The Duchess Diaries. Merline Lovelace
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being summoned. I’ll talk to you again when Sarah and I get back from our honeymoon.”
He handed his empty tumbler to a passing waiter and started for his wife, then turned back. “Just for the record, Mason, my money’s on Gina. She’s got more of the duchess in her than she realizes. And speaking of the duchess...”
Jack followed his glance and saw the silver-haired St. Sebastian matriarch thumping her way toward them. A long-sleeve, high-necked dress of ecru lace draped her slight frame. A trio of rings decorated her arthritic fingers. Leaning heavily on her cane with her left hand, Charlotte dismissed her new grandson-in-law with an imperious wave of the right.
“Gina says it’s time for you and Sarah to change out of your wedding finery. You only have an hour to get to the airport.”
“It’s my plane, Charlotte. I don’t think it’ll leave without us.”
“I should hope not.” Her ringed fingers flapped again. “Do go away, Devon. I want to talk to Ambassador Mason.”
Jack didn’t consciously go into a brace but he could feel his shoulders squaring as he faced Gina’s diminutive, indomitable grandmother.
He knew all about her. He should. He’d dug up the file the State Department had compiled on Charlotte St. Sebastian, once Grand Duchess of the tiny principality of Karlenburgh, when she fled her Communist-overrun country more than five decades ago. After being forced to witness her husband’s brutal execution, she’d escaped with the clothes on her back, her infant daughter in her arms and a fortune in jewels hidden inside the baby’s teddy bear.
She’d eventually settled in New York City and become an icon of the social and literary scenes. Few of the duchess’s wealthy, erudite friends were aware this stiff-spined aristocrat had pawned her jewels over the years to support herself and the two young granddaughters who’d come to live with her after the tragic death of their parents. Jack knew only because Dev Hunter had hinted that he should tread carefully where Charlotte and her granddaughters’ financial situation were concerned.
Very carefully. Jack’s one previous encounter with the duchess made it clear her reduced circumstances had not diminished either her haughty air or the fierce protectiveness she exhibited toward her granddaughters. That protectiveness blazed in her face now.
“I just spoke with Gina. She says you’re still trying to convince her to marry you.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Why?”
Jack was tempted to fall back on Gina’s excuse and suggest that a wedding reception was hardly the proper place for this discussion. The steely look in the duchess’s faded blue eyes killed that craven impulse.
“I think the reason would be obvious, ma’am. Your granddaughter’s carrying my child. I want to give her and the baby the protection of my name.”
The reply came coated with ice. “The St. Sebastian name provides more than enough cachet for my granddaughter and her child.”
Well, hell! And he called himself a diplomat! Jack was delivering a mental swift kick when the duchess raised her cane and jabbed the tip into his starched shirt front.
“Tell me one thing, Mr. Ambassador. Do you honestly believe the baby is yours?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes, ma’am, I do.”
The cane took another sharp jab at his sternum.
“Why?”
For two reasons, one of which Jack wasn’t about to share. He was still pissed that his father had reacted to the news that he would be a grandfather by hiring a private investigator. With ruthless efficiency the P.I. had dug into every nook and cranny of Gina St. Sebastian’s life for the past three months. The report he submitted painted a portrait of a woman who bounced from job to job and man to man with seeming insouciance. Yet despite his best efforts, the detective hadn’t been able to turn up a single lover in Gina’s recent past except John Harris Mason III.
Furious, Jack had informed his father that he didn’t need any damned report. He’d known the baby was his from the moment Gina called from Switzerland, sobbing and nearly incoherent. He now tried to convey that same conviction to the ferocious woman about to skewer him with her cane.
“As I’ve discovered in our brief time together, Duchess, your granddaughter has her share of faults. So do I. Neither of us have tried to deceive the other about those faults, however.”
“What you mean,” she countered with withering scorn, “is that neither of you made any protestations of eternal love or devotion before you jumped into bed together.”
Jack refused to look away, but damned if he didn’t feel heat crawling up the back of his neck. Wisely, he sidestepped the jumping-into-bed issue. “I’ll admit I have a lot to learn yet about your granddaughter but my sense is she doesn’t lie. At least not about something this important,” he added with more frankness than tact.
To his relief, the duchess lowered the cane and leaned on it with both hands. “You’re correct in that assessment. Gina doesn’t lie.”
She hesitated, and a look that combined both pride and exasperation crossed her aristocratic features. “If anything, the girl is too honest. She tends to let her feelings just pour out, along with whatever she happens to be thinking at the time.”
“So I noticed,” Jack said, straight-faced.
Actually, Gina’s exuberance and utter lack of pretense had delighted him almost as much as her luscious body during their weekend together. Looking back, Jack could admit he’d shucked a half-dozen layers of his sober, responsible self during that brief interlude. They hadn’t stayed shucked, of course. Once he’d returned to Washington, he’d been engulfed in one crisis after another. Right up until that call from Switzerland.
The duchess reclaimed his attention with a regal toss of her head. “I will say this once, young man, and I suggest you take heed. My granddaughter’s happiness is my first—my only—concern. Whatever Eugenia decides regarding you and the baby, she has my complete support.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less, ma’am.”
“Hrrrmph.” She studied him with pursed lips for a moment before delivering an abrupt non sequitur. “I knew your grandfather.”
“You did?”
“He was a member of President Kennedy’s cabinet at the time. Rather stiff and pompous, as I recall.”
Jack had to grin. “That sounds like him.”
“I invited him and your grandmother to a reception I hosted for the Sultan of Oman right here, in these very rooms. The Kennedys attended. So did the Rockefellers.”
A distant look came into her eyes. A smile hovered at the corners of her mouth.
“I wore my pearls,” she murmured, as much to herself as to her listener. “They roped around my neck three times before draping almost to my waist. Jackie was quite envious.”
He bet she was. Watching the duchess’s face, listening to her cultured speech with its faint trace of an accent, Jack nursed the hope that marriage to her younger granddaughter might not be such a disaster, after all.
With time and a little guidance on his part, Gina could learn to curb some of her impulsiveness. Maybe even learn to think before she blurted out whatever came into her mind. Not that he wanted to dim her sparkling personality. Just rein it in a bit so she’d feel comfortable in the restrained diplomatic circles she’d be marrying into.
Then, of course, there was the sex.
Jack kept his expression politely attentive. His diplomatic training and years of field experience wouldn’t allow him to do otherwise. Yet every muscle in his body went taut as all-too-vivid images from his weekend with Gina once again grabbed him.
He hadn’t been a saint since his