She picked up the invitation. She’d not read it and she was now curious. Here was the manner in which thehaut tonsummoned each other to events. Here was her one link to the man who might choose her for his wife.
The paper felt heavy. She scanned the request—and then the name jumped out at her.Whitridge.
The Duke of Baynton was Gavin Whitridge.
For a second, Char could not breathe.
She forced herself to reason. The man chasing her through the streets hadnotbeen a duke. She was certain of it.
The names being the same must be a coincidence. Nothing more—she prayed... because listening to Sarah and Lady Baldwin plan, the die had been cast.
Char was going to the ball.
Chapter Three
February5, 1812
What the devil had Gavin got himself into?
The line to enter the ballroom ran down the hall and out the front door and still they came.
Ceremony with all of its pomp was part of being a duke, as was finding himself the center of attention. However, tonight was beyond anything Gavin Whitridge, Duke of Baynton had ever experienced, and it was his own ball. He’d created this affair when he’d given his great-aunt Imogen permission to find a wife for him.
His mother had tried to warn him. “It will be a crush, my son. There isn’t a family in Britain with a marriageable daughter who doesn’t want an invitation.”
And apparently Imogen had seen that half the populace had received one. She was also directing the affair, dressed in her favorite color of purple from the turban on her head to the kid leather shoes on her tiny feet. She stood by Gavin and gave him the benefit of her opinion, in loud whispers, on every family and young woman presented to him.
Hewould have preferred not having such a formal receiving line butImogeninsisted this was the only way the invited women would have a few seconds of his undivided attention. “You owe it to yourself to meet them all,” she’d said. “They expect it. Anything less would disappoint them.” And so, he had assented.
His brother Ben and Ben’s wife, Elin, were the beginning of the line. His mother, the Dowager Duchess of Baynton, and her escort, Fyclan Morris, were to Gavin’s left. Other various relatives had been tucked into the line where Imogen had deemed fit.
“Wellbourne,” Imogen now whispered, her voice still crisp.
She referred to a tall, long-faced man speaking to Ben and Elin at the beginning of the line.
Wellbourne was accompanied his daughter. “Lady Amanda is the earl’s only child. His politics are wrong. However, he is loyal and well connected. A possibility.”
Gavin had long respected Wellbourne’s constancy to his ideals, although he thought him deluded. Could he tolerate being related to the Opposition by marriage?
“Unfortunately,” Imogen continued, “Lady Amanda is as horse-faced as her sire. Her breeding is impeccable and she comes with an income of five thousand, but that jaw will show up in your children.”
Not for the first time this evening was Gavin uncomfortable with his aunt’s bluntness. Hopefully, the musicians in the ballroom covered her more acerbic comments, like the horse-facedness. She had high expectations, and her ability to catalog one proud family after another, including daughters, nieces, and cousins, was truly impressive albeit too much.
He nodded and smiled as Wellbourne presented his daughter to him.
He also began to listen to Imogen with half an ear. The gambit to find him a wife had turned ridiculous.
Peers of the realm, his friends, and many mere acquaintances, all dressed in their finest, kept coming forward. Each touted a flower of English womanhood for his perusal before happily tottering off to drink his punch and devour his food. Henry the butler and the staff hustled to see to the needs of so many. Trays would be carried out piled high and returned to the kitchen empty.
These weren’t guests. They were locusts.
Of course, the idea for a ball was not an unsound one, Gavin thought as he smiled, nodded, bowed, and offered his hand. He was a busy man. There were affairs of state that needed his immediate attention. Britain was at war with France, a conflict that extended to almost every corner of the world. Meanwhile, domestic issues threatened to erupt into violence if not finessed soon. And, as if Gavin didn’t have enough on his table, the prime minister insisted on his guidance with an American delegation that had made an appearance and now pestered everyone to hear their list of grievances.
Gawd, the Americans. The damn upstarts thought to bully Britain out of her holdings. They wanted all of North America and would settle for nothing less than their dictated terms. They were like puppies who had shown their teeth once and won and thought to do so again. Gavin detested negotiating with them. They said one thing out of the left side of their mouths and something completely different out of the right. A more confused group of people did not exist in politics.
Meanwhile, what he really needed was a wife. It was time. He was thirty-two years of age. He was ready.
In fact,pastready.
