“Goodandlong,” Frances agreed, looking from Claudia to Susanna with that new glow in her eyes. “Perhaps forever. Sometimes there are better things to do in life than singing.”
“Frances?”Susanna clasped her hands to her bosom, her eyes widening.
But Frances held up a staying hand. “No more for now,” she said, “or we will have Lucius blushing.”
She did not need to say any more, of course. At last, after several years of marriage, Frances was going to be a mother. Susanna set her clasped hands to her smiling lips while Claudia squeezed Frances’s hands more tightly before releasing them.
“Come to the drawing room for a drink before dinner,” Peter said, offering his right arm to Frances and his left to Claudia. Susanna took Lucius’s arm and followed along behind them.
Claudia was suddenly very glad to be where she was—even if therewassomething of an ordeal to be faced this evening. She felt a welling of happiness for the way life had dealt with her friends over the past few years. She shrugged off a feeling of slight envy and loneliness.
She wondered fleetingly if the Marquess of Attingsborough would be in attendance this evening. She had not seen him since her arrival in town and consequently she had been her usual placid, nearly contented self again.
When Joseph wandered into White’s Club the morning after his return from Bath, he found Neville, Earl of Kilbourne, already there, reading one of the morning papers. He set it aside as Joseph took a chair close to his.
“You are back, Joe?” he asked rhetorically. “How did you find Uncle Webster?”
“Thriving and irritated by the insipidity of Bath society,” Joseph said. “And imagining that his heart has been weakened by his illness.”
“And has it?” Neville asked.
Joseph shrugged. “All he would say was that the physician he consulted there did not deny it. He would not let me talk to the man myself. How is Lily?”
“Very well,” Neville said.
“And the children?”
“Busy as ever.” Neville grinned and then sobered again. “And so your father believed that his health was deteriorating and summoned you to Bath. It sounds ominous. Am I guessing his reason correctly?”
“Probably,” Joseph said. “It would not take a genius, would it? Iamthirty-five years old, after all, and heir to a dukedom. Sometimes I wish I had been born a peasant.”
“No, you don’t, Joe,” Neville said, grinning again. “And I suppose even peasants desire descendants. So it is to be parson’s mousetrap for you, is it? Does Uncle Webster have any particular bride in mind?”
“Miss Hunt,” Joseph said, raising a hand in greeting to a couple of acquaintances who had entered the reading room together and were about to join another group. “Her father and mine have already agreed in principle on a match—Balderston was called to Bath before I was.”
“Portia Hunt.” Neville whistled but made no other comment. He merely looked at his cousin with deep sympathy.
“You disapprove?”
But Neville threw up his hands in a defensive gesture.
“Not my business,” he said. “She is dashed lovely—even a happily married man cannot fail to noticethat. And she never puts a foot wrong, does she?”
But Nev did not like her. Joseph frowned.
“And so you have been sent back to make your offer, have you?” Neville asked.
“I have,” Joseph said. “I don’t dislike her, you know. And I have to marrysomeone. I have been more and more aware lately that I cannot delay much longer. It might as well be Miss Hunt.”
“Not a very ringing endorsement, Joe,” Neville said.
“We cannot all be as fortunate as you,” Joseph told him.
“Why not?” Neville raised his eyebrows. “And what will happen with Lizzie when you marry?”
“Nothing will change,” Joseph said firmly. “I spent last evening with her and stayed the night, and I have promised to go back this afternoon before going to the theater this evening with Brody’s party. I’ll be escorting Miss Hunt there—the campaign begins without delay. But I am not going to neglect Lizzie, Nev. Not if I marry and have a dozen children.”
“No,” Neville said, “I cannot imagine you will. But I do wonder if Miss Hunt will object to spending most of her life in London while Willowgreen sits empty for much of the year.”
