Page 14 of A Duke's Temptation Poetess
“Possibly what?” her mother asked.
“Save you from spinsterhood? You refused to pursue the Duke when I asked you to last night. That was an error of judgement, but I suppose I should be proud of you for it. So I have decided to arrange another meeting between His Grace and yourself. You will have the entire journey to Bath to think about how best to win him for yourself.”
Clarissa stared at her mother in disbelief. “That will never work. He will know that is why we have come to Bath.”
“Why should he assume that?” Lady Bentley asked. “Lady Matilda is my friend, and we have your father’s kin in Bath. Those are ample reasons to be in the town. He will suspect nothing unless you or I tell him.”
Clarissa thought of the Duke’s lips on hers, and she knew that when she saw His Grace again, her thoughts would drift somewhere they most certainly should not be. Her mother’s schemes aside, Clarissa encountering His Grace again was a terrible idea. “I beg you to reconsider.”
It was a futile attempt at persuasion. From the look in her mother’s eyes, Clarissa knew the woman would not relent. She was bound and determined to see her daughter wed to His Grace, and no amount of pleading or reasoning would persuade her otherwise. Still, Clarissa had to try. She could not simply play the role of passive participant in her mother’s plans.
“You have two hours to ready yourself for travel,” Lady Bentley continued, as if Clarissa had not even spoken. “I realise you have reservations, but this is your last chance. We must try. When you are the Duchess of Hartingdale, you will look back and thank me for this.”
Then, her mother turned and left Clarissa, alone and bewildered. And impossibly, somehow excited to see His Grace in a way that she could not quite put into words.
“Shall I prepare your belongings for travel, my Lady?” Alice asked. “I have already laid out appropriate clothing for the journey to Bath.”
Clarissa nodded. “Please, do.”
Her mind went to the lost book of poems. It seemed terribly ironic that the one time her mother finally accepted an invitation to visit Aunt Frances and Jane, Clarissa had lost her best poems. Her cousin might have enjoyed them, for although they seldom saw one another, Jane had always been Clarissa’s most passionate supporter.
Clarissa went to her writing desk, sighing at the familiar pen and inkwell. The penknife was in the drawer. It was a mode of writing which lacked all the convenience of thepenographic, which made it much easier for her to take her books with her and write wherever she was. Clarissa supposed that charcoal or a pencil would suffice, but there was something pristine and bold about ink which made her feel as if she were arealpoet. A modern poet.
There would be pens and inkwells in Bath. Instead, she went to her bookshelf, filled with volumes of verse and her own books of carefully composed poems. With her thumb, she carefully pulled one of the recent volumes from the shelf. She sighed and opened it, staring morosely at the front page, which contained pressed flowers and small fragments of lines.
Clarissa had been experimenting with seeing how nature might inspire her poetry. She flipped through a few more pages, reacquainting herself with this particular collection’s contents.
She still liked many of the poems, but even that acknowledgment did nothing to dull her longing for the lost book. Clarissa knew that she could never replicate all those verses either. She might remember a few lines and images, but some of her work would simply be gone forever.
“Shall I pack that, also?” Alice asked, her voice soft.
Clarissa had already explained the loss of her poetry to the maid, who listened sympathetically and had assured Clarissa that whoever found the volume would surely seek to find its owner. Clarissa was not entirely sure if she enjoyed that prospect.
Which was worse, having someone read her poems and potentially find them lacking or never getting her book back at all? Clarissa felt as though she ought to have a definitive answer for that question, but regrettably, she did not.
“Please,” Clarissa said, handing the maid the volume. “My cousin Jane will expect me to bring some poems for her to read.”
“Perhaps you might also compose some while you are in Bath, my Lady.”
“Yes.”
It would not be the same, though. Clarissa strongly suspected that any efforts she made to compose new poems would only serve to remind her of the lost collection.
His Grace’s image came unwillingly to mind, and she remembered how powerful the heat between them had been in her dream.Thatmight prove to be a great source of inspiration, but young ladies were not supposed to write about things likekissing. Especially young ladies who were not wed.
“Lady Bentley seems to believe that you and His Grace would be well-suited for one another,” Alice said slyly. “Perhaps it is too bold of me to say, but the Duchess of Hartingdale! Even if my Lady’s methods are unconventional, I dare say you will be the envy of most ladies in the ton if you were to accomplish such a task.”
She would be, but Clarissa hardly cared about being the envy of anyone. Still, she knew that Alice was only trying to comfort her. The young woman had only been in the family’s service for a few short months, and she could hardly be expected to understand Clarissa fully after such a short time.
“I would be an envy if I secure his hand in marriage,” she said quietly. “The ton would speak of nothing else for weeks.”
At least, she would be envied until His Grace tired of her and inevitably found a different woman to warm his bed. Clarissa knew that some ladies of the ton insisted marriage worked miracles, that it made men loving and faithful, but Clarissa had never believed such nonsense. Even if some men could be made better with marriage, it was not worth taking such a risk when the cost might be her own broken heart.
Could one’s heart break if there was no love in it, though? Despite her pleasant dreams of kisses and shared gazes, Clarissa did notloveHis Grace, and she doubted that spending time with him would make her any fonder of his presence.
“Have you ever fallen in love?” Clarissa asked.
Alice laughed a little strangely. “No, my Lady.”
