An American Duchess

The dowager’s cane clattered to the floor. Utter quiet fell. Even the servants ceased to move, though the dowager needed her cane back. For a crazy moment, Zoe thought the bubbly pouring into Mother’s glass had stopped in midstream.

The youngest girl, Isobel, stared in openmouthed shock at Zoe. Mother was apparently attempting to keep pace with Sebastian’s champagne consumption. Sebastian’s mother, Maria, the duchess, was putting all her attention on her dinner and did not even look up. The duchess looked exactly like him, slender, exquisitely beautiful, with golden hair. She was frail and pale, and had said nothing more to Zoe than a stuttered greeting in the drawing room, where they’d had cocktails before Sebastian’s unexpected and dramatic proposal.

The dowager’s lips moved, but no sound came out, as if she had been robbed of her voice.

“That is a careless and selfish attitude to take, Miss Gifford.” The slow, deep drawl was the Duke of Langford. “If soldiers had taken such an attitude, our respective countries would be in smoldering ruins.”

“We are speaking of my wedding,” Zoe said brightly. “Not of war.”

He stared at her with open dislike, and the dowager said sharply, as a footman jerked into motion and retrieved her cane, “You seem determined to launch a war, yet I thought Americans liked to keep out of skirmishes until all the dangerous work was done.”

Zoe’s chin went up. “If you are speaking of the War, we arrived just in time to help win it.” She thought of her brother, Billy, and a cold anger settled around her heart. She knew about pain, loss and sacrifice, but it was as if the British thought they were the only ones who had experienced suffering, and everyone else should be condemned for having it easy.

She was not a criminal here. She had promised Sebastian a substantial amount of money as a settlement, and his family could use it. Brideswell obviously needed repair—and electricity, not to mention indoor plumbing.

As for scandal—really, divorce was not so horrifying anymore.

But the duke had pegged her as a scarlet woman, the dowager was determined to find fault with her, and Sebastian’s mother appeared to want to ignore her.

Defiantly, she went on, “The War was in the last decade. Time has marched on. You should install electric lights, Your Grace. Perhaps, twenty-two years in, it is time to embrace the twentieth century.”

The dowager sniffed. “The rooms are best suited to display by candlelight.”

“The rooms are best suited to being gloomy?” Zoe asked. Langford glared at her with brooding intensity, so she sweetly asked, “What about plumbing or central heating, Your Grace? Surely you would wish some modern convenience.”

Sebastian laughed. “Langford has no desire to be modern, my dear.”

“Then I will make him more comfortable and speak of the past.” She resented him calling her selfish. She was not doing this for herself, but for her mother. And the duke was going to benefit a great deal. “In what regiment did you serve in the War, Your Grace?”

Lady Julia’s fork clattered to the table. The dowager gasped and pursed her lips, looking distinctly like a fish. Isobel stared at her brother, a bite of food balanced on her lip.

Everyone stared at the duke, waiting for something to happen.

“We don’t— We can’t—” Lady Julia began, but she stopped abruptly. Her face was pale, her eyes wide.

The duke cleared his throat. Cold anger radiated from his gaze. “We will not discuss war at my dining table. It is not done. My family have all suffered a great deal because of the War.”

“It’s something we all have in common, isn’t it?” she argued. “I’m quite happy to field all the awkward questions you can throw at me. I’m not marrying Sebastian for his title, and I don’t give a fig for social strictures. We’ve all suffered loss, life is short and I’m in it for the fun and the happiness now. I don’t see there’s any sense at all in pretending there’s no world beyond those rain-streaked windows of yours. You cannot pretend the world is not changing around you. My goodness, even Britain now has the vote.”

“Two years before America,” Langford shot at her.

“But with so many strings attached, even an intelligent woman like your sister cannot exercise what should be her right.”

“Zoe!” Mother gasped. She looked as if she might faint into her fried filleted sole in anchovy sauce.

“I can see you paid a horrible price for war, Your Grace. I lost a brother. I can’t just not talk about it. I can’t act as if he never existed. We Americans did fight in the Great War, after all.”

“Zoe, no,” Mother breathed.

“Are you quite finished, Miss Gifford?” inquired Langford stonily. “If I visit your home, I shall expect to be required to pour the contents of my soul onto your dining table. Here, at Brideswell, I will ask you to follow my social strictures.”

She had opened up her heart. How could he continue to snap at her after what she’d said about her brother? “All right then, Your Grace. What do you speak of at dinner, then? So far I’ve heard you utter barely a word, while I’ve been condemned for wanting to wed in my native country, for daring to ask the name of your regiment and for suggesting intelligent women should vote.”

The doors opened, the footmen strode in wordlessly and everything stopped while plates of fish were traded for larded fillets of rabbit. More wine was poured. This time, red.

“A lady should be taught how to engage others in conversation. In the proper sort of conversation.” The dowager snapped the words to the room in general.

“I prefer meaningful conversation.” Tears welled beneath her words, and Zoe fought to hold them back. All she could think was how she wished she were dining at the Waldorf with Richmond, instead of here. “If I’m going to endure a whole lot of anxiety at the dinner table, I would rather it be over something worth caring about.”

“If we are going to dissect our lives at the dining table,” Langford returned, “I would begin with yours, Miss Gifford. Tell me where you were born, what life is like in America. How did you meet Sebastian? I believe it was at a speakeasy. And I believe it was after you had broken up another gentleman’s marriage.”

The dowager gasped and the duchess threw a mortified glance at Sebastian.

“That last part isn’t true, Your Grace,” Zoe said. “I’ve broken up no one’s marriage. But I did meet Sebastian at an underground club in Harlem. Sebastian and I indulged in rather too many cocktails, and we ended up dancing in a fountain. Of course, it was April, and much too cold. But bathtub gin will do that to you. And lo and behold, we decided to marry.”

They expected her to shock them. The Hazeltons all seemed so grim or restrained—it was as if they were all preserved beneath glass.

“But we did fall in love,” Sebastian added quickly. “Her charming American ways swept me off my feet.”

“Perhaps they would not have done so had you been sober,” the dowager said tartly. The lady turned to the duke in a flash of purple. “Langford, this is your fault. What were you thinking to allow Sebastian to travel alone? You should have accompanied him.”

“Accompany him?” Zoe echoed. “Sebastian is a grown man.”

“He rarely behaves like one,” the dowager snapped. “His brother knows it is his duty to keep Sebastian out of trouble.”

“Well, Langy refuses to leave Brideswell,” Sebastian threw in with a careless smile. “And I refuse to be trapped here. When Zoe and I are married, we’ll set up house in London. I know she will take good care of me and keep me out of trouble. Perhaps you can visit us. Certainly, you’ll want to come after we begin to fill our nursery.”

Sebastian’s easy lie speared her with guilt. Suddenly she hated all this. She had been wrong to throw their expectations at them in bold defiance. She should treat them with respect at least, even if they did not return it. That meant she had to be up front about their arrangement. “There is something all of you must know about this wedding—”

“That can wait until later, Miss Gifford,” the duke interrupted. “I, for one, would much rather talk about dancing in fountains. Tell me more.”

His lips mouthed more words to her. Do not tell them. For a moment, his icy demeanor dropped, and he faced her with an almost pleading expression.

That stunned her.

But she recovered as swiftly as she could. “I don’t think I should, Your Grace. I suspect discussing such a topic would be improper.”

“Then we have come to an agreement,” he said sharply. “Neither of us will plumb the depths of anyone’s soul. I, for one, would like to finish my meal in an atmosphere of peace.”

His tones could have frozen the dinner right to the table. Langford did not say one more word, and neither did anyone else. But at the end of four more courses, as the other men left for port and Zoe and her mother were directed to follow the ladies, the duke appeared at her side and he touched her wrist.

The brief contact made her stop in her tracks. The others filed out, and for a moment, she and Langford were alone, their faces close, just as they had been on the road, when their lips had almost touched.

His fingers curled around her wrist, holding her in place. Strangely, the air felt thick and heavy around them, as if lightning might fork through the shadows of the dining room.

“Please do not tell the ladies about your deal with Sebastian, Miss Gifford,” he said.

“I would rather be honest, Your Grace. I don’t regret my arrangement with Sebastian, but I do think now it is wrong to fool your family and pretend this marriage is real.”