My Last Duchess, стр. 23
His twin was part of his household; the children thought of her as their mother. He would divorce again before he wedded awoman who would drive her away.
The following day he went back to court, and Her Highness graciously introduced him to one of her ladies-in-waiting, LadyWoolhastings, a dowager marchioness. Edith had to be fifty, far older than he.
But she didn’t look fifty; she might easily pass for forty in candlelight. She had kept her figure, and her bodices displayedher bosom’s girlish shape.
What’s more, she knew how to manage a noble household. She met his eyes with understanding of his situation; she could andwould usher his daughters through the Season. Her own two daughters were happily married.
She was even nice.
She was perfect.
He wrote his sister with the news that he’d found precisely the woman whom she bade him to marry.
He escorted Edith to a concert at St. Paul’s, since she was fond of orchestral music. He wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. Hemet her daughters, who were unexceptional, well-mannered young women.
She suggested that he send his daughters to an elite seminary in London. “Children,” she said, “thrive in groups, and theidea that children of the nobility do best with a governess is an old-fashioned idea.” He agreed, thinking that Betsy, inparticular, would enjoy school.
He decided to ask her to marry him.
He couldn’t have Ophelia, and the lady was nice enough.
Chapter Nine
When the duke sent a note the afternoon following their snowy adventure, accompanied by a bunch of exquisite hothouse posies,Ophelia asked Fiddle to have them put in a vase in the morning room, then changed her mind and brought them to her bedchamber.
Of course, Hugo wouldn’t pay her a call. It would be a waste of his time. She had refused him, roundly and without hesitation.
He needed a wife.
Still, when the snow was cleared away and Maddie appeared a few days later, full of news about the duke’s exploits aroundLondon, she felt unaccountably disappointed.
It was absurd—as absurd as the fact that she still found herself lying awake at night, her light nightdress feeling like awool blanket, her body prickling with unusual and unwelcome desire.
After three weeks had passed, it became clear that His Grace had found his next duchess.
“Lady Woolhastings,” Maddie reported, wrinkling her nose. “Really, I would have thought he could do better. She’s so old. And so . . . Well, I do think it’s sad when a woman won’t accept her age, don’t you think? She has to be fifty-two if she’sa day and she plans to marry a man at least a decade younger.”
“May I give you another cup of tea?” Ophelia asked. She was horridly shaken, but determined not to show it. Hugo was nothingto her.
One night, one silly night.
Thank goodness, no one knew of it.
“Yes, please, with sugar,” Maddie said. “My husband says that His Grace is making certain there won’t be any more children,and God knows, that is a good idea. I know Lindow is rich as Croesus, but establishing all those sons, not counting the heir, and dowrying twodaughters would bankrupt anyone.”
“That seems mercenary, but I suppose . . .” Ophelia’s voice died away. Hugo had been willing to marry her, unless he was fooling,but she didn’t think he had been. Hard thinking in the middle of the night had convinced her that her initial impressionswere correct: He had looked at her as no man ever had before.
But she had sent him away.
And he had stayed away.
“It’s too bad,” Maddie said, putting more sugar into her tea. “He was quite taken with you. If you hadn’t left the ball sosuddenly, you might have bewitched him and become a duchess.”
“You yourself told me that he was too much for me,” Ophelia pointed out.
“I changed my mind once I spoke to him,” Maddie said. “One of us should have taken him, and he didn’t want me.”
“If he hadn’t been looking for a nanny, he might well have fallen for your charms,” Ophelia said, rather hollowly. And thenshe added, “Although your husband would not have been happy.”
“Who cares what Penshallow thinks?” Maddie said, hunching up a shoulder. “Yesterday I received the most horrid, ill-writtennote that you can imagine, informing me that my husband had been making children’s stockings.”
“What?”
“I was confused too, but it seems that he’s gotten his mistress—one of his mistresses—with child. I made him tell me all.”
“Oh, Maddie.” Ophelia reached out and covered her cousin’s hand with hers. “I’m so sorry. What shall you do?”
“What can I do?”
But Ophelia had known Maddie for all of her life, so she just waited.
“I told that ungrateful wretch that I’d raise his child,” Maddie burst out. “Oh! He’s so dreadful. First I accosted him withthe news, and he pretended to know nothing. Then he admitted to giving the woman ten pounds so that she could bring the childto the Foundling Hospital when it was born.”
“One has to pay the Foundling Hospital?” Ophelia asked. She poured more tea, because in moments of crisis, tea helped.
Maddie added a great amount of sugar. “If you want the child to be apprenticed, yes. Penshallow had the nerve to boast thathe took his responsibilities seriously! And then—oh, Phee, I can barely say this aloud, and only to you, obviously . . .”
“What is it?”
Maddie took a deep breath. “Then he suggested that if the child is a boy, we take him in and pretend that he’s mine. BecausePenshallow needs an heir, obviously. And I don’t want to bed him ever again. I refuse.” Her voice rose.
Marriage was a terrible coil. Hugo’s unfaithful duchess came into Ophelia’s mind—and she pushed the thought away.
She was practicing a strict regimen of not thinking of the duke except in the dark of night, in her own bed, where she didn’tseem to be able to control herself.
“I think you should do it,” she said. “The child is Penshallow’s, after all, or he believes as much.”
“He says it is.” Maddie looked up, and Ophelia saw to