Page 39 of The Lady Who Said No to the Duke

‘Y our Royal Highness.’ Thea swept down into a Court curtsey and rose without a tremor, thankful for thighs strengthened by frequent riding.

‘Charming, charming.’ The Prince Regent pinched her chin and she managed to keep her smile fixed. ‘Well done, Leamington, you dog. Expected you to come back from the Congress with some Viennese beauty, but you’ve chosen one of our English roses, eh? What?’

‘Indeed, sir.’ Hal, who had been escorting the Regent for twenty minutes by that point, also had a smile that was somewhat strained. ‘May I introduce you to—’ He guided the Regent off in the direction of a number of officers in full dress uniform and Thea let out a sigh of relief.

The Duke of Sussex was making his ponderous way in her direction, and she slipped behind a group of gossiping matrons, hoping that he would be distracted by someone older and, as her mother would put it, riper , than she.

All the royal brothers appeared to find lavish curves attractive, so Thea felt she should be safe from any overly warm attentions.

She might no longer merit Twig as a nickname, but she most certainly was not voluptuous.

‘What has made you smile?’ Hal asked, making her jump.

‘I was just thinking that there are some advantages to being your Twig—I am not at all the type to attract the Royal Dukes. What have you done with the Regent?’

‘Left him with a general, two colonels and a handful of lesser officers, telling them all about how he personally overcame Bonaparte. And you are still my Twig, are you? Does that mean I am forgiven for teasing you all those years ago, despite the fact that you bear absolutely no resemblance to one any more?’

‘I did not mean your Twig,’ Thea said, flustered. ‘I meant… Never mind. Yes, of course you are forgiven.’

I suppose. It still rankled, she realised, despite the fact that she had a perfectly good figure now.

‘I believe the next dance is ours,’ Hal said, tucking her hand under his elbow and strolling towards the ballroom. ‘The first was very staid, but this is a waltz and so is the third I am going to claim—shocking, I know. I will have to marry you.’

Thea laughed at that, and was still chuckling as they reached the dance floor and Hal took her in his arms. A quick glance around had her sobering quickly.

‘Everyone is staring at us,’ she whispered.

‘They are staring at you in admiration and envying me my good fortune,’ Hal said as the first notes were played and he swept her into the dance.

Thea made herself relax and allow the music to take her.

Hal led strongly, but not forcefully, and it was easy to let go of the inhibitions that would usually keep her at a respectable distance from her partner’s body in a potentially shocking dance like this.

But now she felt the pressure of his thigh against hers in a tight turn, the heat of his gloved hand through the silk of her gown at her waist. Her skirts swirled around his legs and, when she looked up, his breath was warm on her face. And his eyes…

Was that desire she read there? It was intense, hot and stirred something inside her. Those naughty, blush-making flutterings that she sometimes felt when he was close swept through her and she trembled in his arms so that he tightened his hold. Which only made them worse.

Ladies were not supposed to feel desire. That was for men who had those physical needs that it was the duty of a wife to submit to. In return she received the blessing of children.

Thea, desperately trying to keep her footing, had long suspected this was nonsense, but now she was certain of it. Women—virginal young ladies—experienced desire.

If Hal had dragged her off the floor, out of the ballroom and up the great flight of stairs to his bedchamber here and now, she would have gone.

Did this mean that the marriage night might be…

pleasurable? Dare she hope that it might?

It seemed unlikely that such a thing could be, because the mechanics of it had always struck her as quite bizarre and childhood tales of storks and gooseberry bushes had seemed just as logical an explanation of where babies came from.

‘What are you thinking about to make you smile in that mysterious way?’ Hal asked her.

‘Oh…gooseberries,’ she said.

‘Really?’ Those dark brows arched upwards. ‘I have never had a dance partner whose mind was on soft fruit when I held them in my arms.’ His tone was light, but she could tell he was not really amused.

‘I am embarrassed to admit that I was noticing one or two of my acquaintances who are as green as gooseberries over my good fortune,’ she said, pleased with herself for getting out of that so easily.

‘I am flattered,’ Hal said, but his voice was dry.

Of course, she realised, he must be sick and tired of being wanted for what he was, not who he was. He could be as bad-tempered as a bear with toothache, as foolish as any air-headed young buck and look like a toad and he would still be fawned upon and courted.

‘They do not know you,’ Thea said as the music came to a close. She curtseyed to his bow. ‘If they did, they would desire Hal Forrest as much as they want the Duke of Leamington.’

She swallowed when she heard her own words. Had she betrayed too much, given away her feelings for him?

‘That, my dear Thea, is the nicest thing you have ever said to me.’ Hal lifted her hand and kissed it.

‘Which is not saying much,’ she countered with a laugh. ‘Not when you consider that I have been scolding you for your youthful misdeeds and running away rather than marrying you.’

‘But you are not running now, are you, Thea?’ he asked, still holding her hand, seemingly uncaring of the fact that they were causing other couples to detour around them to get off the dance floor.

‘Certainly not,’ she said, trying to read his expression and failing. ‘Not that I have the breath to do more than stroll after that dance.’

She had meant it as a mild joke, but there was that look in his eyes again and she realised Hal was reading rather more into that than she had meant to say. Even though it was true.

‘Here is my next partner,’ she said. ‘I am going to have to beg that we sit this dance out.’

As the gentleman who came to claim her hand was an amiable cousin of her mother who had only been doing his duty by dancing, he did not need much persuasion to retreat to seats on the sidelines where he could admire her ring and they could exchange family gossip comfortably.

‘Your mama is in alt over this match,’ Cousin Ernest observed. ‘Add the celebrations at Leaming Castle into the bargain and I am amazed she can string two words together coherently for all the triumph and excitement.’

‘Fortunately the Duke wished for an early wedding,’ Thea said.

‘Thus saving the sanity of all concerned,’ he observed with a rich chuckle. ‘And you are in love with the fellow, which is pleasant. I don’t like to see young girls married off without a thought to how compatible they are going to be with their husbands. Makes for a lot of quiet unhappiness.’

‘Naturally, I hold the Duke in high esteem and find his company most pleasant,’ Thea managed, flustered. Was she that obvious? ‘One does not look for a love match. Mama says that is so bourgeois and a result of reading too many novels.’

‘Poppycock. And do not look so anxious, my dear. You are not wearing your heart on your sleeve for all to see. It takes an old romantic like me to see how you feel about him, and there are not many of us in this cynical world.’

He reached out, squeezed her hand and then lifted it to admire her ring. ‘An interesting choice, and very much more flattering to you than the traditional Leamington ring, if I recall it correctly.’

‘Yes, it was very thoughtful of the Duke.’

‘Thoughtful? More than that, my dear. Dukes are not given to breaking family traditions just to be thoughtful. We might have a love match on our hands.’

‘Oh, no,’ Thea protested. She couldn’t afford to hope, did not dare indulge that daydream, because the truth would be far too painful. ‘We are friends, that is all. Hal knows me, perhaps better than might often be the case.’

Cousin Ernest released her hand. ‘What a very sensible young woman you are.’ It did not sound as though he meant it as a compliment. ‘And here comes your next dance partner to claim you. It has been delightful having this talk. I expect I shall see you next at Leaming Castle.’

He stood as she did and, on impulse, Thea kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you, Cousin Ernest.’

What for, she was not certain, she realised as she smiled brightly at Lord Hopewell, a cheerful young man whose red hair burned even brighter than her own youthful locks had done.

‘I will tread on your toes, I expect,’ he apologised in advance as they took their places in a set for a country dance. ‘We could sit out if you would rather not risk it. I just find these things confusing. I always seem to be heading in the wrong direction.’

So do I , Thea thought. And mostly in the direction of false hopes and foolish wishes.

‘Never mind,’ she reassured her partner. ‘I know this one, so I’ll steer you if needs be.’

‘Thank heavens,’ he said fervently as the dance began and she tugged his hand to point him in the right direction.

* * *

Looking back, it seemed to Thea that Hal’s ball had been a positive oasis of calm and normality compared with what followed as the days rushed past before the wedding.

Hal left for Leaming Castle immediately after the ball, taking with him virtually the entire staff of his London house with the exception of two footmen and two grooms, whom he left to assist the Wiveton household with fetching and carrying and running errands.

Mama was delighted with this consideration and with the arrival of a clerk whose sole duty was to write wedding invitations in exquisite copperplate.

There were those for the house guests; those for guests living locally who would attend for the day, divided into those who would be there for the ceremony and those arriving afterwards for the wedding breakfast and those for the reception to be held a week after the wedding, which would include tenants, local gentry and professional men and their wives.

Two representatives of Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, jewellers to the royal family, arrived with caskets of family gems and three hefty bodyguards, in order to ensure that everything that Thea might wish to wear was of the correct size and in perfect condition.

‘The coronet,’ Mr Worthington declared, opening a velvet box to reveal the silver gilt coronet with its eight strawberry leaves, signifying a duke.

Papa’s earl’s coronet had eight too, but they were small and were separated by silver balls.

‘I thought you might wish to examine it, my lady, although of course you will not need it until the next State Opening of Parliament. Or in the event of a coronation.’

‘Quite,’ Thea said faintly as it was placed on her head and declared a perfect fit.

Like Cinderella’s slipper , she thought rather wildly. But her prince had not fallen wildly in love with her after dancing with her at a ball.

She looked at herself in the glass and shivered. Who was that woman with the pale face and the wide eyes and the hair that clashed nastily with the red velvet inner cap of the coronet?

‘Yes, it is rather heavy, I fear,’ Mr Worthington said, lifting it off and placing it reverently back in its box. ‘Now the rings.’

Then there were the appointments with the modistes for what Thea privately considered a ridiculous number of gowns, considering that they would be spending the rest of the year at the castle, returning to London in the Spring for the opening of the Parliamentary session, the first opportunity for her to wear the coronet.

The wedding dress was Mama’s prime consideration and, for some reason, she was determined on palest pink. Thea, emerging from a shopping-induced daze, put her foot down. ‘Cream,’ she insisted. ‘And green.’

Mercifully, Madam Lanchester agreed with her and, as she was the most exclusive modiste in town, Mama was forced to yield.

Thea’s married friends, taking pity on her, persuaded her mother that she must rest and spent two days with Thea shopping for lingerie and shoes.

Embarrassed, but determined to be the perfect bride for Hal, Thea was persuaded into deliciously fine Indian muslin underwear, corsets that did amazing things for her bosom, ridiculous little slippers with lace or feathers and nightgowns and peignoirs that had her blushing.

‘I can’t wear that,’ she protested in one shop off St James’s Street. ‘It is transparent.’

‘No, it only looks as though it might be.’ Lavinia Royce, Lady Finedon, held up nightgown and peignoir together. ‘See? I have a set just like this, only in pale blue. Geoffrey went wild when he saw it,’ she added in a whisper.

The other three nodded. ‘The Duke will be utterly enslaved,’ Georgia Jameson assured her.

Thea bought it. And everything else her friends recommended. She could only hope it would not look to Hal as though she was trying too hard.

It was very strange, she thought, letting the silk gauze sift through her fingers.

After years of being schooled in very proper behaviour and in only allowing the mildest flirtations, now she found herself expected to enslave a man in the bedchamber.

How on earth did she do that? Would Hal look at her and see the skinny Twig he had first known, all dressed up in some ridiculous charade?

Or would those grey eyes look at her with that exciting, frightening heat in them? Might he possibly desire her, not just in the heat of a ballroom with Champagne drunk and flirtation in the air, but when they were alone? Might he desire her…for ever?