Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Livvy hadn’t thought she’d sleep a wink, knowing Devlin was only a few feet away on the other side of the wall, but the stress of the day must have caught up with her, and she woke to the same maid from the previous night bringing her breakfast on a tray.
She sighed in happiness at the fresh scones, jam, and steaming cup of hot chocolate. To have them delivered to her bedside felt truly decadent, a luxury it would be all too easy to become accustomed to.
The question of whether to put her drab black crinoline back on was solved by the arrival of no less than three different dresses, all in shades that were anything but gloomy. And as if Devlin could read her suspicious mind, they came accompanied by a note in his distinctive, slashing script.
These are Daisy’s, left here from last season. Justin spoils her outrageously—he wouldn’t dream of having his duchess wear the same dress twice in one year. She’ll be only too happy to lend them to you. I believe you are much the same size, although you may be a fraction taller.
D.
P.S. I trust the nightgown met with your approval.
Livvy’s cheeks heated at the thought that he might have imagined her in said nightgown.
She chose a blue dress that needed no major adjustments and headed downstairs, bracing herself to meet Devlin.
She found him striding out of the study dressed in buff breeches, white shirt and cravat, and a navy jacket so perfectly tailored to accentuate his broad shoulders that she sent a silent mental salute to his tailor.
His eyes rested on her as she descended the staircase, and his expression was both pleased and appraising.
“There you are! Will you come for a walk in the gardens? I was just going to check a few things.”
“Very well.”
“You’ll need a cloak. It’s cold out. Fletcher!”
Fletcher, it seemed, had perfectly anticipated the request, since he materialized from a side corridor with a velvet-lined cloak which he handed to Devlin.
Livvy turned and allowed Dev to place the cloak around her shoulders, acutely aware of him at her back. The warm fan of his breath against the side of her neck as she freed her hair from the hood made her shiver.
He stepped back, and Fletcher handed her a pair of leather gloves.
“This way.”
They stepped into a library, which Livvy would have loved to explore further, but Dev opened one of the French doors that led onto a terrace with a balustrade and steps leading down to the lower gardens, and she followed.
“Careful, it was a hard frost last night. Don’t slip.” He offered his bent arm to her. Livvy took it, mainly as an excuse to touch him, and together they descended the stairs. Their breath made matching puffs of white in the frosty morning air, and a pale sun struggled to break through the clouds.
She dropped his steadying arm with a pang of regret when they reached the bottom and looked around in interest. “What’s going on here?”
A rectangular section of the lower terrace had been sectioned off, and two workmen seemed to be constructing the edging for a flowerbed, only directly on top of the flagstones, instead of the grass.
“Is it going to be a new pond?” she asked, intrigued.
Devlin sent her a sideways smile. “In a manner of speaking. It’s a genius idea of mine, if I do say so myself. This, my sweet, is going to be an ice-skating pond.”
He gestured at the two men. “Ned and Harry, here, are going to line this whole section with lead, like we put on the roof, to make it watertight, and then we’re going to fill it with a few inches of water.
Considering the freezing temperatures we’ve been having, I’m hoping the whole thing will freeze solid, and be ready for guests to skate on Twelfth Night. ”
“Ingenious,” Livvy murmured.
“Have you ever been skating?”
“Just once, the last time the Thames froze over. I was fourteen, perhaps? Daisy and I went to the frost fair on the ice, and then we went skating on the Serpentine in Hyde Park.”
He gazed out, toward the river further down the gardens that fed into the large expanse of lake. “The lake’s so deep it never freezes completely. It wouldn’t be safe to let people skate. But this,” he nodded at the construction, “should be most entertaining.”
Livvy chuckled. “I’m afraid your reputation for hosting scandalous events just took a dive. Ice skating is a perfectly decorous means of enjoyment.”
“You can’t be doing it right.” His dimple flashed as he sent her a wicked grin. “Ice skating provides ample opportunities for misbehavior; it’s the perfect excuse for couples to grab one another and fall over in an exciting tangle of limbs.”
Livvy rolled her eyes. “I stand corrected. Of course you could make it scandalous.”
“One does try,” he chuckled. “It just requires a little imagination.”
“And a lot of money,” she added dryly.
“You think it’s a ridiculous waste?” he sounded intrigued. “To make something purely for pleasure? It’s not. In fact, it’s my duty as a duke to request such frivolous things.”
“Your duty?”
“Of course. This whim of mine is keeping a score of locals in gainful employment. I’m paying a whole team of people to design, install, and maintain it.
I’ve bought twenty pairs of ice skates from some enterprising vendor in London, not to mention all the extra provisions we’ll need for the party itself: crates of wine, huge amounts of food.
Extra candles. New furnishings – because something always gets broken when people have fun.
Last year I had to commission a new marble fountain at vast expense because some idiot waded into the pond, climbed onto Poseidon’s back, and snapped his head off. ”
He sent her an irresistible grin. “So you see, I’m supporting the artists and tradesmen for miles around. That’s why being a duke is so hard; it takes a lot of brain power to come up with ever-more ludicrous schemes for building follies and grottoes.”
“You could commission someone to paint portraits of all your dogs and horses,” she suggested wryly.
“Already done that. We’re on to racing pigeons and prize-winning livestock now. I’m going to have to start a zoo, like Carys Montgomery, just so there’s something more to paint. That, or commission a life-size marble sculpture of myself.”
“Artfully draped, like Pauline Bonaparte requested of Canova?” she teased.
“I rather thought fully nude, except for a fig leaf to preserve my modesty, like Michaelangelo’s statue of David. A large fig leaf, of course.”
She snorted at the thought, sure her cheeks were turning pink at the mental image of him naked, and he smiled, delighted that he’d made her laugh at something so scandalous.
He gave a casual shrug. “Of course, my duchess could help me with ideas. I imagine you can think up all sorts of ways to redistribute my income to deserving recipients. I know the ladies of King he had political power a woman could only dream of. He could influence the laws of the entire country for the better, if he only bestirred himself.
As his wife, she could influence him.
She tried to dispel the seductive thought. She would only be able to influence him if he valued her opinion, respected her ideas, and loved her enough to want to please her.
Which was currently not the case.
But could it be? Could she make him fall in love with her? Or was hoping for such a thing as ridiculous as creating an artificial skating pond in one’s garden?
Devlin didn’t push her for a response, for which she was glad, and instead he swept his arm towards a series of small buildings visible in the distance.
“I need to check on my weather station. Come on.”
They set off across the lawns, their soles crunching on the frosty grass underfoot and leaving two lines of dark footprints behind them. His boots were much larger than hers.
“I didn’t know you were particularly interested in the weather,” she said, not bothering to hide her surprise. “I thought rakes steered clear of anything that might be classified as scholarly.”
“We must have some respite from all the idleness and dissipation. Drinking, gaming, and conducting torrid affairs becomes quite boring after a while.” He leaned closer, as though to impart a great secret and his shoulder brushed her own. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m actually quite fond of reading.”
“And predicting the rain?”
“Well, that’s a relatively recent interest. I took it up after returning from the continent. In fact, it was Waterloo that made me realize the importance of the weather.”
“What do you mean?”
“Most people don’t know this, but a rainstorm significantly helped our victory.
The night before the battle, it rained incredibly hard, and again in the morning, which turned the fields into a muddy nightmare.
Everyone was wet and cold and miserable.
” He kept his gaze ahead, so she couldn’t see his expression.
“The rain meant Bonaparte delayed the start of the battle. He waited several hours for the ground to dry out, but even that wasn’t enough.
The cavalry’s horses were hock-deep in mud, reduced from a gallop to a canter.
Rifles misfired because of damp powder. The heavy canons of his artillery kept sinking into the mud and getting stuck.
And the cannonballs were less effective than usual—when the ground’s hard they skip across it and inflict more casualties. ”
A wrinkle appeared between his brows as he grimaced, clearly remembering some unpleasant memory, and Livvy fought the urge to put a comforting hand on his arm.
She made a soft hum of encouragement instead, keen for him to continue; he’d never discussed anything to do with the war with her before and she was thrilled that he was opening up to her now.
He gave a small shake of his head and continued. “Anyway, the delay also gave Blucher and the Prussians time to join us. They arrived in the afternoon, just when things were looking really grim, and attacked the French flank. I doubt we would have won without their support.”
“So a thunderstorm is the reason we’re not speaking French right now?”
“Or worse. If Boney had won, and managed to invade, my head would have ended up in a basket beneath the guillotine. He’d have dispatched aristocratic wastrels like me in short order.”
“Thank goodness for rain, then,” she said. “And the bravery of every single man on the battlefield. England owes you all a debt far greater than the ones my father managed to accrue.”
He sent her a pleased glance. “There you go, I told you making jokes about your father was easy. Brava!”
She bit her lip to hide her smile, determined not to encourage his flippancy, but charmed, all the same.