He could find a lady of her temperament. Besides, she might be overly emotional for his tastes. His last mistress, Elsa, had been entirely pleasant during the liaison’s earliest months, but after a time she’d become maudlin and tearful, and began hinting about wedding rings.
When he had declined, Elsa had wept bitterly, although the terms of their agreement had been established at the outset. He gave her a ruby as a farewell gift, but the memory still pricked at him, as if he’d betrayed her somehow.
He didn’t want another mistress; ergo, he had to find a wife. A wife who wouldn’t throw that sort of scene. Merry said that London was thronged with Americans, so it shouldn’t be hard to find another woman who was independent, opinionated, and straightforward. And beautiful, of course.
Trent strode up to the Pelford townhouse, resolved to get this over quickly and be back on the road.
The sight of Merry jolted his body with the searing power of a lightning bolt.
She was seated beside her aunt, wearing a gown that was more demure than that she wore the previous night. It was pale pink, nothing special, but even so, her breasts almost spilled over the bodice, as luminous and white as the best sugar.
Sweet, like sugar. He’d like to—
He must be losing his mind. He should probably take a mistress as soon as he returned to London, just until he found the right lady to marry.
“Mrs. Pelford,” Trent said, bowing. “Miss Pelford. I hope you will forgive me for coming upon you unannounced. I am on the verge of leaving for a trip to Wales, but I wanted to pay respects to my future sister-in-law somewhere other than in a crowded ballroom.”
“Your Grace,” Merry said, with a lovely smile. “What a pleasure. Please do join us.”
He hadn’t realized how plump her lower lip was. He needed an American with lips like that. And breasts.
Nothing else would do.
Trent lowered himself into a chair, keeping rigid control over his expression to ensure that he had an affable and pleasant air. Sure enough, Mrs. Pelford was regarding him cautiously, as if she found herself entertaining a crocodile.
“A happy surprise,” she said, not entirely convincingly. “May I offer you some tea, Your Grace?”
Trent never took tea. Daylight hours were short, and at this very moment he should be well on his way to Wales. But he found himself accepting a cup as well as a crumpet, though he wasn’t hungry.
“We have been talking of our gardens in Massachusetts,” Mrs. Pelford told him. “My niece has designed all nature of charming aspects on the estate.”
“Are the gardens very large?” Trent asked, wondering what she would consider an estate. The gardens at his country seat, Hawksmede, covered nineteen acres.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Pelford said. “Quite large.”
She did not seem inclined to specify, so Trent turned to Merry. “May I know something of your designs?”
“Last summer, I made two little terraces at the end of the great walk, raised twelve steps each,” Merry said. She started waving her hands and talking about climbing roses and trellises and a gazebo with Ionic columns.
“My husband was not happy with that gazebo,” Mrs. Pelford put in. “Two hundred dollars for a structure that won’t even keep out the rain!”
“If the gazebo had walls, they would obstruct the prospect,” her niece replied, clearly not for the first time. She turned back to Trent. “You can’t imagine how splendid the view is. It overlooks the orchard, and beyond that, the forest and the river. There is no other spot on the estate so well situated to an open structure.”
Trent was getting the idea that the Pelford estate might well rival his own. He tried to think if there were any “prospects” in his gardens, but nothing came to mind.
One thing he did know was that the townhouse he had deeded to Cedric had no more than a forlorn patch of ground in the rear. Perhaps they would buy a house in the country.
“You’ll have to forgive me my chatter,” Merry said sheepishly, handing him a plate with a thick piece of gingerbread. “It’s springtime, and so of course I find myself thinking of the gardens. I have an apricot tree that has never bloomed; I had hopes for it this spring, since I had a wall built to shelter it.”
“‘Come then and see this lovely Seat,’” Mrs. Pelford recited out of the blue. “‘So healthful, happy, and complete!’ ”
“My aunt is a poet,” Merry said, with a practiced air. “Her specialty is commemoration.”
“A lovely couplet,” Trent said. “I should be happy to hear the rest.” He had eaten the crumpet without noticing, so he started on the gingerbread.
“In that case, do have another cup of tea, while I fetch the entire poem,” Mrs. Pelford said, jumping up and beaming at him. “I shall return directly.”
Of course, Merry and Trent rose as well. The moment her aunt left the room, Merry turned to him with an adorable wrinkle of her nose. “You must change your mind directly and leave,” she whispered. “My aunt’s poetry is not for everyone.”
“I can spare a few minutes,” he said, thinking that he should not. At this point, it would be well past dark before he reached the inn where he planned to spend the night.
“Her poem addressing my gazebo is more than seven hundred lines long! Don’t worry, I can make your excuses.”
“I paid a visit to Lord Malmsbury this morning,” Trent said. Even as he spoke, he remembered that ladies didn’t appreciate talk of fisticuffs. His mother had paled at the mere suggestion that he and Cedric had fought, although there were years when they pummeled each other daily.
Her eyes widened. “Is he a friend of yours?”
Trent tried to think how to phrase his account delicately. “Lord Malmsbury is merely an acquaintance. After our exchange this morning, he won’t be eager to deepen the association.”
Merry gave him a delighted grin. “Please tell me that you punched him?” At his nod, she clapped her hands. “Bravo! He’s such a little weasel. I thought later that I should have poked him harder with my hat pin. I should have drawn blood.”
American ladies, it seemed, had no qualms about fisticuffs.
“He will never touch you again,” Trent vowed, and a bit of the steely anger he felt at the thought leaked into his voice.
“I daresay, not after being drubbed by a duke.”
“An elegant turn of phrase,” Trent said, feeling that unfamiliar smile on his lips again. “Do you rival your aunt in poetic prowess?”
“I have no such aspirations.” She took his arm and began to draw him toward the door. “You truly ought to leave, Your Grace, before my aunt returns. She will be so happy to have an audience that you may well be unable to stir for an hour. And Lord help you if she decides you would also appreciate her poem describing the entire park.”
“Very long?” Trent inquired.
“Over one thousand lines.”
He was unable to suppress a groan.
“In couplets!”
“As it happens, I am leaving for Wales on matter of urgency,” he said.
Her smile sparkled. That was a silly way of putting it, but it was true.
“I think your brother said you own a mine there?”
“Yes, I own a slate mine near Blaenau Ffestiniog.”
Merry repeated the name, her soft voice mangling the Welsh characters. “Welsh is such an interesting language. What will you do there?”
“I’m not satisfied with the safety conditions,” Trent said, wondering why he was coming out with details that no lady—
“Of course, there was that terrible accident in Yorkshire a few months ago,” she said, nodding.
“In Barmby Furscoe,” he confirmed. “Some reports put the deaths at thirty pitmen.”
“What causes an explosion like that?”
Her eyes were bright and interested. If Trent had mentioned the disaster to Cedric, he would have received a blank stare. “That colliery was sunk by the Low Moor Company,” he explained. “From what I’ve h
eard, they didn’t set proper rules, and someone brought an unprotected flame below.”
“So you’re going to establish regulations about the kind of lamps allowed below ground?”
“And make certain that the tunnels are adequately ventilated and supported. But before I depart, I wished to return your ring.” Trent pulled the diamond from his pocket.
Merry’s brows drew together. “Absolutely not.”
“I was wrong to accept it from you last night.”
“Someday you will give this ring to the woman who will be your wife. Imagine what she would think upon learning that the ring that had belonged to her predecessors had been given away.”
Sunlight was pouring through a window, revealing Merry’s skin to be precisely the color of ivory, save for the smallest spray of freckles across her nose. He couldn’t help grinning at her. “Being such an avid gardener, I am surprised that you don’t have more freckles.”
“Thanks to bonnets,” Merry said, with loathing. “I have any number that fit around my face like a horse’s blinkers. My aunt has always been fearful that my freckles would multiply and I would never make an appropriate match.”
“I like them,” Trent said.
She stood before him, glowing like the most delectable apricot that ever grew on an American branch—or an English one, for that matter—and her aunt had worried about her attractiveness? No matter where she went, men would fall at her feet.
He picked up her hand and pressed the ring into her palm.
She shook her head. “Your Grace, I must insist that you take the ring.”
Before she could stop him, he slid the ring onto her finger.
“I want you to have it,” he stated, curling her fingers closed and wrapping his own around them. “My mother would want you to wear it.”
She didn’t attempt to break free, just looked at him with a puzzled frown. “Didn’t you say that this ring is always worn by the duchess?”
“My mother had a decided preference for Cedric,” Trent said lightly. “I assure you that the estate can more than bear the charge of another such ring for my wife.”
Merry stiffened. “Your mother had a favorite child?”
“Cedric was the sort of child whom a lady enjoys,” Trent explained. “Summoned to her boudoir, I was guaranteed to break something, whereas Cedric could be counted on to take an interest in her coiffure or her attire. Or both.”
Her hand felt small in his, as if he’d trapped a bird.
“Her Grace was wrong to act in such a manner,” Merry said bluntly. “A mother ought to love all her children equally.”
Trent shrugged. “It didn’t hurt me.” In reality, he thought Cedric had had the worse end of the bargain, because their mother’s constant fretting over his status as a second son ensured he never forgot it.
Merry apparently didn’t agree. She started embroidering on the theme of mothers, but Trent wasn’t listening. She had the ripest pair of lips he’d ever seen.
He’d like to kiss her until they looked bee-stung, the lips of a woman who had been bedded hard and furiously, who had—
Bloody hell. He had to take hold of himself.
“Your Grace?” the lips asked.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Pelford. I lost track of the conversation.”
A look of distinct sympathy came into Merry’s eyes. “I’m so sorry! Of course, your mother must pose a difficult subject for conversation. I should have been more sensitive.”
He could have explained that he didn’t give a damn about his mother and hadn’t since the tender age of eight, which was when he fully understood his place in the hierarchy of her affections.
But there was no real point. “Yes, well, you can see why I’ve decided that I’d prefer my wife to wear a different ring,” he said briskly, releasing her hand.
Just as they had the night before, they gazed down at the diamonds gracing her slender finger.
“I don’t know,” Merry said hesitantly.
He couldn’t stop himself; he ran his fingers lightly down the back of her hand until they reached the ring. “It belongs to you. It fits perfectly.” He felt the rightness of it deep in his gut.
Their eyes met, and he noticed with a pulse of surprise that hers were gray, but with a circle of violet at the very edge. He’d never seen eyes like that.
She licked her bottom lip and Trent froze. He couldn’t kiss her. Just because he was standing so close that he could smell her skin, and she had his ring on her finger, and she was looking at him with confusion but not denial . . .
Shit.
He had almost kissed his brother’s fiancée. Again.
“Right,” he said, taking a step back. “That’s settled, then. You are once again in possession of the ring.”
Merry turned her head away quickly but he saw a rosy flush in her cheeks.
No. He was mistaken.
She loved Cedric. She’d told him so several times the night before, and Merry was not a liar.
Trent cleared his throat. “I must be off. But—” The words stuck in his throat, but he forced them out. “I just wish you to know that I’m very glad that you will be my sister-in-law. I believe you will make a splendid wife for my brother.”
“Thank you,” Merry said slowly.
“I’m sure that Cedric will curtail his drinking once you are married. My comments last night were inappropriate, and I apologize.”
“Your Grace, I’d like you to consider that your worry is unwarranted. Lord Cedric mentioned at some point that you dislike both wine and spirits, and I am sure that you are very prudent in your behavior.”
“Not always,” Trent said wryly, thinking that he was a fool to have visited her.
“Most young men are not abstemious, but that does not mean they drink to excess.”
“I am aware of that,” Trent said. He didn’t know what else to say. She’d have to see it herself.
“Cedric, for example, is a consummate gentleman.” A trace of defiance edged her voice. “As I told you, I’ve never seen him even the least tipsy.”
No one had ever come to Trent’s defense the way Merry was coming to Cedric’s. Not that Trent had the faintest need for protection.
But Merry belonged to his brother, and she would make certain that Cedric didn’t harm himself while in his cups. Trent had known her less than a day, and he could say that with absolute certainty.
She was the best possible wife for his brother.
He forced himself to smile and bowed again. “I am leaving London for some weeks, Miss Pelford, but I shall look forward to seeing you and your family again upon my return.”
Just then, Mrs. Pelford trotted back into the room. It seemed the poetess could not find her seven-hundred-line poem in honor of the gazebo, but while searching her study she had fished up a sonnet sequence describing a three-sided Chinese house.
“I regret to say that I must postpone the pleasure,” Trent said, bowing over the lady’s ink-stained fingers. “I am leaving for Wales, and should have left London some hours ago.”
“You are leaving the city?” Mrs. Pelford’s face fell. “But you will return shortly, will you not?”
“In a few weeks.”
“I imagine Lord Cedric has mentioned this, Your Grace, but my husband and I are eager to return home to Boston. We have asked that the betrothal be a matter of a few months.”
That made him feel slightly cracked but Trent pushed the thought away. He wanted Merry, more than any woman he’d ever seen, but she would be the salvation of his twin. That was far more important than his response to her.
“I am happy to hear it,” he said, more firmly than he might have. The sooner Merry married Cedric, the sooner she would begin to solve his brother’s problems.
Mrs. Pelford patted his arm. “You shall come to tea again as soon as you come back, Your Grace, and I will read you the entire sonnet sequence.”
“It will be a pleasure,” he murmured, and made his escape.
&nbs
p; It would be Cedric, and not himself, who would be obliged to endure nine hundred lines, or even more, commemorating the wedding. He had the distinct impression that Mrs. Pelford would write such a poem in a matter of a week, perhaps on the ship back to Boston.
He also had the awful feeling that he himself would have listened to all nine hundred lines, if it would make Merry happy.
Hell, he would listen to ten thousand lines, if he could sit next to her and entwine her fingers in his. And think about just what he was going to do to her in their bedchamber after the poetry reading was over.
Trent flung himself into the carriage with relief.
A slate mine could be dangerous.
But just at this moment it seemed far less dangerous than the brightly lit drawing room he had just left.
Chapter Seven
In the days that followed, the spark of anxiety Merry had felt about her cultivation of mind—or lack thereof—grew larger and larger. Every time she turned around, someone was gazing at her in horror.
She laughed too loudly. She slouched in her chair. She yawned when she was bored. Call her a rebel, but seven courses at one meal was insufferable, especially when one was only permitted to speak to the persons on one’s left and right but never, ever to the fascinating person across the table.
She seemed incapable of making any self-improvements whatsoever. It was enough to make her think that her governess had been right. She could still hear Miss Fairfax lamenting, “Merry has none of the discretion, modesty, or reserve required of those who marry into polite society.”
Aunt Bess had only laughed and said that when it came to marriage, a fortune trumped discretion.
“That is an American belief,” Miss Fairfax had retorted. “Ladylike accomplishments are more important than worldly goods, and your niece has none.”
“Well, spit,” Merry had protested. “You’ve taught me how to embroider and how to make wax flowers.”
Miss Fairfax’s yelp of anguish had probably been heard in London itself. “No lady would allow such a vulgarity as ‘spit’ to pass her lips!”