Mary Balogh - Simply Love

“Your wish is, as ever, my command, my love,” the duke said.

“He will be invited. Or rather, if Rannulf is to be believed, he will be issued a ducal summons.”

“And so we will have two reluctant guests at table tonight,” Rannulf said with a grin. “Perhaps they should be seated side by side, Christine. They can commiserate with each other.”

“You will be putting ideas into the ladies’ heads, Ralf,” Gervase said with a theatrical grimace. “You will be having them matchmaking again.”

Aidan groaned.

“The last time we tried it, though,” Alleyne added, “we were remarkably successful. If we had not been, Christine would not now be at the table with us. Neither would she be the Duchess of Bewcastle.”

The duchess laughed.

The duke set down his coffee cup and raised his quizzing glass again.

“The knock on the head that once robbed you of memory for a few months appears to have left you with a tendency toward occasional delusions, Alleyne,” he said. “The Duchess of Bewcastle is at the table here because I wooed her and won her.”

He viewed his spouse severely along the length of the table through his glass while his family indulged in another outburst of merriment and his duchess smiled tenderly back at him.

“I really must go up now to disturb poor Miss Jewell’s appetite,” she said, getting to her feet. “But I hope only for a moment. You are quite right, Eve. We are really just ordinary people. And she has every right to be here with us. Her son’s father was Joshua’s cousin.”

“A fact you would be wise not to mention in her hearing, Christine,” Joshua warned her. “Albert was never her favorite person. Or mine for that matter.”

“And with very good reason,” Eve said. “I will come up with you, Christine, if I may. I met Miss Jewell when we went to Cornwall the year Freyja was betrothed to Joshua.”

“So did I,” Morgan said, pushing back her chair with her knees. “I remember rather liking her. I’ll come too.”

“The poor woman,” Aidan observed. “I’ll wager she has been hoping to hide away in the nursery for the whole month.”

When a maid arrived to help her dress for dinner, Anne greeted her with some embarrassment, not knowing quite what to do with her. She had never had the services of a personal maid, and she had already donned her best green silk.

“I’ll do your hair, mum, if I may,” the girl offered, and Anne sat obediently on a stool before the dressing table mirror.

She had spent a not entirely unpleasant day, all of it indoors, since there was a drizzling rain outside. She had helped organize games for the children, though she had not by any means been the only one doing so. In the course of the day she had met most of the members of the Bedwyn family except for the duke himself. They all had children and most of them had turned up in the nursery at some point in the day and stayed to play-or to be played with.

They had all treated her with courtesy, though she had stayed as far away from them as she was able.

But she had not been able to avoid taking dinner with the family this evening. The duchess had issued a personal invitation and it really had been quite impossible to refuse.

“You got lovely hair, mum,” the maid said as she brushed it out after removing all the pins.

It was honey-colored, thick and slightly wavy when it was down. Her crowning glory, Henry Arnold had once called it-not very originally-with admiration and something more shining in his eyes. And later someone else had called it the same thing while twining his fingers in it…She had hacked most of it off with small embroidery scissors the day she had realized beyond all doubt that she was with child. It had not been cut since except for an occasional trimming of the ends.

She looked different with her hair down out of its usual neat, prim knot. She knew that and usually avoided using a mirror while combing it and putting it up. With her hair down she looked…voluptuous. Was that the right word? She thought it probably was, though it was a word she hated. She hated her shining fair hair, her oval face with its large blue eyes and straight nose and high cheekbones and soft, generous lips. She hated her full breasts, her small waist, her shapely hips, her long, slim legs.

She had once loved to be called beautiful, and she had been called it often. But her beauty had become a curse to her.

“There, mum,” the girl said at last, stepping back to admire her handiwork in the mirror, having curled and coiled and twisted and braided and teased Anne’s hair into a wonderfully artistic creation. “You are lovely enough to attract a lord. A pity all the ones at the house here are spoken for. But there is Mr. Butler, and he is the son of a lord even if he is only a mister himself.”

“If Mr. Butler falls passionately in love with me on sight this evening,” Anne said, “and offers me his hand and his heart and his fortune before the night is out, then I will have you to thank, Glenys.”

They both laughed.

“And who is Mr. Butler?” Anne asked.

“He is the steward here,” Glenys said. “He is…Well, never mind. But I am not even sure he will be here this evening. I may have done all this work for nothing.” She sighed aloud. “But no matter. I can do it again another time. And there are bound to be outside visitors on other evenings, Mrs. Parry says. There always are when the duke comes. Perhaps there will even be parties this time, with the duchess and all the others being here too. I will do something very special with your hair if there is a party.”

“And this is not special?” Anne asked, indicating her coiffure with a laugh to hide her unease. Dressed thus, it emphasized her features and the long arch of her neck.

“You wait and see,” Glenys said saucily. “You had better go down now, mum. I have taken a bit longer than I ought. Mrs. Parry will be mad with me if you are late, and won’t let me come here again.”

Anne felt very conspicuous as she descended the stairs to the drawing room, though she guessed that she would still look remarkably plain in comparison with the finery the other ladies were bound to be wearing. She also felt very reluctant to keep on putting one foot ahead of the other as she walked. But what choice did she have?

Perhaps after this evening she could fade away into the shadows.

She looked about anxiously for Joshua when she arrived in the open doorway, but it was the duchess herself who came hurrying toward her.

The Duchess of Bewcastle had been a surprise. She had dark, short, curly hair and was extremely pretty, but her beauty came more from her bright vitality than from any particular physical attribute, Anne had decided. She smiled frequently, there seemed to be a permanent sparkle in her eyes, and there was nothing at all in her manner or bearing to proclaim the great elevation of her rank. She was a great favorite in the nursery.

When she had arrived there soon after breakfast with Lady Aidan and Lady Rosthorn, both of whom Anne had met several years before in Cornwall, she had gone out of her way to make Anne feel at home, drawing her up from her curtsy, linking an arm through hers, and leading her away into the darkened room where her young baby slept in his crib, his two little hands curled into fists on either side of his head as if he fully intended swinging them as soon as he awoke. She had even somehow worked into the conversation the fact that she was the daughter of a country gentleman who had been forced to supplement his income by teaching at the village school and that she herself had been teaching part-time at that same school when she had met the duke at a house party she had really not wanted to attend.