Deceived

Royal George docked, its heavy lines securing it to the shore. The gangway was lowered, and the passengers began to depart the ship. Actually there had been few passengers on this crossing: a children's tutor returning to England on the death of his mother, two young women from Barbados who were being sent to school, and their chaperon, a rather quiet older woman coming to visit her daughter, who was married to a clergyman in Oxfordshire. They had all been mightily impressed by the two siblings from St. Timothy, who, the captain had informed them, were coming to England to visit their sister, the Duchess of Farminster.

As George and Aurora stepped to the head of the gangway, they saw Cally waving madly to them and calling their names. She stood next to a magnificent traveling coach, and was accompanied by a gentleman, not her husband. They hurried off the ship, Wickham and Martha following.

Cally hurled herself enthusiastically at her brother and stepsister. 'Darlings! I thought you would never get here!' She hugged them both, kissing them on their cheeks. Her scent was overwhelming.

'Where is Valerian?' George questioned his sister as the baggage was being loaded on a smaller coach in which the servants would travel. 'I thought perhaps he would come with you.'

'Valerian? I really don't know where he is,' Cally said in unconcerned tones. 'Possibly he is down in the country. Dear brother, we were misled. He may bear the title of duke, but the man is a farmer! Imagine! A farmer! He would rather spend his time with his horses and cattle and sheep than in the society of elegant people.'

'No matter, Cally,' Aurora said sharply. 'You still bear the title of duchess, and do not, as far as I can see, want for anything.'

'Oh, Aurora, it is good that you have not changed. Did I not tell you, Trahern? Her wit is wonderfully sharp.' She had turned to the man accompanying her. He was very tall, and slender, and fair. 'Trahern, this is my sister, Aurora. Aurora darling, this is Charles, Lord Trahern. I brought him especially for you.'

'How embarrassing for both me and for Lord Trahern,' Aurora answered her stepsister, annoyed. 'I think you know, Cally, how very much I dislike anyone choosing a gentleman for me.' Her meaning was very pointed, and for the briefest moment Calandra looked uncomfortable.

Then she giggled. 'Oh, you are so naughty!' she simpered. Lord Trahern's thin lips had twitched with amusement when Aurora had delivered her put-down of her stepsister. Now he caught Aurora's gloved hand, and raising it to his lips, kissed it. 'Miss Spencer-Kimberly, I am delighted to meet you, even if you are not delighted to meet me.' Calandra had been babbling for weeks about this sibling, and what a good match she would be. God knows he needed a wife with an income, but this girl was far too intelligent to be fooled, unlike dear little Calandra, whose sole interests were bound up with her own pleasures and her own desires. He returned Aurora's hand.

'Cally,' George said, 'you may be used to this weather, but we are not. Let us get into your coach. Where are you taking us?'

'London!' Cally said brightly. 'It's a long drive, but we will go straight through. Trahern was kind enough to arrange for extra horses for the coach along the way. Come along now!'

It was a good fifty-mile drive. They stopped three times to exchange horses on both the coaches. Twice they stopped to eat, use the necessary, and get warm by an inn fire. They had docked just after dawn. When they arrived in London it was already dark, and Aurora was still cold and exhausted. Cally had chattered almost the entire way. She babbled about society, and fashion, and the latest gossip.

'The king is to be married this year,' she said.

'The king to wed? He's too old,' George said.

'Ohhh! You don't know, do you? Well,' she answered her own question, 'how could you. The old king died in late October. We have a nice new king, and he's going to marry some German princess, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. He's very handsome, the king.' She giggled. 'Dull, but handsome. Do you know how the old king died?' She lowered her voice. 'He was on his commode!' And she giggled wildly again. 'His commode! Of course they hushed it up so the common people would not hear and make a mockery of it, but naturally they did. All of Europe knows that old King George died sitting on his commode!'

'How mean-spirited of you, Cally,' Aurora chided her stepsister.

'Oh, Aurora!' came the protest. 'You are so serious. You must become gayer, or you will never succeed in finding a husband for yourself. Men in polite society do not like bluestockings.'

After what seemed an interminable time, the coach pulled up in front of Farminster House. Servants ran from the mansion to lower the coach's steps, open the door, and help the occupants out. Aurora sighed with gratitude as they entered the warm house. Behind her she could hear her stepsister giving orders to the servants about the baggage.

'Welcome to England, Miss Spencer-Kimberly,' she heard a voice say.

Looking up as she drew her gloves off, she saw the duke descending the stairs. 'Thank you, your grace,' she responded politely.

He took her two cold hands in his warm ones and replied, 'I thought we had agreed all those long months ago that you would call me Valerian, Aurora. Lord, you are frozen, I fear. Come into the drawing room, and I will have tea brought. My grandmother has come up from Hawkes Hill with me to greet you. She is waiting for you.'

Ascending the staircase, they entered a magnificent drawing room with a gilded ornamental frieze around its paneled ceiling. The carpets were thick and colorful. The walls were hung with fine portraits, and the mahogany furniture, unlike that in the Indies, was upholstered richly. Heavy velvet draperies hung from the windows, and in a huge fireplace flanked by great stone lions a great warm blaze burned. By the fire sat an elderly lady with snow-white hair. She arose to greet them.

'Grandmama, this is Miss Aurora Spencer-Kimberly,' the duke said. 'Aurora, this is my grandmama, the Dowager Duchess of Farminster.'

Aurora curtsied prettily. 'How do you do, ma'am,' she said.

Mary Rose Hawkesworth looked sharply at Aurora. Why was the girl's face familiar? She looked nothing like that foolish Calandra. 'How do you do, Miss Spencer-Kimberly,' she answered the girl. Then, seeing Aurora shiver, she said, 'Come by the fire, my dear. You are, of course, not used to our English weather.'

'I fear not, ma'am, although Captain Conway assures me that my blood will thicken, and then I shall not feel the cold as deeply.'

The dowager chuckled, and led the girl to a seat by the fire. Her grandson pulled the bell cord on the wall, and when a servant replied sent the fellow for hot tea. Out in the foyer Cally could be heard laughing, and then she called for her stepsister.

'We are in the east drawing room,' the duke responded.

Cally burst into the room, George and Lord Trahern in her wake. 'Hawkesworth!' she said, surprised. 'What brings you in from the country?' Then her eye spied the dowager. 'Oh! Grandmama has come too. Good evening to you, ma'am.' She offered the dowager a scant curtsy.

'Calandra' came the frosty reply.

'We did not expect you, Hawkesworth,' Calandra said.

'Obviously not, my dear,' he answered her. 'Good evening, Trahern.' Then he turned and said, 'Welcome to England, George.' The brothers-in-law shook hands. 'Come now, and meet my grandmother.'

There was something terribly wrong between Cally and her husband, Aurora thought. They were civil to each other-barely-but there was a coolness between them. For some reason, she felt sorrier for the duke than for her stepsister. The young woman chattering brightly in this room was not the sister