“So I am to go to London after Easter to choose a bride,” Lucassaid, bringing his grandfather’s attention back to the matter at hand.
“You are,” the duke said. “It is not going to happen unless we give you a bit of a push, after all, is it? You are unfortunately a bit on the reclusive side, Luc. More than a bit. As though you had never heard of wild oats. Or of London and a wide world beyond the confines of Amberwell. Or of the spring Season and the great marriage mart. Or of all the young girls who come flocking to it each year.”
Lucas was not a recluse. He was happy at Amberwell and had a wide circle of acquaintances as well as a few close friends there. He had an active social life. He loved living in the country and managing his farms along with his steward. He had made friends at Oxford too and remained in communication with a number of them. Some of them still visited him at Amberwell. He still visited them, sometimes for a couple of weeks at a time. There were even a few friends remaining from his school years, before he was fifteen. He had always valued and nurtured friendships.
He just did not like London. Not that he had ever spent much time there, it was true. Whenever he had, though, he had found it crowded and noisy and grimy, and he had craved fresh air and open spaces and a wider view of the sky. And silence. Not that silence was ever total in the country. But he craved birdsong and the chirping of insects, the lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep. The sound of wind. The hooting of night owls.
He had always been uncomfortably aware ofwhohe was whenever he was in town—heir to a dukedom and a fabulous fortune, that was. Men he did not know assumed a friendship with him upon very little acquaintance. Women with daughters of marriageable age fawned upon him with the slightest encouragement or even no encouragement at all. The daughters themselves simpered. Oh,all that was an exaggeration, of course. But not much of a one. He had always felt more like a commodity than a person when he was in town. He had often wished he were simply Lucas Arden, son and grandson of country gentlemen of no particular social significance.
His feelings about being in London no longer mattered, however. And he had always known this day would come. For while he remained at Amberwell, it was unlikely he would meet any young women who would rise to his grandparents’ exacting standards for a future bride. He was not at all averse to marrying. It was virtually impossible, after all, to have any sort of personal friendship with a woman or—heaven help him—a liaison with one while he lived in the country, where everyone knew everyone else and everyone else’s business. It was five years since being at Oxford had given him more sexual freedom, though even there he had not been exactly promiscuous, as many of his fellow students and even a few of his friends had been.
He rather liked the thought of marrying, not just for the obvious sexual satisfaction he might expect, but also for the close companionship a life partner might offer. He thought he would enjoy having children too—because a son would provide a much-needed heir for the next generation, of course. But notjustfor that reason. He would like to have children—plural. Sons and daughters. He always found his niece and nephews, Charlotte’s children, to be great fun, though Sylvester, their father, claimed that his most frequent pastime these days was counting his gray hairs.
“A penny for them,” his grandfather said abruptly, and Lucas looked at him and grinned.
“Are you quite sure you wouldlikeme to sow some wild oats, Grandpapa?” he asked.
“It is too late for them now,” the duke said. “You have lost your chance. Your grandmother and I want you married before thesummer is out, Luc. Preferably before the Season is over. St. George’s on Hanover Square in London is the finest church for the wedding of a duke’s heir to the daughter of someone of equal or nearly equal rank. We want to see a boy in your nursery before next summer. I will undertake to live long enough to hold him at his christening, that quack of a physician be damned.”
Good God! Had Dr.Arnold really given his grandfather less than a year to live?
“I believe I can commit myself to the marriage,” Lucas said. “Provided one of the ladies Grandmama chooses for me will have me, that is. I will do my best on the birth of a son.”
But his stomach was rebelling a bit against the dinner he had eaten. For one thing, his grandfather was obviously dying, and the reality of that fact was beginning to hit home—as far as his stomach was concerned, anyway. Yet he was to be given no time to prepare himself emotionally for what lay ahead. With one’s head one might know that the time left for an aging loved one was limited, but one’s heart was more inclined to take refuge in denial.Not just yet...
Not just yethad becomesoon.And he was not nearly ready, damn it all.
He wasnotaverse to marrying or to fathering a child within a year. But, devil take it, the prospect of marrying a stranger just because she was the daughter of some aristocrat and of a suitable age was more than a little... cold. He did not consider himself a romantic. He did not particularly believe in falling in love and walking about with his head among the stars or any of that poetic nonsense. But hedidbelieve quite firmly in companionship and friendship and compatibility and some basic degree of attraction, both sexual and otherwise. He would have to be intimate with his wife very regularly, after all, at least until there were sons—plural—in his nursery. But ensuring all of that would require time in whichto get to know his future bride and discover if all his reasonably modest requirements were going to be met. For her sake as well as his own. For whoever she turned out to be, she was a person, not just a femalebreedingentity who happened to have been born to nobility.
It was pointless, however, to wish he had got to work on finding just the right woman before now so that he could have a bride of his own choosing. It might not have worked anyway, for even then the Duke and Duchess of Wilby would have had no qualms about vetoing his choice if the woman did not suit them.
At the very least he must hope now that his grandmother would find more than just one or two suitable candidates in London after Easter. Let him at least havesomechoice. And a thought occurred to him. Were there young ladies of aristocratic birth even now awaiting their come-out Season in London and praying fervently that their parents would findmore than one or twoeligible candidates for a husband for them? So that they might hope for some degree of happiness withoneof them?
This ordeal no doubt worked both ways.
Being rich and titled was notallwine and roses and endless freedom—not for men and not for women. Marriage for the privileged few was rarely about love and happiness and friendship and sexual attraction. But, like it or not, he was one of the rich and titled and privileged and there was no point in wishing otherwise.
“Ifone of the young ladies Her Grace chooses for you will have you?” his grandfather asked him, his eyebrows almost meeting for a moment across the bridge of his nose. “If,Lucas?If?Have I taught you nothing in the years since your father’s death? There is no such word asifwhen you have decided that something will be so.”
They were not questions that required any answer.
Chapter Two
Easter was over for another year and members of thetonwere beginning to gather in London in growing numbers, as they always did during the months of springtime. Soon both houses of Parliament would be in session again to occupy many of the men, especially those of the aristocracy, as they conducted the business of the nation. Men and women would fill every available hour of every day hosting or attending a dizzying number and variety of social entertainments—balls, soirees, concerts, garden parties, Venetian breakfasts, to name but a few. For spring in London was the time of the Season. It was also the venue of the great marriage mart, where young ladies fresh out of the schoolroom were brought by hopeful parents to be viewed and courted by gentlemen in search of brides, and the young of both genders vied for the most coveted matrimonial prizes in terms of looks, birth, and fortune.
Lady Philippa Ware, elder daughter of the late Earl of Stratton and sister of the present earl, wasnotfresh out of the schoolroom. She was twenty-two years old, an age at which some would consider herperilously close to being left on the shelf to gather dust. She feared it herself. Nevertheless, she was on her way to London for the first time and, therefore, for her very first Season. She was traveling with her mother, Clarissa Ware, Dowager Countess of Stratton, and her sister, Lady Stephanie Ware. Stephanie was sixteen years old and very definitely stillinthe schoolroom. Leaving her behind at Ravenswood Hall in Hampshire, however, would have meant leaving her alone there with Miss Field, her governess—as well as a houseful of servants, of course—since all her brothers were elsewhere.
Devlin Ware, Earl of Stratton, was currently in Wales to attend the wedding of his wife’s brother before following his mother and sisters to town. Major Nicholas Ware was with his regiment somewhere in northern Europe, where the Duke of Wellington was gathering his armies again to deal with the renewed threat posed by Napoleon Bonaparte, who had recently escaped from exile on the island of Elba and was reputed to be raising a massive army again. Owen Ware was in the final term of his first year at Oxford. And Ben Ellis, their half brother, older than Devlin by more than three years, had gone for a few weeks with his two-year-old daughter to Penallen, a manor house on the Hampshire coast he had purchased from Devlin the year before and was having renovated before moving there permanently later in the year.
Philippa’s mood fluctuated almost hourly between excitement over beingfinallyon her way to London to meet and mingle with thetonand a stomach-churning anxiety that she was going to be a terrible failure there and perhaps even be openly scorned and rejected. She would see London for the first time, she would be presented at court and make her curtsy to the queen, and she would attend as many balls and parties as her mama deemed suitable—ifshe was invited to any at all, that was. She would perhaps make new friends. Maybe she would meet someone and fall in love, though she had nopreconceived notion of what that someone would look like. He must, though, be kind and personable and honorable and without any great vices, like drinking or gambling to excess or... womanizing. That last was most important of all. He would not have to be extraordinarily handsome, only reasonably pleasant to look at.
She might also be spurned and ordered to leave London and never eventhinkof returning. No amount of sensible reasoning would quite banish that unlikely possibility from her mind. Or the fear that she would be invited nowhere. Given the cold shoulder. The cut direct.
She was very much afraid that it was too late for her. She feared that any gentleman in search of a bride would look first at those who were younger than she and perhaps never look at her at all. She had voiced her concern to her mother yesterday, when their personal maids and Miss Field were leaving for London ahead of them, together with most of their baggage.
“Pippa!” her mother had exclaimed, laughing softly and drawing her daughter into a warm hug. “Have you taken a good look at yourself in your glass lately? It frequently amazes me that I actually gave birth to someone so beautiful in every way—in looksandnature. And have you remembered that you are the daughter and sister ofan earl? You have a large dowry. And as for beingold,well, you are just far enough past childhood to have developed poise to add to your youthful beauty. It would surprise me very much indeed if soon after Devlin joins us in London he does not find himself besieged daily by young gentlemen come to offer for your hand.”
Philippa had laughed at the obvious exaggeration, though she had been reassured—for the moment. Perhaps she would not be atotalwallflower. Gwyneth, her sister-in-law, had beentwenty-fourwhen she married Devlin just before Christmas last year, after all. Yet she was vividly beautiful and had been practically betrothed toa famous musician when Devlin had returned home from war in the early autumn after a six-year absence.
