The American Duchess by Joan Wolf Page A

either Mother or I took over on her day off. And we often did the baking.” Tracy smiled at his expression. “It is not that easy to find help in America, Adrian. Most good households only have three or four people. There is nothing like the number of people you have working for you in England. Except in the South, and that is only because of slavery, a situation we all disapprove of deeply.”
    “Except, of course, the Southerners,” he said.
    “Not really. Most slave owners don’t defend the institution, you know. The problem is how to get rid of it. But they will. It has only been a few years since the Northern states emancipated their slaves. England has only outlawed slavery quite recently also. One after the other, the Southern states will follow suit, I’m sure.”
    “Even with the plantations requiringso many people to work them?”
    “About a year ago a group of plantation owners and slaveholders formed the American Colonization Society. Its president is Bushrod Washington, President Washington’s nephew and the owner of Mount Vernon. They want to try to repatriate the Blacks back to Africa. Most of the members are slaveholders who want to find a practicable way of accomplishing emancipation. So you see, progress is being made. It is all a question of time.”
    “Well, that is certainly encouraging,” he remarked, and changed the subject.
    That night, Tracy lay awake in her husband’s arms, listening to the night sounds coming from outside the open window and wishing they did not have to leave tomorrow. She knew that these last five days with Adrian were a unique, never-to-be-repeated time; they were days that were almost out of time, isolated, idyllic, spell bound. They would go back to London and pick up their real life, go back to being people who existed in the context of a world that included other people, other demands, other responsibilities. It was inevitable that they do so, yet Tracy wished now that it did not have to come so soon. She sighed softly and her husband stirred. “Is anything wrong, ma mie?”
    “No.” She smiled a little in the darkness and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I was just thinking that our honeymoon has been too short. I only finished one book, you know.” She turned her head so that her lips were against his bare chest. “I don’t believe any girl ever had a honeymoon more wonderful than mine,” she murmured.
    He didn’t answer, but in half a minute he had turned her over and come into her. She was startled and opened her mouth to protest, but his own mouth came down over hers, crushing the words. He made no attempt to caress her and the hands holding her shoulders were hard and inescapable. After a moment, Tracy’s mouth answered to his and she arched up against him, shuddering with passion.
    After, she lay nestled against him, relaxed and sleepy. “That was incredible,” she murmured.
    Gently he hissed her temple. “Go to sleep,” he said, his voice like a caress. “Go to sleep, my love.”
    And she did.
     

Chapter 11
     
    This thou perceivest, which makes thy love
        more strong,
    To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
    —Shakespeare
     
    Tracy was very silent during the drive back to London and the Duke made little attempt to draw her into conversation. When they reached the outskirts of the city he asked her if she wanted to stop first at the Clarendon to see her father, and she said that she did.
    She had pushed her father to the bottom of her mind for the last week, but now reality was avoidable no longer. She would see him today, and for a few more days after that. Then he would go back to America, and she would never see him again. When they reached the hotel her husband said tactfully, “You go up first, ma mie. I’ll come along in a bit.”  She smiled a little tremulously, nodded and left him to go inside.
    His daughter had been very much in Mr. Bodmin’s mind for the last week. When he had seen her drive off