The Duchess Read online

  “If he marries her,” said Claire’s fourteen-year-old sister, Sarah Ann, better known as Brat, while she went through Claire’s jewelry box again.

  Tired and irritable from a day of standing still while she was pinned and repinned, Claire snapped the jewel case shut.

  Brat just laughed. “I shall marry a man who adores me. He will do whatever I tell him to do. And he will be very, very rich. I’m not going to marry a man who’s poor even if he does have nice legs.”

  “You’ll marry who I tell you to marry,” Arva said as she grabbed her younger daughter’s ear and pulled her from the room. Claire shrugged when she saw them, for she knew her mother would never actually punish her adored younger daughter no matter what she did. Within minutes the clever child would have her mother feeding her chocolates and promising her some forbidden outing.

  Claire walked to the window and looked at the trees in the little park outside the hotel. The leaves were just beginning to turn in the fall air, and she thought of her home in New York. Both Paris and London seemed so different from New York, so much slower. She thought of all her nineteen years in New York and her summers in the coolness of Maine. She had taken her easy life for granted up until now, had thought it would never change. She was used to kissing her father good-bye as he went out the door to go away on his yacht, or off to some week-long hunting trip, or off for months to the wilds of the West after grizzly bear and mountain lions.

  She’d grown used to the sound of her mother giving orders to their many, many servants as Arva decorated their big Fifth Avenue house for yet another party. Claire used to stop and admire the thousands of orchids hanging from the walls and mantels and the ceilings as she left on her way to the library or the museum.

  For the most part, her parents had ignored their two daughters, thinking they were well cared for in the hands of their governesses. Both Claire and Brat had found it easy to bribe their overseers; for the most part, they’d led their own lives. Brat liked society, just as her mother did, and often wandered down to her mother’s parties, where everyone made a great fuss over her prettiness.

  But Claire hadn’t much taste for society. What she liked were libraries and museums and talking to people who were knowledgeable in their chosen fields. Her mother hated it when Claire brought home for tea ancient professors of obscure branches of history. Arva always made derogatory remarks about how much the skinny little men could eat. “I like intelligence,” Claire had said.

  But both Arva and George had been too busy to pay much attention to their daughters until their accountant had that horrid talk with them. After that, it seemed to Claire, their lives had changed overnight.

  Now the house on Fifth Avenue was gone, the house in Maine was gone, her father’s yacht had been sold. All of it, their possessions and their whole way of life, had disappeared.

  Now it was up to Claire to do something about it. When she married Harry and became the duchess, everything would be all right again. Her parents would have what they most wanted and her little sister would have a chance to get a rich man who adored her.

  As Claire looked out the window, she smiled. She had been dreading it all, but Harry had made it easy. The old saying that it was as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one was true. It had certainly been easy to fall in love with a duke.

  On their third day in Paris, books that Claire had ordered while in London arrived. She began to read them between fittings, and between her mother’s constant warnings and questions. (“Will people have to curtsy to you when you’re a duchess? Will they have to curtsy to me since I’m the mother of a duchess? How will people address me? Is it as Your Honorable?”) Claire soon gave up trying to explain the difference between aristocracy and royalty, and she hated breaking the news to her mother that she, as the mother of a duchess, would have no title at all.

  The books were about the history of Harry’s family, the Montgomerys. She found out how old it was and that this Scottish branch of the family, which was called Clan MacArran, had at least once had a woman as its chief. In the early fifteenth century one of the Montgomery men had married into the MacArrans and had taken the name MacArran, and then more Montgomerys had married more MacArrans until the Montgomerys were almost a separate clan. In 1671 Charles II had given the family a dukedom. There was a great deal of speculation as to why he’d done this. Some said it was for having rendered years of faithful service, but there was also a rumor that the MacArran laird had volunteered to marry a very ugly and very shrewish woman who was rumored to be a half sister of the king.

  For whatever reason the clan was awarded a dukedom, at the time there was a great deal of discussion as to what name the family should be called. Should the family name be MacArran and the dukedom called Montgomery or the other way around? There was a legend that a coin was flipped. So, Harry was the duke of MacArran, yet his name was Henry James Charles Albert Montgomery.

  During those days in Paris, Claire sometimes thought she was going to break under the fatigue of fittings and preparations and being part of her mother’s busy social life, but she kept remembering that Bramley was waiting for her at the end of it.

  At night, tired as she was, she often couldn’t sleep, so by lamplight she read the books on Harry’s family and novels by Sir Walter Scott, read the Scottish author’s accounts of the beauty of the Highlands and the courage of the men who lived there. Claire went to sleep dreaming of heather and armies of men who looked just like Harry.

  When Claire and her family returned from Paris, Harry was waiting for her. He escorted her to his carriage with the ducal crest on the door. Autocratically, he told her parents and sister that he and Claire were traveling to London alone. Claire could have cried with joy at the prospect of a few minutes away from her mother’s admonitions. Once inside the carriage, she saw that Harry had filled it with pink roses. She took the fluted glass of champagne he handed her and smiled at him—and suddenly she wished he’d kiss her. She wished he’d take her in his arms and hold her. She’d like to have him force all doubts from her mind.

  But Harry didn’t touch her.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said, smiling. “Did you think about me?”

  “All the time,” she answered, looking at the way his broad shoulders practically filled one side of the coach.

  “And what were you doing while you were away from me?”

  “Buying dresses and reading. What did you do?”

  Harry smiled at her over the glass of wine. He wasn’t about to tell her what he had done, for it involved mistresses and a few actresses, and some horses that he’d lost too much money on. But he was going to marry a very rich heiress and it didn’t matter how much money he lost.

  “I thought about you,” he said and the way he said it made Claire’s heart flutter a bit.

  To control herself, she looked out the window. “My mother won’t like that I am alone with you.”

  “I think your mother would allow anything if it resulted in her daughter marrying a duke.”

  Claire gave him a look of surprise. “I’m marrying you because I love you, not because I want to marry a duke.”

  “Is that so?” he said, smiling, and when he smiled like that Claire forgot everything in the world except him. “And what about all this history you keep talking about? What about that place? That Cull something or other?”

  “Culloden? But that was—”

  “Yes, yes, a very great battle.” He leaned forward and took her hand in his, playing with her fingers. “When I think of marriage, I think of other things besides war. You’re not going to lecture me on history after we’re married, are you?”

  His fingers were on her forearm. Only lace separated their skin. “I’m looking forward to getting you into bed,” he said very softly.

  Claire held her breath as he leaned toward her. She knew she should not allow him such liberties, but, on the other hand, they were going to be married in a short time. Thanks to several books she’d read—bo
oks she wasn’t supposed to read—she had a general idea of what happened after the marriage ceremony.

  As his lips covered hers, Claire didn’t do any more thinking. Had it not been for the abrupt halt of the carriage she wasn’t sure what would have happened, but as she stepped from the carriage, she was frowning. She wished she loved Harry as much when he was touching her as she did when she was looking at him or thinking about him.

  For the next two weeks her mother kept her so busy she had no time alone with Harry or with her thoughts.

  At the end of those two weeks, he came to her family’s rented town house to tell her he was leaving London to return to his home in Scotland. There were a thousand things Claire wanted to ask Harry about his mother, about the rest of his family, about what was expected of her as his fiancée, but she didn’t have a chance to say a word, for Arva chattered throughout the brief meeting. When Harry was ready to leave, he kissed Claire’s hand while Arva said good-bye, and then he was gone. Claire blinked back tears as she went back to her room. It would be one whole week before she saw him again, and she was anxious for her life to begin.

  Chapter Two

  Claire mounted the horse expertly, hooking her right leg over the pommel of the sidesaddle and taking the reins from the groom. She and her family had arrived at Bramley late the previous night after an exhausting journey from London. The three days the trip should have taken had actually turned frustratingly into four. The roads were rutted and frequently they’d had to pause to allow sheep to cross the road. Her mother had complained unceasingly, while her father and little sister had played one card game after another until Claire had wanted to scream. None of them seemed to realize the importance of the fact that they were visiting Scotland for the first time.

  George Willoughby had looked up from his cards only long enough to comment on the fact that the country looked a bit barren to him.

  “How can you say that?” Claire had gasped. “The heather is in bloom. Don’t you know what happened on this very spot in 1735? In that year—”

  She broke off as her father began to yawn.

  Sarah Ann, her brat of a little sister, gave Claire a look and said, “I’ll bet Harry knows all about Bonnie Prince Charlie and everything else that happened in Scotland. Or were you too busy kissing him to do much talking?”

  Claire, tired and nervous, made a lunge for her sister, but the child managed to escape her even in the close confines of the hired coach.

  “I do wish you two would stop arguing,” Arva said. “You’re giving me a headache. And, Sarah, I don’t think you should call Harry Harry. You’re to call him ‘my lord.’”

  “Your Grace,” Claire said in exasperation.

  “Beat you again,” Sarah said to her father. “Mother, my dear older sister wants you to know that Harry is to be called Your Grace. She wants you to know that she’s read many books on the subject and knows all there is to know about everything. You, on the other hand, haven’t read anything so you couldn’t possibly know about Scotland or anything else.” Brat gave her mother a smile of great innocence and sweetness.

  “I said no such thing,” Claire said. “I merely—”

  But Arva wouldn’t listen to her oldest child. “Claire, I know you think I’m frivolous. You’ve never missed an opportunity to let me know what you think of my trying to obtain a position in society, but, Claire, I am your mother and I do believe you owe me some respect. We can’t all know what you do. We can’t all…”

  Claire listened to her mother’s familiar droning as she turned to glare at Brat. For the millionth time Claire wondered if her sister had been born the way she was or if she had been dropped on her head moments after her birth. Whatever the cause, Sarah Ann got great pleasure from causing her sister misery.

  “It’s your turn to deal, Brat,” George said fondly to his youngest daughter. Whereas Arva seemed to have no idea what her younger daughter was like and could not understand why her husband and Claire called the child Brat, George knew exactly what the child was doing. Sometimes it infuriated Claire that not only did her father know, but he seemed to love, every rotten, underhanded, manipulative thing his daughter did. He found the child as amusing as Claire found her infuriating.

  By the time the Willoughby family reached Bramley, it was nearing midnight. There was only a quarter moon and they could see no details of the house that was to become one of Claire’s homes, but they could see the size of it. “Vast” did not begin to cover it. The house seemed to stretch for acres across the land. It was a tall house, at least four stories, but the height of it was dwarfed by its width. Just to walk from one end of it to the other would have been a good hike.

  Claire looked at her mother, who was practically hanging out of the window of the carriage. The size of the place had done what, as far as Claire knew, nothing else on earth had been able to do: Arva Willoughby was speechless.

  They stopped at the approximate center of the house and the coachman pounded on the door; it seemed an eternity before someone came to open it. The time lapse gave Arva time to recover her voice and state her opinions on the fact that no one was waiting to greet them.

  “You’d have thought they would have left someone on duty to meet us,” Arva said. “After all, my daughter is going to be a duchess. Do they think we are nobodies seeking shelter? Maybe Harry’s mother is mad because she will no longer be a duchess when my daughter becomes the duchess. Maybe she—”

  Claire, who thought she couldn’t bear much more, turned on her mother. “She will continue to be the duchess,” she said through clenched teeth. “She will be the dowager duchess, but a duchess all the same.”

  Arva sniffed. “I’m sure I don’t know all that you know, dear. I’m afraid I haven’t had your advantages. But then I have given you those advantages, haven’t I?”

  “Mother, I—” Claire began but stopped when at last the big oak door was opened by a kind-looking, sleepy-eyed older man wearing a dressing gown.

  Within minutes, Arva had pushed her way into the entry hall and was ordering the dispersal of their entourage of goods and people. There were two carriages full of trunks and cases, and another carriage that held Arva’s maid, George’s valet, and Brat’s governess, who was a timid little woman thoroughly terrified of her young charge. “And my eldest daughter, my daughter who will be the duchess, needs a maid. Her maid”—there was a sneer in Arva’s voice that told what she thought of the ungrateful woman—“ran away and married an Englishman.”

  The man, who Claire guessed was the butler, stood listening to all Arva’s demands without so much as a flicker of interest. “Ah, now, there’s no accounting for taste,” he said softly in his Scottish accent. Whether Claire was the only one who heard him or not, she was certainly the only one who laughed, and the man turned and gave her a bit of a smile.

  In spite of all of Arva’s demands and the energy she put behind them, it was an hour before they were shown to their rooms. Claire undressed herself and fell into the huge four-poster bed and was asleep before she could pull the cover up.

  But she didn’t sleep long. She awoke curled into a ball: she was freezing. There was little cover on the bed and no fire in the fireplace. Her teeth chattering, she made her way out of the bed and began to look for the bathroom. There was none. Nor could she find a switch for the lights.

  After staggering about the dark room for a while, she managed to find matches and candles and lit one, holding it above her head to try to see the room. But all she could see was an enormous bed and heavy oak furniture looming against the walls. There was a painting as large as a wardrobe on one wall, and she looked up to see a woman staring down at her. The woman in the painting wore a smile that made Claire think she understood.

  Claire opened the door to a vast old wardrobe and smiled to see it full of her clothes. While she had slept, someone must have unpacked for her. On second glance she saw that the clothes in the wardrobe weren’t hers. She pulled out a garment. From the look of the dr
ess it was at least fifty years old.

  A shudder of cold shook her shoulders. This was no time for sight-seeing; if she didn’t get on some clothes other than her cotton nightgown, she was going to perish from the cold.

  She opened both doors of the wardrobe and dove into it in a serious search for something warm to wear. There were men’s clothes and children’s, and clothes for women who must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. Way in the back she found a riding habit. A good, long, hard ride might warm her, she thought. The habit was a bit strange, with big sleeves and a high, belted waist, and Claire could see it was going to be too short for her, but it was wool and it came fairly close to fitting her.

  She found drawers full of yellow, musty-smelling underwear, and managed to find enough to keep her skin from touching the heavy wool of the habit. There were also several pairs of knit stockings.

  “Shoes,” she muttered, beginning to like this adventure. She had always loved playing dress-up with her mother’s clothes when she was a child, and now she was able to again.

  She found shoes, just as she knew she would, and managed to squeeze her feet into a pair of high button, pointed toe, black leather shoes that were beginning to crack with age.

  When she was at last dressed, she looked at herself in an ancient pier glass and giggled at the result. In the dark room, with its high ceilings and walls that looked to be covered in red brocade, she looked like something from out of the past. As she started out the door, she saw another cabinet, opened it, and found gloves and a few hats. She pinned a jaunty little hat that looked like a miniature of a man’s top hat at a rakish angle on her head, took a pair of sturdy leather gloves that were much too big for her, and left the room.

  She had always had an excellent sense of direction, and she remembered the way down three corridors, and two short flights of stairs to the front door. The door was not locked, and from the rust she could see on the lock, it looked as though it hadn’t been locked in a hundred years or more.