An American Duchess Page 3

“I think Miss Gifford will get her heart broken.” Julia’s soft voice broke in on his thoughts. “Sebastian has never fallen in love with any woman. I think he’s incapable of it.”

  Nigel almost dropped his glass. Only quick juggling saved him from throwing brandy on his chest. His heart thundered like it had when shells had been exploding around him.

  Could Julia know about Sebastian? Four decades ago, Oscar Wilde had gone to prison for the same appetites he knew Sebastian possessed, under a charge of gross indecency. That scandal still reached delicate female ears. Had Julia guessed what Nigel knew for a fact—that their brother was in love with a Captain John Ransome? Good God, how did he ask her?

  “I mean Sebastian is rather selfish, and he’s exactly like Father was,” Julia said pensively.

  Nigel relaxed. She did not know. Their father had been a womanizing rogue.

  “I love him dearly,” she went on, “but I would never let one of my friends marry him.”

  “Miss Gifford went into this proposition so she could get hold of her inheritance, as it is held in trust until she marries. I do not believe our steely-eyed American heiress is going to have her heart broken,” he said coldly.

  “And most heiresses want titles. If she wants Sebastian, she must be in love with him.” Julia lifted her head and stared at him with huge, stricken blue eyes. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “I know I am shirking my duty by avoiding marriage. I was doing it as a favor to both myself and any prospective bride. I will not do so any longer.”

  “You are going to marry?”

  “I am going to have to,” he said grimly. “Sebastian agreed to this marriage to obtain funds. It is my responsibility as duke to find a way to support Brideswell. I have to do my duty.”

  Julia touched his shoulder. “I know losing Mary broke your heart, Nigel. I know what that feels like.”

  He clasped his hands gently over Julia’s. He had frightened Mary away when he’d come back from war, scarred, haunted, wounded. Frightened her so badly, she’d married someone else.

  Julia frowned. “No, you can’t make a duty marriage. I hate to think of you doing that. I don’t want you to be as unhappy as Mama and Father were.”

  “You need not fear I will make a wife unhappy. I will keep my distance from her. After all, as you say, she would be in it for the title.” He had to keep his distance. He certainly couldn’t share a bed with a wife, to sleep the night with her, the way some couples now did. Not when he screamed with nightmares or had to fight to control the shaking of his body when a loud noise erupted.

  “You cannot keep your distance from a wife and have children, Nigel. That simply won’t work. If Sebastian and Miss Gifford are in love, why not let Sebastian go through with marriage?”

  “I cannot.” At her frown, he added, “I have a very good reason.”

  Julia rolled her eyes. Then she smiled—an impish smile that made his heart ache—and she waved her hand airily. “Then perhaps Miss Gifford has well-to-do American friends for you. I shall ask her—”

  “I would not go near any woman who claims friendship with Miss Gifford.”

  “That won’t stop me from asking her, unless you give your reasons.”

  “I assure you that Miss Gifford would not attempt to marry me to any woman she calls a friend.”

  The gong rang again—the final summons after the warning shot. He offered his arm. “Let us go for dinner.”

  Julia sobered. “I am not looking forward to this, Nigel. Grandmama is appalled by Sebastian’s choice, and she has not been hiding her displeasure. Mama has been attempting to put it all in the best light, but you know how stubborn Grandmama can be. I think dinner is going to be a disaster.”

  “It will not be,” he said darkly. But he could easily imagine the battle over dinner between the dowager and Miss Gifford. And he could readily guess how Miss Gifford would behave. Much like he had when he’d had to race through bullets to save one of his soldiers—too stubborn to duck.

  Strangely, Nigel found he was actually looking forward to seeing how she handled herself.

  What was he thinking? When he’d come home, he hadn’t wanted any more battles or confrontation. Brideswell had been the promise of normalcy after four years of living hell, albeit a far poorer normalcy than before the War.

  Yes, he was a relic of an older age—of the way the world was before war had ravaged it. And he wanted his dinner in peace. There would be no wars tonight at his dining table.

  * * *

  “Zoe, you really must wear jewels tonight.” Mother sailed through the door. Encased in a formal gown that displayed her thin figure, her mother surveyed her with narrowed eyes. “That dress is all wrong. It’s too modern for the occasion.”

  Zoe had dismissed the maid sent to help her dress—her maid and Mother’s were arriving later by train. The girl’s jaw had almost struck the carpet when she’d adjusted the skirt and discovered it went no lower.

  “I like it,” Zoe said. “There’s no point in trying to make it look as though our family goes back to Henry VIII, Mother. We don’t.” She touched her neck. “I was thinking a string of white beads—”

  “Diamonds, Zoe.” Lifting her gloved hand, rings sitting on top of the satin, Annabelle Gifford counted off the pieces that had been shipped by trunk and were now in the duke’s safe.

  “Mother, it’s dinner, not a ball at Buckingham Palace. If I wear all of that I will look like a walking sandwich board for Tiffany & Co. Anyway, I want to look modern. I am modern,” Zoe added, suddenly aware of how coldly she said it.

  Mother looked pained. “The duke himself is quite handsome, you know. Once you ignore his scars. He looked at you, my dear, with a great deal of interest.”

  “If by interest, you mean dislike, then yes, he showed a lot of it. When the duke looks at me, it’s down his nose. He’s obnoxious and rude.”

  “I am sure if you were to get to know him—”

  “I would be even more likely to want to run him over with my car. Every word exchanged with that man feels like shots fired in a war.”

  She would not think of that moment when their lips had almost touched. When she’d wanted their lips to touch. It had been a moment of insanity.

  A modern girl kissed men—she had kissed a few. She’d known sizzling kisses. Her lips hadn’t even touched the duke’s, and the air had crackled like the aftermath of a lightning strike.

  Yet the man was insufferable.

  “Zoe, you must not antagonize the duke.” Mother’s large violet-blue eyes widened in panic. “Think of your father—it was his fondest dream that you be accepted in New York society. No one will turn up their noses if you have a title. No ballrooms will be barred to us; there will be no invitation list that does not feature our names.”

  The things that drove Mother seemed so trivial. They had been through a war. The world was a place of manufacturing, of making things—airplanes, telephones, motion pictures.

  That world had made Father a rich man—Zoe had grown up in Manhattan, after Father had made his money in steel. Columns and beams and rivets from his mills were used in most of the brand-new buildings that reached into the sky, and she knew a little of the ruthlessness that coup had taken.

  What did it matter that Zoe, as a debutante, had been purposely excluded from most balls or that when her family hosted them, people took malicious pleasure in not showing up?

  All that had mattered to her was following her heart. She’d fallen in love with Richmond DeVille, the famous and daring aviator. Richmond had taught her how to fly a plane. With him, she had touched heaven with silver wing tips. Every moment with Richmond had been filled with excitement and challenge. But they’d kept their relationship a secret, because Richmond had just got a divorce.

  On the day of his departure, fla
shbulbs had popped everywhere, but she and Richmond had found treasured private moments. He’d slipped a diamond ring on her finger. With tears of joy and excitement in her heart, she had wished him a safe voyage. She had waved at his airplane until it had disappeared over the ocean into the early-morning sky like a silver star winking out. Then she had sat by the wireless for hours and hours, waiting for the word he’d arrived.

  He hadn’t made it. Days later the wreckage of his plane was found. His body never was.

  Zoe snatched up a brush and smoothed her hair. “I don’t care if they do snub us. Daddy might have come from a shack with a dirt floor, but he made something of himself. The duke hasn’t even earned his advantages. He has them because of the luck of his birth. I don’t need to wear diamonds, Mother. Everyone in the dining room knows I have a fortune. Money gives us the only things worth caring about in the world now—”

  She was about to say the words freedom and independence, but in the large cheval mirror, she suddenly noticed how pale her mother was. She whirled.

  Mother put her hand over her heart and took shallow breaths. “I know why you are doing this, Zoe. I know you are marrying to help me.”

  Zoe rushed to her mother, suddenly feeling helpless. “It will be all right—”

  Mother trembled. “Oh, Zoe, I am so afraid. Those letters I received...they got downright threatening. If your uncle were ever to find out about that check, I’d be ruined. He would never forgive me. Brother-in-law or not, he would prosecute to the full extent of the law. I might end up in jail. I meant no harm by it. I was so certain I would be able to put the money back right away—”

  “He’s not going to find out. I’ll have access to my funds long before Uncle Hiram comes back. You made a mistake, Mother—” She said it softly and reassuringly, though she could not understand her mother. How could Mama have forged a check? How could she not have seen that would obviously lead to disaster? But recriminations would get her nothing but maternal hysteria, and that she couldn’t bear. “You will not go to jail,” Zoe said firmly.

  “But I want you to be happy married to Lord Sebastian,” Mother said.

  “Of course I’ll be happy,” Zoe lied smoothly.

  “You aren’t in love with him.”

  That startled her but she tried not to show it. “I will make the best of this, Mother.”

  “If you don’t love him, there’s nothing to stop you marrying his brother. You could have him, Zoe, if you just try. The deal’s not done yet. You could still change your mind. And if you sew up the duke first—”

  “Mother, no.”

  Her mother took quick, fluttery breaths and her hand trembled over her heart. “Dear Zoe, I’ve been having such pains. I’m so worried about you. It would ease my heart to know you had married the right man.”

  “Mother, you’ve been as healthy as a horse your entire life. This may have worked for Mrs. Vanderbilt, but I’ve heard Consuelo’s story, and it’s not going to work on me. You’re not dying, and I’m not going to be pressured to chase a duke because of a fictitious bad heart. I will never be a duchess.”

  “What are you talking about? If the duke does not marry, you will.”

  Zoe shook her head. Mother might use quivering breaths, batting eyelashes and tears to get her way, but she was as strong and formidable as the steel her father had been famous for producing. The duke knew the truth and he had probably told his family. Mother might as well know it, too. “I won’t be married to Sebastian long enough.”

  * * *

  Nigel escorted Julia to the south drawing room, where it was customary to gather for cocktails before the meal. They reached the open doors just as their grandmother, the dowager, exclaimed, “Good heavens, are those her knees? Is she in her shift? Where is her skirt?” Then, her voice higher pitched, “Sebastian, what are you doing on your knee? Are you rehearsing for a play?”

  Julia looked around the doorway and gasped, “Oh, how romantic.”

  Nigel saw the scene in the room and his gut twisted with anger. He agreed with his grandmother: What in hell did his brother think he was doing?

  In front of his fiancée, his hair soaked from the rain, his tuxedo jacket obviously thrown on in haste, Sebastian had dropped to one knee. He held a small velvet box in the palm of his outstretched hand.

  Smoothing her skirt with nervous hands, Miss Gifford sparkled like a handful of stars in the glow of the candles and lamps. A white-and-silver dress with delicate straps fell from her slim shoulders, coasted over her slender figure, ended in gauzy, floating bits of fabric that swirled just above her knees. She stared down at Sebastian with huge, surprised violet eyes.

  Whatever Sebastian was doing, she was not in on it.

  Sebastian took her hand and bestowed a kiss on her fingertips, his gaze focused on nothing but her. But pure shock registered in her eyes...and in the dropped jaws and gaping mouths of his mother, Grandmama, his sister Isobel and Mother’s two male guests—Quigley, a writer, and Sir Raynard, an older local squire.

  “We did it over the telephone before, and I knew you deserved more, Zoe,” Sebastian said, his expression deceptively earnest. “I’m sorry I’m late. I hopped off to town this morning and picked this up. I had it made especially for you. Took me a deuced long time to come up with the right inscription, then get it engraved. But you deserve a proper proposal of marriage.”

  It was satisfying to watch Miss Gifford squirm with embarrassment as Sebastian flicked open the box with a twist of one hand. In white velvet sat a heart-shaped ruby the size of a quail’s egg, surrounded by diamonds.

  “Marry me, my beloved Zoe,” his brother said huskily. “Make me the happiest romantic fool in England. Now kiss me, love.”

  Nigel wanted to haul his brother to his feet. There was no need for a proposal. Sebastian should have been proposing the date for the blasted divorce.

  But in one swift movement, Sebastian jumped to his feet and pulled Miss Gifford into his arms. In front of horrified guests, Sebastian sealed his mouth to his fiancée’s lips.

  A hot red flush of embarrassment rushed up the back of Nigel’s neck. As duke, he had to put a stop to the scandalous display—

  A cane sharply struck the floor. The dowager duchess’s voice soared to fill the drawing room. “Good heavens, Sebastian, desist. How will I face my dinner with this image burned on my eyes?”

  3

  DINNER AT BRIDESWELL

  What did he mean by proposing to her?

  They had a business agreement already. What more did they need beyond an intent to sign a contract and a handshake to seal it?

  A footman bowed at Zoe’s side, presenting a silver tray filled with oysters, redolent with garlic and lemon. Her appetite had evaporated but she plopped an oyster on her plate to be polite, alongside two wafer-thin slices of cucumber topped with cream cheese and caviar, also taken to make it appear she was not at all troubled, that she was thrilled Sebastian had made her a gushily romantic offer of marriage.

  He had kissed her. Not just a sweet peck, suitable for viewing by his mother and grandmother. He’d swept her into a flamboyant, passionate kiss, long and intense. But she hadn’t felt anything except surprise.

  Sebastian sat across from her, down the table from his brother. Zoe couldn’t read Sebastian’s heavy-lidded, cool and jaded gaze. They were a small, intimate party housed in a gigantic dining room. There was the duke; the dowager, who had found Sebastian’s romantic proposal shocking; the duchess; Sebastian; his sister Julia; his fourteen-year-old sister, Isobel; two older gentlemen friends of the duchess; herself; and Mother.

  Zoe glanced down at the ostentatious ruby ring. The proposal and the kiss must have been gestures to distract his family. To make them believe this marriage was the real thing. But it wasn’t, and the Duke of Langford knew it.

  He hadn’t told
the rest of the family. Why not? Why not try to turn them all against her, if he was so against this marriage?

  She applied a fork to the oyster, drawing out the plump treat and swallowing. Tart lemon, rich cream, the bite of garlic exploded on her tongue. Exquisite, but she was too startled to really think about the food going down her throat. Champagne was poured into her glass.

  Conversation droned around her. The dowager—a tall, thin woman in a dress of the prewar style—was making an emphatic point. She knew how to make her voice cut through all others. Sebastian was talking to Mother, and Mother, who now knew the truth of the arrangement, was determined to change their minds about ending the marriage. She appeared transfixed by Sebastian’s every charming word.

  Zoe had been just like that on the first night she’d met Sebastian.

  She’d thought jazz music, dancing and cocktails would help her think up a solution to her problem—her need for a marriage when her heart ached for Richmond. Lord Sebastian Hazelton had spent the entire night trying to coax the sorrow out of her eyes. In the end, she had poured the whole story out to him. He’d given her his story: an estate in ruins, a way of life crumbling, and his need to marry for money—something it offended him to do.

  It wasn’t supposed to be about love. She’d made that very clear. Yet that proposal had seemed so sincere. So had his kiss. What was he doing?

  She bit into a cucumber-and-caviar canapé and chased it down with a sip of champagne.

  Langford was staring at her over his champagne flute, with an intensity that burned brighter than the candles struggling to illuminate the room. He had not said a word to anyone yet, but in white tie and an elegant black tailcoat, with his severe black hair and arresting blue eyes, he dominated even this massive dimly lit room.

  Lifting her chin with pride, Zoe raised her glass slightly in a subtle, defiant toast to him. The duke put his glass to his lips, and his mouth softened as they touched his glass. An inappropriate shiver rushed down her spine, and her tummy dipped again.

  A gilt-rimmed bowl was set in front of her, and soup of a soft, spring green was ladled into it. She smelled a light watercress soup.