London?

During the Season?

As the betrothed of the Duke of Stanbrook and the sister-in-law of Viscount Ponsonby and the friend of the Earl of Berwick, who was now also a duke, and Baron Trentham and Sir Benedict Harper and Viscount Darleigh and the Countess of Hardford?

It was the stuff of which dreams were made. It was the stuff of which fairy tales were made.

"There is no need to be frightened," he said.

"Oh, I am not frightened," she a.s.sured him. "A little overwhelmed, perhaps-again. But you are quite right. If I am to be your wife, then I needs must be your d.u.c.h.ess too. Besides, I have always thought it must be lovely to attend the theater in London, to stroll in Hyde Park, to waltz at a real ball. Am I too old for that?"

His smile had turned to real amus.e.m.e.nt. "Do you have the rheumatics in both knees, Miss Debbins?"

"No!" She was a little shocked at his open reference to her knees.

"Neither do I," he said. "Perhaps we can contrive to waltz together in some dark corner of some dark ballroom without making too much of a spectacle of ourselves."

She beamed at him.

"Let us change course," he suggested, offering his arm again, "or we will end up in the meadow on the far side of the lake. We will stroll on this side instead and then take the path up to the house. Vincent will be quite wrathful if I keep you out beyond the time allotted for his lesson."

"Is it possible?" she asked. "For Lord Darleigh to be wrathful, that is?"

"I malign him," he admitted with a smile.

Dora had never walked by the lake, though she had seen it from a distance. Nor had she walked on the railed path from the house to the lake, which Lady Darleigh had had constructed after her marriage so that her blind husband could move more freely about the park without always having to be led. It was the viscountess too who had made inquiries about the possibility of training a sheepdog to guide him and give him even more freedom of movement. And she had had the wilderness walk in the hills behind the house reconstructed so that he could walk there in relative safely. She had had it planted with several aromatic trees and flowers to delight his other senses.

"Have you ever been across to the island?" Dora asked, nodding toward it as they strolled beside the lake. "Agnes told me that the little temple folly at its center is very beautiful inside. The stained gla.s.s windows make the light quite magical," she said.

"I have only ever admired it from the bank here," he admitted. "It is a delight we will experience together on our next visit to Middlebury-as man and wife."

Dora's stomach felt as if it had performed a complete somersault. She was not sure that even yet she was fully believing in this future to which she had agreed. She scarcely dared trust in such happiness.

"Penderris Hall is by the sea," he told her. "Did you know that? There are steep cliffs bordering the park on the south and golden sands below and an overall beauty that is quite wild in comparison with what you see around you here. I hope you will not find it bleak."

"I do not expect to do so," she said. "It will be home."

Home. Yet she had never seen it. She had never set foot in Cornwall or in Devonshire. Or in Wales, though she was not far from it here in Gloucestershire. And she remembered that his wife had died on those cliffs to which he had referred. Someone had told her, perhaps Agnes. The d.u.c.h.ess had thrown herself over not long after losing her only son, their only son, during the wars.

What must it have been like for the duke, losing them both like that? How had he retained his sanity?

Dora was struck fully with the realization that she would be his second wife. He would be coming to her enc.u.mbered by years and years of memories of a family life with another woman and a child. He would be coming burdened by the memory of the terrible tragedies that had taken them both from him within a few months. Was it any wonder that he had no romantic love or pa.s.sion to offer her? She could not possibly replace his first wife in his affections.

Well, of course she could not. She would not want to even if it were possible. Theirs would be a different type of relationship altogether. It was comfort and companionship he wanted from her. He had been quite honest about that, and she must not forget it. He wanted someone to help hold the loneliness at bay.

Well, and so did she. They could do that for each other. She could be his companion and friend, and he could be hers. She had music to offer too-in exchange for all the material goods and luxuries he would provide. She smiled when she recalled what he had said to her earlier about his cleverness in choosing a wife who could play for him.

She was not going to get depressed about what she could not have from her marriage. Gracious heaven, at this time yesterday she had fully expected that she would live out her life here at Inglebrook as a spinster. Yet now she was betrothed.

They turned onto the path up to the house.

"You are a peaceful companion, Miss Debbins," the duke said. "You do not seem to feel the need to fill every silent moment with words."

"Oh, dear," she said, "is that a polite way of saying that I have no conversation?"

"If it were," he said, "then I would be condemning myself too since I have been equally silent during much of our walk. I almost wish we had had time to keep going through the trees to stroll in the meadow and sit in the summerhouse. But I must, alas, behave responsibly and deliver you on time for your lesson."

"Do they know?" Dora asked. She could feel the fluttering of anxiety in her stomach.

"I did not feel I had the right to make any announcement," he told her. "It struck me as altogether possible that after thinking things over you would change your mind about facing the upheaval in your life that marrying me will bring. I did not want to embarra.s.s you unduly if you had changed your mind. I was extremely anxious as I walked to your house earlier. I did not know what awaited me."

She glanced at him suspiciously, but he looked perfectly serious.

"It never once occurred to me to change my mind," she said. "I thought perhaps you would be the one changing yours after having seen me again yesterday afternoon. But I remembered that you are a gentleman and would not cry off, having made your offer."

He laughed softly. "I do a.s.sure you, Miss Debbins," he said, "that seeing you again yesterday only made me more eager to marry you."

Oh, dear, Dora thought. Why? But she felt warmed right through to the center of her heart anyway.

George was feeling anxious all over again. Vincent and Sophia, he could see, were outside, sitting in the formal gardens while Thomas, their son, toddled happily along the path near them. He stopped even as George spotted him to pluck the head off a flower and hold it out to his mama with a look of triumph.

"Oh, dear," Miss Debbins said, "they are outside, and Lady Darleigh has seen us. She will think it very presumptuous of me to be approaching the house from the direction of the lake and to be walking on your arm. I am their music teacher."

He smiled down at her and patted her hand. "I did inform them when Vince told me about his harp lesson that I would walk into the village and escort you back here," he told her. "Do I have your permission to tell them about our betrothal?"

"Oh," she said. "Yes, I suppose so. But whatever will they think?"

He was charmed by her primness, her modesty, her anxiety, for after all she was a lady, daughter of a baronet, and had probably expected to make a perfectly respectable marriage when she was a girl.

"I believe we are about to find out," he said. And yes, he was a bit nervous himself. His friends, he suspected, were going to be taken totally by surprise. He did not need their approval, but he certainly wanted it.

Vincent and Sophia were both smiling at them-she must have said something to him. Thomas was beginning to toddle in their direction, but Sophia scooped him up in her arms.

"I do believe, Miss Debbins," Sophia said when they were within earshot, "that George feared you would skip your lesson today on account of the lovely weather. He insisted upon going to fetch you here in person."

"I did indeed," George said. "If I had waited for her to come alone, I would have seen her for only a minute or two before she disappeared into the music room with Vince and the harp, and I would not have liked that at all."

Sophia looked speculatively at him as Vincent came up beside her, led by his dog, and Thomas changed his affections and held out his flower head to George.

"Miss Debbins has not let us down yet," Vincent said with a smile. "Good afternoon, ma'am. You will be cross with me, I fear. I have hardly had a chance to practice since my last lesson."

"That is quite understandable, Lord Darleigh," she said. "You have been to London."

"But before you whisk her away, Vince," George said, "I have something to say. You were mystified by my arrival yesterday, as well you might be since I had seen you in town just a few days before. I came for a particular purpose and accomplished it successfully after tea yesterday when I called upon Miss Debbins at her cottage."

Sophia looked from one to the other of them. Thomas offered his flower, slightly squashed from his grip, to Miss Debbins, who took it with a smile of thanks and raised it to her nose.

"Miss Debbins has done me the great honor of accepting my hand in marriage," George explained. "We plan to wed as soon as the banns have been read. I will then take her away from here and from you, I am afraid. I am also going to insist that you return to London within the month since we plan to marry with a great deal of pomp and circ.u.mstance at St. George's and we absolutely must have all our family and friends about us."

Miss Debbins was giving a great deal of attention to her flower. For a moment, Sophia and Vincent-yes, Vince too-gazed at them with arrested expressions while Thomas leaned out with both arms and nudged his father's shoulder.

"You are going to marry?" Sophia asked as Vincent took the child with his free arm. "Each other? But how absolutely . . . perfect!"

There was a great deal of noise and activity then and even some squealing as everyone hugged everyone else and hands were shaken and backs were slapped and cheeks were kissed and something was hilariously funny, for they were all laughing.

"I cannot decide for which of you I am more delighted," Vincent said as he beamed from one to the other of them for all the world as though he could actually see them. "I cannot think of anyone who deserves George more than you do, Miss Debbins, or of anyone who deserves you more than he does. But this is devilish sneaky of you, George. What are we expected to do now for a music teacher?"

"I would imagine, Vince," George said, slapping a hand on his shoulder, "all your household staff will offer up a prayer of thanks."

"Is that a reflection upon the quality of my instruction?" Miss Debbins asked severely.

"That will teach you to insult me, George," Vincent said with a grin. "Thomas, my lad, Papa's hair was not made to be pulled, you know. Those curls are attached to my head."

Sophia had linked an arm through Miss Debbins's and was drawing her in the direction of the house.

"I cannot tell you how excited I am," she said. "Are we the first to be told? How splendid. Come up to the drawing room for some tea and tell me about your plans. Every single one of them. Did you know George was coming? Did he write to tell you? Or did he just turn up on your doorstep unannounced? How very romantic that must have been."

"I cannot have any tea," Miss Debbins protested. "It is time for Lord Darleigh's lesson."

"Oh, but we would not dream-" Sophia began.

"I am not married yet, Lady Darleigh," Miss Debbins said briskly. "I still have work to do."

George took the child from his father's arm and grinned at Sophia.

"Off you go, Vince," he said.

5.

Miss Debbins's list, neatly written in a small, careful hand, was indeed very short. It consisted of her father and his wife-whom she did not call her stepmother, George noted-her brother and his wife, her sister and Flavian, her aunt and uncle from Harrogate, three couples from Inglebrook, and one from her former home in Lancashire.

George handed it to Ethan Briggs when he returned to Stanbrook House after being away for five days.

"Have I kept you very busy while I was away, Ethan?" he asked.

His secretary looked pained. "You know you have not, Your Grace," he said. "I have paid twenty-two bills and refused thirty-four invitations, some of which needed to be worded more tactfully than others. I have not done sufficient work to justify the very generous salary you pay me."

"Is it generous?" George asked. "That is good to know, for you will soon be earning it and more. Your time and energy will be taxed, Ethan, as they were during the weeks preceding Lady Barclay's wedding. Invitations are to go to everyone on this list. It is admittedly short, but Miss Debbins a.s.sured me she has included everyone of any importance to her. Ah, and there is this one too-my own list. It is lamentably long, I am afraid, but Miss Debbins did agree with me that if we are to do this thing properly, then we really ought to invite everyone who is anyone. There are certain expectations when one holds the lofty t.i.tle of duke."

"Miss Debbins?" Briggs asked politely, taking both lists from his employer's hand.

"The lady who has been good enough to consent to marry me," George explained. "There are to be wedding invitations, Ethan. To St. George's, of course, at eleven o'clock in the morning four weeks from this coming Sat.u.r.day if I am in time to have the first banns read this coming Sunday. As I daresay I will be."

His secretary, who had never before displayed anything approaching open astonishment, looked up at him with a slightly dropped jaw.

"I daresay it was that other nuptial service last week that aroused in me a distinct hankering to have a wedding of my own, Ethan," George said apologetically. "I am afraid your rest period is over. There will be a great deal more work for you to do even after you have written and sent the invitations. But at least you have had some practice."

His secretary had recovered his usual poise. "May I be permitted to wish you all the happiness in the world, Your Grace," he said.

"You may," George said.

"No one deserves it more," the usually impa.s.sive Briggs added.

"Well, that is remarkably handsome of you, Ethan." George nodded genially and left him to the arduous work ahead.

His own next task, not to be delayed one moment longer than necessary, was to make arrangements for the banns to be called. Not much longer than an hour after his arrival in town, however, he was back on Grosvenor Square, knocking on the door of Arnott House, which was on the opposite side of it from Stanbrook House. He was informed by Viscount Ponsonby's butler that my lord and my lady had returned from an afternoon outing not ten minutes before, and he was escorted up to the drawing room, where they joined him a few minutes later.

And no, George thought with a keener than usual glance at the viscountess, Miss Debbins did not much resemble her sister, who was taller, fairer haired, and more youthfully pretty.

"George." Flavian beamed at him and shook his hand before crossing to the sideboard to pour them each a drink. "We have not set eyes on you since Imogen's wedding. We were beginning to think you must have f-fled back to Penderris to recover from all the excitement."

"Do have a seat, George," Agnes said, indicating a chair and smiling her welcome. "You have probably been enjoying a well-deserved rest."

"I have been out of town," George admitted as he sat. "But not to Penderris. I have been at Middlebury Park."

They both looked at him in some surprise.

"You went with Sophia and Vince?" Flavian asked.

"Not with them, no," George said, taking the gla.s.s his friend offered him. "I went a few days after them. I had to wait until after my cousins left, though actually I had no intention of going anywhere myself until they had set out for c.u.mberland. Vince and Sophia were taken rather by surprise when I descended upon them without any warning."

"I am quite sure it was a happy surprise," Agnes said. "Did you by any chance see Dora while you were there?"

"I did indeed," he said. "Miss Debbins was, in fact, my reason for going."

They turned identical frowns of incomprehension upon him.

"I went," George explained, "to ask Miss Debbins if she would be obliging enough to marry me. And she was-obliging enough, that is."

"What?" Agnes laughed, but there was puzzlement in the sound. She was not sure if he was serious or making some sort of bizarre joke.

"I proposed marriage to Miss Debbins," George said, "and she accepted me. We are to marry at St. George's in one month's time. She will be following me up to town within the week. She has shopping to do, it seems, though she flatly refuses to allow me to foot any of the bills before she is married to me. Your sister is an independent, strong-minded lady, Agnes. Although she has never before been to London and is clearly somewhat awed, if not terrified, at the prospect of coming now in the middle of the social Season as the betrothed of a duke and of marrying him in grand style with all the fashionable world looking on, she still insists upon doing it at her own expense. She has agreed, though, that it is the sensible thing to do to come early so that she may meet the ton and allow the ton to meet her before the fateful day. She will not attend any formal entertainments, she a.s.sures me, but she has agreed to a betrothal party close to our wedding date. I am all admiration for her courage."

Agnes's hands had crept up to cover her cheeks. "It is really true, then?" she asked, doubtless rhetorically. "You are going to marry Dora?' Her eyes suddenly brightened with unshed tears.

"Why you sly dog, George." Flavian set down his gla.s.s, jumped to his feet, and crossed the distance between them in order to pump George's hand up and down in a hearty shake and then thump him on the back. "And to think that all of us in the club have been busy p-putting our heads together to think of a worthy lady who might t-tempt your fancy and take you off our hands. It is very lowering, let me tell you, for a man to be reduced to m-matchmaking, but you showed no sign of doing it for yourself. Yet all the time you had your sights upon my sister-in-law. I could not be happier, and Agnes is ecstatic. You can tell by the fact that she is w-weeping."

"Oh, I am not," she protested. "But . . . Oh, George, you cannot possibly know what this means to me. Dora gave up her life for my sake when I was a child. She stayed at home to raise me after our mother left when she ought to have been enjoying a come-out Season here in London. She might still have had that Season after the worst of the scandal died down if she had pressed the matter with Papa, but she never did. She would not even go to Harrogate when our Aunt Shaw would have taken her about and introduced her to some eligible gentlemen. She was quite adamant that she would stay with me, and she never once complained or made me feel that I was a nuisance and had blighted all her hopes. But now at last she is to have her happily-ever-after? With you of all men, George? And oh, dear, now I am weeping. Thank you." The thanks were for the large handkerchief Flavian had pressed upon her. He rubbed a hand over the back of her neck while she dried her eyes and blew her nose.