“Pay her no heed, Marchmont,” said another. “She has acquired the oddest notions in that heathenish place.”
“What does he care? Blasphemy is nothing to him.”
“That doesn’t mean one ought to encourage her.”
“One oughtn’t to encouragehim, either.”
“But I must speak to him,” the girl said. “He is a duke. It is a very high rank. You spoke of dukes and marquesses. Will he not do?”
A collective gasp from the harridans.
“Do for what?” he said. The wound, if wound it had been, vanished from his awareness. He glanced from sister to sister. They all looked as though someone had shouted, “Fire!”
The intensely blue gaze came back to him. “Are you wed, Lord Marchmont?”
“‘Your Grace,’” Dorothea hastily corrected. “One addresses him as ‘Duke,’ or ‘Your Grace.’”
“Oh, yes, I remember. Your Grace—”
“Zoe, I must speak to you privately,” said Priscilla.
Marchmont frowned at Priscilla before reverting to the youngest sister. “Marchmontwill do,” he told the girl who was and wasn’t Zoe.
Part of his brain said this was the same girl who once tried to injure him with a cricket bat, who climbed trees and rooftops like a monkey and fell into fish ponds and wanted to learn gamekeeping and blacksmithing and was so often found playing in the dirt with the village children.
But she wasn’t the same. She’d grown up, that was all, he told himself. And she’d done a first-rate job of it, as far as he could see.
Since the others so obviously wished to stifle her, he decided to encourage her. “You were saying?”
“Have you any wives, Marchmont?” she said.
“Oh, my goodness,” said one harridan.
“I can’t believe it,” said another.
“Zoe, I beg you,” said another.
Marchmont looked about him. The sisters were undergoing spasms of some kind. Lexham had turned away to study the fire, as he usually did when considering a problem.
Marchmont shook his head. “Not a one.”
The others started talking at Zoe all at once. A lot ofshushing and “Don’t” and “Please don’t” and “I hope you are not thinking” this or that.
Even had he been thoroughly sober, the Duke of Marchmont could not have guessed what they were about. This was nothing new. It would not be the first time he’d interrupted one of their incomprehensible family squabbles. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time they promptly recommenced while he was there. After all, they did regard him as a member of the family, which meant they felt as free to abuse him as they did one another.
He crossed to the table, where a decanter sat untouched, surrounded by wineglasses. He might as well have a drink while he watched the entertainment.
He had lifted decanter and glass and was about to pour when her voice, with its exotic lilt, rose above the rest.
“Marchmont, will you please marry me?” she said.
Mama let out a little scream.
Gertrude leapt up from her chair and tried to drag Zoe out of the room. Zoe broke away from her and moved closer to her father.
“A duke, you said,” she told her sisters. “Or a marquess.Heis a duke. He has no wives. Wife,” she quickly amended. In England, it was only one wife to a man, she reminded herself.
“You don’t simply offer yourself to the first nobleman who walks through the door,” said Dorothea.
