Chapter 11
Just as Emilia had urged her to do, Celia was now doing things she had never considered or done before.
She was orchestrating the rise of the Duke of Roseford, and she was making love to him every night. It was heaven. Every bit of it.
Oh, in truth, he didn’t need much help. But the help he did need was essential.
People already thought him fascinating. He was incredibly handsome. He was incredibly powerful, and wherever he went, people stared. And it was not just because, as he thought, that he was the product of his father’s scandal. That was definitely part of it.
It actually gave him a certain sort of je ne sais quoi that people adored. He was the talk of the ton, but he had been going about it all in the wrong way, for there was one thing that the ton hated and that was a moralizer.
They had loved Lord Byron when he had gone about and said all he ate was boiled potatoes with a splash of vinegar on them. But what they had genuinely loved was his passionate nature. And she knew for a fact that Dominic was passionate.
Oh, how she knew!
He had made that quite plain to her in the last days since they had all but ambushed him in the East End and he had decided to come live in Heron House.
She had held her breath as she’d waited for his answer. And she did not know why it had mattered so much to her, but it had.
Since he had agreed, every day had been spent trying to show him how he could turn the ton into veritable fans of the Duke of Roseford, and that was genuinely what he needed.
She was no fool. She had left all the peacocking of society behind as a girl, just as Emilia had, because she had no interest in it, not because she couldn’t be good at it.
No, no. She loved Shakespeare. She loved helping people in the East End.
And she did it in the ways that she could.
But Dominic could help people on an entirely different level.
He could help millions of people around the globe.
And so he had a duty to do things that made him uncomfortable.
He could not be swayed by mere personal preference, and perhaps that was what was inspiring her to make lists, to push herself out of the boundaries of her own comfort, and to realize that the ton was just as fascinated by her as they were by him.
The ball was packed to the brim at Heron House. Every ball at Heron House was because no person in the ton missed an opportunity to come and see the place and how the notorious family operated.
Music played in the ballroom, fine, gorgeous strings and wind instruments. Every single member of the orchestra had been brought over from Eastern Europe, a place ravaged by the many wars over the last decades.
The dowager duchess and Duchess Mercy still and always would support musicians. Oh, they supported local musicians too, which was why, in the orangery, there was a small selection of string instruments being played by musicians selected from local English music schools.
The family was invested in not only helping the great artists who were currently successful, but in raising up new ones, so that one day they could take the place of those who had come before.
Gold was everywhere, embroidered into the gowns in the most elaborate of patterns and in the waistcoats of the gentleman.
The skirts of the day were now very different than they had been a decade before, and in some ways, Celia lamented this.
The end of the functionality of clothes.
A decade ago, when she should have had her first Season, the gowns had been very sensible in construction.
They’d been quite easy to move in.
Young ladies could take full breaths that felt quite good.
But now skirts were getting ever fuller and ever wider.
Waists were growing ever narrower. Hair was becoming ever more outlandish.
Young ladies were sticking more and more flowers and ribbons into their curls.
And they looked like bells walking about with ribbons and various things woven into the hems. The layers made her think of the most elaborate of Austrian cakes that were a trifle too sweet for her liking.
The shoulders were growing more and more mutton hock–like.
Now, she didn’t wish to be a wet blanket and all doom and gloom.
She could agree that sometimes it was quite fun to look like a bonbon.
She was not austere. Austerity did no good for anyone.
She loved the beautiful things in life, but she also did appreciate the practical ones.
For it was hard to get things done when dressed like a bonbon.
The Duke of Roseford did not look like a bonbon, but at present, he was most certainly surrounded by those who did.
She smiled as she looked at Roseford. He was standing amidst a circle of ladies who were gushing over him.
Now, any other young woman in her circumstance might have been terribly jealous.
She was not because she knew exactly where Roseford slept at night, what he did, and who he looked at all day long.
He slept with her, spent his hours with her, and looked at her.
She was the subject of his fantasies and his interest. He’d made that clear. And she couldn’t believe how much she enjoyed it. She knew it wouldn’t last. They were together for a season, and she was going to enjoy it, just as Emilia had told her to do.
Emilia had been very correct. Her sister was always, most infuriatingly, correct.
Celia had been in a rut. She’d needed to change her viewpoint. She’d needed to pursue something different. And when she was done with this, she would be all the better for it and be able to devote herself to the Shakespeare school with fresh eyes and new hope.
Though he might despise it, Roseford gave her hope.
Despite her claims about hope when she’d met him, it was actually hard to have hope when one looked around at the cruelty of so many and the determination to keep so many in the gutter.
But in this room, with her family and so many of the men who had married into it, and with Roseford as well? While they were here, she would not give in, and she would do whatever she could to help.
Over the last days, they had educated Roseford on exactly what he was to say.
At present, as she stood just on the outskirts of his devoted pack of young ladies, he was waxing poetically about the new house that he was building alongside the river, using only tools and materials made by free peoples.
Yes, he would not use anything that came out of slavery.
It was no easy thing. He was sparing no expense. And she knew that tomorrow a fad would begin.
Every young lady in that room would ensure that their gowns were made with free labor and harass their fathers about the importance of liberating the enslaved people in the English colonies.
Though they might seem like nitwits, they weren’t. They might be easily led, but the English could be extremely determined. The young ladies would investigate where their silks were coming from. They would investigate their father’s wealth and then demand answers.
It was the exciting hope of a trend.
She had heard about what had happened years and years ago when several young women had gotten together and put on a sugar boycott. It had not ended slavery, but it had helped to end a stage of slavery, and that had been incredibly important.
And that was what Celia had learned over the years.
Things often had to be changed in degrees, and she could not wait for the next one with Roseford at the helm. He had already had several meetings with several of the leading figures in English abolition. Her Uncle Leander had arranged the introductions.
She had sat in on a few of those meetings, and she was going to encourage Roseford to use the outdoor pagoda that had been recently set up at the back of Heron House to host a large dinner with William Wilberforce as the guest of honor.
She beamed at Dominic. He spoke with the ladies a little bit more, and then he met her gaze. He gave said ladies a little bow, then said, “Excuse me. There is someone who needs my attention.”
The ladies sucked in a collective gasp, fans, handkerchiefs, and ribbons fluttering, each one wishing that they were the subject of his attention. And when they swung their eyes to her, following his gaze, several jaws all but fell to the floor.
And once he strode towards her?
The whispers began, as they always did.
No one could seem to understand why he would be so fascinated with a spinster. A Briarwood spinster, but a spinster, nonetheless. Surely a duke would not choose a young lady who was in her early thirties for his bride! Such a thing would be madness.
She wanted to laugh. She wanted to tell every single one of them that they needn’t worry, that soon he would be on the marriage mart, and he would no doubt choose a dewy-eyed bride to be his duchess and produce his heirs.
But for now, she would let them think whatever they chose because it only increased everyone’s fascination with him and willingness to do whatever he pleased.
Yes, she was helping him take London by storm, her whole family was, and she felt good about it. So when he took her arm, led her to the floor, and said, “At long last, I get to have you in my arms,” she felt like swooning. Swooning! Her! And she loved it. It was so different and so fun.
As the music started, they swayed, and he began to whirl and twirl her across the floor, and she gave herself into the feel of it. She did not care a whit for all the stares. Those stares did not matter. The more people who stared, the better, in her personal opinion.
Emilia was gazing on and gave a little round of applause to show her approval. How she loved her sister and how she trusted her. She should always do exactly as Emilia said, because Emilia was right. This season with the Duke of Roseford was giving her new life.
And he looked as pleased as the cat with the cream too!
She leaned in a little bit closer and whispered to him, “Having fun, are we?”
“Fun is not the right word,” he said. “I feel as if I’m duping all of them, and that makes me feel horribly guilty.”
“You are not,” she scoffed. “You are being yourself. You are being grandiose. You are being bombastic, and you are getting them on your side.”
“I’m not bombastic,” he drawled.
She snorted. “You most definitely are. You are very loud, very entertaining, and all you need is a stage. You would be wonderful upon it.”
“I’m not an actor,” he countered, knowing that many in her family had chosen that profession or came from it.
“No,” she agreed. “But you have the ability to move large groups of people with your personality, something most of us cannot ever hope to do.”
He gazed down at her. “You could do it.”
She gave a sharp shake of her head. “No, not at all. I am meant for small classrooms with young people and guiding their minds in that way. That’s what gives me satisfaction.”
He studied her. “I don’t know about that. I think you could cause an entire room to turn with just a crook of your little finger.”
She laughed. “No, I could cause you to turn with just a crook of my little finger and perhaps a kiss or two.”
“Oh,” he said laughing. “I won’t deny the power of your kisses. I think I would cross the entire continent for one of those.”
She beamed up at him. “See, you know exactly what to say, Your Grace. You make my heart flutter.”
“If only I could believe that,” he whispered, his eyes dark with his desire for her. “I do believe I make many parts of you flutter, but your heart? Your heart seems most elusive. You are keeping it to yourself.”
“I warned you that I would,” she teased, though she was serious too. “I am not the young lady for you. I think you know that.”
“I cannot agree,” he sighed. “You’re in my every thought, you know, when I am awake and when I am asleep. You are there.”
“Oh dear,” she lamented, not certain if she should be serious or playful. “You make me sound like the most terrible of plagues. I plague your dreams, do I? Your every waking moment?”
“Plague,” he gasped. “Only if desire is a plague,” he murmured. “And you’ve given me renewed energy.”
She laughed.
“Is that funny?” he said, his brows drawing together.
“No,” she said, most serious now as it hit her. An inescapable thing. “It’s just that you’ve done exactly the same for me.”