Desperate Duchesses

The marquess did not disappoint them. “Mrs. Grope is a lovely woman, kind enough to accept my adoration,” Roberta’s father roared, loud enough so that no one in the room could miss a word. “She is no more a trollop than is my own daughter, the treasure of my house!”

Predictably, the crowd turned as one to examine the signs of trollopdom, the first interest shown Roberta all evening. With a gasp, she fled back to the ladies’ retiring room.

Within a half hour, Roberta made several important decisions. The first was that she’d had enough humiliation. She wanted a husband who would never, under any circumstances, make a public display of himself or those around him. And he should know nothing of poetry. Second, her only chance of finding that husband was to make her way to London without her father or Mrs. Grope. She would go there, pick an appropriate gentleman and arrange to marry him. Somehow.

She returned to her seat in the corner with renewed interest and began surveying the company for the appropriate characteristics.

“Who is that gentleman?” she asked a passing footman, who had given her a few pitying glances during the evening.

He said, “Which one, Miss?” He had a nice smile and looked as if his wig itched.

“The man in the green coat.” To call it green was faint praise: it was a pale, pale green, embroidered with black flowers. It was the most exquisite garment she had ever seen. The man was tall and moved with the careless grace of an athlete. He wore no wig, unlike the other perspiring gentlemen pacing through the dance. His hair was a rumpled black, shot with two or three brilliant streaks of white, and tied at his neck with a pale green ribbon. He was a dangerous mixture of carelessness and supreme elegance.

The footman handed her a glass in order to disguise the fact they were speaking. “That’s His Grace, the Duke of Villiers. He plays chess. Hadn’t you heard of him then?”

She shook her head and took the glass.

“They do say he’s the best for chess in England,” the footman said. He leaned a bit closer and said, eyes dancing, “Lady Cholmondelay thinks he’s the best at sport, if you’ll forgive my presumption.”

A snort of laughter escaped Roberta’s mouth before she could stop herself.

“I’ve watched you this eve,” he said. “Tapping your foot. We’ve our own ball below stairs. And it seems no one knows you here. Why don’t you come back there and dance a round with me?”

“I couldn’t! Someone would—” She looked around. The room was crowded with laughing, dancing peers. No one had paid any attention to her, or even spoken to her in over an hour. Her papa had wandered off again with Mrs. Grope, content to think that she was “hunting prey,” as he put it in the carriage.

“Below stairs, they won’t know you’re a lady,” the footman said, “not in that dress, miss. They’ll think you’re a lady’s maid. At least that way you can have a dance!”

“All right,” she whispered.

For the first time all evening, young men bowed before her. She invented an irascible mistress and had great fun describing her tribulations dressing her. She danced twice with “her” footman and separately with three more. Finally, she realized that there was a remote possibility that her father would miss her, and she headed back to the ball.

Then she realized there was also the possibility that he would have forgotten about her and left for the inn.

She ran down the corridor, slammed open the baize door that marked the servants’ quarters—and knocked over the Duke of Villiers.

He stared at her from the ground, with eyes as cold as spring rainfall. Then he said without stirring, in a husky, drawling voice that made her shiver all over, “You must tell the butler to train you in proper behavior.”

She blushed and dropped a curtsy, dazed by the pure raw masculinity of him, by his hollowed cheeks and jaded look. He was everything that her father was not. There wasn’t an ounce of sentiment in him. A man like that would never embarrass himself.

Life with her father had taught her to be blunt about her own emotions, or risk having them dissected by a poet. So she knew instantly what it was she felt: lust. Her father’s poetry on the subject filtered through her mind, confirming her sense.

He stood and then tipped up her chin. “An astonishing beauty to find in such a dim squirrel’s hole as the servants’ quarters.”

Roberta felt a thrill of triumph. Apparently he didn’t think that she had a beetle brow or a humped back. The lust was mutual. “Ah—” she said, trying to think what to say other than a blunt proposal.

“Red hair,” he said, rather dreamily. “Extraordinary high arches of eyebrows, slightly tilted eyes. A deep ruby for a lower lip. I could paint you in water colors.”

His catalog raised Roberta’s hackles a little; she felt like a horse he was considering for purchase. “I should prefer not to look blurry; could you not manage oils?” she asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “No maid’s apron, and the voice of a lady. I fear I misjudged your station.”

“As a matter of fact, I am rejoining my family in the ballroom.”

His eyes skittered over the plain laced front of her gown, with its misshapen pleats that looked as if she had fashioned them herself.

He dropped his hand. “That makes you altogether more delectable and forbidden fare, an impoverished noble-woman. I would have you without delay if you had but a few pennies to your name, my dear, but even I have a few paltry morals. Foibles, really.”

“You assume a great deal,” she said. She meant that he was assuming she was poor, although the supposition was fair enough, given her clothing. But he jumped to the more obvious meaning.

“’Tis true you might not have me. Though I’ll tell you the secret to my success with women, and I won’t charge you ha’pence since you haven’t an extra one to your purse.”

She waited, cataloging the sheen of his coat and the rumpled perfection of his hair.

“I don’t really give a damn whether I have you or not.”

“You shan’t have me,” she said, stung. “Because I feel precisely the same way about you.”

“In that case, I will kiss your fingertips and retire.”

As he made a leg before her, she watched the skirts of his coat fall into perfect pleats. Not for nothing was she a wordsmith’s daughter. Pale green wasn’t descriptive enough; the silk taffeta of his coat was celadon, the green of new leaves. And its black embroidery, on close inspection, was mulberry-colored.

It was an exquisite combination. Enough to change her mind entirely. What she felt was entirely too deep for a flimsy emotion such as lust.

What she felt wasn’t lust—it was love. For the first time in her life…she was in love.

In love!

“I’m going to London,” she told her father once they were home again. “My heart is in chains and I must follow its call.” Though such extravagant language was definitely not Roberta’s chosen mode of expression, she felt that quoting one of her father’s poems was a sound precaution.

“You most certainly are not!” he said, ignoring her literary reference. “I will—”

“Without you,” she said. “And without Mrs. Grope.”