“…Her family loves her too much to let you marry her, Gregory…”
“…And what of your family…” he drawled.
“I love them too much not to marry you.”
“The lady came seeking marriage,” he shared.
Silence met Argyll’s announcement.
“Interest in being a duchess, perhaps?” Cadogan ventured.
Argyll rolled tense shoulders. “It was not that.”
“How can you be certain?” DuMond asked. “Most women do want to be your duchess.”
“Not her.” This one put herself before him like some sort of sacrificial offering who regretted the idea of a union with him. That part he withheld to keep his friends from a fresh bout of amusement. Grimacing, Argyll tossed back his second brandy.
“Thenwhat?”
“I don’t know, Cadogan,” he said impatiently. “As master of prying a person’s secrets from them, that is your…” His gaze caught not on the hired hackney rolling slowly past, but the discreet figure in black. She moved amongst the dark with an otherworldly grace, like a ghost that naturally found the shadows.
“Argyll?”
“…I saw it, Gregory. All of it…”
He held a palm up and kept his eyes honed as the little specter breached his stone pillars.
Argyll registered his partners sliding into position beside him.
The pair of well-trained guards stationed outside snaked out behind the lady and caught either side of her arms.
The eerie chit angled her head to face her captors and disturbed her cloak, revealing the pale pallor of her complexion.
“Miss Kearsley, I presume?” Cadogan remarked.
The lady in question, trapped between Braxton and Bear, shifted her arms awkwardly.
Whatever she said brought the burly pair’s focus up to where Argyll stood flanked by Cadogan and DuMond.
An expressionless Miss Kearsley lifted her tied hands in greeting.
DuMond whistled. “Perhaps she’s just mad?”
“Yes, I think that’s safe to assume,” Argyll muttered. “But there’s more at play.”
“And what better way to find out than inviting her in,” Cadogan said.
“Exactly.”
Argyll nodded and gave the signal.
Loosening their hold, Braxton and Bear passed the peculiar chit on to the next set of waiting guards.
She gave a nod befitting the duchess she wished to be.
As the lady was escorted forward, Argyll’s butler let both double doors swing wide open in welcome.
Argyll and his men followed her approach.
