Lady Bridget's Diary (Keeping Up with the Cavendishes #1)(45)

Darcy had learned to be adept at all facets of being a titled gentleman. His father had spent hours, days, months, years, lecturing him on the duties of managing their vast estates, dragging him along to tenant visits and, upon occasion, using beatings to make sure the information stuck.

Darcy learned how to stifle his own feelings, to mask his expression, and to put duty to the estate above all else, particularly any personal desire.

It was only in this moment that he realized that Durham probably had no one to show him how to be Durham, other than the duchess, which only made things worse.

“Do you have an estate manager?”

“Crowley or some fellow. And the duchess, of course.”

Both men drank, because the duchess was the kind of terrifying matron who drove a man to drink. It was either that or admit to being afraid.

“I am happy to be of assistance if you require it. We can always meet at White’s for a drink as well.”

“I’ve heard of White’s. Apparently I am a member.”

“No women allowed,” Darcy said, allowing himself a grin.

“Just what I need,” the duke said, grinning. “I shall see you there.”





Chapter 16


According to the duchess, a True Lady is one who knows how to plan and host a ball for five hundred people. I asked Rupert if that was something he looked for in a wife and he just laughed and said he loved parties.

Lady Bridget’s Diary

The Cavendish family had spent hours, days, weeks planning their first ball. According to the duchess, it was vitally important that all the sisters become accomplished hostesses so that they might be an asset to the husbands they might one day (soon, please Lord, soon) acquire. Claire couldn’t care less about any of it, though she was helpful with any sums, such as how many bottles of champagne to order if they invited six hundred people and most of them agreed to attend.

Amelia’s contributions consisted of absurd suggestions for entertainments: Gypsy fortune--tellers in the ladies’ retiring room or tightrope walkers from Astley’s Amphitheatre.

But Bridget devoted herself to the planning of everything, from the guest list (Rupert’s was the first name she wrote down), to the menus (“Do you think that is a bit much?” the duchess inquired upon seeing her three--page list. “You made me write it before lunch,” Bridget explained.). She might not have been able to successfully adhere to her reducing diet, or master French, or sing on key, but being a hostess seemed like a ladylike task that she could do.

She and her sisters had no help from their brother. James, being a useless male, just said yes to whatever was asked.

“Would you rather serve ratafia or punch?” Bridget asked.

“Yes.”

“Your Grace, do you think we should have silver or gold as part of the color scheme?” the duchess asked, looking down her nose at him.

“Yes, Your Grace,” he murmured, without looking up from the sporting pages of the newssheet.

“Your Grace, it is vitally important that we throw a ball,” Josephine said, revealing her irritation. It was, she informed them, a crucial part of their ongoing campaign to woo high society. Apparently it was not enough to possess an old and prestigious title, or pots of money. One needed a pristine reputation and the favor of the movers and shakers in the haute ton.

Just in case, say, they needed to weather a scandal.

Which, thanks to Amelia, they did.

Their ball marked their first appearance after they abruptly canceled their attendance at a soiree due to Amelia’s adventure. They had blamed it on a sudden and dire illness. And now it was all anyone wished to discuss.

An hour after the ball began, it became clear that while everyone accepted the excuse, no one believed it.

Bridget never thought she’d long to discuss the weather, but after a certain point, she was desperate to discuss anything other than her sister’s “precious health.” No one complimented the décor, or the menu, or the orchestra, or any of the little details she had so carefully attended to. It was maddening.

The conversations invariably followed the same pattern.

“Lady Amelia, we are so glad to see you have recovered from your sudden illness,” someone would say.

“Your very sudden, very mysterious illness,” someone else would say with a sly wink and a knowing smile. “From which you have made a most dramatic recovery.”

“I am not quite myself again,” Amelia replied, and it was the truth. But no one in the family knew why or where she had been. Or what had changed her. For once, Amelia wasn’t talking, and Claire and Bridget had spent a good hour devising schemes to make her talk, to no avail.

“You must have been terribly worried for your sister,” someone would invariably say.

“You cannot imagine how much,” Bridget would answer. And then her thoughts would stray to the day she had spent searching for her sister, which somehow involved passionately kissing Lord Darcy.

And then she would think about that kiss . . .

And then she would wonder what it all meant.

Did she dare just ask him?

Perhaps, if he deigned to arrive. Both Darcy and Rupert had agreed to attend, but had yet to make an appearance. She was on tenterhooks waiting for them, and their friendly, familiar faces.

In fact, there were very few familiar or friendly faces in the crowd.