Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Ithink Magnus should invite Lady Helena to dance,” opined Rose, Duchess of Ravenhill to her mother.
“You mean Lady Helena, the younger daughter of Lord and Lady Copley?” Eugenia, Duchess of Westvale, queried doubtfully. “I hear she is a most accomplished musician and energetic dancer but…”
Rose looked once more across the ballroom to where the petite and dark-browed Lady Helena stood talking with her friends. The young woman’s hair was cut in a fashionable short crop, likely too fashionable for her mother’s generation, but only intriguing to Rose.
“Why not? Magnus likes to dance too,” she answered her mother. “The next measure will be a reel, I think, and would suit both of them.”
“I am here, you know, Rose,” grumbled Magnus beside her.
“You and mother have been talking all night as though I am not present, or do not know my own mind. ‘Magnus might get along with Lady Penelope,’ ‘Miss Hawkins like country walks, and so does Magnus,’ ‘would that young dowager consider Magnus, do you think?’”
Rose giggled at her brother’s impression of their talking which was all too accurate and not seriously ill-tempered in delivery.
With the recent improvement in the Duke of Westvale’s heath, Magnus knew that his mother’s mind had turned to matchmaking for her sons and that Edwin had already proved intractable on this subject.
“Oh, stop complaining and go and ask Lady Helena for the next dance,” she told him, with an affectionate pat on the arm. “I should like to meet her too, you know. Do tell her that.”
“Very well,” Magnus said, with a put-upon sigh, but a glance of genuine curiosity towards the young lady in question. “If I must. Only please don’t embarrass me before Lady Helena, if I do bring her over.”
“I promise I shall not ask after dowries or how she feels about children or…” his mother began to tease him and Magnus walked away rolling his eyes.
Rose slipped an arm through her Eugenia’s and stood in companionable closeness with her.
“Magnus will be next,” she said to the Duchess of Westvale, who nodded in agreement. “I know it.”
“Well, it certainly won’t be Edwin,” Eugenia sighed. “He told your father again this week that he has no intention of marrying and would be happy enough for the title to pass to your children or Magnus’, in due course. He seems to have washed his hands of the whole business of marriage.”
“Yes, he seems only too keen to delegate certain responsibilities,” Rose observed. “I do not know how you might convince him otherwise.”
“Seeing how well settled and happy you are with the Duke of Ravenhill ought to be convincing enough,” replied Eugenia, shaking her head ruefully. “But he views things in the opposite light. The happier you are, the less need there is for him to marry.”
Rose smiled, indeed feeling happiness through her whole body.
She wore her blue gown from Madame Delacroix tonight and took pleasure in the diamonds sparkling on her bosom even though the décolletage felt lower than ever.
Dorian would not be able to resist her later.
He had barely been able to control himself in the carriage on the way here…
“How you are blooming, Rose!” her mother marveled. “I don’t think I have ever seen you look so well as you do now. It has done your father good to see it too.”
Rose glanced backwards to nearby seating, where her father sat alongside other frail and elderly guests, well propped up with cushions and blankets and enjoying the music.
It was amazing that he had rallied enough to attend this ball at the Earl and Countess of Pelbroke’s house and Rose only hoped that the improvement would last. His physicians were pleasantly surprised and non-committal about the future.
“Where is Dorian?” Eugenia now asked, looking around. “I haven’t seen him for at least an hour.”
“Oh, he had some business to attend to,” Rose said airily. “I told him he might see to it and then return, especially since you and I are so occupied with finding Magnus a wife.”
Eugenia smiled and they both looked across at the dance floor where Magnus and Lady Helena were now lining up for a reel.
“Do they look well together, or is she too short for him?” mused the Duchess of Westvale critically, Lady Helena’s too-modern haircut perhaps too much for her to overcome. “Yes, she is quite short, isn't she?”
“Let them dance, Mother,” Rose laughed. “We shall see what comes after that.”
“My beloved wife,” said a familiar voice then, as arms came around Rose’s waist and warm lips planted a kiss on her cheek.
“You’re back!” Rose remarked with pleasure, leaning into Dorian’s embrace and breathing him in.
“Have you managed to marry Magnus off yet?” Dorian asked Eugenia, with an amused smile.
“We’re working hard,” his mother-in-law assured him, with a nod towards the dance floor. “Rose seems to favor Lady Helena but I am not quite sure…”
“It was a false alarm,” Dorian whispered into Rose’s ear while her mother’s attention was distracted in giving her views on Lady Helena. “The midwife will stay with Jane overnight to be sure, but they think it could be another week yet. Maisie is taking good care of Charlotte.”
“Thank God we are near Richmond tonight,” Rose whispered back, quickly brushing some of the dusk of a hurried ride from Dorian’s jacket before her mother might see and comment on it. “You gave both Jane and Charlotte my love, didn’t you?”
“As if I could ever forget your love,” Dorian answered fondly, kissing Rose’s hair. “Or my own for you.”
When the Duchess of Westvale turned, she saw only her daughter nestling happily in her husband’s arms, their good-looking faces both dreamy and content.
The Duke and Duchess of Ravenhill were commonly described in society gossip columns as the handsomest couple in London and Rose’s mother took personal pride in this.
Then something caught Eugenia Williams’ eye off to the left and her expression became one of disapproval.
“Dear me, poor Madeline!” she commented and both Rose and Dorian followed her line of sight.
At the doors leading to the conservatory, Lady Madeline Bennet appeared to be taking a firm hold of the arm of her young cousin, Lady Francesca, who had apparently been about to vanish into those rooms on the arm of a young lieutenant in a smart blue jacket.
“Oh dear,” Rose sighed. “Francesca is up to her tricks again.”
“The conservatory is already full of elderly dowagers,” Dorian told them, holding back some of his amusement in deference to his mother-in-law. “I just came in that way. Young Francesca would not have come to very much harm.”
“Still, she ought not to be slipping away anywhere with officers without a chaperone,” tutted the Duchess of Westvale. “Another time, the situation might be very different. One cannot be too careful with young ladies.”
The older woman raised a hand towards Lady Madeline, offering a safe port to steer for in the crowded ballroom.
“A young lady alone might meet a wolf in the gardens,” whispered Rose to Dorian and received a grin in return. “A wolf with sharp teeth.”
“A lucky wolf,” he whispered back to her, squeezing her waist.
They straightened their faces before Madeline and Francesca reached them, Madeline’s expression harassed and Francesca’s petulant.
“There were thousands of old ladies in there and we were only going to look at the palms,” Francesca protested to her cousin. “Lieutenant Stevens knows all about botany.”
“I bet he does,” murmured Dorian to his wife sarcastically and Rose laughed before stepping forward to embrace both Madeline and Francesca.
The Duchess of Westvale did the same but then began to lecture Lady Francesca on the importance of good behavior and obeying her older cousin who was only acting in Francesca’s best interests.
The face that Francesca pulled would have brought down the wrath of both ladies had not someone else interrupted the conversation.
Sandy-haired and good-natured, the Duke of Hawcrest greeted the group pleasantly before turning to Madeline with a smile in his blue-green eyes.
“May I have the honor of the next dance, Lady Madeline?”
Madeline blinked in astonishment and Rose recognized that her mind had been far too occupied with supervising Francesca to even remember that she too was a single young lady in a ballroom.
“Or a later dance, if you are presently occupied,” Levi Collins suggested politely, realizing that he might have interrupted something.
“Oh, I had not thought…” Madeline began and seemed lost for words.
It was Dorian who stepped in and smoothed the moment over, on easy terms with everyone, including the Duke of Hawcrest. Rose was glad at how quickly and completely that brief enmity had resolved, seeming to vanish into thin air the moment Dorian had bedded her again at Ashbourne Castle.
“I suspect the greatest favor you could presently do for Lady Madeline would be to dance with young Lady Francesca here and give her poor cousin five minutes respite,” the Duke of Ravenhill suggested with twinkling gravity.
“I also suspect that Lady Francesca would rather dance with you than be lectured by us.”
“I would rather dance with you, Your Grace,” Francesca declared boldly to Dorian, drawing shocked gasps from both Madeline and the Duchess of Westvale at the girl’s effrontery.
“Well, that’s not an option,” laughed Dorian, kissing Rose. “Take your dances while you can, Lady Francesca. You might find yourself locked up for months after tonight if you get on the wrong side of Lady Madeline.”
“As if she could lock me up,” the young woman muttered disrespectfully with a baleful glance to Madeline, but still took the arm that Levi Collins offered her, his expression bemused.
“I will be back for the next dance, Lady Madeline,” he said, with a small bow and began to walk away with Francesca. “If you would be so kind.”
Madeline nodded faintly at his retreating back and then gave a long sigh.
“Thank you,” she told Dorian. “I have been at my wits end with her tonight.”
The Duchess of Westvale made sympathetic noises and patted Madeline on the back.
“Perhaps your cousin ought not to be out yet,” Eugenia suggested. “Could you keep her back another year, do you think?”
Madeline shook her head hopelessly.
“She would escape down the drainpipe to the nearest ballroom,” Dorian proposed and Madeline answered him with a rueful smile.
“You may joke, but I would not put that past her. Francesca simply does not seem to understand that her actions have consequences and that they could be her undoing.”
Her brow creased with worry as she looked towards her cousin. Rose laid a hand on her shoulder.
“You should still dance with the Duke of Hawcrest when he returns though. He is a good man and I believe you would like him.”
“I would watch Francesca for you,” offered the Duchess of Westvale. “You have not been out on the dance floor once tonight, have you?”
Madeline shook her head.
“I could not leave Francesca alone and I am hardly in demand. Do you think your friend really want to dance with me, or was he only being polite? I feel like a frazzled old maid tonight, Rose.”
“Levi Collins would not have asked you, if he did not wish it,” Rose told her. “He is a straightforward man.”
When the Duke of Hawcrest returned from the dance floor to claim Madeline’s hand for the quadrille, she granted it. Meanwhile, taking an iron grip on Francesca’s arm, the Duchess of Westvale steered the girl towards the supper rooms, telling Madeline to find them in there when she was ready.
Over on the dance floor, it seemed that Magnus and Lady Helena were preparing to dance together again, and Rose’s eyes sparkled at the sight of apparently easy conversation between the couple.
“I think our mission here tonight is over,” she said, turning in her husband’s arms to face him.
“Are you telling me to take you home?”
“You may take me wherever you wish, beloved husband,” Rose answered. “But remember how much forgiveness you have yet to earn.”
Dorian grinned, a wolfish smile that animated his whole face and made Rose’s skin shiver in anticipation.
“Oh, I intend to earn it at least once in the carriage and then again in our bed, beloved wife,” he answered. “Then tomorrow, and the next day and the next…”
Looking back at her husband with radiant confidence and desire, Rose gloried in the quickening of his breathing and the way his eyes lingered hungrily on her full and almost naked breasts between diamonds and blue silk.
After all their trials, she was finally the equal of former Duchess Juliana now, and fully mistress of her domain.
Rose was the Duchess of Ravenhill. This handsome, lusty and good-hearted duke belonged to her, and she to him. They would never be parted again.
Hand in hand, a few minutes later, the Duke and Duchess of Ravenhill slipped quietly from the ballroom and out into the night.