The Inconvenient Duchess

are most eager to meet the new duchess. Please see to the response.’
    She stared blankly down at the invitation. ‘I suppose we must attend?’
    He glanced back at her, arching an eyebrow. ‘I swear, madam, that is not the expected response. You are supposed to go into raptures at the chance to finally have a social life in this Godforsaken backwater. You will answer immediately in the affirmative, and then return to me at lunch to beg andwheedle and cajole until I agree that you must have a new gown, new ribbons, gloves, jewellery, and whatnot, and perhaps a trip to London for yet more shopping, until I cannot stand the din and agree to spend a small fortune for one night out.’
    ‘That will not be necessary, I am sure.’
    ‘Are you, indeed? Have you not gone through your wardrobe and found that it lacks solid gold stays, or a diamond-encrusted shift, or some such feminine nonsense?’
    ‘No, Marcus. I am sure what I have is more than sufficient.’
    ‘Hmmph. You are a most unusual wife, Miranda. How can I spoil you if you are always content? I hardly know what to do with you.’ And he went back to reading his paper, but there was laughter in his eyes.
    She retired to her desk after breakfast and began the first of several false attempts at a reply. The sheets of paper littered the fireplace before she was through and she hoped that her husband was as well-heeled as he claimed to be, for the waste of stationery to get a single satisfactory letter was most prodigious.
    She damned Cici and her father for neglecting so much for so long, and then expecting her to jump with both feet into the deep water of her new life and stay afloat. How was she expected to manage penmanship, after years with little paper and no reason to write? She thought her spelling adequate to the task of writing the two or three sentences necessary to thank his lordship and her ladyship for their gracious offer of hospitality, but her hand was cramped and slanting. By the fourth attempt, it looked only slightly rushed and careless, rather than like she’d written with the pen in her teeth. It would have to do.

    The next task, as her husband had pointed out, was to make sure that her wardrobe was in order for an evening out. When she told Polly what they were about, the girl’s smile was so broad that it almost inspired Miranda to confidence in the endeavour. Polly produced not one, but a choice of three ball gowns from the selection that Miranda had been afraid to examine some days ago, each with matching shoes. There was a wide selection of evening gloves, a variety of head-pieces, caps and turbans and a silk shawl to wear on the journey.
    ‘Definitely the white and gold, your Grace.’
    ‘Not the green?’ She touched it carefully, as though the dress belonged to someone else.
    ‘Not for this ball, ma’am. He’ll give you the emeralds and then there’ll be too much green.’
    She looked at Polly, in surprise. ‘Emeralds?’
    Polly grinned. ‘Look about you, your Grace. The only thing missing from your gifts is the jewellery. It’s not likely that the duke has forgot ’em. He don’t miss a trick, that one, and he’s been married before. He knows what’s expected and he’d not let you go bare necked to a fancy ball. It’ll be the emeralds as they match the house livery, and go well with the suit his grace usually wears to these parties. If there’s a doubt, I’ll ask Thomas, but trust me. It’ll be the emeralds, and the white and gold dress.’ She held it up to the light. ‘See? It’s not a true white. There’s a bit of colour in it, and the flowers in the lace have a green leaf.’
    The words faded away. Emeralds? She remembered the necklace in the portrait, glittering at the throat of the last duchess. And now, she was to wear those jewels. She swallowed to clear the lump forming in her throat. A cursednecklace for a cursed evening, destined to showcase everything she did not know about being the lady of a great man. She picked up a fan from the pile of accessories before her. She tried an experimental flutter and snap and it slipped from her fingers. Perhaps no fan, or she would display her ignorance in yet another area of etiquette.
    And she had been doing so well, she sighed to herself. Here alone in the house, if she had eccentricities, no one noticed. At least her husband showed no desire to comment on her strangeness.
    But at a ball there would be worlds of rules that she could break. From which fork to