“After all our hard work to make the world accept her,” said Augusta, “and then for her to be married in such haste, and in this appalling hole-in-corner way? Unthinkable. We must have at least a month.”
“June would be better,” said Priscilla. “Dorothea and I expect our confinements in May.”
Zoe looked at him, rolled her eyes, and recommenced buttering her toast.
“The Duchess of Marchmont,” he said, “may wed when and where she pleases. Nothing the Duchess of Marchmont does is ever hole-in-corner. If the Duchess of Marchmont wishes to make haste, then the world must make haste with her. Your-Grace-that-is-to-be, when you’ve finished your breakfast, I should like to speak to you in a place where your sisters are not. I shall await you in the library.”
He went to the library.
It was blessedly quiet.
He wasn’t.
He walked to the fireplace and stared into the grate. He walked to the window and took in the view of Berkeley Square. One carriage. Two riders. Two people walking in the direction of Lansdowne House. A small group emerged from Gunter’s and walked toward the little park. He remembered what the square had looked like a few weeks ago, on April Fool’s Day, the day he’d come here intending to unmask an imposter and found instead the girl he’d lost twelve years ago.
Now they were engaged to marry.
Thirty days, from the time he’d walked into the small drawing room of Lexham House and spied her sitting in the chair to the day he’d set for their wedding: this coming Thursday, precisely at the end of the month.
Thirty days, start to finish.
Thirty days, and he’d be finished as a bachelor.
That didn’t worry him. It was bound to happen sooner or later. It was his duty to wed and beget heirs, a duty drummed into him practically since birth: Though Gerard had been the heir, carrying on the ancient line was too important a matter to be left to only one male of the family.
Wedlock didn’t worry Marchmont. He foresaw no great changes in his life. What worried him rested nearer to hand.
He left the window and paced.
Hours, days, months, and years seemed to pass before something made him turn toward the door.
He must have heard her footfall without fully realizing. She paused in the doorway.
Her posture was correct. Her morning dress was correct, covering her arms and her bosom completely. But no other Englishwoman stood in quite that way. No other Englishwoman could linger for a moment in a doorway and create images in a man’s head of her falling back onto pillows, her clothing disordered, her gaze sleepy with desire.
“Thank you for silencing them,” she said as she entered. “You’ll wonder why I let them carry on so and don’t argue with them. The trouble is, if I do argue, it takes forever to finish my breakfast, and everything gets cold. In the harem, we had outbursts all the time, much worse than this. Women screaming, threatening, complaining, hysterical. I tell myself I’m used to it. I tell myself to let it wash over me, to pretend it’s a storm raging outside. But it’sveryaggravating, and I’ll be so glad to move into your house, and make rules about how many sisters may be allowed at a time and what times they are allowed.”
It had never occurred to him that she might make rules in his house; but the realization came and went, quickly supplanted by the momentous thing that was about to happen, and about which he was experiencing doubt such as he hadn’t known since boyhood.
“Whatever you like,” he said distractedly. “I have something for you.”
Her entire being seemed to still. “A gift?”
“I’m not sure one calls it a gift.” He patted his coat. Which pocket had he put it in? Which one had he finally settled on? He’d taken it out and put it back a hundred times. “One moment. I know it’s here somewhere. Hoare became hysterical, because it spoiled the line of my—Ah yes, there it is.” He drew out the small velvet case from the pocket concealed in the lining of his tailcoat’s skirt.
She stiffened and folded her hands over her stomach.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“Nothing,” she said. “I think I know what’s in the little box.”
“In general terms, I daresay you do.” He opened the container, his hands a degree less steady than they ought to be. He told himself this was absurd. How many times, to how many women, had he given jewelry?
He took out the ring and stared at it. Somehow, this morning in the shop, it hadn’t seemed quite so…quite so…
“My goodness.” She raised her tightly folded hands to her bosom. “It’s big.”
It was enormous, and perhaps, after all, too large for her hand: a great, brilliant-cut center diamond surrounded by smaller ones. He should have given the goldsmiths more time. They’d had to hurry. They’d misunderstood. They’d got it wrong. But no, Rundell and Bridge never got it wrong.
