The Ugly Duchess

Page 12

“Indeed,” Geoffrey Trevelyan chimed in. He waved his hand with that dilettantish, amused air that Theo appreciated and James loathed. “Wouldn’t have thought you had it in you, Islay. All that ardor and whatnot.”
The reminder that Theo had wanted Geoffrey crashed into James’s mind like a great wave. He turned to look at her, but she was gone.
The next few minutes passed like some sort of dizzy nightmare. James found himself bowing to the prince, who was genially cheerful about the whole thing. “Passions of the heart, what ho! They say polite society doesn’t have passion, but I’ve always disagreed.” And he threw a lustful glance at Mrs. Fitzherbert, standing to his right.
James flinched, and bowed his way out of the room. His father’s effusive congratulations spilled out the moment they were in their carriage.
“I had no idea you’d go straight for the prize like that!” Ashbrook bellowed. “Proud of you! I’m proud of you! You’re as randy as I am, and you used it to perfection. I would never have thought of doing it myself. She looked at you as if you were King Arthur and Lancelot rolled into one.”
“Do not ever speak about my future wife in such a manner,” James hissed.
“No doubt you’re feeling short-tempered. It must be a shock. Yesterday you were a carefree bachelor, squiring that luscious young opera dancer about the town, and now you’re on the verge of being leg-shackled.”
James ground his teeth but remained silent.
His father burbled on but kept coming back to James’s adroit brilliance in compromising Theo in front of the Prince.
As they rounded the corner of their street, James felt his control snap. He reached out and grabbed his father’s neck cloth, crushing the elegant concoction of starch and linen topped by the duke’s weak chin. “You will never say a word about this night to me, ever again. Do you understand?”
“No reason to be so violent about it,” the duke said. “Not the proper attitude for a son, may I point that out?”
“I consider myself to be addressing not a father but an embezzler,” James said, his voice icy. But at the same time he knew that for all he blamed his father, it was he who was the real villain. He had betrayed Daisy.
“Well,” Ashbrook huffed. “I don’t see why you would wish to characterize my ill luck in such a harsh fashion, but I assure you that I have no mind to discuss this night with you. I merely wanted to offer my congratulations. The fact that I expressed a need for help, and you responded within the day, doing precisely what I asked you to . . . well, it makes up for many of life’s smaller blows.”
And then he sat back and beamed at his son and heir until the carriage door opened.
James waited until his father descended before leaning forward to empty his stomach onto his own shoes, not that there was anything in his stomach but cognac and bitterness.
Seven
June 14, 1809
The wedding of James Ryburn, Earl of Islay, future Duke of Ashbrook, to a little-known heiress, Miss Theodora Saxby, drew the kind of breathless attention usually reserved for royal nuptials. The scandal rags, in particular, had latched onto the story of a true love match.
The account of Miss Saxby’s care of James during his childhood illness had been told, retold, and embellished until, by a fortnight before the wedding day, most of London believed she had read to him on his deathbed, and her voice alone kept him from drifting into an eternal sleep.
By one week before the wedding, the young Miss Saxby had actually revived James as he swooned into that “dark night from which there can be no recovery” (as the Morning Chronicle put it).
And the wedding itself promised to be as lavish as that of a princess. Not only had it been orchestrated in a matter of mere months, but no expense had been spared. The Duke of Ashbrook had declared that nothing was too good for the wedding of his ward to his only son and heir.
On the grand day itself, Miss Saxby was delivered to St. Paul’s in a lavishly gilded open carriage that made its way through crowded streets, most of London having turned out in hopes of catching a glimpse of the bride.
Reporters for London’s papers, from the august Times to rags like Tittle-Tattle, were clustered together by the door of the cathedral. As the carriage approached, they crowded forward, pressing against the barricade erected to keep out hoi polloi.
“The bride,” scribbled Timothy Heath, a young reporter for the Morning Chronicle, “looked like a French confection, her skirts a veritable cloud of silk and satin. She wore flowers in her hair and held a bouquet in her hands as well.” He paused. Miss Saxby wasn’t a pretty girl, which made it all a bit difficult. “The future duchess,” he finally wrote, “has a profile that is worthy of the peerage. Her features speak to the generations of Englishmen and women who have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our monarchs.”
The reporter from Tittle-Tattle had a simpler and considerably more brutal summary. “She’s an ugly duchess and I’ll be damned if she’s ever going to turn into a swan,” he exclaimed, watching as the Duke of Ashbrook held out his hand to help his ward from the carriage.
Although he was likely speaking to himself, every reporter in the vicinity heard him and rejoiced. Tittle-Tattle put out a special evening edition whose headline screamed, “The Ugly Duchess!” Editors all over London took one look at that catchy précis and swapped their morning headline for a version of Tittle-Tattle’s.
All the young ladies who had sighed over James’s broad shoulders and handsome face giggled into their morning tea. And all the gentlemen who had ever contemplated dancing with Miss Saxby felt virtuously satisfied that they hadn’t lowered their standards in exchange for her dowry.
The received idea that James was wildly in love with his “ugly duchess” turned overnight to a ridiculous myth that no one believed. Obviously the Earl of Islay had married for money: there could be no other explanation. And what the press declared to be fact, England believed.
“I’m that surprised,” a young opera dancer named Bella confided to another member of the corps the morning after the nuptials. She had found herself the recipient of a large emerald and a formal good-bye a few months earlier. “I would never have picked him for the sort who’d go all sober when he got married, especially if he was marrying a woman like that.”
She pointed to an illustration in their favorite theatrical gossip page, which had dashed out a quick approximation of an “ugly duchess.” It was more of a caricature than a portrait, with a few scattered feathers showing under her bonnet.
“He’ll be back,” her friend Rosie replied. Rosie was more cynical, and wiser. “Give him six months.”
Bella tossed her curls. “I shan’t wait six months for anyone. There are gentlemen lined up at the door waiting for me, I’ll have you know.”
“Well, I feel sorry for her,” Rosie said. “She’s being called ugly in every paper in London. She’s bound to find out. And when one of them”—by which Rosie meant the gently born—“gets a nickname like that, they have it for life.”
Staring at her reflection in the glass, Bella adjusted the emerald necklace and thought about how her pink and cream loveliness must provide a terrible contrast with James’s new bride. “I’m sorry for him. I heard she hasn’t any curves. He loved my apple-dumplings, if you know what I mean.”