The carriage drove up to the house and stopped. Footmenrushed forward, opened the doors, pulled out the stairs. Her parents and brother descended first, then Lucy tripped down the steps.
Heaven help her. All the Ashmores were standing in front of the house. Lucy wanted to pick up her skirts and run all the way back to Sullivan Hall.
The dowager braved the night air and stood leaning on her cane; a thick shawl draped around her shoulder. Arabella, as beautiful as always, bobbed up and down in excitement.
And him.
Her heart stopped.
He stood tall and immobile; his hands clasped behind his back.
Stiff, buttoned-up, proud and haughty.
Forevermore the Duke of Ashmore.
Their eyes met.
Lucy wished for nothing more in the world than a hole to open up in the ground so she could sink into it and never emerge.
Her father was talking, her mother was talking, Arabella was talking and laughing and clasping her into her arms. “Lucy, finally! How pretty you look. How dare you not reply to all my letters, you terrible girl?”
Lucy was in a daze. What, none of them were surprised to see her? They all accepted without question that she stepped out of this carriage in a tremendously expensive dress, calling herself The Honourable Catherine Edgewood? Almost as if they’d expected it?
“Well. It’s about time.” The dowager patted her arm, which confused her even more.
Her gaze fluttered from person to person and arrested when it reached him.
He bowed to her in that abrupt manner of his. “Miss Edgewood.”
That was all.
She bobbed a quick curtsy. Lucy could not, for the life of her, find even a single word to say.
They were all ushered into the drawing room.
“Where is everyone else?” Lucy asked Arabella.
“Who do you mean?”
“All the other guests?”
A look of understanding dawned in Arabella’s eyes. Her lips formed a round O. “You thought this would be a big house party? But no. It is just you, your brother and your parents. Isn’t this grand? I’m so excited. I can’t wait for you to tell me the complete story. It’s better than a fairy tale.”
“But where is Her Grace?”
Arabella looked at her uncomprehendingly. “Grandmamma is over there.”
“I mean—Louisa.”
“Louisa? She’s in London. I wrote in one of my letters that she got engaged to Lord Finbar. Didn’t you get my letters? They’re to have a grand wedding at the end of summer. London is talking of nothing else.”
Lucy sat down heavily on the blue settee. “I thought—I thought…” She shook her head as if to clear it from fog. “Never mind.”
Henry hadn’t married Lady Louisa Whitehall.
That was the only thing that was going around in her mind right now.
She looked at him, standing by the fireside, talking easily with her father.
