Deceived. Bertrice Small

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СКАЧАТЬ in the letter you received from England today, Mama? Who wrote to you?”

      Oralia was not surprised by her daughter’s question. Calandra’s servant, Sally, had undoubtedly seen Captain Young arrive. “The letter was not addressed to me, but to your father,” she told her daughter, keeping her voice calm and well modulated. “It seems that Robert made an arrangement with an old friend in England many years ago that his son and Aurora marry one day. The young man is on his way from England now, and will arrive on the Royal George in a few weeks’ time.”

      “He’d best not get off the boat,” Aurora said fiercely.

      “Aurora, this is no younger son coming to wed you because you are an heiress and he needs a living. This young man is Valerian Hawkesworth, the Duke of Farminster. He is wealthy, and just the sort of man the heiress to a sugar plantation should marry.”

      “My God, Aurora!” Calandra’s eyes were wide, and not just a bit envious. “You are going to be a duchess!”

      “No, I’m not, Cally,” came the stubborn reply.

      “Aurora, I realize this is a shock to you,” her stepmother said. “It was very foolish of your father not tell us of this arrangement at all, particularly before he died so suddenly.”

      “Papa’s horse threw him, Mama,” Aurora reminded Oralia. “He could have hardly anticipated that.”

      “No,” Oralia responded, “he could not have anticipated it, but the marriage contract says you are to marry when you are seventeen. You will be seventeen on the sixth of April. Robert might have said something. I do not know when he expected to tell you, my dear, but he is gone, and the duke is on his way to St. Timothy expecting to marry you. Now you know, and we will not discuss it again for a few days so that you may get used to the idea of of it all.” She smiled at her children, and then said, “Serve the chicken now, Hermes.”

      “I am not going to get used to it, Mama!” Aurora protested. “I have absolutely no intention of marrying an English duke I never met, and probably won’t like anyhow. And I shall have to live in England all the time, and probably go to court to meet that German king. I do not like Germans, Mama. Do you remember that German overseer we once had? He was a horrible man!”

      “One cannot judge an entire nation by one man, Aurora. I thought I had taught you better than that. Besides, the king is an old man and will probably not live much longer. His son, Prince George, is said to be kind and lovely. A real Englishman. It will be a young and delightful court that you join, my dear.”

      “Not I,” Aurora said ominously.

      “We will discuss it in a few days,” Oralia said.

      “We will discuss it now, Mama,” came the reply. “I am not going to marry a stranger and go to live a life that I should hate in a wet, cold country I have never even seen.”

      “I would,” said Calandra. “To marry a duke, and go to court, I would marry the devil himself! You really are a fool, Aurora. What an opportunity your father has given you, and you are not one bit grateful. If Papa had betrothed me to a duke, I’d wed him in a trice!”

      “A stranger, Cally? You would marry some stranger you had never set eyes upon? I think it is you who are the fool!” Aurora said.

      “Marriages are always arranged,” Calandra answered her stepsister. “So you have never set eyes upon this man. He cannot, surely, be the beast from some fairy tale! And, remember, he has never laid eyes on you either. I’m certain he is wondering during his long days at sea if you are the sort of girl he really wants for a duchess, but he will do his duty, for his father made this match.”

      “He will gain a sugar plantation and this island for his troubles,” Aurora noted.

      “And you will gain a duchess’s coronet!” Calandra countered.

      “I don’t want it,” Aurora said irritably.

      “I wish I had your opportunity, you silly creature,” Calandra snapped at her stepsister. “You really are quite spoiled!”

      “Do you want this duke, Cally?” Aurora asked the other girl. “Then have him! You marry this Valerian Hawkesworth!”

      “Aurora, that is quite impossible,” her stepmother said.

      “Why?” Aurora demanded. She brushed a tendril of hair from her face where it had fallen. “Have you seen this marriage contract that Papa arranged? What exactly does it say, Mama?”

      “Say? Why, I have no idea,” Oralia replied.

      “George! Go to Papa’s library and look in the strongbox he kept by his desk. I will wager a year’s crop you will find this marriage contract in that box. Bring it here at once,” Aurora commanded her stepbrother. Then she looked directly at her stepmother in a way that discomfited the poor woman. “We will see if there is not some way I cannot wheedle my way out of this situation. Why, the nerve of this duke! He has ignored us all these years, and now, with not so much as a by-your-leave, madam, he announces he is coming to marry me!”

      Calandra giggled. “I will wager a year’s crop, if it were mine to wager, that your duke would be horrified to learn what manner of girl you are, Aurora. Men, I am told, do not like forward and fierce women such as yourself. You will have to improve your manners.”

      “Hah!” her stepsister responded. “The man who marries me will have to accept me for myself. I will not be molded and posed like some clay figurine. Besides, Cally, how would you know what a man wants in a woman. You haven’t been off St. Timothy since you arrived from Jamaica, when my father and your mother married. You don’t know any more about men than I do!”

      “We’re totally backward and gauche, the pair of us,” Calandra lamented. “I don’t know why Papa insisted on making us wait until we were seventeen to have a season in England. Why, he wouldn’t even let us go to Jamaica for a visit. We will seem like savages when we are finally allowed out into polite society.” She pushed her plate away fretfully. “I find I am no longer hungry, Mama.”

      George reappeared, clutching a parchment. “You were right,” he said, handing it to Aurora and sitting back down. “It was in Papa’s strongbox just as you said it would be. Hasn’t anyone looked through that box since Papa’s death? It is chock-full of papers.”

      Aurora didn’t answer him, instead, opened the missive and read it over carefully. Then, suddenly, a very wide smile brightened her face, and she chuckled wickedly. “Here it is! The answer to my problem, Mama. This contract betroths Charlotte Kimberly to Valerian Hawkesworth. Now, while it is true I was christened Charlotte Aurora, Mama, Calandra was christened Charlotte Calandra. Remember that when you married Papa and came with George and Cally to St. Timothy, it was decided that rather than have two Charlottes, each of us would use our second name to avoid jealousy, or the appearance of favoritism toward either of us. This marriage contract does not say Charlotte Aurora Kimberly. It plainly says only Charlotte Kimberly. So, if Cally wants to marry this duke, she can. He certainly won’t know the difference, having never laid eyes on me in his life.”

      “No! No! Aurora! We couldn’t do such a thing,” Oralia protested.

      “Why not?” came the quick response.

      “Well, for one thing,” her stepmother said with what she hoped was perfect logic, “the duke is expecting to marry СКАЧАТЬ