The American Duchess by Joan Wolf Page A

whom it would not make happy, and Tracy had written a letter to him very shortly after she had agreed to marry the Duke. Adam Lancaster would feel she had betrayed him, and Tracy admitted to herself—as she would not ever admit to him—that he would have some justice in his complaint. Because of her guilty conscience, the letter she wrote tended to dwell rather heavily on her father’s pleasure and made little mentionofher own feelings.
    She was not sure herself of those feelings. She would have thought a man like the Duke would have been the last kind of man in the world to attract her. He belonged to a class she distrusted. He was, in fact, an almost perfect embodiment of that class. Yet, he did attract her. He was unlike anyone she had ever met. She was not marrying him, she admitted to herself in her most honest moments, solely to please her father.
     

Chapter 8
     
    Myself and what is mine to you and yours
     Is now converted.
    —Shakespeare
     
    The marriage of Miss Teresa Bodmin to the Most Noble Adrian St. John Geoffrey George Deincourt, Duke of Hastings and Marquis of Winchelsea, Earl of Hythe, Baron Deincourt of Hythe and Baron Deincourt of Bexhill, took place at the end of June at St. George’s, Hanover Square. All of the Deincourts were there, and all of the relations of all of the Deincourts, and all the Americans who happened to be in London. Mr. Bodmin wanted to see his girl married in style. There were five bridesmaids: Lady Mary, two Deincourt cousins and two American girls from the Ministry. Mr. Bodmin gave a sumptuous breakfast at the Clarendon Hotel and everyone was well satisfied that the thing had been done properly.
    Tracy spent the weeks before her wedding shopping for clothes. The Duke’s man of business came to an extremely satisfactory arrangement with Mr. Bodmin’s lawyers. The Duke himself took his father-in-law in charge and introduced him to the exclusive domains of London clubs and parliamentary sessions. Mr. Bodmin was enormously pleased and tended to regard the Duke with all the satisfaction he would regard a highly prized possession. This didn’t bother the young man at all.  After all, he told himself, he had been expensive enough. And, too, his father-in-law was scheduled to leave for America at the beginning of July. The Duke could put up with him comfortably enough until then.
    The Duke and Duchess were to take only a week’s honeymoon at present, the bride desiring to be back in London in order to bid farewell to her father. The Duke owned a small estate in Hertfordshire, and it was there that they planned to spend their week. Servants had been dispatched from Steyning Castle two weeks previously, and it had been reported to the Duke that all was in readiness for his arrival.
    It was a drive of several hours from London to Hertfordshire, and the Duke beguiled the time for Tracy by describing to her in hilarious detail the peculiarities of the various Deincourt relations who had jammed into the church that morning. This led Tracy to expatiate a bit about her own maternal relatives, who while not so highly placed as the Duke’s family, were certainly as odd.
    They arrived at Thorn Manor in the late afternoon. The Duke showed Tracy around while their luggage was unpacked, then they changed for dinner. As dinner progressed, Tracy felt the slight constriction that had been in her chest all day growing tighter and tighter. The Duke, seated across the table from her, was a perfect stranger, she thought. Whatever had she done?
    The tightness in her chest got worse when he sent her upstairs and said he would be along in a few minutes. Her legs felt like lead as she climbed the stairs and she could not say a word to the maid who was waiting to undress her. A beautiful sheer peach-colored nightdress—a gift from Lady Bridgewater—lay on the bed. Tracy let the maid put her into the dress and brush out her hair, but all the while stark panic was rising inside her. What had she