Chapter Five
“Today will bea very fine one, Lydia,” her mother chirped with the enthusiasm of a bird in spring.
But it was not spring. The snow on the ground and the chill in the air gave proof. Rather, it was the twenty-fifth of December.
Christmas.
And Lydia had been hiding from the festivities of the house party that afternoon, settled into a chair so she could read a book, when her mother had bustled into the small salon she had found, disrupting her solitude and quiet both. At least the house party was nearing its completion, and she could return to the familiar order of her ordinary life.
“Today seems no different than any other,” she observed, frowning. “Aside from it being Christmas day.”
“How wrong you are,” Mother said. “It is a grand day for a celebration! The sun has appeared to melt the snow. I could turn into a watering pot, so great is my relief. But I shall not. No, indeed. I shall not.”
Lydia glanced up from a volume of Newton’sPhilosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Her mother’s white lace cap bobbed in her agitated excitement. Lydia blinked, slowly forcing herself to concentrate.
“Mother, are you quite well?” she asked, concern coloring her voice.
Her mother looked well enough, though she was perhaps more flushed than usual, twin flags of scarlet on her round cheeks. Her blue-gray eyes were unnaturally bright. With fever, perhaps? Lydia frowned, worry unfurling in her breast.
“I have never been so well, of that I can assure you. Oh, my darling girl, I despaired that you would forever remain unwed and on the shelf like your Aunt Clarinda.” Mother clapped her hands in rather unladylike fashion, surprising when she was ordinarily such a stickler—no one in the world could muster even a pinch of Mother’s deportment, aside from the dowager Duchess of Revelstoke. “But you have proven me wrong, and I could not be more proud. Such a feather in your cap!The Duke of Warwick. Imagine, you shall be a duchess. And all in time for Cecily to have her debut next Season.”
Lydia blinked, allowing her mother’s rapid staccato of exclamations to seep into her mind. Planetary motion was so much more intriguing than the marriage mart and house party games. She sifted through what her mother had said, attempting to resurrect the salient points. Aunt Clarinda. Something about a feather. The Duke of Warwick.
Ah, yes.You shall be a duchess.
Good heavens.Surely, she had heard her incorrectly. Mother had not just implied that she was towedtheDuke of Warwick…had she?
A gasp tore from her throat. “Mother, do you not think your celebration premature? He danced with me once and took me on a sleigh ride, aside from being about for all the festivities Lady Emilia planned.”
Her mother’s brow hiked to her hairline, nearly disappearing beneath her cap. “Of course he has proclaimed his interest, my dear. He has scarcely strayed from your side this last fortnight.”
True. Warmth suffused her cheekbones as she recalled the recent whirlwind of activity that had unfolded in the wake of the enchanted day when he had taken her on a sleigh ride and insisted he would marry her. Empty flattery, she was sure of it. Warwick was a handsome devil, a rake of the first order. Not to be trusted. Certainly not the sort of man who would truly want her.
“He is friends with Rand,” Lydia objected on principle. “I have known him nearly all of my life. We are guests at the same house party. Of course, he has been at my side.”
“He has been courting you, my dear,” Mother insisted, a pleased smile tempering the sometimes austere lines of her countenance. “No gentleman would dance attendance upon a lady or look upon a lady as he has you without intending to make an offer. He has not even looked twice at any of the Winter chits, thank the Lord.”
Also true, Warwick always sought her out, danced with her, flirted with her. But he was Warwick. His nonsensical claims that he was courting her aside, the notion of him truly wishing to marry her was laughable. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Mother, but he does not care for me in such a manner.”
Mother gawked at her, pressing a hand over her heart. “My darling girl, of course he does. Why do you think he is at this very moment speaking with your brother in the absence of Revelstoke?”
The air left Lydia’s lungs. Warwick was meeting with Rand, and she had not known. Conducting an interview with him. It could only mean one thing. The very thing that her ridiculously thrilled mother had already ascertained.
Belatedly, she realized that her fingers were gripping thePrincipiaas though her life depended upon it. She inhaled slowly, attempting to calm herself, to stay the onslaught of worry beating to life within her. “Warwick is speaking with Rand?”
Her mother’s head bobbed with more vigor than such a moment required. Her cap nearly went askew. “Of course, he is. Have you not been listening to a word I said, daughter? Oh, for shame. You and those cursed books. Do hide it somewhere, at the very least, Lydia, lest Warwick comes here and sees you with it in your lap. Revelstoke did you no favors in encouraging your unladylike pursuits during the course of your youth, I must confess.”
Her mother’s disgust for the leather-bound volume in Lydia’s lap could not have been more pronounced had it been a dead fish instead of a book filled with valuable knowledge. Grandfather had been decidedly cut from different cloth than her mother, and Lydia would be grateful for that contrast every day of her life. Grandfather had encouraged her to pursue subjects and studies ordinarilyde tropfor a lady, much to her mother’s shame.
“You wish me to hide my book?” she repeated the question to her mother, lest she had misheard or misunderstood.
Another bob of the bright-white cap. Lace fluttered. “Yes, and make haste. I expect he shall conclude his interview with Aylesford at any moment now.”
Lydia absorbed the information her mother had just unceremoniously imparted. If she was to be believed, Warwick was currently meeting with Rand to formally ask permission to wed her. That meant he had been truthful that day in the sleigh. Truthful that night beneath the stars in the darkness of the Havenhurst garden. Honest when he had plied her with kisses in the parlor while Jane snored away.
That meant the Duke of Warwick wished to marry her. The beautiful, ridiculously rakish, always improper Duke of Warwick wantedher, plump wallflower he had once fished from a pond.
Impossible. Improbable.
