Chapter 5

If his valet had not had to wake him up when his shaving water was brought to his dressing room, the Duke of Tenby would have sworn that he had not slept a wink all night. He had paced for hours, first in the library downstairs and then in his bedchamber. Then he had lain down on his back, his fingers laced behind his head, staring upward at the ornate canopy of his bed.

He had known from earliest infancy that he would be a duke one day. During his boyhood he had known it even more fully. He had been eleven when his father died. Only his grandfather’s life had stood between him and the title. He had been groomed by his grandfather, with whom he and his mother had been taken to live, and by his grandmother.

He had never rebelled. Not really, anyway. Not in essentials. He had always known what his duty was and had been ready to assume it whenever the time came. Not that he had craved it. He had been fond of his grandfather. It was true that he had procrastinated about the performance of one of his primary duties. But his grandfather had not married until the age of thirty-four. His father had been thirty-six. So waiting until he was thirty-two had seemed no great dereliction of duty despite the frequently expressed anxieties of his mother and grandmother.

He had not relished the thought of marriage. Not yet. But he had come up for the Season fully prepared to find himself a bride at last and a bride of whom his relatives could be proud. A Duke of Tenby had never married below the rank of earl’s daughter. Most of them had done considerably better. His mother was herself a duke’s daughter.

He was not particularly fond of Lady Phyllis Reeder. But he felt no great aversion to her, either, and that was what counted. A man in his position could not expect to marry for love. His parents’ and his grandparents’ marriages had not been love matches. He had taken all the right steps since the beginning of the Season, singling her out regularly for attention while not making his attentions so particular as to lead to a rushed decision. He had by no means reached a point from which he could not return, though he was in no doubt that he had raised expectations in both the girl’s family and in the ton. It could be expected that in the course of time, probably before the Season ended, he would make his offer and the betrothal would be announced. The wedding would take place during the summer. She would be rounding with his child by Christmas.

If only Harriet had not come, he had thought over and over again as he paced. She complicated everything. She was constantly in his thoughts, almost like a gnawing toothache. And the sight of her almost wherever he went was a constant reminder that though he did not love Lady Phyllis, he did love another woman. He could not and would not avoid the places where she might be. He had tried very hard to be sensible, to treat her just like any other attractive woman of his acquaintance. He deliberately had not avoided either meeting her or talking with her. Familiarity would breed indifference, he had persuaded himself.

But familiarity had bred only frustration and longing. He had settled with Bridget and sent her on her way, not just to be fair to Lady Phyllis, as he had planned, but because he could no longer bear the thought of going to her. Seeing Harriet became a torment to him. It was impossible to know if she felt a like tension when she saw him. She was always surrounded by admiring escorts and was always smiling and laughing. She appeared to be enjoying her Season with a carefree heart.

But then at Lady Myder’s ball temptation had presented itself and he had been quite unable to resist. Free of partners himself—he never danced more than one set in one evening with Lady Phyllis and never lingered in her presence—he had watched what happened. Her partner had gone to fetch her a drink and had been detained by someone wanting to speak with him. She had stood alone, an unusual occurrence with Harriet. He had waited, trying to resist the urge to stroll across the room to her. He did not like to be alone with her. And then she had looked at the French windows with obvious longing and had gone through them onto the balcony—alone.

He had gone after her to stroll there with her. It was not quite proper for a lady to go out of doors alone. But she was not there. He knew she had not returned to the ballroom. She must have gone down the dark steps to the garden below. He went down after her. And there he had had the answer to one question that had been in his mind. She had been leaning against a pillar in the darkness, apparently enjoying the air. If she had felt nothing for him, none of the tensions he had been feeling for a number of weeks, she would have said something, started some conversation. Instead she had stood still and quiet, waiting.

God, but he had not planned what followed. He had not gone out after her with even the hope of a stolen kiss on his mind. He had realized during that afternoon in Hyde Park the full danger of kissing her. If only she had said something or if only he had, what had happened would not have happened. But it had. And what had happened had been far more than a stolen kiss in a dark garden. Far more.

That something more was what had kept him pacing and lying awake through most of the night. And the words he had spoken to her afterward, words that were as unplanned as the embrace had been. He was to take her to Kew. They were to settle whatever it was that was between them.

There was only one way to settle it. No, perhaps two. He could tell her that he was leaving London. He could go home and inform his grandmother that she must wait until next spring for him to choose a bride. Or perhaps he could arrange for a houseful of guests during the summer and invite a suitably eligible young lady and her family. Though he hated the thought of conducting a courtship under the interested eyes of his mother and grandmother. And of making his intentions so obvious that he would be left with no choice.

No, there was really only one way to settle what was between him and Harriet. He could not offer her carte blanche as he had done six years ago. She was a virtuous and a respectable woman. She would refuse now as she had refused then. Besides, he did not want her as his mistress. There seemed something a little sordid about the idea. He wanted her ...

There would be all hell to pay with his family, of course. Harriet was a lady, but her birth and background in no way fitted her to be the wife of a Duke of Tenby. She had even been forced to take genteel employment for a few years before making an advantageous marriage. Even the fact that she was a widow would tell against her. Only a virgin would do for his bride.

By the time he had shaved and dressed and exercised his horse with a gallop in the park, the Duke of Tenby had decided, that for once in his life he was going to be a rebel. Surely his choice of bride should be his own. Surely he should be allowed to marry whom he would, provided he did not bring into the family someone who would disgrace it. Harriet would hardly do that. And his mother and his grandmother would come to love her once they had met her and given themselves a little time to get to know her.

He was rationalizing, he knew. They would never approve his choice or his decision to marry for love. He picked at his breakfast, his decision made, though he was grim and uneasy with it. Unhappy even. He was going to marry her. For once in his life he was going to put personal inclination before duty. At Kew that afternoon he was going to make his offer. He was glad he had made the appointment for today. If he had made it for tomorrow or the day after, he might lose his nerve. He wanted it done. He wanted the whole thing to be irrevocable. Then he would be able to relax and enjoy loving her.

The clouds of the morning had moved off to give place to yet another lovely day. Harriet had certainly chosen the right spring to be in London, Sir Clive Forbes had said at luncheon. Sometimes it rained all through the Season and plunged everyone into the deepest of low spirits.

“Tenby again?” Lady Forbes said when Harriet excused herself to go to her room to prepare for the drive to Kew. “It is the general belief that he is beginning a serious courtship with Lady Phyllis Reeder.”

“I do believe he is,” Harriet said, smiling. “We are just old friends, Amanda. It is just an afternoon drive. It is several weeks since I drove with him last.”

“Just old friends,” Amanda said. “I always distrust those words, dear. But I am sure you are right. You have been out with many young men since the Season began, with several of them more than once. There is no reason for me to be worried just because Tenby shows occasional interest in you, is there? You will enjoy Kew. Be sure to see the botanical gardens. They are not to be missed.”

Harriet smiled again and made her escape. She felt dreadfully guilty, although she could see no reason why she should. That kiss—though kiss seemed a woefully inadequate word to describe their embrace—had hurt no one. She was a mature adult, not a green girl. They were going for a drive this afternoon to settle things between them. She knew very well what that meant, of course, and she had made up her mind what she was going to do. She felt quite calm about her decision. She was certainly not going to let her narrow upbringing gnaw at her conscience. If she did not say yes this time, she would regret it for the rest of her life, she knew.

She was going to say yes. She was going to become his mistress. Just for a short while. Just long enough to satisfy her curiosity and her craving. During the summer he would be marrying someone else, and she knew that she would not be able to continue the liaison once that had happened. But perhaps by the summer she would have settled for one of her own suitors—Mr. Hardinge, perhaps. His interest in her was leading him toward a declaration, she was sure, and she both liked and respected him. Of course, she might find that she could not in all conscience accept him when the courtship had been taking place during her affair with another man. She did not know yet just how badly her conscience would bother her.

But she was not going to change her mind. She was going to say yes. She watched the street from the window of her bedchamber after she was ready until she saw his curricle approaching. He was two or three minutes early. Her heart and her stomach performed painful somersaults, and she drew back from the window lest he should see that she was watching for him. She waited with heavily beating heart to be summoned downstairs.

All the way to Kew they conversed on a variety of general topics, including the weather, just as if the night before had never happened and they were just two friendly acquaintances taking a drive together. Since Harriet had mentioned the botanical gardens, they viewed them first on their arrival, admiring and commenting on every plant they saw until almost an hour had passed.

Perhaps, Harriet thought eventually, there had been nothing as significant about the evening before as she had thought. Perhaps he had meant nothing more than that they should take a drive together again. Perhaps in her naivete she had read into the incident far more than had been there and had given herself a sleepless night for nothing.

“The pagoda,” he said when they emerged from the botanical gardens. “It is obligatory to see it, Harriet, when one is at Kew. And to stroll the lawns and view all the trees and flowers. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Yes, your grace,” she said.

“Are you?” He was looking at her, and she knew that his question heralded a change in the afternoon. Gone was the relaxed friendliness. There was a breathless tension in its place.

“You must consider that your courtship of Lady Phyllis is proceeding at a satisfactory pace,” she said. She was afraid to bring on the moment. She wanted to hold it at bay. Almost as if there was still time to change her decision. As she supposed there was.

“Must I?” he said.

“It certainly seems to be the general opinion that a betrothal is imminent,” she said.

“Sometimes,” he said, “one could wish that the ton would allow its members to conduct their own courtships.”

“Your grandmother must be pleased,” she said. “Is she?” 

“I believe,” he said, “she is already planning the wedding breakfast. And dusting off the christening robes that both my father and I wore for use again within the year. Is it indelicate to mention such a thing to you?”

She smiled. “It is obvious,” she said, “that if she is anxious to see you married, her real eagerness is to see an heir born.”

“Sometimes,” he said, “one wonders if the idea of marriage has been debased so much that it has no other function to serve. There is very little consideration given to the lifelong contentment of the husband or the wife, for example. Do you think perhaps people have gone wrong somewhere, Harriet?”

“Perhaps people of your rank,” she said. “The same does not apply to most people. Godfrey and I married for our mutual happiness.”

“Did you?” he said. “He was not obsessed with the need to get his heir on you even though he was an older man with a title and I believe a fortune to leave behind him?” 

“No,” she said. “I think he had made the decision as a young man not to marry or secure his succession. Marrying me was an afterthought, so to speak. He never spoke of an heir. In that sense I suppose I was fortunate. I knew that I was being married for myself.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. “That would be something. When one is a duke, with title, property, and fortune, one wonders if any woman can see beyond them to the man himself.”

“You are afraid Lady Phyllis will not?” she said. “Just as you will see nothing of her beyond her rank and her breeding capabilities? I suppose that will be the challenge of your marriage. Can you get to know each other and like each other and perhaps even love each other despite the calculated way in which you must both choose each other?” 

“You make it sound,” he said, “as if being a duke is the most undesirable thing in the world.”

She smiled.

“I want you,” he said abruptly, and her smile faded.

“Yes, I know,” she said quietly.

“Do you want me?”

She resisted the impulse to pause, to hesitate. “Yes.” She kept her voice firm and her eyes on his. They had stopped walking.

“I have resisted it, you know,” he said. “For obvious reasons, if you will pardon me for saying so.”

Now that the moment had come, she could not bear to let it develop slowly. She would lose her nerve if it was not over with quickly. They were on a path surrounded by rhododendron bushes. There was no one else in sight.

“When you asked six years ago,” she said, “I refused. I had to refuse. For one thing, I was still young enough and naive enough to be shocked. For another, I had a great deal to lose and not sufficient to gain. My virtue and my reputation would have been gone. I would have been putting myself into a world that I would have been trapped in forever. I could not contemplate that, even though I am sure you would have provided well for me and been generous when you tired of me. A great deal has changed since that time.”

He looked at her in silence for a while. “What has changed?” he asked.

She could feel herself flushing. “I am older,” she said. “I am no longer a v— I have been married. I am a widow.”

She was disconcerted by his silence. “I have been assured,” she said, “that it is quite acceptable for widows as long as they are discreet.” She wished heartily that she had kept her mouth shut and let him approach the subject in his own way. She was not after all speeding things up. She fixed her eyes on his neckcloth.

“That what is acceptable?” he asked. He waited for an answer.

“You are deliberately trying to put me to the blush,” she said, obliging him and hating him for teasing her so.

“Taking a lover?” he said. “Having a discreet, clandestine affair?”

His voice sounded strained. Too late she thought that perhaps she had completely misunderstood him, that he had had no intention of offering her carte blanche. The thought was deeply mortifying and made her feel as if her cheeks must have burst into flame. She forced herself to look up into his eyes.

“Is that not what you meant?” she asked. "‘‘Last evening? When you said that the thing that was between us must be settled? Have I misunderstood?”

“I thought, Harriet,” he said, “that you were a woman of unassailable virtue. That you had come here in search of a husband.”

He thought that she was throwing herself at his head. He thought that she was trying to trap him into making her a marriage offer. “I may well marry again,” she said, “if I find someone with whom I believe I can live with mutual affection. There are already gentlemen ... Mr. Hardinge is attentive... I don’t know. But in the meanwhile—”

“In the meanwhile you are prepared to take me as a lover?” he asked.

He did not sound his usual mocking self. But then he had not last night either. There was this thing between them to be settled. She forced herself to keep her eyes on his.

“Yes,” she said. “If that is what you wish. If that is what you meant. I—I should have let you speak first. I am nervous. I have never done anything like this before.” She smiled and then wished she had not done so. He did not smile back.

“How could it not be what I wish?” he asked. “I have made no secret of my desire for you, Harriet, either six years ago or this year. I did not believe you would accept carte blanche.”

Was he disappointed that she had said yes? Disappointed in her? But why would he have brought her here to make such an offer if he had expected to be rejected?

“You said yourself,” she told him, “that there is something between us. There is. I believe I will always be sorry if I do not seize this opportunity to put that something to rest. It will be put to rest, will it not? Once we have h-had each other, we will gradually begin to t-tire of each other. We will, won’t we?” The absurdity of her words struck her so forcibly that she wanted to laugh. She clamped her teeth together so that she would not do anything so embarrassingly inappropriate. The words would doubtless be true of him. As for herself—she wondered if she was letting herself in for a heartache that would be too great to bear. She thought she probably was. But she would not change her mind.

"Yes,” he said. “I suppose we will. Did you have in mind an affair for this Season only, Harriet? Not a continuing one? It would be just as well, I suppose. I have never found my interest in a mistress lasting beyond a few months.”

It felt a little like a slap on the face. His silver eyes seemed suddenly and inexplicably icy.

“I think I have been mistaken,” she said. “I think I have misread this situation, your grace. I believe you fully expected me to refuse as I did before. It was what you wanted, so that you could tease me with my primness for the rest of the Season. That is it, is it not? I’m sorry. I am not too well versed in the ways of polite society. I should like to go home now, if you please.”

She made to walk past him, trying very hard to hold on to her dignity. She felt more mortified than she had ever felt in her life. She had thrown herself at a man and been rejected and insulted. I have never found my interest in a mistress lasting beyond a few months. And yet it was an idea she had been the first to suggest.

But he caught her arm in a hold that she knew would only tighten if she struggled to get away. She stood still, looking ahead of her along the path.

“I only want you to know, Harriet,” he said, "what it is we would be beginning. A purely physical relationship to be conducted in an absolutely clandestine manner. We would have to be quite sure that no breath of scandal could attach itself to either of us—especially to you. Men are excused a certain number of wild oats. We would have to meet during the afternoons for the express purpose of having sexual relations—in broad daylight. There would be no more to it than that. I would continue my courtship with Lady Phyllis Reeder. I will marry her this summer, have my child in her this autumn. You would continue your courtship with Hardinge or with someone else.”

“Yes,” she said.

“There is no romance in such affairs,” he said. "No love.”

"No.” She swallowed.

“Only sexual gratification,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure it is what you want?” he asked. “Are you sure it would be enough for you? Are you sure your conscience will allow you to enjoy it?”

She was not sure of any of the three. She wanted to shake her head and put an end to the madness there and then. She wanted to go home to Susan. Home to Bath. She wanted Godfrey.

“Is it what you want?” she asked. “I thought it was. I thought that was what you brought me here to ask. Was I mistaken? Have I made an utter cake of myself? You said at the beginning of this conversation that you wanted me.”

He looked at her for a long moment without saying anything. “It is what I want, Harriet,” he said. “It is what I have wanted for six years. But I do not want to hurt you. I have had numerous mistresses, my dear, numerous affairs. I know what it is to begin them and I know what it is to end them. It is not always either easy or painless. I would have you understand what it is you are agreeing to.”

“We both know when the end is to be,” she said. “There need be no awkwardness or pain when the time comes. By then I daresay we will both be glad to move on.” She wondered if he believed her words as little as she did.

“Very well, then,” he said. “We are agreed.”

There was the welling of panic. And terror. And excitement..

“Yes,” she said calmly.

He bent his head and kissed her openmouthed but lightly. He made no move to touch any part of her except her mouth.

“It is late today,” he said, his tone quite brusque and matter-of-fact. “I don’t think either of us would like to be rushed, especially our first time, would we?”

She swallowed.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “The same time as today? You must walk from the house. I shall be waiting for you at the corner with a plain carriage.”

A carriage.

He must have read her thoughts. “I have a house,” he said. “We will go there.”

He had a house. Of course he would. She knew that he did not mean his home. That was the very last place he would think of taking her. He had a house where he took his mistresses and his casual amours. An establishment he kept just for that purpose. It must be used often enough to justify the expense of keeping it. But she did not want to think about that. There was humiliation in the thought. A house, after all, was better than a carriage.

“Come,” he said, “we have stood here long enough. It is a conveniently deserted and secluded path, is it not? I must remember the fact for future reference.”

She smiled, but her lips felt stiff. She took his arm, felt its muscled hardness, and wondered what both arms would feel like tomorrow holding her. She wondered what he would feel like and turned her head sharply to try to focus both her eyes and her mind on the bushes at either side of the path.

“Now, Harriet,” he said, “we must have a glimpse of this pagoda so that you may give me your opinion of it. Then I shall give you mine at great length and by that time we will have thought of other topics of conversation and be comfortable together again. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she said. “But you speak of the pagoda with the utmost contempt in your voice. Is it so ugly?”

“I shall allow you to judge for yourself,” he said. “I would not dream of trying to form your opinions in advance.”

Unexpectedly, blessedly, they did find topics with which to fill the silence during the remainder of their time at Kew and during the drive home again. But of course, Harriet thought, he was an expert at dalliance. This situation was nothing very novel for him. It was not a momentous occasion as it was for her. She was being foolish—a woman of eight-and-twenty being so squeamish about beginning an affair that had been mutually agreed upon.

When they arrived back at Sir Clive’s, he drew his horses to a halt and paused before jumping down to the pavement. He touched the back of her hand briefly, though he did not take hold of it. It was possible that they were being observed from one of the surrounding houses.

“Harriet,” he said, “nothing is written in stone, you know. If you wish to change your mind, I shall not cut up nasty. If you do not appear at the street corner tomorrow afternoon, I shall not come storming into the house demanding an explanation. Until I join my body to yours, nothing is irreversible. Ah, the blush. It always fires my desire. I would think it artful if I did not know you better.”

It would be so easy. He was making it easy. She could look at him, or even not look at him, and tell him that after all it was something she just could not do. And she could not do it. The idea had been ingrained in her mind during her growing years and on her heart when she was old enough to make her own decisions—the idea that a woman’s body was her exclusive property and the property of whatever man she took in holy matrimony. Her body was hers and had been Godfrey’s and was now hers again. She could not give it to the Duke of Tenby in casual lust. It was too precious a possession.

He touched her hand again. “You do not even need to say anything,” he told her. “I understand. Shall I find something else to do with myself tomorrow afternoon?”

“No,” she said. “I have not changed my mind and will not. I shall be there tomorrow.”

He jumped down to the pavement and lifted her down after him. He took her hand and raised it to his lips “Until tomorrow, then, Lady Wingham,” he said. “Each hour between now and then will drag by.” For the first time there was heat in his eyes.

She smiled and hurried past him into the house.