Page 20 of Destined to be a Duchess
A long while, it seems, Marianne thought, answering her own question.
“I do not revel at the idea of postponing my trip to London.” Anthony stepped into the room, waving a hand magnanimously in the air. “Like you,” he directed at Marianne, “they will be calling me by a name that I have yet to truly earn. We will both be playing parts. Well, at least we may play them side by side.”
She knew he meant nothing by that innocent comment, but Marianne still felt her cheeks grow hot at the idea of teaming up with Anthony and facing their troubles together. In the few days since they had met, she had come to trust him implicitly. She wondered what more she would learn about him at the Hindborough party, smiling at the thought. They would be alone, away from the watchful eye of his mother …
Almost as quickly as the idea had made her smile, Marianne’s gut twisted in fear.
“If you’re certain that’s a good idea, then I may need some help learning how not to make a fool of myself, and soon,” Mariannesaid. “I don’t know anything about hunting parties. I've never held a gun in my life.”
“Oh, darling Marianne,no.” Catherine laughed, tapping Marianne’s hand.
“Luckily for you, the women do not hunt,” Anthony interjected, with a smile that made Marianne melt. “We will all return to Moorhaven with our limbs intact—that much I promise you. As for your other concerns ...” He nodded at Miss Barclay. “I imagine between the four of us, we can provide a decent education in the days before the party. For my part, it would be a pleasure to teach you what I know ...”
Chapter 9
"He really is quite good,” Marianne said from beside Anthony, her neck craning to watch Patrick at the pianoforte. She smiled and took another sip of her cherry ratafia—the little after-dinner drink that Marianne had taken a liking to. “And he certainly seems to think it too. Look at the furrow of concentration in that brow! It’s all a show. I can see him smiling.”
Anthony grinned and turned to watch Patrick play. They had all settled into the drawing room that night after their dinner, on strict orders from his mother to establish a solid plan for the party at Hagram Park. Marianne was not the only one who needed to prepare herself to meet theton. After two years abroad, Catherine was worried that Anthony had become, in her own words, “a Continental boor.”
He had been forbidden from droning on about his art—and the topic of the recently ended war, she had said, was strictly off the table, too. God forbid their old friends think Anthony had become a Napoleon sympathizer during his time in Paris.
“Wherever did he learn to play like that?” Marianne asked Anthony.
Her impressed smile almost took his breath away. His mother still continued to treat Marianne like a little doll, dressing her up in lavish gowns and bedecking her with jewels. Her sapphireearrings twinkled in the candlelight, lapping against the side of her neck like the surf against the shore.
Anthony momentarily lost his train of thought, admiring that swathe of flawless, creamy skin. She didn’t need to worry about her manners or conversation at Hagram Park.
The gentlemen there would be tripping over themselves for a chance to speak with her just because she was beautiful. Anthony prickled with surprising jealousy as he imagined them fighting to refill her drink, bribing Warren to let them sit beside her at dinner, and more. It was only natural to feel protective of her, he thought, given how much his mother had taken to her.
“You should ask themaestrohimself if you want the full story, provided you have a few hours to spare,” Anthony replied. “Patrick is the third son of Viscount Bowers, who resides in Bath. You won’t know much about the politics in aristocratic families, but a third son is considered about as useful as a fifth wheel on a carriage. Patrick took an interest in music when he was young, and his father sent him to Italy at twelve to study at a conservatory in Rome.”
“That’s so young,” Marianne murmured, her smile fading. “I couldn’t have imagined spending even a day without my mother at twelve. And I think she felt the same way. We were joined at the hip for the better part of our lives.”
“You never travelled?” Anthony asked, genuinely curious. He was curious about everything when it came to Marianne, the Moorhaven anomaly. “What exactly did life look like for you before you came here?”
“Never travelled, never went to school …” She shrugged one-shouldered, returning her attention to the pianoforte. “Most people don’t do either of those things, you realize. For as long as I can remember, I helped my mother tend the shop. There was no end to the things that needed doing.
When we weren’t working on gowns directly, taking measurements, creating patterns, that sort of thing, I was ordering fabrics or making deliveries. My favourite task was studying magazines for new patterns. I had to read so many newspapers to try and gauge the latest fashions that by the end of the morning, my eyes had fuzzed over. I would have died of embarrassment if a young woman came into the shop asking for a cut or a pattern I’d never heard of.”
“And in your free time …? What exactly did you do when you were not working?”
“Therewasno free time—well, hardly any.” Marianne shook her head and laughed. “We opened the shop around eight in the morning and closed just after seven o’clock. In the mornings, we would cater to working women like us. It was in the afternoons that the gentlewomen took their appointments with us. Afterthat, we mostly had dinner in the public house at the end of the road, which earned us a few stares but saved a tremendous amount of time.
In the evenings, I would work on new gowns or prepare the shop for the next morning. If I had some time before bed, I would sometimes read and sometimes speak with Mama. Our neighbour Sarah was a former governess. She was the one who taught me to read. We would spend some evenings with her, too, gossiping and such. But yes, more often than not, I just went to sleep.”
Anthony refrained from passing judgement out loud, even though he wanted to say that it wasn’t fair that Marianne had been forced to live and breathe her job just to make ends meet. Her love for sewing was obvious. He thought a moment about his own passion, wondering whether he would ever have the discipline to pursue art as tirelessly as she had worked on her own craft.
Anthony never felt more alive than when deep in a painting, playing with composition, colour, and perspective as effortlessly as he breathed. That might have changed if he had been forced to rely on art to keep a roof over his head. The fact that Marianne could still speak about dressmaking with so much passion stood as a testament to her strength and spirit.
“You look concerned,” Marianne said, tilting her head to the side. “It wasn’t all doom and gloom. There were events to attendin Lambeth, walks to go on with friends when I could be spared from the shop.
But until I came here, I had no idea some people genuinely led lives of leisure. It’s one thing to read about thetonin the papers or hear stories from the women who came in for dresses. It’s quite another to see first-hand how different life is for you all. How …easy… it is.”
Was there a note of disdain in her voice? Anthony couldn’t be sure, scowling all the same. Perhaps he didn’t want to know. It shouldn’t have bothered him that Marianne might have thought his family and everyone like them were lazy. She was probably right. In theory, the estate met all his needs, and Anthony had relative freedom to spend his days as he saw fit.
But a duke had a duty to uphold, one which was ceremonial and social in nature if nothing else, just like Mr Acaster had said. Their lives might have been considerably easier than most other people, but they weren’t without their own difficulties.
He side-eyed his mother, where she sat by the fire. It wouldn’t be long before she started talking about marriage and children for him again now that he had returned to England. His lifestyle, like everything, came with a price. It wasn’t Marianne’s fault that she couldn’t see that. She had spent her own life just trying to survive.
