Boudreaux’s Lady

1 London, October 1826 - Twenty Years Later “He doesn’t look a thing like me,” the Duke of St. Albans grumbled. Beauregard Boudreaux eyed the older man standing beside him at the back of the crowded ballroom. “Who, Your Grace?” Beau asked. “Roderick, my grandson.” St. Albans pointed at a blond-haired young man who was dancing with a pretty girl. Beau glanced between the two men, searching for even a hint of resemblance. Roderick had a kind face and bright brown eyes but lacked any resemblance to the Duke. St. Albans, although he was of five and sixty years, was still a fit man with dark brown hair and the clearest gray eyes Beau had ever seen. “Perhaps he favors the father’s family?” Beau studied the young man again as he spun his pretty partner around. “The Earl of Monmouth? No, he has a coloring similar to mine.” St. Albans crossed his arms over his chest, a strange expression deepening the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. “My child, his wife, was not fair of color either. She favored me.” “He seems to be a good lad, Your Grace.” “Oh, yes. He is a delightful boy. He has a good head on his shoulders, but I wish…” St. Albans didn’t continue his thought. Instead, he turned to leave the ballroom, a look of regret clinging to him so openly that Beau felt compelled to pursue him. St. Albans had practically raised Beau. As a young boy, Beau had lost his father in France, and he and his mother had returned to her family’s home in England, a small manor house neighboring the St. Albans estate. When he was sixteen, he’d started scaling the short cobblestone walls between the two estates and wandered into St. Albans’ gardens then down by the lake, where he first met the duke. Now, at the age of six and thirty, he felt the duke was a friend, as well as a surrogate father. Seeing the duke distressed by the past left Beau unsettled as well. St. Albans walked down the picture gallery of his home, away from his ballroom, and paused before a row of paintings. A servant at the opposite end of the hall trailed behind Beau and St. Albans, lighting the lamps around them before discreetly retreating. Beau put a hand on St. Alban’s shoulder. “Your Grace? Are you all right?” The older man glanced at him with a sad smile on his face. “I’m sorry, my boy. I’m not fit company tonight. I never should have hosted this bloody ball. I thought it might distract me.” The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth deepened as he stared up at the portraits around him. “Distract you?” Beau wasn’t sure he was following his friend’s words. “Yes.” St. Albans twisted his family’s signet ring around on his little finger as he stared up at a portrait tucked in the corner of the gallery. “It is the anniversary, you see, of my sweet Albina’s death. Her mother, God rest her, died when Albina was only six years old, and Albina became my whole world. Then I lost her too.” “Albina died twenty years ago?” Beau must have met St. Albans just a year after the duke had lost his only child. “Perhaps that’s why my heart aches when I look at Roderick. It’s not so much me that I wish to see in him, but her.” He pointed a trembling hand to the painting in the corner. Beau’s breath caught at the figure painted in the oils. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen sat on a settee, a book resting in her lap and her chin resting in her hand as she leaned against the arm of the settee. Her pale skin seemed to glow like alabaster beneath the moonlight. Dark brows arched above a pair of mischievous startling gray eyes and a sensual mouth made for kisses and witty remarks. The watered silk of her gown had been painted with such perfection that Beau thought, perhaps half madly, that he could reach out and touch the silk, not merely a painted canvas. “Lovely, wasn’t she?” St. Albans said. “Beyond lovely,” Beau agreed. As one of London’s desirable bachelors, he’d had the best mistresses a man could have, but all paled in comparison to this vision. Her exquisite face would have made Helen of Troy weep with envy. “You would have liked her, Beau.” St. Albans grinned, even though his eyes were still deeply shadowed with sorrow. “I imagine I would have, Your Grace.” “She was clever and amusing. So full of heart. And that devil Monmouth stole her away to Gretna Green. She thought she loved him but learned too late he only wanted her for her looks and her breeding. She was not some bloody beast at Tattersall’s. She was my child.” Beau sensed his old friend was battling with painful demons of the past and had no idea how to help. “He didn’t keep you from seeing your grandson, did he?” St. Albans shook his head. “He lets me see the boy, but I thought even after all these years, I would see some small bit of her in him, but I don’t. I’m getting old, Beau, and at this time in a man’s life, he wants to see some part of himself live on. I fear I won’t have that.” “I’m sorry, Your Grace. Why don’t we go back to the ball?” “You go on, my boy. It’s time you danced with a few young ladies, is it not?” Beau didn’t want to tell him that he had no desire to dance with any of the young debutantes tonight. To see the dewy hope in their eyes and their proud mothers looking on, hoping to snare him in a Parson’s mousetrap. No, he certainly didn’t want that. It was nothing more than a painfully artificial and insincere charade which would wound innocent girls when they came to the rude awakening that he would never wed them. But he couldn’t tell St. Alban’s that. He knew full well that the duke wished for him to settle down and marry. “If you are to retire for the night, I shall as well.” St. Albans seemed to shrug off his bad spirits somewhat and turned to Beau. “Off to see your mistress?” “Perhaps,” Beau hedged. “What’s this one’s name?” St. Albans asked, slight disapproval in his tone. “Daniela.” “Daniela? Is she an opera singer? A dancer?” “This one is an opera singer. She was the toast of Italy last year.” St. Albans straightened his shoulders. “Very well. I will come back down to the ball, but you will dance. You understand? Five dances.” “Two,” Beau countered. “Three, or I’ll find you a bride tonight.” The duke warned. Beau knew that particular threat was actually well within St. Albans’s power. “Three then, Your Grace,” he conceded. St. Albans clapped a hand on Beau’s shoulder. “Come now. You know it amuses me to see all those ladies fall at your feet. You’re far too handsome not to make at least a few little women swoon tonight.” With a beleaguered sigh, Beau followed St. Albans back to the ballroom, but he couldn’t seem to forget the woman from the portrait. Her amused smile was as though the painter had caught her in a moment of secret delight at some joke. She looked like a woman who lived to love. But love was a fool’s game, one for young men with bouquets of flowers and young ladies who knew not what life held in store for them. Beau decided long ago he would not lose a woman to death. So, he lived in a bachelor’s residence and kept a mistress content in a little suite of rooms. He would do that for as long as any man could, but he would never fall in love. He never wanted to endure the pain that so clearly haunted St. Albans, nor did he ever wish to inflict that pain on a wife if he were to die as his father had and leave her alone. Beau spotted a friend, Ashton Lennox, and his Scottish wife, Rosalind, in the ballroom. Perhaps he could steal Rosalind for one of his required dances. Ashton nodded to him in greeting. Beau took a step in their direction, but nearly trampled upon a plump woman who’d materialized in front of them. She wore colorful turban festooned with a tall ostrich feather and waved an even more feathered fan in front of her face. St. Albans stood at Beau’s elbow, effectively cornering him so he could not get around the woman. St. Albans cleared his throat. “Beauregard, may I present Mrs. Hamlin? Mrs. Hamlin, this is Beauregard Boudreaux. His father was a French Marquis.” “French aristocracy? Oh bonjour, Mr. Boudreaux.” She curtsied, her head lowered, allowing the long ostrich feather on top to caress the front of Beau’s bottle green waistcoat. “Bonsoir, madame,” he corrected gently. The woman blushed and waved over her shoulder at a timid little creature. “Priscilla, come here and meet Mr. Boudreaux.” She waved frantically for the young woman to join them. Beau kept his patience even though he wanted nothing more than to run for his life. He had been through many such introductions and they always reminded him why he hated such affairs. “This is Mr. Boudreaux.” Mrs. Hamlin presented her daughter to Beau. She had to be barely eighteen, fresh faced, attractive, and a little shy. The pale pink muslin gown she wore was fetching and enhanced the blush in the girl’s cheeks. “A pleasure.” He bowed respectably over Priscilla’s trembling hand. “I trust your card is open for the next dance?” The girl somehow managed a frightened nod. “Good. Shall we?” He led her away to the dance floor but gave a parting look at St. Albans which promised retribution. The duke merely smiled. Once Beau was out in the center of the dance floor, he began speaking to his nervous partner. “Miss Hamlin, now is the time where couples engage in conversation. Would you care to converse?” “I… Yes,” she replied. “Excellent, shall we discuss the weather? Or perhaps something more interesting?” Beau winked at the girl as they passed by one another in the dance. Priscilla blushed, but when she came back around to him, she was smiling and engaged in the moment. “Something interesting?” she asked. “What do you mean?” “Well, how about this. Tell me which of these young bucks would you like to notice you? We can manage to catch their eye if you’re game, my dear.” He would do the girl a favor. She was sweet after all and clearly quite frightened of a seasoned rake like him. “Which buck that I…? Oh heavens.” She bit her lip and then shot a glance at the young golden haired viscount, Rodrick Selkirk, St. Albans’s amiable grandson. The young man was dancing a few couples away. It was only a matter of time in the dance before he and Selkirk would switch partners briefly. “Very well. Watch and learn, Miss Hamlin.” “Cilla, please.” The girl said shyly. “Not Prissy?” he teased. Her brown eyes flashed. “Certainly not. I already despise my name and that nickname is no better.” “Well then, Cilla. We shall begin. Tell me what things you enjoy when not dancing with rakehells that would make your mother reach for her smelling salts?” Cilla laughed in delight at his teasing. “Riding, certainly. I enjoy steeple chase and my gelding is one of the best jumpers in London.” “Indeed? I would most enjoy watching you put gentleman to shame in that regard. Far too many men think they know how to clear a hedge.” He twirled with her and their hands intertwined as they spun next to the other partners of the dance. “I assume you read, embroider cushions, sing, all of that as well?” At this Cilla shook her head. “I do enjoy reading but haven’t the time or patience for the others.” Her honesty delighted Beau. Most women wouldn’t dare admit not being a master of those feminine talents. “My father lets me go shooting when we have small house parties.” “Are you a crack shot?” Beau teased but the girl nodded in excitement. “I am indeed!” “My dear Miss Hamlin, you’ve certainly intrigued me. Watch this, child.” He switched places with Selkirk, dancing a moment with the other young lady before he and Selkirk circled one another. “Damned if I’m not a lucky man. Miss Hamlin is a most delightful partner.” The other man shot a glance to Priscilla who looked boldly but briefly at Selkirk, then glanced away, her face still in full bloom of a blush. “She is pretty,” Selkirk mused, somewhat distracted by Miss Hamlin now. “Not just pretty, the girl is quite unique, not some frivolous bit of muslin you see. She’s an excellent rider, a steeple chase expert if you can believe it, and her father takes her hunting. A crack shot, he says. Wouldn’t it be rather the thing to have a wife who could actually entertain a man and join him in his pursuits?” Selkirk’s eyes were bright. “Indeed, it would! I hadn’t thought a woman might enjoy vigorous riding or hunting parties. What a novel thing.” The young man was staring now at Cilla with an intensity that made Beau chuckle inside. “A smart man would snap her up before someone else does,” Beau confided before he rejoined Miss Hamlin to finish the dance. “There. He’s watching,” Beau informed his partner. “Now, smile at me as though you’ve just conquered my heart.” Miss Hamlin raised her chin and flashed a surprisingly bright smile at him. When the dance ended, Selkirk bowed to his partner respectfully before coming straight to Miss Hamlin. “May I beg an introduction?” he asked. Beau nodded. “Of course. Lord Selkirk, this is Miss Priscilla Hamlin.” “Charmed.” Selkirk’s open, honest face hid nothing as he looked at Priscilla eagerly. “Do you have any dances free?” “I do, Lord Selkirk.” And just like that, Beau slipped away, smiling smugly to himself. He had only to endure two more to appease his friend, but he intended to be so clever about it that no woman would walk away tonight with any designs upon him involving marriage. No hearts would be broken if he could help it. A liaison was another matter, however. He grinned at a couple of lusty young widows watching him from the edge of the dance floor. Perhaps tonight held more promise than he thought. Thomas Winthrop, seventh Duke of St. Albans, watched his young protégé, Beauregard Boudreaux drift effortlessly across the dance floor. The lad’s whiskey colored eyes and dark hair along with his handsome features had made him the highlight of many a young lady’s night, yet it was clear none were winning his heart. “My dear boy…” St. Albans breathed out as an aside. “Marriage is what you need, marriage to a good woman.” But that was easier said than done. He knew only too well that Beau intended to never marry. The lad had grown quite terrified of the idea. That was not altogether unsurprising given how he’d lost his father and his mother had to abandon their home and life in France to come to England. The poor woman had never remarried, and the boy had grown up with few friends. Yet, somehow, the boy had found himself at Thomas’s door. Thomas had been bound up in his own grief at the time, having so recently lost his only daughter. He’d wanted the boy to leave him alone, but Beau wouldn’t. He kept hopping over the wall between their two estates, finding Thomas and pestering him with questions, or sometimes simply sitting beside him near the lake. Despite Thomas’s desire to be left alone, an unlikely friendship had formed, and Beau had become like a son to Thomas. Now all Thomas wished for was to see the boy happily married, settled down and creating a house full of surrogate grandchildren who could come and visit Thomas every day. Mrs. Hamlin sidled up beside Thomas. “I’ve been speaking to some of your guests, Your Grace. Is it true what they say about Mr. Boudreaux?” “Is what true, Madame?” “That he’s a master seducer. A rake of the worst kind who has bedded half of the most talented singers in Europe?” Thomas thought about his answer a long moment and then smiled. “Yes, it’s quite true.” Mrs. Hamlin gasped in terror. “Good heavens! And he’s dancing with my child!” “Be at ease, Mrs. Hamlin. Look, I believe he has, in fact, rendered aid to your darling child.” “Aid?” Mrs. Hamlin’s feather on her turban quivered as she studied the ballroom with a critical eye. “Is that your grandson speaking to my Prissy?” “Quite so… Quite so.” Clever boy, Thomas thought. Somehow during the dance, Beau had transferred young Roddy’s attention from his own partner to that of Miss Hamlin. Consequently, it gave Beau the chance to escape the moment the dance ended. Beau gave Thomas a self-satisfied look, but Thomas held up a pair of fingers and mouthed, “Two more.” Beau rolled his eyes and captured the hand of the nearest wallflower. Of course. Wallflowers and rakes never mixed well. She would be terrified of someone like Beau: a tall, confident man in his prime, not some silly young boy still learning how to dance. When the two remaining dances were done, Beau caught Thomas’s eye across the room and gave a little bow. “Cheeky devil.” Thomas muttered, but couldn’t resist chuckling. “I’ll find a way to see you good and settled this year, mark my words. It’s well past time you took a wife.” The question was, how would he find the lucky woman that would be Beau Boudreaux’s perfect match?