Griffin couldn’t help himself. He didn’t want to discuss fish at a time like this. He had to know more. “Which duke will you marry?” he asked Meredith, his brow still furrowed. “There aren’t an infinite number of them, you know?”
Meredith shrugged. “I suppose I’ll just have to see which dukes are eligible when I make my debut. I already know precisely how I want it to be.” A happy smile popped to her lips. “I shall have a successful debut and be popular, but not too popular as I shouldn’t want to be overwhelmed with offers.”
Ash laughed and Meredith gave her brother a quelling look.
“I shall enjoy my Season immensely. And when I meet the man I’m going to marry, he will be tall and handsome. He’ll come up to me at a ball and ask me to dance. He’ll bow over my hand and call me ‘My Lady.’ He’ll bring me flowers and take me for rides in the park.”
Ash rolled his eyes, but Meredith was undeterred. “Then, just as I’m wondering whether he truly intends to offer, he shall invite me to the Cartwrights’ Midsummer Night’s ball, escort me out onto the balcony, fall to his knee, and tell me he loves me and ask me to marry him.”
“That isridiculousif you ask me,” Ash grumbled, scratching his jaw and staring into the pond.
If Ash had been scoffing, Griffin had been listening with rapt attention. “But which duke would—?” Griffin began.
“I only know I shallnotmarry your brother,” Meredithsaid, wrinkling up her nose. “He’s hideous.” She shuddered slightly and frowned.
Griffin only nodded. Both Meredith and Ash knew Richard was hideous because Griffin had told them. Snobbish and full of himself, Richard had been taught by Griffin’s father to act the part of a haughty duke from a young age. Griffin had often thought it sad that Richard was encouraged to be so lofty and condescending. He was never kind to Griffin. He called him “Spare” as a jest sometimes, but Richard mostly ignored Griffin the same way their father did. Griffin had long ago learned to pay no mind to his brother’s jibes. Richard’s teasing only grew worse if Griffin responded, and Richard never faced any consequences for his actions.
Griffin, however, was taken to task by his father for the slightest infraction. It was one of the many reasons he spent as little time as possible at home. He’d stopped longing for his brother’s friendship and his father’s attention.
Griffin had come to believe that being the spare was a relief, really. Anticipating a future as a duke came with a lot of nonsensical responsibility, if you asked him. Only now, with Meredith declaring that she would marry a duke one day, it was the first time in Griffin’s life that he was even slightly envious of his older brother.
Griffin took a deep breath and flung his line back into the water. For the moment, there was no sense in worrying about Meredith’s announcement. Like so many things, this situation also called for patience. There were many years before her debut. Plenty of time for things to change. Meredith justcouldn’tmarry a duke. She had to marryhim.
Because he loved her more than anything.
CHAPTER ONE
London, April 1816, The Duchess of Maxwell’s Drawing Room
“It’s time you take a wife, Griff,” Meredith said as she poured herself a cup of tea.
Sitting across from her on the sofa, Griffin nearly spit the mouthful of tea he’d just ingested. “Pardon?” he managed to say as he coughed and spluttered. Thirteen years had passed. Were theytrulystill discussing his marriage prospects?
Meredith watched him from the corner of her eye. “I believe you heard me,” she said with a sly smile as she dropped first one and then another lump of sugar in her cup.
Meredith had always adored sugar. After so many years in the army, Griffin had learned to live without it.
Griffin set down his cup and tugged at his neckcloth. The thing was choking him all of a sudden. He’d heard her all right. He merely couldn’t believe what she’d said. “What’s brought on this sudden desire to… to…?”
“See you married?” she supplied helpfully as she stirred her tea with a small silver spoon.
“Indeed.”
“It’s time, and you know it. Now that you’re the duke, you have a responsibility to produce an heir. Not to mention that you promised your mother you’d take a wife the year you turn thirty.” Meredith finished her explanation with a solid nod.
Griffin knew that nod. It was the nod that indicated she was right, and he could not argue with her. Well, hecouldargue with her, but he wouldn’t win.
And shewasright. Now that he was the blasted Duke of Southbury, hedidneed to produce an heir. Because Richard, his arse of an older brother—may he rest in peace—had failed to produce one before he’d gone and broken his idiotic neck during an inebriated horse race. Richard was inebriated. The horse was entirely clearheaded as far as Griffin knew.
“Am I thirty already?” he drawled, arching a brow at Meredith and allowing the hint of a smile to touch his lips. Anything to keep the subject off marriage. And hadn’t he perfected making light of everything in front of Mere? Nothing was ever serious between them. Always light. Always a jest. Much easier that way.
He glanced over at Meredith. In the year since he’d been back from the war, Griffin, Meredith, and Ash had fallen easily back into their old friendship. It was almost as if Griffinhadn’tbeen gone for over eight years. It was nearly as if Meredithhadn’tmarried the old Duke of Maxwell at eighteen and become a widow last year at the age of six and twenty. It was practically as if Griffinhadn’tcompletely ignored his brother’s funeral and his father’s demands that he return to London to stay safe since he’d become the heir to the dukedom. And it was notquiteas if Griffin hadn’t ignored hisfather’sfuneral two years ago and returned to London only after the war had ended and there was no oneleft to fight. In fact, despite his father’s repeated insistence that Griffin return the moment he realized his “spare” was needed, Griffin had stayed through Waterloo. He earned the respect of the men who fought under him, his peers, his commanding officers, Parliament, and the King himself. But hestillhadn’t made Father proud. Of course not.
When Griffin came home, he’d half-hoped his feelings for Meredith would no longer be there. That the two of them could simply be friends, the way they had been when they’d first met. It would make everything much simpler.
Only he’d quickly realized that the years hadn’t diminished his feelings for her at all. And even though they’d written to each other while he was gone, seeing her again had been like a punch to the gut, visceral and painful, nearly making him double over. Because while Meredith had been a lovely eighteen-year-old, the years had only enhanced her beauty. She’d grown into a more radiant woman than Griffin had ever imagined. And to this minute, his heart ached for her every time he saw her. Because if there was one thing Meredith had been clear on, not just in her letters but in everything she did and said since Griffin’s return, it was her adamance that she wouldnevermarry again.
Meredith hadn’t shared details of her marriage. Their letters had been filled with other things—gossip, frivolity, and commentary about Ash’s latest foibles. But never anything too revealing. Never anything too unhappy. It was as if both Griffin and Meredith had an unspoken pact to only share the good parts of their lives, because the realities at the time had been too awful to impart.
