More Than a Duke(69)
Her mother leaned close and kept her tone low. “Have you gathered now, the exact identity of that woman? That, my dear, is the Duchess of Monteith. The woman who truly holds Lord Stanhope’s heart.” A viselike pressure tightened around her middle. Mother patted her hand, her next words indicating how greatly she misunderstood the reason for her daughter’s upset. “You needn’t be envious, Anne. You too shall become a duchess.”
Why would Anne be a duchess? Ah, yes, then reality came crashing. The Duke of Crawford. The heart of a duke. Harry’s role in helping her to ensnare him. A lump clogged her throat and she struggled to swallow past it.
Suddenly, Rutland’s jibing made sense. He’d known. He had known Margaret had returned. Just as he’d known Harry would be so thoroughly bewitched he would forget poor Anne with her silly ringlets and her need for spectacles, waiting for him like a lovesick fool. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them back, lest someone see. But then someone would have to notice Anne, and the ton had still not removed their rabid curiosity from the scene still unfolding before them.
“And this is the man you’d wear such a scandalous creation for,” her mother said with disgust.
Humiliation burned like fire on her cheeks. “I didn’t… I…”the words died on her lips. In this moment, stricken by the pain of Harry alongside his love, she couldn’t muster even a false word.
“I’ve told you, Anne. The duke will make you a splendid match. A safe match.”
Staring at Harry again, conversing with his black-haired beauty, Anne could admit to the vast appeal of wedding for safety. For then, a woman wouldn’t know this mind-numbing agony of watching the man you loved on display for all polite Society. Then you needn’t know, and more, care that another had come before you, who’d mattered in ways you never would.
The woman, Margaret, a name somehow made her, made this, more real, brushed his arm with a hand.
Jealousy, green and vile with a life of its own unfurled within her, but Anne continued looking on, just as the crowd did.
I am supposed to mean more to him. Only, he’d given her no indication that he either wanted or needed anything more with her. Quite the opposite, in fact. Rather, he’d been shockingly clear that Anne, a woman he called sweet, was no different than any other who’d earned that empty endearment from him.
Fool. Fool. Fool.
A small smile turned Margaret’s lips. She eyed Harry through thick, smoky lashes.
She possessed the kind of beauty men fought wars for.
Yes. Yes, indeed, she did.
“I want to go home,” Anne whispered.
~*~
When Harry had been a boy of thirteen, his mount had taken a jump too low. He had been tossed aground. Staring at Margaret as she reentered his life, like a ghost of a distant past, he felt much the same way he did that long ago day. A loud buzzing filled his ears.
Tall and regal like a queen stood Margaret, now the Duchess of Monteith. Resplendent in a gold satin gown with black lace overlay, she peered out amongst the crowd. Still every inch as beautiful as she’d ever been, she bore but the faintest traces of the innocent young lady she’d been. The lines of her mouth, slightly harder, the set to her shoulders stiffer.
His friend, Edgerton sidled up to him. “I gather you did not know? Your Miss Margaret, I suppose she is now the Lady Margaret, has returned to London. Her old husband made a widow of her some months ago.”
He shook his head. “No.” After she’d wed, he’d not been presented with the constant reminder of her defection. She’d gone off to the remote corner of Northumberland and he’d been content to keep her memory buried there. In time, his, the ton’s, once cherished memories of Miss Margaret Dunn faded.
Edgerton gave him a sideways look. “She’s not even waited the requisite period of mourning before making her return. Why do you think that is?”
The hostess, Lady Preston, rushed forward to greet Margaret.
Harry registered the attention fixed his way by gossipy ton members. He rescued a flute of champagne from a nearby servant and took a sip damning polite Society and their sick fascination to hell. His life, his past, to bored nobles was nothing more than a momentary amusement for an apathetic lot. He stared on disinterestedly as Margaret wound her way through the crowd; her gaze scanned the room, searching, searching, and then finding him.
Standing at the side of the ballroom floor, Harry observed the ton part, and followed Margaret’s deliberate walk. Her soft satin skirts danced about her ankles. She came to a stop before him. Her gaze lingered a moment on Edgerton. “Lord Edgerton,” she murmured, her voice lower, more sultry than he remembered.