A Duke in Her Bonnet: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Read online

  The first few hours had been painful and awkward and had left a poor impression on the general public regarding Susana’s suitableness as a prospective wife and member of the London elite. But now, every young gentleman to take her hand in the opening reel found himself bewitched by her impish smile, her quick little feet, and her apparent ability to execute every dance with utmost precision and attention to detail.

  Susana had danced at smaller functions before, but this was her first time truly dancing in such a grand public arena. She drank in the admiration like the parched earth sipped in a summer rainstorm. Moreover, she knew this fresh admiration would please the Duke of Bainton immensely, which was all she desired in order to call the evening a success.

  Between the cordial, the dancing, and the complimentary glances that settled upon her, a potent sort of magic came over the young lady, wherein nothing could go wrong at all.

  Until the first set of dances ended, and they were all called to dinner.

  Oh goodness… The very moment she stopped dancing, the heat of the room reasserted itself. Susana felt her knees start to quiver, but before she could seek out a cold drink or some fresh air, she was beset by half a dozen young gentlemen. Some of them were sincerely offended by her forgetting to give them the first dance, while others only wanted to play at being offended, to give them the pretext to talk to her.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen… I really must—” She struggled to draw breath as a cold clamminess crawled up her spine.

  They ignored her words, a press of them cornering her, led by one Mr. Bradley Payne, a talkative man of means with no breeding whatsoever, who tracked Susana with eyes like a hawk.

  “My, my, Miss Alvin, you are slippery this evening!” said Mr. Payne. “You promised your first dance to me, but before I could find you, you went off with Lord William!”

  “Well, I… I…” Susana hesitated, as she tried to find an answer, but the men were not there to listen to what she had to say for herself. They enjoyed the sound of their own voices far too much.

  “And before Payne even arrived at the party, you had promised the first dance to me!” cried another of the young men, though she could not remember his name.

  They began to clamor amongst themselves, huffing and puffing and showing off in front of the pretty girl. And Susana, who truly felt as if she would faint if she stayed in the room another moment, took advantage of their inattentiveness. She slid along the wall, and crept away below eye-level, resurfacing near the stairwell, where she paused for air, gripping the banister for support.

  “Are you well, dear Susie?” William had reappeared at her side and proffered her another cherry ice.

  “Oh, Will, you are a treasure!” she sighed, taking the glass from him gratefully. “Always looking out for me. Why, I should be lost without you.”

  “That you would,” he agreed, grinning at her. “You dance so well... I had almost forgotten how good you are.”

  “And you, in your military boots, dance like an elephant!” Susana teased, grinning back at him. “I don't suppose your sea legs are very good at the reel anymore?”

  “No, it shall be a while before I am re-accustomed to walking on dry land,” Will admitted. “I am sorry to have disappointed you on your special night.”

  “I never said you disappointed me, dear Will, and even if you had—I could forgive you anything but murder for bringing me this ice!” Susana sighed, and tipped a spoonful of the sweet and invigorating ice between her lips.

  “Come to dinner, you silly chickadee,” said William, offering Susana his arm. “You had best not have any wine, or you will be well and truly inebriated before the first course is cleared. Richard will already have quite a lecture prepared when hears that you snubbed half a dozen men for the first dance—”

  “And that I ate too many ices, addressed a duchess as countess, that I laughed out loud multiple times, and that I danced with you twice as much as any of these other wolves,” said the girl, enumerating on her fingers each of her sins. “Surely there are others, but I cannot yet think of them. Offending people happens all too easily, and often by accident, I fear.”

  “So long as you are doing your earnest best, no one can blame you for anything,” said Will. “Well, Richard might, but Heaven knows I shan't. Your flaws are among your best qualities, in my opinion.”

  Susana looked sharply up at William, trying to discern whether he was teasing her. But he looked at the ground, his lips settled in a soft half-smile, and he seemed so very genuine about his comment that Susana nearly wanted to cry.

  “And... what flaws might those be?” she prodded, for William's opinion meant more to her than the word of God Himself.

  William opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the final dinner bell, and the sudden press of the crowd all heading for the dining-hall.

  Susana and her companion were swept up in the tide of humanity, and Susana stumbled a little, clutching precariously at her life-preserving ice. As they walked, she turned to William again, eager to revisit the thread of their conversation, preferably in this more intimate moment between them, rather than at the dinner table, where they should be under intense scrutiny by the assembled.

  She clutched at his arm and tried to re-pose her question, but someone in front of her stopped short, and with just two steps, Susana stumbled into them, and upset her ice all over the front of her frock, her bosom, and her face.

  She uttered an involuntary cry of surprise, which, of course, drew everyone's attention. And there she stood, with red droplets sticking to her lashes, and the sweetened ice chips decorating the entirety of her décolletage.

  Her dress bore a fantastic, pinkish-red stain from breast to navel, and her gloves looked like they had been worn to butcher a few strawberries. Most comical of all, though, was the way her chest held the bulk of the ice, as if it had been transferred to a second vessel, rather than spilled.

  A moment of silence passed, so tense it made Susana's head ache, and she could not move. Not even William knew what to do, or say, until suddenly, someone laughed.

  At first, it was just a nervous titter from somewhere on her right side, followed by someone else who issued a loud guffaw. Susana laughed nervously, but the crowd around her had begun to point, to stare, to jeer, to cackle, with the women hiding their mouths behind their hands and fans, and the men shaking their heads and holding their bellies. It was then that the magic wore off Susana, and she realized that she had made a complete fool of herself. These people were laughing at her, not with her.

  In private, she could have laughed off the accident; but in that moment, her clumsiness on display for all the world to see, Susana felt like a prize donkey. Her cheeks burned even redder than the cordial spilled down the front of her dress. Tears pricked her eyes with the mocking laughter and a rising chorus of ridicule and derogatory remarks.

  “A most improbable person, indeed.”

  “Why, they never should have let that country mouse out of her room!”

  “A regular blowsabella!”

  “What was the Duke thinking, bringing that to London?”

  “Disgraceful!”

  In reality, it all happened in the space of a minute or so, but to Susana, it felt like a lifetime. At last, she found her wits, and, without wondering what the proper response would be, she turned round and shoved her way to the stairwell. Taking the stairs two at a time, and tripping once, she skinned her bare arms on the carpet. The stumble compounded her embarrassment and shame tenfold, until she finally was out in the street.

  Humiliated and disoriented, she bypassed the carriage entirely, not wanting the footman to see her in this condition. William’s voice called out behind her, but she paid it no heed. She could not. Instead, she ran as fast as her legs would carry her, until she reached the Duke of Bainton’s house. There, she flung herself inside, and collapsed in the foyer, bawling into her ruined gloves until the housekeeper came to investigate the commotion and sent her to bed.

  Chapter 2

  The Duke of Bainton was young, comparatively speaking. Ten years William's senior, the Duke was only eight-and-thirty. Yet, because of his life’s tribulations, the Duke was long past his prime.

  He walked with a cane, dependent upon it to remain mobile, because of his horrific war injuries. He was thin, nearly to the point of feebleness, from frequent illness, and his skin was pale and sallow. And to make it that much worse, his hair was thinning on top. The overall effect made him seem older than he was. He might have been pathetic—might have been—were it not for the Duke of Bainton’s extraordinary poise, dignity, and imposing personal presence.

  Though William Nielsen, by that time, probably weighed twice what his brother did, he was afraid of Richard. He always had been. As boys, Richard had been his idol, and winning his approval, and Susana’s, was all that he had ever wanted. And Richard made such a task almost impossible by practically never approving of anything.

  Though Will had mostly grown out of his idolatry toward his older brother, he still admired Richard in many ways, and, despite his poor physical condition, he feared Richard's wrath.

  William knew that Susana had far more to fear in the days following her coming-out party than he did, but he still anticipated some of Richard’s ire falling upon his own head. Richard had always disapproved of how close Will and Susana were, and whatever iniquities he found in Susana seemed to be equally William’s fault as they were hers.

  The morning after the disastrous party, William sat at breakfast with his brother. Richard’s complexion was ghastly white, and there were dark circles under his eyes. His mustache, however, was trimmed to perfection, and each hair that remained on his head was combed and patted into place with pomade.

  Despite his recent illn
ess, he was fully and splendidly dressed in a jacket, waistcoat, and trousers. The only outward sign of his condition, other than his pallor, was the fact that he took only broth for the morning meal, while William took a hearty plate of sausage, muffins, syrupy prunes, and boiled eggs.

  The two young men had scarcely spoken yet. The Duke was temperamental under the best of circumstances, but Will had learned over the years not to speak to him before he’d had at least two cups of tea. The silence was pregnant, but William was content to eat and be quiet, until Richard was the one who broke the silence.

  “Where is Susana?” said the Duke, dabbing at his lips with a napkin.

  “Oh, uh... in her room, I suspect,” said Will. “Why?”

  “Less than twelve hours have elapsed, yet I have already received half a dozen notes from our associates here in London, informing me of last night’s events.” The Duke turned his unsettling, icy blue gaze on William. “What have you to say on this matter, brother?”

  “Oh, uh...” William cleared his throat. “What have the notes been saying, Richard?”

  The elder brother sat back in his chair and removed from the inner pocket of his jacket a sheaf of papers. He set them down, selected one, unfolded it, and read aloud:

  “Your Grace ought to be informed that his ward, one Miss Susana Alvin, made a spectacle of herself at last night’s function, in more ways than one. I shall leave the particulars to her to relate to Your Grace, but Your Grace must be advised. It does not bode well for her social standing.”

  Richard quirked his brows pointedly and set the note aside. He picked up another one and unfolded it with even more deliberate care than the previous. He cleared his throat, coughed a little into his handkerchief, and read aloud:

  “As we have known one another for many years, Bainton, I write to you as your friend to inform you of your ward’s deplorable conduct during her coming-out party. I regret that you were not in attendance, as your presence may have had some tempering effect on her slovenly ways.”

  “Slovenly!” William cried. “Who sent that? I will have a word—nay, several!” He reached for the note, but the Duke whisked it out of his reach.

  “Our Susana has always been in want of greater discipline when it comes to her personal tidiness. It is a stretch of the imagination to call her slovenly, William, but my—! My mind does run riot, trying to intuit what this girl has done to receive such an evaluation on her first night in society!” The Duke leaned away from William and rested on the arm of the chair with an air of feigned nonchalance, his eyes narrowing. “What do you know of this?”

  William set his jaw. “I know that Susana is a lovely girl with a good heart, and that she tries her best to fit in with these ridiculous society people. I also know that the harshness of their evaluation neither surprises me, nor strikes me as accurate!” Finally, he met his brother’s eyes. “I will not enumerate every little thing to you as some kind of inventory of her perfectly ordinary, human imperfections. It is your own fault for setting such high expectations.”

  “How dare you!” the Duke bellowed with a voice far too broad and commanding for one so thin and ill. The sound resonated in the breakfast hall, and made William jump a little in his seat.

  “How dare you impugn the honor of those in attendance last night by suggesting that their accounts—all of which corroborate one another—are somehow falsified? That there is some sort of conspiracy of society against your precious Susana? And furthermore, how dare you insinuate that any of it is my fault, when I have never done a thing in my life without first calculating it to be of maximum benefit to this family?” Richard’s mustache quivered with his righteous indignation. “I took in that ridiculous little girl at your behest, William, and you must answer for her!”

  “You speak as if she has chewed your favorite pair of slippers, Richard. She is a lady, not a dog! For the love of God!” William cried, throwing his hands up.

  “Do not blaspheme in my house,” Richard said severely, pushing himself back from the table. A servant stepped forward to hand him his cane, and to assist Richard in rising to his feet. “Go fetch her, and the both of you will meet me in the blue parlor in fifteen minutes’ time. I’ll not take no for an answer, and you let that girl know that if she refuses to cooperate, I will turn her out and have her sent to the workhouse. Is that clear?”

  William, seething with anger, could not muster a polite or pertinent response.

  “Is that clear?” Richard cried, thumping his cane against the floor with each word. “If you think that you are beyond my jurisdiction because you are my brother—”

  “Yes, yes, all-powerful Ra'jah Sultanate Master of the Empire Richard Francis Nielsen, Duke of Bainton,” William said, barely suppressing a roll of the eyes. “I will fetch our sister immediately.”

  “Do not refer to her as if she were my blood relation. She is not. And, sometimes, I suspect, neither are you.” With that, Richard left the breakfast room, his steps slow but dignified, his chin held high, and his manservant nearby, should he falter.

  William watched him go, somehow both disgusted by his brother’s irascibility and infirmity; and also impressed by how commanding and decisive Richard was. He was ever the lord of the house. William envied it, in a way, for though he was a strong and capable young man in the early years of his prime, he could seldom so much as decide what to eat for breakfast.

  The young and noble naval officer rose from his seat, once Richard’s uneven steps were out of earshot. Two at a time, Will took the stairs to the second floor, not wanting to further aggravate Richard by making him wait. He knocked on Susana’s door, and pressed his ear against it to listen for her response.

  ‘Go away!” Susana all but shouted. “Leave me alone! I am going to stay in here until I die!”

  “No, you will not, for my brother is most displeased with you, and I have a sneaking suspicion he will chop down the door himself in order to remove you, if he must,” said William.

  Susana shuffled about inside for a few moments, then opened the door by an inch, peering out at William.

  “What do you want?” said she. Her voice was thick, most probably from crying.

  “Richard must speak with you presently,” said William. “I have not seen him this upset since the Pollard children let their dogs loose on his quail.”

  “Oh, no,” Susana moaned, sagging against the door frame. “I cannot face him like this, William. I feel like such a fool!”

  “I care not if I am the only person in England who says it,” said William, pushing the door open a bit wider. “Miss Susana Alvin, you are no fool!”

  “William, you are too good to me!” the girl wailed, hiding her face in her hands. “I did everything wrong last night, did I not?”

  “Well,” said William, “more or less, yes, but—”

  “See?!”

  “But—” William took her wrists in his fingertips, marking how warm and slight they were, meaning to take her hands away from her face. It made him feel strange, however, to touch her in such a manner. Abruptly, he let go, in the interest of maintaining as much of his comportment as possible.