Page 14 of My Secret Duke
“I believe she has a guest list already,” Vivienne went on with a shaky smile. “And I am to have a new gown for the event. She is determined that Gabriel’s marriage to me will not prevent the Ashtons from retaking their proper place in the ton, and I assured her I will do my best to help in any way I can.”
Then she glanced about at the damp, neglected part of the house they were standing in and sighed. “I think I have seen enough for now. I might need a lie down. The dowager told us we will be having a family dinner tonight, to celebrate the beginning of our new lives as Duke and Duchess of Grantham.”
Olivia didn’t envy her negotiating that rocky road. She had seen the sort of strain her mother had been under all her life, and although she did not agree with the way Felicia had neglected her daughters, she could also appreciate the pressure of keeping up appearances.
They were almost back to the ducal rooms when there was a shriek from the direction of the stairs.
“Vivienne! Gabriel!”
Edwina came galloping toward them, released from the schoolroom above, and there could be no more confidences shared after that. Olivia, who had intended to warn Vivienne that Lady Felicia had risen from her bed, forgot all about it.
It was only later, as they sat down at the dining table resplendent with the best Ashton silver, candles blazing, that she remembered. By then, it was too late. As Gabriel and Vivienne took their seats with the dowager and the six rather subdued sisters, Felicia made her way into the room. Gabriel looked up and frowned, and Vivienne’s eyes widened.
The dowager smiled without humor. “Felicia. You have not yet met Harry’s son and his wife. Gabriel… Vivienne, this is Lady Felicia Ashton.”
In silence, Felicia stared down the table at her husband’s bastard son, who had turned out to be the legitimate heir, and who had taken everything from her. Olivia wasn’t sure what her mother was thinking, but it was obvious from her expression that her thoughts were not pleasant ones. Tonight, her mother’s hair was dressed in a coronet upon her head, and Olivia noticed again how the dark waves were streaked with silver. She had even dressed in one of her more opulent, if sadly out-of-date, gowns. Olivia only knew it was out-of-date because she had lately been in London and had seen the latest fashions for herself.
Felicia paused as she was about to sit and then changed her mind, causing Humber to grip her chair back and shoot a glance at the dowager. But all she said was, “Welcome home,” in a voice without inflection.
It was an awkward moment but at least it was over now. Olivia breathed a sigh of relief as the meal was served. Perhaps it would be all right, she told herself. And perhaps this grand welcome home event her grandmother was planning would go off without a hitch and launch Olivia back into the life she so desperately desired.
Chapter Six
Ivo glanced across the coach at his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Northam, and his two sisters, Adelina and Lexy. They were close to their destination now:Grantham. Ivo shifted restlessly in his seat and straightened the cuffs of his perfectly fitted green jacket. He felt a little guilty for purchasing the garment but had reminded himself that one must look prosperous if one wanted to prosper. His man of business would probably not agree, although their discussion had proven very helpful, and the bank had increased the mortgage on Whitmont. When Ivo saw the figure it now stood at, he had felt rather queasy. But it meant he could buy into Cadieux’s, and with the projected profits from the gambling hell and the smuggling, he felt more hopeful than he had in years that he might finally begin to divest himself of the albatross around his neck.
All the same, he’d rather not be on his way to Grantham, the home of the Ashtons. The Fitzsimmonses hadn’t always been on the Ashtons’ automatic guest list, but these days, the Dowager Duchess of Grantham was furiously throwing out invitations in every direction. And it was an unfortunate circumstance, in Ivo’s opinion, that because Annette and Vivienne were cousins, and Annette was a friend of the Fitzsimmonses, his family had been included under the heading of “close friends and family.”
They had been promised entertainment. Firstly,tonight there was a dinner for those aforementioned close friends and family, and then on the following night, a celebratory ball. The ball was a “welcome home” event and open to anyone the dowager could entice or cajole into attending—she obviously meant it to be a much-talked-about success. For those who wished to stay on at Grantham after the ball, there was the promise of picnics and shooting parties and other tempting diversions.
The dowager had, in Ivo’s opinion, proved amazingly resilient when it came to weathering the family scandals. All the same, he wondered how she expected to recover from Gabriel’s marriage to a woman who, although beautiful and no doubt good, was completely ill-chosen. Society was agog about the newlyweds and keen to discover what would happen next. There would always be the sticklers who disapproved, but for others, the Dowager Duchess of Grantham’s welcome home ball had shot to the top of their “must attend” list.
Elaine, Ivo’s mother, had declared her head was spinning from the Ashton goings-on. All the same, she was quick to accept the invitation. The Viscountess Monteith would be in attendance, and Ivo’s mother and the viscountess were bosom bows from their school days, while Annette, the viscountess’s daughter, had carried on the tradition by being best friends with Adelina and Lexy. When the invitation was shown to Ivo by his mother, he had tried desperately to think of an excuse not to attend, but even when he came up with several good ones, she had informed him it was a fait accompli. “You will be escorting myself and your sisters to Grantham, and there is the end to it.”
Elaine Fitzsimmons had been a widow now for thirteen years. Her husband had been a tall, handsome man with fair hair and a big smile, loved by everyone.Although Ivo’s mother played the grieving widow well, he suspected his father’s untimely demise may actually have been a relief—not that she would ever have admitted it. Since his death, the duke’s reputation as a seducer of women had come to Ivo’s attention—some of the older men in the village occasionally let something about his father slip. They had liked him—everyone had—but they hadn’t always been happy with his extramarital activities, especially when it involved their womenfolk.
As he was growing up, Ivo had wanted to be just like his father. The late duke had been a daredevil, game for anything, risking his life again and again, until one day he fell as his horse took yet another high fence and broke his neck. Nowadays, Ivo preferred to think he was his own man. The euphoria that came from smuggling goods across the channel and into Portside still had its exhilarating moments, but some days, it was more like hard work. Although he always smiled when he remembered sharing a glass of good French brandy with Lieutenant Harrison, the senior revenue officer stationed in the Portside area. The man had been unaware he was imbibing contraband, and to risk exposure had probably been foolish on Ivo’s part. And yet he had done it, and enjoyed the frisson of danger.
Over the centuries, the Fitzsimmons fortunes had waxed and waned. Rumor had it that the first Duke of Northam had earned his title and Whitmont estate by performing some unspecified favor for the monarch of the day, a deed so dark it had been hushed up ever since. Perhaps that was where Ivo’s love of intrigue and adventure could be traced back to, along with his desire to lead a double life. It was in his blood. Unfortunately, that early ancestor had ended up on the block with an axe severinghis head from his body.
In an abstract way, Ivo accepted that the law of averages suggested he would one day be arrested for smuggling, now that the government was taking a harder line. Yes, the dukes who had gone before him had been lucky, but that luck would one day run out. If he was caught, he would end up being hanged or imprisoned. What would happen to his family after that? The shame would probably send his mother and sisters into isolation.
Yes, one day he would have to stop, but that time was yet to arrive.
“Annette…”
The whispered name caught his attention. His sisters had their heads together on the other side of the coach, sharing secrets. His mother had heard it too, and she now jerked awake from her doze. “What are you two gossiping about?”
“Oh.” Adelina shared a look with Lexy. “I was just reminding Lexy how strange Annette’s behavior had been recently. She is forever scribbling in her notebooks and barely says a word. Sometimes she looks as if she’s a million miles away.”
Well, at least she’s not pining over me.
His mother must have had the same thought, shooting him a look full of daggers. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Harold doesn’t pop the question before long,” she said. “I shall be very glad to welcome her into our family.”
The two sisters agreed. Adelina looked very much like Ivo in coloring, having inherited their father’s fair hair and light eyes, but Lexy’s locks shone with red highlights, and her eyes were hazel. They were spoken of as a good-looking family, and he knew his mother was proud of her small brood. In appearance, she was nothing likeher children, being small and dark-haired with brown eyes, but the Fitzsimmons blood had prevailed when it came to her offspring.
“I hope you will keep your distance from that minx, Lady Olivia Ashton,” the dowager went on. “I can’t remember that night at the Elphinstones’ without a shudder. Poor Jane was beside herself.” Jane was Annette’s mother, Viscountess Monteith. “The gossips might have quieted down now that they have her brother’s misalliance to talk about, but you can be sure that before long, the girl will do something else outrageous. She is nothing but trouble.”
Ivo tried not to sigh. He had heard this warning from his mother many times since the musical evening. “It was my fault, Mother, as I have explained over and over again. I apologized to Lady Olivia and then did my best to right matters.”
