The Duchess

  Duchess, she thought. She was going to marry Harry and become the duchess.

  She wouldn’t allow herself to think anymore as she got up from the dressing table and walked to the bed. Thanks to her exhaustion and the cold of the day she fell asleep quickly.

  She was awakened before dawn by an angry Miss Rogers, who informed her that she had to get dressed because the men were leaving early to go hunting.

  Claire dressed in her habit, which was still damp from the day before, without saying a word and made her way downstairs. The men were already mounted and waiting for her. Harry looked radiant with happiness and slapped her on the back when she was atop her horse.

  She spent a second day crouched in a wet butt with rain pouring down on her. Every hour or so Harry would smile at her and tell her more about the wonderful shotguns he was going to give her for a wedding gift.

  When she got back to the house, there was a hot bath waiting for her and a teapot set on a tray with a cup and saucer. When Miss Rogers entered the room, Claire was sedately sipping whisky from her cup.

  On the third day she was again up before dawn. When she was downstairs Harry informed her that today they were going after rabbits and quail. That meant Claire got to walk across marshy land in the cold drizzle and watch the men slaughter a couple of hundred rabbits. Harry promised to buy her her own bird dog as an additional wedding present.

  By the time Claire returned to the house, she was so cold she wasn’t feeling anything. But more important, she wasn’t allowing herself to think anything either. Harry had talked about shooting deer the next day. Claire was afraid that the sight of the death of one of those soft-eyed deer she sometimes saw wandering about might make her cry.

  She creamed her face, then climbed into bed and tried to go to sleep, but a noise made her jump. In the dim light of the room she saw the big portrait on the wall move and knew that the door to the tunnel was opening.

  She forgot her exhaustion as she leaped out of bed and ran toward the door. “Trevelyan!” she gasped.

  The door opened but, instead of Trevelyan, there stood her bratty little sister holding a candle.

  Claire turned away. “You should be in bed,” she said tiredly and went back to her own bed.

  Brat shut the tunnel door, put the candle on the bedside table, and climbed up on the big four-poster bed. “I hear you’ve become a hunter.”

  “A regular Diana,” Claire murmured, then grimaced at Brat’s puzzled look. “If you’d ever bothered to open a book, you’d know that Diana is the goddess of the hunt.”

  Brat smiled at her sister. “I’ll bet Harry knows all about gods and goddesses. Is that what the two of you talk about all day? Or do you practice your Italian and French on each other? Maybe you discuss politics or religion, or maybe you talk about the history of the Scots. Maybe you talk about all the things you plan to do around this place when you’re the duchess.”

  Claire’s lips tightened. “Would you please go to bed?”

  “What do you and Harry talk about?”

  “That happens to be none of your business.”

  Brat stretched out across the foot of the bed. “Have you seen Captain Baker?”

  “No, I have not. Nor do I plan to see him. To tell you the truth, I’ve been so busy I’ve not even thought about him.”

  Brat turned on her back, her hands behind her head and looked up at the canopy overhead. “I thought Trevelyan was the most unusual man I have ever met in my life. Did you see all the things he has in his room? He must have been a lot of places.”

  “If you spent some of your time doing something besides eavesdropping and such, and read any of Captain Baker’s books, you’d know just how many places he’s been and all that he’s seen. He is a great man.”

  “So why did you get so mad at him when he married Harry’s sister?”

  Claire opened her mouth twice to speak, but closed it. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said at last.

  “It was because of what you said about his being a hero, wasn’t it? He’s been a hero of yours but he’s just ordinary, isn’t he?”

  “He is far from ordinary. He’s…” She looked up sharply. “You have to go to bed.”

  “Do you have as much fun with Harry as you do with Captain Baker?”

  “Of course I do. What a ridiculous question. Harry is the man I love. I want to spend as much time with him as I can. Captain Baker is nothing to me. Except that he’s Harry’s relative and I have to be nice to him.”

  “You were just being nice to him when you spent those three days nursing him, weren’t you?” Brat gave her a sly look. “Did you take all his clothes off?”

  “Out!” Claire said. “Get out of here at once.”

  Brat didn’t move. “Be careful or you’ll wake the old dragon,” she said, meaning Miss Rogers. “Did you hear what happened after Leatrice got married?”

  Claire wanted to tell her precocious sister that she wasn’t interested, but she couldn’t. “No,” she said softly, “I didn’t hear.”

  “The old hag, the old duchess, nearly died of apoplexy. She had a fit of some sort. Rumor has it she was foaming at the mouth.”

  “That’s difficult to believe.” Claire wasn’t going to encourage her sister, but she wanted to hear all of it. “Harry said—”

  “Harry doesn’t know. He was out hunting.” Brat gave Claire a look that showed she was laughing at her sister. “By the time Harry returned the old woman was cooing again. Of course that’s all she does when Harry’s around. But I heard she was threatening to kill whoever was responsible for Leatrice getting married. I think she was trying to punish her daughter for something and she didn’t think the punishment was finished yet.”

  “I’m sure the gossip you heard was wrong.”

  “Mmmmm” was all Brat would say. “If Harry had to choose between you and his mother, who do you think he’d choose?”

  “I’m not going to answer that question.” Claire didn’t want to think what the answer might be.

  Brat was silent for a moment. “Do you miss Trevelyan?”

  “Of course not. I have plenty to keep me busy.”

  Brat laughed. “They’re saying in the kitchen that your habit is never going to get dry. It smells so awful they have to hang it in a room by itself.”

  “Then I shall have to buy another.”

  “And another and another and another. You’re going to need lots of them if you marry Harry. Do you think you’ll spend your life with him doing nothing but hunting?”

  “No, of course not. I’ll…” Claire trailed off, trying to think what she’d do after she was married.

  “Do you think Captain Baker will ever get married?”

  “Absolutely not! His kind never marries. Or if they do, they leave their wives crying somewhere while they go off to explore other places and…and other women.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I know him very well. I’ve read everything he’s ever written and everything that’s been written about him. I know him very, very well.”

  “It was nice of him to help Leatrice that way. He was risking a lot. If he’d been caught, I’d hate to think what the old hag would have done to him.”

  “It wasn’t kindness, it was—” She grimaced. “I don’t know why he did it. I’m sure he plans to write about it.”

  “I thought you said he writes about everything. Did you see the cartoons he made of you?”

  “Yes, I saw them.” Claire’s head came up. “When did you see them?”

  “Yesterday morning. I went to see him and—”

  “You what? Have you been seeing him?” Claire grabbed her sister’s arm. “After the vulgar things he said to you? I don’t trust him alone with you. He—”

  “He’s a very nice man and he never touches me, if that’s what worries you.”

  Claire released her sister’s arm and leaned back against the pillows. “No, I don’t think he would. He is an honorable man—in his own odd way.” She
paused. “How is he?”

  Brat was thoughtful for a moment. “I believe he misses you.”

  Claire sat up straight. “He does? Has he said so? I mean, not that it makes any difference to me, but what makes you think he misses me?” Claire thought that if she were put on a medieval torture rack, she wouldn’t admit to how much she had missed Trevelyan. He was impossible of course, grumpy, cynical, morose at times, always asking questions, often making her feel stupid and childish, but, heaven, how he made her feel alive. When she was with Trevelyan every nerve in her body was alive. He made her use her mind; he made her think about things that she hadn’t even known were in her thoughts. He’d made her put her thoughts about the Scots into words. He’d made her think that she could do something with her life, that what she thought and felt could make a difference.

  “He hasn’t said that he misses you,” Brat said, “but I can tell that he does.”

  “Oh,” Claire said and leaned back against the pillows. “I haven’t missed him at all. I have been quite happy with Harry. He’s going to buy me a pair of shotguns. They have silver barrels, or silver on them somewhere. And maybe a dog, too.”

  Brat laughed at that in a way that made Claire blush. “You should see yourself when you come in from hunting. You look like a drowned rat and about the unhappiest person on earth. Everyone can see it except your precious Harry. He’s so dumb—”

  Brat rolled off the bed as Claire went for her throat. Laughing, Brat stepped away from the bed. “You’re so funny that I almost forgot why I came here. Do you remember that man Jack Powell?”

  “The man who says he went into Pesha when it was actually Trevelyan?”

  “The very one. There was an article in the paper today. It said this man Powell was going to speak in Edinburgh and he was going to bring proof that he—not Captain Baker—had been into Pesha. The paper called it irr…irr…”

  “Irrefutable.”

  “That’s it. Nobody can question it.” Brat yawned. “It looks like your Captain Baker isn’t going to be remembered as the man who went to Pesha.”

  “But he did go to Pesha. Only he went. Not the man Powell. They can’t—”

  Brat yawned again. “I thought it didn’t matter to you. You’re going hunting with Harry. I guess I’d better go to bed. Vellie said he might come and read me a story tonight.”

  “You have no right to call him that. And what kind of story is he reading you?”

  “Did I say reading? He tells me stories. Wonderful stories, all about Pesha. You should get him to tell you. Oh, I forgot, you aren’t seeing him anymore. Well, good night. See you tomorrow.” Brat grinned. “But if you’re wearing your wet wool, I hope you don’t mind if I don’t get too near you.” With that, Brat took her candle, opened the portrait, and disappeared into the tunnels.

  Claire sat where she was for a moment, then turned and banged her fist into her pillow. Trevelyan was an odious man. Really, truly odious. Brat had asked if she thought he’d ever marry. Him? The woman who loved Trevelyan enough to want to marry him would be condemned to a life of misery and loneliness. She’d be lonely because he’d leave her and go off traveling on his own. And while his wife was sitting home alone worried sick about him, he’d be…be doing all the things with women that he’d written about.

  She punched the pillow a couple of more times, then tried to settle down to sleep, but she couldn’t close her eyes.

  Heroes, she thought. It was one thing to adore a man from afar, but quite another to meet him in life. She remembered reading Trevelyan’s books as a girl and thinking how divinely interesting a man he was when he wrote that he always tried to wear native garb wherever he was. She used to imagine him in his exotic costumes and think how romantic he must look.

  But it didn’t seem romantic when the reality was that each time she saw him he was wearing something different. One time he’d have on a long silk robe with brightly colored birds embroidered on the back, and the next time she saw him he’d be wearing the clothing of an eighteenth-century English gentleman.

  No, spending time with a man like that was not what one should do. She was much better off staying with Harry and his family and her own family. Of course, she only saw her father in passing when she went out to hunt with Harry, and she saw her mother even less. Right now her mother was planning her wardrobe for Claire’s wedding. It was hoped that the Prince and Princess of Wales would attend, and Arva had to think about how she looked.

  Claire punched her pillow again and tried to sleep.

  The next day, wearing her riding habit, which didn’t seem as though it was ever going to dry completely, Claire again went hunting with Harry. She had tramped across marshlands, up a steep, heather-covered hill with him and his loader, until they finally came to a pretty little wooded area. She had not said a word to Harry throughout the long walk because he’d warned her of the need for absolute silence.

  As they entered the wood, Harry whispered something to his loader and Claire looked about her. Standing not very far away was a magnificent buck and his three females. Claire smiled at the loveliness of the scene. She watched the lovely creatures, so sleek, so calm, so unworried.

  The next minute Harry’s rifle went off beside her and the great buck fell to the ground. The does ran away.

  Harry and his loader were jubilant, talking excitedly about having brought the animal down in one shot. Claire watched them walking toward the big animal, then she saw the buck lift its head slightly. It was still alive.

  She started running toward the deer, passing Harry and the other man as she ran. But before she reached the buck, Harry’s rifle rang out again and the buck’s head fell to the ground.

  It was too much for Claire. She was too tired from days of hunting, too sick with all the hundreds of dead birds and animals she had seen in the last few days. She stood where she was, looking at the enormous deer that a mere few minutes ago had been alive and beautiful and now was lying dead. And for what? Harry didn’t need the animal for food. He had killed it for sport. He had killed the animal because it gave him pleasure to do so.

  “Great shot, wasn’t it?” Harry said from behind her.

  Claire turned toward him, her eyes blazing. “How could you?”

  “How could I what?” He was genuinely confused.

  At his lack of understanding, something within Claire broke. She doubled up her fists and began pounding on his chest. “You had no right to kill that animal. No right at all. It was beautiful and there was no reason. You—”

  Harry caught her hands in his. “Darling, you have a case of wedding nerves. Everything will be all right. I know that when I took my first buck I was a little upset too.”

  She pulled away from him and saw he had no idea what was wrong with her. “Don’t you do anything useful?” she shouted. “Don’t you do anything besides kill things?”

  Harry stiffened at that and dropped his arms from around her. “I am not an American, if that’s what you mean.”

  Claire took a step backward and put her hand to her mouth to keep from saying another word. Her eyes filled with tears. How could she have said such a thing to the man she loved? She turned away and began to run.

  She ran out of the woods, down the hill, across the fields, and when she reached her horse, she mounted as quickly as possible, wrapping her leg firmly about the sidesaddle. She kicked the horse forward and raced back to the house.

  At the house she entered the main door and was greeted by her mother standing in the midst of what looked to be a hundred boxes of clothing, all the boxes bearing London labels.

  “Come and look at the lovely things I’ve bought, dear,” her mother said. “Look, here’s a fan with diamonds on it.”

  Claire’s eyes were so full of tears she couldn’t see a thing. She merely shook her head and ran up the stairs to her room. Once inside she bolted both the bedroom door and the door leading into the dressing room where horrid Miss Rogers usually stayed.

  Once she was alone
and safe, Claire flung herself on the bed and dissolved into a flood of tears. She wasn’t sure why she was crying; she told herself it was because of seeing the deer killed. Some part of her knew there was a deeper reason for her tears, but at all costs she didn’t want to look at what was making her cry.

  At times during the day people knocked on the doors but Claire didn’t open them. She just cried.

  Sarah Ann was in the stables when Harry returned. She tried to look as though she “happened” to be there, but the truth was Cammy had seen Claire return in a blaze of hooves and tears. Brat had run to the stables to see what was going on. Sarah was becoming annoyed with her older sister. For all of Claire’s brains, she wasn’t very good at figuring out what she wanted to do; Claire was ruled by shoulds. She should love Harry, therefore she did.

  Harry came into the stable and Brat could see that he was enraged. He flung himself off the horse. Brat watched him silently. What she had never told anyone was how beautiful she thought Harry was. She liked the look of Trevelyan, but Trevelyan was not a man a woman—for that’s what Brat considered herself—could live with. Harry, on the other hand, was a man one could spend a life with. Poor Claire was just too dumb to know how to handle a man like Harry.

  “Leave you again, did she?” Brat said, making Harry start as he turned to her. Brat smiled at him as she bit into a fat red apple.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you,” Brat said in a seductive voice.

  Harry looked at her and gave a snort of laughter. “You’d better go back to the nursery.”

  Brat gave a chuckle and walked past him. She swayed her hips as she’d seen women do, swayed them in a way that Claire never did. Claire thought that the way to get a man was to talk to him. Brat stopped about ten feet in front of Harry and looked back at him over her shoulder. He was watching her, as she knew he would be. “Will you come and visit me?” she practically purred, then tossed her apple away and ran back to the house.

  Harry stood for a moment looking after the young woman whom he’d thought of as a child, then he hit his riding crop against the stable wall. “Damn the lot of them,” he said and went to the house.