The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [12]
That was the sticking point, the duke thought, grimacing. He could imagine Melissande making a gentleman’s life a series of delightful encounters until the gentleman chanced to disagree with her or refuse her something. Then . . . it made him shudder to think of it. He wouldn’t worry overly about it. It wouldn’t be his problem. However, he would pray for the Earl of Northcliffe once the knot was tied.
“I’ll go fetch Melissande for you, Papa.”
The duke watched his daughter walk from the library. Something strange was going on here. He knew her well, for she was his favorite, the child of his heart and of his mind. He remembered her sudden rigidity, the trembling of her hands. And he thought blankly, as a crazed notion bulleted through his brain—does she want the Earl of Northcliffe? He shook his head even as he tried to remember three years before when Alexandra was only fifteen, painfully shy, her beautiful auburn hair in tight braids around her head, and still plump with childhood fat. No, no, she’d been much too young. If she’d felt anything for Douglas Sherbrooke, why it had to have been only a girlish infatuation, nothing more.
He wondered if what he was doing was wise, then he knew that there was no choice. The gods had offered him a gift horse and he wasn’t about to have it race away from him toward another stable, one doubtless less worthy and less in need than his. If Alexandra did feel something for the earl, he was sorry for it, but he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, change the plan. If the earl wanted Melissande, he would have her. The duke sat down to await the arrival of his eldest daughter.
The interview between the Duke of Beresford and his eldest daughter proceeded exactly as the duke expected.
Melissande was in a towering passion within two minutes of her father’s announcement. She looked incredibly beautiful in a towering passion, as she did in most moods. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes—blue as the lake at Patley Bridge in the late summer—sparkled and glinted. Her thick black hair, darker than a starless midnight sky, shone vividly even in the dim light of his library, and the artless array of curls that clustered around her face bounced as her passion grew. She drew a deep breath, tossed her curls another time, and nearly shouted, “Ridiculous! He thinks he can simply crook his finger after three years—three years—and I will not gainsay him at all, that I will come rushing to him and allow him to do whatever he pleases with me!”
The duke understood her fury. Her pride was hurt, and the Chambers pride was renowned for its depth and breadth and endurance. He also knew how to deal with his daughter, and thus spoke slowly, empathy and understanding for her feelings filling his voice. “I am sorry that he hurt you three years ago, Melissande. No, don’t try to rewrite the past, my dear, for I know the truth, and it is a different recipe from the one you fed your credulous sister. But that isn’t important now, save that you must keep in mind what really happened then. The earl spoke to me before he left, you know, explaining himself quite nicely I thought at the time. But as you can see, it is you who have the last word here, it is you and no other who caught his fancy and kept it, and now he admits that his fancy and his hand are eager to be reeled in by none other than you.”
Melissande was doubtless the most beautiful creature the duke had ever seen. He found himself marveling even now that she had sprung from his loins. She was exquisite and she’d been spoiled and pampered since her birth. And why shouldn’t she be petted and given whatever she wished, his wife would ask? She was so beautiful, so absolutely perfect, she deserved it. Judith would also say, doubtless, that Melissande deserved a duke, at least, not a paltry earl,