This evoked a laugh from Clara.
“Oh, My Lady, if anything, your sense of humour should be enough to win the Duke over,” she chuckled.
“What if he does not share my love for animals?”
“Well,” Clara considered her words for a moment, “I suppose that he would have already expressed his disapproval when you asked him to move Cecil with you.”
Sophia nodded, petting her cat once more.
“What if Cecil does not like him?”
“I believe you might be overthinking things a bit too much now.” Clara’s tone was worried now. “It would be better for you to rest now as the preparations for the ceremony will begin early morning tomorrow.”
Sophia let out a sigh, nodding. Clara was right. Sophia needed to stop ruminating over her anxious thoughts so much.
“I shall see you in the morning,” Sophia said, dismissing her lady’s maid.
Tomorrow, she would be finally wedded to the Duke and officially take on her title as the Duchess. It was a new chapter in her life. Her stomach erupted with butterflies, and she buried her face in her hands.
Everything was about to change.
“Hurry on up, dear brother.” Jacob barged into the Duke’s room that evening. “Uncle Charles has arrived already, alongside our cousins. They are all waiting for you downstairs.”
The Duke groaned internally. It was the night before he was to be married, and he wished to spend this time alone, relaxing on his sofa with a glass of his preferred type of whiskey.
He did not wish to be whisked away to rendezvous with his relatives.
“Can’t the lot of you find amusement amongst yourselves? I do not wish to go out and socialise at the moment…”
Jacob clutched his chest as though Duncan had uttered something blasphemous.
“Socialise? You are classifying a long-held family tradition of the Blackmoores as mere socialising. Oh, I will have none of it. You are to follow me downstairs immediately.”
Duncan wondered whether it would be worthwhile to put up a fight, but when he saw the determined look on his brother’s face, he knew that his attempts would not get him very far.
“May I at least get the chance to finish what remains in my glass?” Duncan raised an eyebrow.
“Not a chance,” Jacob grinned, enjoying himself now. “There will be plenty to drink downstairs.”
Duncan inhaled a deep sigh and followed his brother down the stairs into the parlour where his uncle Charles and his two sons were waiting for him.
“Duncan,” greeted Uncle Charles, who was a stout man with a pleasant appearance. He was the late Duke’s younger brother, and he had been a supportive uncle to the Duke for as long as he could remember. “How many years has it been since I last saw ye?”
“Judging by how Larry and Arthur are all grown up, I believe it has been a long time,” the Duke nodded over to his cousins.
“Aye, the time sure passes on quickly,” his uncle noted. “I knew that I had to make the journey down here from Scotland when I heard that ye was getting betrothed. Mind ye, I was shocked...”
“He was,” Arthur, his oldest son, chimed in. “He thought that ye did not have it in ye.”
“Not in a bad sense,” his uncle clarified immediately. “Of course, ye are quite the eligible bachelor, but ye had never expressed an interest in marriage in all of our previous correspondences.”
“Aye,” his cousin Larry spoke. “In fact, if I was to recall correctly, His Grace made a bet with me some years ago that I would marry before him, despite being ten years younger.”
“And look at him now,” Jacob grinned, seemingly enjoying how his brother was being made the centre of attention by his family members.
“I suppose one is allowed to change his mind,” the Duke spoke up, “is he not?”
“Of course. Especially when it involves matters of the heart,” his uncle conceded. “I am happy for ye.”
