"Rather funereal, Your Grace."
"How appropriate, as I'm about to bury my dignity." He adjusted his cravat with the precision of a man who believed that perfect neckwear might somehow salvage an impossible situation. "Tell me, Sinclair, have you ever been forced to prostrate yourself before your enemies?"
"Not recently, Your Grace."
"Well, I don't recommend it. It's remarkably bad for one's posture."
Sinclair wisely said nothing, merely holding out the rejected burgundy waistcoat with the persistence of a man who'd been dressing dukes for twenty years and wasn't about to stop now.
"The black," Alexander repeated firmly. "If I must go begging to the Coleridges, I'll at least look like I'm mourning my self-respect."
The valet sighed but produced the requested black waistcoat, though his expression suggested he was mourning something too; possibly his employer's good sense.
Alexander surveyed the final result in the glass. Perfect. He looked exactly like what he was: a man of impeccable breeding being forced to do something unspeakable. The effect was rather spoiled, however, by his cousin Frederick's sudden arrival.
"My goodness," Frederick announced, breezing into the bedchamber without so much as a knock. "You look like you're attending your own funeral."
"How prescient of you. I am."
"Don't be dramatic. It doesn't suit you." Frederick threw himself into a chair with the carelessness of someone who'd never met a piece of furniture he couldn't make friends with. "It's just marriage."
"To a Coleridge."
"Yes, well, we all have our crosses to bear. Mine is an inability to win at cards. Yours is apparently matrimony to a merchant's daughter. Though I must say, yours comes with a better income."
Alexander turned from the mirror to fix his cousin with a glare that had been known to send parliamentary opponentsinto retreat. "Did you come here for a reason, or are you simply practicing being irritating?"
"Can't it be both?" Frederick grinned, unperturbed. "Actually, I came to offer my services. Moral support and all that. Someone needs to keep you from actually doing anything foolish."
"I don't need moral support. I need a miracle. Or perhaps a convenient bout of plague."
"The Coleridges aren't that bad," Frederick said, though his tone suggested otherwise.
"The Coleridges," Alexander said with the kind of precise enunciation typically reserved for pronouncing death sentences, "are exactly that bad. Have you forgotten the Jennings’ ball? The eldest one practically counted the silver. And those twins; laughing at their own jests, which weren't even amusing."
"And the daughter?"
Alexander paused in the act of selecting gloves. "What daughter?"
"The one you're supposed to marry. Miss Coleridge. I assume she exists?"
"One assumes." He pulled on his gloves with unnecessary force. "Though I've never noticed her, which tells you everything you need to know. She's either too plain to be seen or too scheming to be obvious about it."
"Those are your only options? Plain or scheming?"
"She's a Coleridge. What else could she be?"
Frederick appeared to consider this. "Happy? Sad? Fond of butterflies? Allergic to strawberries? You know, an actual person."
"Don't be ridiculous." Alexander collected his hat with the gravity of a man selecting weapons for a duel. "Coleridges aren't people. They're a collective irritation that happens to walk upright."
"You're going to be a delightful husband."
"I'm going to be a dutiful husband. There's a difference." He moved toward the door, then paused. "And no, you cannot come with me."
"But..."
"No."
