The Duchess Read online

  She tried to tell herself that this was Scotland, that she was no longer in America, but at the same time, she saw the rags the children were wearing. The word “clan” meant children. These people were by tradition Harry’s children, yet he didn’t act as though he were their father.

  She tried not to think of Harry in a bad light. She couldn’t think of Harry in any way except a good one. If she was in love with him then she was in love with him as he really was, not as she wanted him to be.

  She stood and went to the wardrobe to get an afternoon dress. Perhaps Harry didn’t know any other way. Perhaps Trevelyan was right and this was the way Harry had been raised. This was all that he knew.

  After lunch she would talk to him. Perhaps he would be willing to allow her to make a few changes after they were married. Maybe not drastic changes but enough to make a difference. There was no reason why Bramley couldn’t become a paying enterprise. Perhaps that’s what Harry wanted too, except he didn’t know how to go about achieving it. Yes, that was it. She was sure of it.

  She pulled a dress from the wardrobe and began to smile. Yes, that had to be it.

  Chapter Eleven

  I want to know every word she said,” Eugenia, duchess of MacArran, said to her youngest son.

  “Mother,” Harry said. His voice was pleading. “I’m sure Claire didn’t mean—”

  “Let me be the judge of what she meant.”

  “She’s an American. One has to make allowances.”

  Eugenia fixed her son with a look.

  “All right,” Harry said in exasperation. “This morning I took her on a tour of the estate. Charles went with us, or I should say that we went with him.” He paused a moment. “I had no idea so much was going on in this place. It was interesting—not that I want to repeat it, but it was interesting. I must say that Americans are an odd lot, though.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She seemed to like the children. The whole filthy lot of them. She drank milk from pails that had cow manure on the bottom of them. I don’t know how she stood it.”

  “Perhaps after you’re married you shouldn’t allow such things.”

  Harry shrugged. “I don’t think it will matter after we’re married, because the filthy beggars will be gone, won’t they?”

  “You haven’t told her that, have you?” Eugenia asked sharply.

  “I’m not a complete idiot. I’m not going to tell her that you plan to ship her adored crofters off to America or wherever and tear down those hideous old houses and run sheep over the land.”

  “I have no idea why you sound as though it were something bad. It is what nearly all the other landowners have already done.” Eugenia’s voice had a sad tone to it. “After all, Harry, I’m doing this for you.”

  “I know, Mother, and I appreciate it. I’ll be as glad as you to get rid of those houses. Once they’re gone I shall be able to lead hunts across the fields.”

  “And you can profit from the sheep.”

  “Now you sound like Claire.”

  “What does that mean?” Eugenia snapped. “Are you saying that I am like your interfering little American?”

  “No, of course not. I merely meant that Claire talks constantly about ways to make money. She wants to cut down trees; she wants to plant fields with corn; she wants to sell bramble jelly. I don’t know what else. It makes my head swim just listening to her.”

  “She means to run this place,” Eugenia said softly. “She means to have me out of here.”

  “I haven’t heard her say any such thing. I don’t see why my mother and my wife couldn’t work together. If you both want to make this place pay then why not work together?”

  Eugenia looked at her son for a long while, saw the way he was lounging in his chair, bored with the whole idea of work. Together! Eugenia thought. What Harry didn’t realize was that the two women were about to engage in a power struggle, and Eugenia meant to win.

  Eugenia gave a loud moan and put her hand to her ankle. Her left foot was encased in a thick, built-up, black leather boot.

  Harry came instantly alert. “Mother, are you in pain? Would you like to lie down?”

  “No,” Eugenia said softly, weakly. “I’m not in pain, at least not more than usual, not more than I have suffered every day since you were born. It’s my heart that hurts me. When you marry you will no longer be my son.”

  Harry sat on the floor at his mother’s side and put his head on her knee as he’d done a thousand times before. “What nonsense do you speak? I could never forget you.”

  She stroked his fine, blond hair. “It’s traditional that when the son marries, the mother retires to the dower house. After you’re married, your pretty little wife will send me away to some cold place. I will no longer have my things about me, for they will be hers then. But, most of all, my darling, I won’t get to see you every day.”

  “Of course you will. I shall ride to wherever you are every day of my life.”

  “Harry, my dearest child, how sweet you are. But it will rain and it will snow, and then there will be things to keep you from seeing your poor old mother.”

  “Mother, I promise that—”

  “You won’t allow her to throw me out of my own house? The house where I’ve lived most of my life?”

  “But Mother, Claire will be the duchess and she should—”

  “I understand. But of course you will be the duke, and it’s such a small thing that I ask of you. Merely to stay in my own home.”

  “Yes, of course it’s a small thing.” He squeezed his mother’s hand as she smoothed his hair behind his ear. “You may stay. I’m sure Claire won’t mind.”

  Eugenia was quiet for a moment. “Do you love her so very much?”

  “I do rather like her. Although…”

  “Although what?”

  “The last few days she has been different.”

  Eugenia’s ears perked up and her caressing voice changed. “How is she different? What has changed her?”

  It was on the tip of Harry’s tongue to say that Trevelyan had upset Claire, but he didn’t. It was one thing to tell a few white lies to the woman he was planning to marry, but it was another to tell his mother that her second son had come back from the dead. Sometimes Trevelyan made Harry angry, but he didn’t hate his brother, and that’s what he’d have to do in order to justify telling his mother that Trevelyan was not dead and was staying in the old part of the house.

  “She has trouble adjusting to this way of life,” Harry said. “I gather that in America she had a very different sort of life.”

  “Such as?”

  “Busy. Very, very busy.” Harry took his mother’s hand and kissed it. “I think you’re going to love her. I think the two of you will become great friends. You will be the two women I love most in the world.”

  Eugenia smiled at her son. “Send her to me for tea tomorrow afternoon.”

  Chapter Twelve

  By five o’clock, when it was time for tea with the duchess, Claire was a nervous wreck. She was dressed in her best lace gown, all the lace handmade in France. She had purchased this dress especially with the idea of meeting Harry’s mother.

  Miss Rogers escorted Claire to the duchess’s door, then, with a little shake of her gray-haired, gray-faced head, as if to tell Claire that she, an American, would never live up to standards, she left her there.

  “Thank you for the encouragement,” Claire muttered. She checked that her dress was straight, checked for the hundredth time that she had the little notebook and pencil she had been instructed to bring, took a deep breath, and put her hand on the doorknob.

  The moment Claire walked into the enormous sitting room, she thought, This is where all the wealth is. It didn’t take a scholar of art to see that the paintings on the walls were old and very valuable. She recognized Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian. On carved, gold-leafed tables were objects of great beauty and great value. In the rest of the house the furnishings were dirty and torn, but in th