Bertrice Small - The Duchess

"I suppose it isn't a bad thing," she grudgingly considered.

"No," he agreed, "it seems to be quite a pleasant thing."

"I shall never betray you like my mother did my father," she promised him. "Mama, they say, was always emotional and indiscreet. I am my father's daughter, Quinton, I swear it."

"I know you are, my dearest Allegra. Despite your great fortune I should have never married you had I believed for one moment that you would betray me or bring embarrassment upon my family's name."

"What do we do now?" she asked him.

"We live happily ever after, I believe,'' he answered her with a broad smile. "We make love and have little heirs and heiresses, and live happily ever after, Allegra."

"It seems simple enough, but life, I have found, is rarely that simple, Quinton," she replied. "It ought to be, but it isn't."

"It will be for us, my darling," he promised her.

The clock on the mantel struck four o'clock.

"Good lord!" Allegra cried, leaping up in their bed. "We have guests in the house to attend to, my lord. This is their last night with us. Our friends go home tomorrow, and I don't know when we will see each other again." She squirmed from his embrace, and jumped from their bed. "Oh, lord, I hope no one has come downstairs and asked for us yet. Oh, Quinton! Get up! Get up now, my lord!" She yanked the bell pull for Honor. "I have to get dressed. I have to see that the dinner menu is correct."

"Crofts will attend to the dinner menu, Duchess," her husband said calmly. "You have a most adorable bottom, madame."

"Ohh!" Allegra flushed bright pink. She was completely naked. She had come from her bed unawares, so great was her concern for their friends. Then she laughed. There was no use grabbing for something to cover herself now. "Get up, Quinton," she repeated sternly.

He grinned lazily at her, and slid from the bed, as naked as she. "I had best retire to my own quarters before I shock poor Honor," he said with a chuckle. Then he blew her a kiss from his fingertips, and was gone through the connecting door.

At that same moment Honor entered her mistress's bedchamber. "Good afternoon, my lady," she said calmly, avoiding looking at Allegra directly as she was unclothed. "Shall I bring you something to eat?"

"Our guests?" Allegra almost squawked.

Honor calmly went to the wardrobe and took out a silk chamber robe which she draped over her mistress. "Only just beginning to stir, my lady. Mr. Crofts has everything under control."

"I must get downstairs as quickly as possible," Allegra said. "It will not do to have the guests without their hostess."

"Yes, my lady," Honor replied. "I'll send an undermaid for your tea right away."

When Allegra descended the stairs an hour later she found the house still quiet. She peeped into the ballroom as she came, and discovered it neat and empty. The beautiful wooden floors were swept clean. The chairs and the settees lining the walls were neatly covered. The great chandeliers had been done up again in dust cloths until the next ball. The tall pedestals were bare of their flowers, and the heavy gold satin draperies were drawn, allowing only slivers of afternoon sunlight to creep between their panels and streak across the floor. Entering the family drawing room she found Sirena sitting, sewing upon a tiny garment.

"You are awake. Crofts said you had not got to bed until alter seven o'clock," Sirena said. "You must be exhausted. It was a wonderful ball, cousin. I hope to come to others in this house when I am less encumbered by my belly." She smiled at Allegra.

"I love him," Allegra answered. She simply could not keep such news from her beloved Sirena.

"I know," Sirena replied, looking up and smiling.

"How could you know when even I did not?" her cousin demanded. "Do not be smug, Sirena, or I shall be very cross with you."

Sirena laughed. "Ocky and I both knew the day you married Quinton that you were in love with him. It was simply a matter of you coming to terms with it, facing the truth, and admitting it to yourself. Love is neither practical nor sensible, Allegra, but when it touches you, you are forever changed. We saw that change even before you could face it yourself. I am not being smug. I am relieved, and I am happy for you both. Now I know that everything will be all right."

"I shall not change because I am in love with my husband," Allegra protested.

"I do not care how you justify it, cousin," Sirena said quietly. She held up a tiny gown she was working on. "Isn't it sweet? It is so amazing to realize that in late March or early April I shall be putting this wee gown on my baby." She set her sewing aside, and placed her hands upon her belly. "I thought I felt something very much like a butterfly within me this morning, Allegra."

Now Allegra smiled. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if one day my daughter married your son? We must arrange the match one day."

"Are we dressing for dinner?" Caroline Walworth entered the room now in the company of Eunice Bainbridge.

"No," Allegra said. "I shall ask Crofts to set up the highboard in the Great Hall tonight. We can amuse ourselves afterward, but since you are all leaving in the morning, I imagine you will want to make an early night of it." She sighed. "I shall miss you when you are gone."

"Bain says we are going to spend part of the winter in London," Eunice said.

"So are we," Caroline squealed. "I know that you don't like the city, Allegra, but the country is so dull in the winter months. You must come, and we shall all be together."

"I can't come," Sirena said sadly.

"No, you can't," Caroline replied in a practical tone, "but you were the first wed, and so it is only natural that you are the first of us to have a baby, Sirena. There will be another time for you, dearest, but if the rest of us aren't with child, or at least admitting to it, then we should go. If it snows this winter none of us shall be able to leave home. The snow does not seem to bother anyone in London."

"Are we keeping city hours, madame?" Quinton Hunter demanded of his wife as he entered the drawing room with the other gentlemen. "Where is the dinner, Duchess? We are all ravenous for a good supper."

"Patience, prithee, I pray you, Duke," Allegra said to him. "I must ask Crofts to set the table in the Great Hall, but the food, I will wager, is ready, although when you slugabeds were going to join us was a mystery." Then she curtsied to them all, and hurried from the room to find Crofts.

The dinner was served shortly thereafter, and the hall was filled with merry laughter as the eight friends ate and talked. Lady Caroline presented her plan that they should all meet in London in mid-January. The plan was heartily approved by all present except the viscount and his wife.

"I suppose you could go if you wanted to," Sirena said forlornly, but they could all see she really didn't mean it.

"You wouldn't mind?" Ocky said hopefully, but then he looked about at the others, and noted their looks of disapproval. "Of course you wouldn't mind for you are an angel, my darling," Ocky quickly recovered himself, "but I shall not leave you at Pickford with our heir so close to being born. What if there was a storm, and I couldn't return to be by your side? No, Sirena, we shall winter at Pickford together."

"Ohh, Ocky, that is so sweet," Sirena murmured happily.

After their meal the men decided to play at dice. The ladies insisted on being shown how to play.

"I am not certain that is a good idea," the Earl of Aston said.

"Afraid of losing to a lady, Marcus?" his wife murmured.

"Damnit, Eunice, there are some things a lady doesn't do," was the swift answer.

"Ladies play at gambling all the time," Allegra responded. "We play at cards, but this game you call Hazard looks like more fun."