When the Duchess Said Yes by Isabella Bradford

Author:Isabella Bradford
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction
ISBN: 0345527321
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2012-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Lizzie stood before the long looking glass in her sister’s bedchamber, studying her reflection. To her disappointment, she didn’t appear any different at all, even though she’d been married and a duchess for nearly four hours now. Perhaps it wasn’t standing before the bishop that would make the change, but lying with Hawke. Perhaps then she’d look more like a duchess, a peeress, a wife. She gave a little shake to her shoulders, a mixture of excitement and anticipation, and a bit of fear, too. She thought she knew what to expect, and yet … she didn’t.

“I hope Hawke likes this gown,” she said to Charlotte as her maid gave her skirts one final tweak. She’d shifted from the elaborate silk damask wedding gown into another, simple and elegant, of pale blue lutestring, and the ruby and diamond necklace and the bracelet had been carefully packed away in their cases, ready to be taken with the rest of her belongings to Hawkesworth Chase. “I hope he won’t think it’s too plain.”

“Your gown?” Charlotte smiled knowingly. “Lizzie, Hawke won’t give a fig for what you’re wearing now. All that that concerns him at present is what you won’t be wearing, and the sooner the better, too. That’s how men think.”

“I suppose you are right,” Lizzie said. Hawke had already displayed surprising skill at removing her clothing. She doubted that would change now that they were wed. “Men do have different notions about fashions.”

Suddenly one particular notion of Hawke’s came to mind. She couldn’t walk to their carriage in her shift, which would likely please him most, but she could oblige him in another way. She reached up and began to jerk the pins from her hair, running her fingers through the waves to free them.

“What are you doing?” Charlotte asked, shocked. “Stop, Lizzie, stop. There’s no time to redress your hair, not unless you wish to keep Hawke waiting even longer.”

“I don’t intend to redress it,” she said, shaking her hair free and over her shoulders. She seized a brush from the dressing table, and to the horror of Charlotte’s maid, vigorously began to brush her hair herself. “Hawke has asked me to wear my hair down, and for him, I will.”

“But you can’t, Lizzie,” Charlotte protested. “You’re a married woman, a lady, and now you’re a duchess. When he takes you to his house, he’ll present you to this servants for the first time. Do you wish their first glimpse of their new mistress to be with your hair trailing down as if you don’t know better?”

Lizzie remembered the footmen from the garden who had already seen her in a far more compromising situation than simply with unbound hair. “I can always twist it into a knot if I must.”

“But what about now?” Charlotte asked. “You can’t go downstairs with your hair hanging down like that. It’s not proper. It’s not decent.”

“Hawke says that as Duchess of Hawkesworth, I don’t have to follow the fashions,” Lizzie said finally. “I can make them instead.

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