“Oh, the poor gentleman,” Rachel said. “I remember my lessons when Alleyne insisted that I learn to ride—and I had two arms. I was convinced every bone in my body would be broken before I was finished, though I never did actually fall off.”
“I enjoyed catching you too much, Rache,” her husband said, waggling his eyebrows at her.
“Never call Sydnampoorin his hearing, Rachel,” Freyja advised. “Do not eventhinkit.”
“Wulfric,” the duchess said, leaning eagerly across the table in his direction, “you will be seeing Mr. Butler this morning on estate business, will you not? Do invite him to dinner again. He really must not think of himself as a servant even if he is your steward. You told me that he took the position only because he felt he must do something useful with his life.”
“Your wish is, as ever, my command, my love,” the duke said.
“He will be invited. Or rather, if Rannulf is to be believed, he will be issued a ducal summons.”
“And so we will have two reluctant guests at table tonight,” Rannulf said with a grin. “Perhaps they should be seated side by side, Christine. They can commiserate with each other.”
“You will be putting ideas into the ladies’ heads, Ralf,” Gervase said with a theatrical grimace. “You will be having them matchmaking again.”
Aidan groaned.
“The last time we tried it, though,” Alleyne added, “we were remarkably successful. If we had not been, Christine would not now be at the table with us. Neither would she be the Duchess of Bewcastle.”
The duchess laughed.
The duke set down his coffee cup and raised his quizzing glass again.
“The knock on the head that once robbed you of memory for a few months appears to have left you with a tendency toward occasional delusions, Alleyne,” he said. “The Duchess of Bewcastle is at the table here because I wooed her and won her.”
He viewed his spouse severely along the length of the table through his glass while his family indulged in another outburst of merriment and his duchess smiled tenderly back at him.
“I really must go up now to disturb poor Miss Jewell’s appetite,” she said, getting to her feet. “But I hope only for a moment. You are quite right, Eve. We are really just ordinary people. And she has every right to be here with us. Her son’s father was Joshua’s cousin.”
“A fact you would be wise not to mention in her hearing, Christine,” Joshua warned her. “Albert was never her favorite person. Or mine for that matter.”
“And with very good reason,” Eve said. “I will come up with you, Christine, if I may. I met Miss Jewell when we went to Cornwall the year Freyja was betrothed to Joshua.”
“So did I,” Morgan said, pushing back her chair with her knees. “I remember rather liking her. I’ll come too.”
“The poor woman,” Aidan observed. “I’ll wager she has been hoping to hide away in the nursery for the whole month.”
When a maid arrived to help her dress for dinner, Anne greeted her with some embarrassment, not knowing quite what to do with her. She had never had the services of a personal maid, and she had already donned her best green silk.
“I’ll do your hair, mum, if I may,” the girl offered, and Anne sat obediently on a stool before the dressing table mirror.
She had spent a not entirely unpleasant day, all of it indoors, since there was a drizzling rain outside. She had helped organize games for the children, though she had not by any means been the only one doing so. In the course of the day she had met most of the members of the Bedwyn family except for the duke himself. They all had children and most of them had turned up in the nursery at some point in the day and stayed to play—or to be played with.
They had all treated her with courtesy, though she had stayed as far away from them as she was able.
But she had not been able to avoid taking dinner with the family this evening. The duchess had issued a personal invitation and it really had been quite impossible to refuse.
“You got lovely hair, mum,” the maid said as she brushed it out after removing all the pins.
It was honey-colored, thick and slightly wavy when it was down. Her crowning glory, Henry Arnold had once called it—not very originally—with admiration and something more shining in his eyes. And later someone else had called it the same thing while twining his fingers in it…She had hacked most of it off with small embroidery scissors the day she had realized beyond all doubt that she was with child. It had not been cut since except for an occasional trimming of the ends.
She looked different with her hair down out of its usual neat, prim knot. She knew that and usually avoided using a mirror while combing it and putting it up. With her hair down she looked…voluptuous. Was that the right word? She thought it probably was, though it was a word she hated. She hated her shining fair hair, her oval face with its large blue eyes and straight nose and high cheekbones and soft, generous lips. She hated her full breasts, her small waist, her shapely hips, her long, slim legs.
She had once loved to be called beautiful, and she had been called it often. But her beauty had become a curse to her.
“There, mum,” the girl said at last, stepping back to admire her handiwork in the mirror, having curled and coiled and twisted and braided and teased Anne’s hair into a wonderfully artistic creation. “You are lovely enough to attract a lord. A pity all the ones at the house here are spoken for. But thereisMr. Butler, and he is the son of a lord even if he is only a mister himself.”
“If Mr. Butler falls passionately in love with me on sight this evening,” Anne said, “and offers me his hand and his heart and his fortune before the night is out, then I will have you to thank, Glenys.”
