the housekeeper.
“Nothing she could do would be scandalous,” Mrs. Honeydukes said.
Even the crusty housekeeper had fallen under the spell of the American duchess, with her friendliness and sincerity, her command of odd and interesting facts—which arose from a lively curiosity about any area of knowledge—and her ease in dealing with the household.
Their affections were returned: Trent was reasonably certain that no member of his household would ever again be dismissed, short of having committed a capital crime. Even when one of the second housemaids turned “all over funny” and dropped two dishes dating back to the reign of Good Queen Bess, his wife had an explanation.
“She’s that age,” Merry told him, when he pointed out that the girl had broken a teacup the week before. “Her head spins because she’s growing. Did you know that her father is Squire Montjoy’s dairyman? I’ll ask Mrs. Honeydukes to place her in the dairy, and we’ll see how she gets on there.”
“It’s not that she’s overfamiliar,” Trent heard his stable master telling the farrier. “She’s American, you see. They don’t do things the same way over there.”
That she was American seemed to excuse any number of things that would otherwise have made people uncomfortable. Part of him—the indelibly English part—still recoiled when his wife danced into a room and, before he could rise, wrapped her arms around his neck from behind, and whispered things in his ear.
But a thirsty part of him welcomed every kiss and touch and smile and allowed them to nurture ground that had years ago fallen barren for lack of affection.
Meals became lively affairs. After a week, the Pelfords announced they must take their leave, but Merry wouldn’t hear of it, and in the end her aunt and uncle agreed to delay their passage to Boston.
At dinner, Bess and the vicar traded verse, and Thaddeus regularly dissected the workings of yet another invention, such as the steam printing press that was being developed. It was not yet functional, but Thaddeus was certain its shortcomings would soon be remedied.
“It will change everything,” he told the table at large. “Only two hundred sheets an hour can be printed these days, but once steam takes over, it will be more than a thousand!”
“Who will read all those sheets?” Bess objected. “I scarcely have time to read a book as it is.”
Thaddeus didn’t care about that. “People will start to print all nature of things,” he said vaguely. “I shouldn’t be surprised if they started printing wedding invitations and the like.”
“Never,” his wife said firmly. “An appalling idea.”
Chapter Thirty
About a fortnight into her aunt and uncle’s visit, Merry invited their immediate neighbors—Mr. Kestril, Squire and Lady Montjoy, Lord and Lady Peel—to dinner, acknowledging the calls they had paid her after the Morning Post announced their wedding.
Merry had believed that Mr. Kestril would abandon his courtship once she married; instead, he continued to give her longing glances whenever they encountered each other. Still, he was their nearest neighbor and it would cause gossip if he were excluded.
The dining room at Hawksmede was dark and somber, but one hardly noticed, thanks to the impressive quantity of gleaming silver that Oswald had placed down the center of the table. A pair of massive epergnes, a
dish hoisted in the air by two cupids, and even a sugar caster dating back to King Charles II in the shape of a lighthouse contributed to the air of elegance.
In between the silver were intricately cut pieces of leaded crystal, from paired glass urns to a pedestal jar with an ornate ormolu mount. The crystal threw off sparks of light that made the party look otherworldly—as Aunt Bess characteristically observed—as if every one of them had been “anointed” by fairy dust.
Lady Peel, who was too elderly to engage in flummery, crushed Aunt Bess’s flight of fancy by saying that she thought that the speckles of reflected candlelight made them all look as if they had had the pox. “Smallpox scars can’t be concealed by rice powder,” she informed them. “Queen Elizabeth plastered hers over with a mixture of white lead and vinegar, which explains why she always looks like a cadaver in portraits.”
This was just the sort of information that Merry loved, so it led to a lively discussion of cosmetics. Mr. Kestril offered the opinion that cosmetic preparations signaled selfish vanity. He followed this with a doting look at Merry’s unadorned face.
Lady Peel snorted—speaking across the table—and roundly told him that if she wished to put white paste on the end of her nose, she would, and he could keep his opinions to himself.
While not precisely agreeing with Kestril, Squire Montjoy disclosed that he preferred it when ladies presented a natural appearance.
Lady Peel laughed aloud at the squire, and declared he wouldn’t know “natural” if it struck him in the face.
Merry managed to keep her eyes away from the squire’s wife, who had made lavish use of rice powder, among other preparations.
“I presume you think I am naturally this beautiful,” Lady Peel announced.
Merry met Trent’s eyes and saw that she was not alone in suppressing a violent impulse to laugh.
Bess rose to the occasion, and expressed the opinion that if Lady Peel used cosmetics, she did so in a remarkably natural fashion.
“I color my hair,” Lady Peel said triumphantly. “I have for years. I use cumin seed, saffron, and celandine. I’d recommend it, Mrs. Pelford. A lady cannot afford to let her hair turn white, as yours seems to be doing.”