My American Duchess

  “I have never been inebriated,” she said hotly.

  “I am relieved to hear it. I have one more point to make, and then I’ll escort you to my brother.”

  Merry ground her teeth. “Please do,” she managed.

  “My brother is overly fond of brandy.”

  For a moment Merry couldn’t imagine whom he referred to. Was there another Allardyce brother, one whom Cedric had neglected to mention? No, of course not. The duke meant Cedric. It was slanderous, and proved that this estrangement was far worse than she’d believed.

  She had to defend her betrothed. “You are mistaken,” she said, letting her voice have a distinct edge. “I have never even seen Cedric tipsy.”

  His gaze was rock-steady. “You will.”

  To her dismay, Merry realized that the duke’s stubborn insistence meant that one of her fiancé’s claims about his brother was indeed true. Cedric had once told her that the duke spread lies about him throughout London, including a fantastic tale about how Cedric had once almost shot a bishop.

  And now His Grace was telling her that his brother—her fiancé—was an inebriate. She made a silent apology to Cedric, resolving to say as much when she saw him next. She was ashamed that she hadn’t entirely believed him.

  “His claims are absurd,” Cedric had told her, “but you know how it is. Some people will believe anything.”

  She couldn’t abide underhanded men, not after Dermot had sneakily borrowed against his expectation of marrying her.

  She let some of her disdain creep into her eyes. His Grace shouldn’t be allowed to think that everyone would believe the lies he told about his own brother. She, if no one else, would always take Cedric’s side.

  “I gather you do not believe me,” he said.

  Merry didn’t know how to answer. She could hardly inform the duke that Cedric had warned her that his brother would try to ruin his reputation.

  The duke’s eyes rested on hers for a moment and then he looked past her at the crowded ballroom. It was remarkable that no one had interrupted them, but the ball seemed to be swirling on, taking no account of the two of them. Of course, everyone knew they would soon be family members, and there was nothing very interesting in the chatter of a brother- and sister-in-law.

  “Has he told you how our parents died?” he asked, with an abrupt change of subject.

  “He has not.”

  “Then I shall tell you. Seven years ago, on a fine spring evening, my father took my mother out for an airing in a light phaeton.”

  Merry felt a trickle of dread.

  “Phaetons require deft handling and can be dangerous even in the best of circumstances.” His voice was even, but something flickered in his eyes that could only be pain. “And easily fatal, if the driver has consumed the better part of a bottle of brandy before taking up the reins.”

  The implication was plain. “Tell me your mother didn’t die in that carriage accident,” she whispered.

  “They both did.”

  Her stomach clenched. “No,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sadly, my father often drank to excess, and Cedric takes after him in that respect.” His voice didn’t invite pity; without question, he would damn the pretensions of anyone who offered sympathy.

  Her fingers twitched with a ferocious wish to put her hand on his cheek and soothe the pain that he felt. No wonder His Grace was so worried about Cedric’s drinking. The family had experienced a terrible tragedy, all of it springing from one evening of Bacchanalian excess.

  But it wasn’t her place to offer the duke consolation. All she could do was try to mend the breach.

  “You are mistaken about Cedric,” Merry said, gentling her voice. “I assure you that he will not cause an accident like your father’s, because he does not overindulge. He has been courting me for well over a month, and I’ve never seen a sign of dissipation.”

  He had been looking at the floor, but now his eyes cut to her. “I must ask you to not drink even canary wine around my brother. Your future husband needs his wife to help curb his worst habits rather than join in them.”

  Before she could respond, she heard Cedric’s welcome voice coming from behind her. Merry whirled in relief. Even though they were surrounded by people, somehow this conversation had become more improper, more intimate, than the one she and the duke had had on the balcony.

  “Lord Cedric,” she said brightly, “your brother and I have been acquainting ourselves.”

  “I’m sure that has been a charming experience,” he said.

  “It has been most interesting,” His Grace said blandly. “You have made an excellent choice. The future Lady Cedric will make us all proud.”

  “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to have your approval,” Cedric replied.

  “There was no question of my refusal,” the duke said. “I know you are eager to set up your own household.”

  Merry felt as if small knives were flying around her head, slicing through the air so quickly that she couldn’t see them.

  “Miss Pelford showed me her ring,” His Grace continued. “A diamond cluster for a diamond of the first water.”

  Cedric’s lips widened. No one could call his expression a smile, though there was something satisfied about it. “I gather you applaud the wisdom of my decision?”

  Merry frowned. Another, silent, exchange was taking place, which she couldn’t begin to interpret.

  “As pertains the ring,” the duke said. “Certainly.” He shrugged.

  “What on earth are the two of you talking about?” Merry asked.

  “Your ring,” Cedric said. “You are wearing a ring that belonged to our mother, the late Duchess of Trent. But as the duke well knows, she would want my wife to have it, not his.”

  Merry looked at the duke, whose face was utterly expressionless. “What?” she cried. She turned to Cedric. “But—but you said—”

  “I said I chose it for you,” he said silkily, “and I did.”

  “I assumed you bought it for me.” She caught herself. She didn’t want to sound like a disappointed child. With a swift tug, she removed the ring. “This ring is meant not for me, Your Grace, but for your bride. You must keep it for her.”

  “My brother is rich enough to buy his wife any number of rings.”

  Merry dimly registered that she did not like Cedric’s tone. He sounded vaguely spiteful, which she didn’t like in women, and even less in men.

  That wasn’t important at the moment.

  The duke had shifted position. He was leaning against the wall and staring down, as if there was something fascinating about the floorboards at his feet. “I believe my mother would be quite happy to see her ring on the hand of the future Lady Cedric,” he agreed.

  Well, spit. There was something she didn’t understand here, something about the duke and his mother.

  His Grace looked as calm as a fishpond, but she saw through him. There was a secret attached to the duchess’s ring.

  “You two may dislike each other,” she said, giving first one, then the other, a pointed frown. “But I would be grateful if you could stop this childish game of insulting each other in my presence. I feel as if I’m breaking out in hives.”

  “Hives?” Cedric repeated with palpable distaste.

  “Hives, or boils?” the duke murmured, sounding amused.

  Merry revised the image of their mother smiling lovingly at her sweet little boys. The poor duchess had likely found herself in the midst of a pitched battle from the moment they spoke their first words.

  The problem was that they were both stubborn, willful, and English. There was something to being English, she was discovering, just as there was something to being American.

  She understood the inherent character traits of Americans: they were open-minded, ambitious, independent, and brave—sometimes to the point of foolhardiness.

  The British, however? Perhaps it was a hallmark of their nationality that these two men were so stubborn that th
ey could choke on it.

  Feeling a wave of exhaustion, she tucked her hand into the crook of Cedric’s arm. “I’d like to go home, please. Aunt Bess mentioned that you would accompany us, because the axle on your carriage is broken, isn’t that it?”

  If she hadn’t been looking straight at Cedric, she wouldn’t have seen his eyes fly to his brother’s and then look down. “Something like that,” he murmured.

  “Miss Pelford,” His Grace said, and swept her a magnificent bow.

  “Your ring,” Merry said, and held it out to him.

  “Oh for God’s sake, just keep it,” her fiancé said sharply.

  “This is the future duchess’s ring,” Merry stated. “While I appreciate the sentiment with which you chose it for me, Lord Cedric, I cannot wear a ring that will, by rights, belong to my sister-in-law.”

  “I am giving it to you, Miss Pelford,” the duke said. “You are in love with my brother. It will serve as my wedding present.”

  “No, thank you,” she said. Proving that an American could be as stubborn as any Englishman, she held out the ring once again.

  “We could sell it,” Cedric put in—most unhelpfully, she thought.

  The duke muttered something under his breath and accepted it back.

  Merry just wanted to go home. A part of her wanted to go all the way home to Boston, where brothers didn’t growl at each other like bears sharing a too-small cave.

  Lady Portmeadow appeared. “My butler will be calling the supper dance in a few minutes!” she said brightly. “May I say that it has been such a pleasure to see the three of you chatting so cheerfully? I know that my dear friend the late duchess would have been very happy.” She beamed at Merry. “Our sex serves as nature’s peacemakers, don’t you agree?”

  Her ladyship hauled the duke away before His Grace could express his opinion about Merry’s peacemaking abilities, though not before he threw her a glance that reminded her it had not been his choice to sup with Miss Portmeadow.

  “We need a drink,” Cedric said, breaking the silence. “I always need a drink after spending more than five minutes with my brother. Though I must say, you did quite well with him. I thought I’d find the two of you at each other’s throats.”

  “Why?” she asked, startled. “Surely you don’t believe me capable of such incivility.”

  “The duke despises Americans. Told you that before. Oddly enough, I got the impression he actually likes you. I’ll fetch you a glass of wine from the library.”

  “I’d rather go home.” She’d had enough of the ball, the betrothal, and all these exhaustingly fraught exchanges.

  “One more drink,” Cedric insisted, taking her by the wrist and drawing her toward the door. “I couldn’t possibly face the ride to Portman Square in a closed carriage with your aunt without first cushioning the blow.”

  Merry had felt worry before; when, for example, she’d come to see that life with Bertie would mean watching her husband hack his way through forty or fifty duels, if he even survived to his third decade. Later, she’d fretted over the depth of Dermot’s attachment to money—and the depth of his enthusiasm for spending hers.

  But it was not until this moment, hearing her fiancé refer scornfully to the person she loved most in the world—the person who had raised her, and had sacrificed so much to ensure her well-being—that she experienced true panic.

  She started to say something—You don’t really mean that!—but stopped herself. He did mean it. He’d met Bess only a handful of times, but he’d clearly made up his mind.

  “My aunt is very dear to me,” she said forcefully.

  Her tone of voice obviously sank in.

  “She’s very colorful,” Cedric offered. “It’s just that colorful can be so exhausting in large doses. All that poetic fervor . . . not very good ton.”

  “My aunt is the very best ‘ton,’” she said, rattling the word off as if she hadn’t had to ask their butler what it meant. “Her decency and kindness are infinitely more meaningful than any pedigree.”

  “I do realize that your aunt is representative of the best people to be found in America,” Cedric said hastily.

  Her fiancé could be a real dunderhead sometimes, Merry thought. But wasn’t every man like that on occasion?

  She was glumly certain that she knew the answer to that. Her uncle Thaddeus had an alarming propensity toward belligerence for the sake of it; he and Bertie had been hens of the same color. Indeed, either of them would have challenged any man who labeled him a hen.

  Her aunt was always pulling Uncle Thaddeus away just before he could throw down the gauntlet. It was part of marriage, putting up with men and soothing over their foolish quarrels.

  Merry saw the duke again about an hour later in the foyer, after she had finally persuaded Cedric to leave. His Grace bowed so stiffly that her aunt bridled visibly, and announced in the carriage that Merry’s future brother-in-law didn’t appear to be a nice man.

  “I apologize for being overly forthright about a family member,” Bess told Cedric, “but there’s no reason for His Grace to be ill-mannered. I cannot like it. Is he always like that?”

  Cedric was lying back in the corner of the carriage, his legs stretched out between them. “Have you heard of Jaquet-Droz’s automaton?” he inquired, by way of response.

  Merry’s uncle had been drowsing in his corner, but he opened his eyes at this. Like her father, Thaddeus was an inventor, and there was no well-known machine that he hadn’t investigated. “Made entirely of bits of wire and the like, and yet it can write with ink and a quill pen.”

  “My brother’s just like that,” Cedric said. “A man of wire and brass. Except I think I’d compare him to John Dee’s wooden beetle. The beetle could actually fly, you know.” He chuckled to himself.

  If Merry hadn’t already realized it, she’d know it now. Cedric liked his brother about as much as the devil likes holy water: to wit, not at all.

  “I don’t know about auto-men,” Bess said, “but the duke was not very nice, considering that he was meeting his future relatives.”

  Merry bit back an instinct to defend His Grace. The duke wasn’t mechanical or unfeeling, as Cedric had implied. Indeed, Merry had the idea that he was all raw flame underneath his chilly exterior.

  What would have happened to her if there had been such a breach in the family that her uncle and aunt had refused to open their home to an orphan after her father died? The tension between Cedric and his brother was unacceptable, if only for the sake of the children she hoped to have.

  “You won’t see much of him,” Cedric reassured her aunt. “He departs tomorrow—apparently he’s planning to spend upwards of three weeks mucking about in a slate mine he’s bought in Wales.”

  That was just as well. Out on the balcony, she had responded to the duke in an entirely inappropriate way, and it was even worse when they talked of his parents’ death. This was the best of all solutions.

  In the next three weeks, she would grow closer and fall more in love with her fiancé. By the time the duke reappeared in London, she would be able to greet him without a trace of self-consciousness.

  That balcony foolishness would be forgotten, and they could forge a relationship as brother and sister, just as they ought.

  Chapter Five

  7 Cavendish Square, London

  Residence of the Duke of Trent

  Trent walked up the stairs to his bedchamber in the hours just before dawn, weary to his bones. He’d stayed out half the night the better to avoid his brother, which was a damned foolish reason.

  Over the years, he’d grown used to the peculiarities of being a twin. He and Cedric were as dissimilar as two people could be—and yet they often hit milestones at very nearly the same moment. They’d taken their first steps together; spoken their first words to each other; lost their virginity on the same day, albeit in different counties.

  But nothing like this had ever happened before.

  It had to be some odd alignment
of the planets. Or perhaps it was because the Allardyce brothers were particularly suited to American women. Aye, that was likely the answer.

  He merely had to find another American, one who hadn’t already accepted a ring from Cedric.

  If only a man could go to a horse fair and pick out a wife. Then it occurred to Trent’s exhausted brain that, in fact, Almack’s was the human equivalent of that horse fair. Unfortunately, he detested the bloody place.

  He entered his bedchamber and came to a halt. Cedric was lying in wait for him. Literally.

  His brother was asleep in an armchair next to the fireplace, a boozy mess. His mouth hung open and he was listing to the side like a fir tree heavy with snow. His cravat was crumpled and his yellow curls were closer to a tangle than an elegant tumble.

  “Cedric,” Trent said wearily. “Wake up.”

  He dropped his coat on a chair and wrenched off his neck cloth. In telling contrast to his twin’s fawn pantaloons and rose-colored coat, his coat was black, his pantaloons plain, and his boots hadn’t a single tassel.

  He had to repeat himself a few times, and had stripped to the waist and was washing at the basin before his brother finally stirred.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Cedric drawled behind his back, “don’t tell me you’re still washing behind your ears every night, like a good little boy.”

  Trent straightened and turned as he toweled off his shoulders. “What are you doing in my chamber?”

  “It pains me to say it, but you are verging on burly,” Cedric said, his eyes resting on Trent’s chest with distaste. “You would present a far more fashionable silhouette if you took a carriage around London like every other peer. Clearly, you are exerting yourself too much.”

  Cedric affected a shudder that set Trent’s teeth on edge. His brother had never been like this when they were boys. These days it was as if he concocted new mannerisms every day just to irritate.

  “I have no interest in debating the merits of a slender physique,” he replied, “especially after spending the entire bloody afternoon listening to arguments about the failure of the Peace of Amiens, followed by that charming incident at the ball. What the hell was that about? You had to steal Mother’s ring behind my back?”