The Fall of a Saint. Christine Merrill

long stems from the midst of profusions of greenery. The walls were hung with ribbons and gold cages containing pairs of annoying, but beautiful, parrots.

      Everywhere he turned little red faces looked down at him with beady black eyes. And whistled and chirped.

      ‘Could we not have had doves?’ he blurted, unable to contain his annoyance. Then, at least, the sounds would have been soothing.

      ‘But, darling, doves are so common.’ She gave him a pout worthy of a courtesan. ‘And you said I could have anything. The guests are quite envious of it.’

      The females, perhaps. All around him he heard awed whispers.

      Lovebirds.... Very rare.... Straight from Abyssinia.... She bought every one on the boat....

      The males looked as he felt, as though they were longing for a stiff drink to dull the effects of the squawking on their nerves. At least they did not have to pay for the damn things.

      ‘It is a pity there was not time to teach them to speak,’ she said.

      He hid the flinch. With the evil smile she wore, he could imagine what she wished them to say. She wanted choruses of high-pitched voices accusing him of actions he could not defend. And doing it in front of what seemed to be half of London.

      ‘A pity,’ he agreed through clenched teeth. He could not shake the feeling, when he looked into his wife’s triumphant eyes, that he was serving sentence for the crime. She must understand that this union was for the best. She was a duchess and not a gaoler. She had lost her position but gained a life of ease and a rank so august that no one would dare question her past.

      Their lives would not be ordinary, especially not while they contained this many parrots. But they would be as far beyond reproach as any in England. That was all he had ever wanted for himself, and he had assumed by the way she lamented her lost reputation that it was what she wanted, as well.

      He had meant to do little more than glance in her direction, to acknowledge her comment and prove that he was not bothered by it. But he had held the gaze too long, turning it into a battle of wills. For a moment, her confidence faltered and she looked as lost as he sometimes felt when under the scrutiny of this supposedly civilised society. Then she rallied and raised her guard again, looking as aloof as any lady of the ton.

      Good for her. It had been rude of him to stare. Few men in London would have had the nerve to return such a look from a duke. But the little governess he had married weathered it well. None here would have guessed that, scant weeks earlier, she might have been a servant in their homes. She had best maintain that hauteur and let people think her proud. The more distant her treatment of society, the more desperate it would become to befriend her. If she was granted the gift of old age, she would be like those horribly intimidating dowagers that ran Almack’s, casting fear into the hearts of all, lest some mistake on their part result in a fall from grace.

      For now she was young and her antics, no matter how outrageous they might seem to him, would be copied as the latest fashion. It was beginning already. This morning, Hyde Park was empty, Bond Street was quiet and ladies who would be barely out of bed had dressed and forced unfortunate husbands, sons and brothers to dress and celebrate the marriage of St Aldric.

      ‘It is good to see that you have found sufficient guests to share the day,’ he remarked, trying not to think of the birds just above him that seemed to be following their conversation as though they understood each word. ‘Are these people friends of yours?’

      ‘No, darling,’ she said with another false smile. ‘I have no family. No acquaintances in town. No one to stand by me in my time of need.’ She sighed theatrically.

      It was another reminder of how low she had been when he had come to her. Despite the lack of money, family and position, Michael was beginning to suspect that he had never met a less helpless woman in his life.

      She waved a hand to the assembly. ‘These are your friends. I got the names from your housekeeper.’

      He was tempted to sack Mrs Card for her help in this charade. She must have gathered every guest list in the house and combined them. Although he could recite their names from memory, he barely knew half the people attending. Which meant that along with the birds, he was paying to feed total strangers.

      But the woman who sat beside him at a wedding breakfast fit for royalty was picking at her food as though it was so much garbage heaped on her plate.

      ‘Do you not like it?’ he asked, trying to mask his annoyance.

      ‘You know I cannot eat,’ she said, taking a small sip of wine.

      And you know why.

      She would not say it aloud, but she meant to dangle the truth in front of him like this, as though, at any moment, she might choose to announce to the whole of London how they had really met.

      Was it just the circumstances of their meeting that had caused this vicious streak in her nature? Or had she been like this before, sour and disagreeable? His experiences with governesses in his own youth made him suspect the latter, for those he’d had had been a mirthless bunch. If so, she was not the sort of woman he’d have wanted to share his life and bear his child. If she hated the father, she would have no reason to love the son.

      It was all the more reason to win her over, if it took him a lifetime. He would do better than his parents had, in all ways. Madeline might have all the parrots she wished and gowns to match each feather. But he would abandon no son, as their father had done to Sam. Nor would he allow his home to degenerate into what his parents’ had been, a battleground full of traps for the unwary.

      If he failed? He glanced at his wife, chin stubbornly set as though she feared the food on her plate might leap forward on its own and attempt to nourish her against her will.

      If she would not be swayed, then he had the resources to protect their child from her disdain. But the women put in charge of the nursery would be warm, affectionate and nurturing.

      He spared a thought for Evelyn, sitting beside his brother at the other end of the table. Had things been different, she’d have been his, and a fine mother she would have made. She adored everything about children, even after seeing the birthing of them. He had been too particular last Season, while waiting for Eve to come to a decision. He should have offered for the first doting virgin he saw and got a ring on her finger. It would have saved him no end of trouble.

      Of course, if he’d married Eve, he’d have made her terribly unhappy, for she had never loved anyone but Sam. She was beaming at her husband as though thinking of her own wedding, still sitting under her own honeymoon.

      He wondered if receiving such devotion could raise a similar response in his own heart. He had expected to be an amiable companion to any woman he married. But with so little previous experience, romantic love was quite likely beyond his ken. Without someone to show him the way, how would he find it? He looked speculatively at the woman beside him and tried to imagine her as his loving wife.

      She looked back at him with annoyance.

      It proved what he had often expected. If one wanted undying devotion, it would be wiser to get a dog than a wife. Madeline wished to be anywhere but near him and, at the moment, he wished to oblige her. ‘It is a pity you are not well enough to travel,’ he suggested, sipping his wine. ‘A honeymoon journey at this time would be unwise. But now that the war is ended, a trip to the Continent would be lovely. Italy, Spain, France...’

      For a moment, her glittering eyes softened. ‘I have never been from England,’ she said wistfully.

      Did she have a weakness for travel? That was easily remedied and solved several problems at once. ‘What a shame. I took the Grand Tour, of course. Or as much of it as was possible with Napoleon on the loose. I am sure it would be quite safe now, should you wish to visit the Continent.’

      For a second, she looked positively eager. Then her eyes narrowed, her gaze piercing him like a gimlet. ‘Oh, but, your Grace, I cannot possibly think of leaving you so soon. And there will be the baby to care for, as well.’