“Oh yes, she’s devilishly astute. At least now we know how she convened the vast audience.”
Lady Tribble was headed to the door. “If you intend to implicate Genie in your dalliance, I urge you to think again. This is your problem, Ian, not Imogene’s.”
“Oh the irony,” he shot back. “Just this morning, Miss Trelayne was given to chase one of Imogene’s would-be paramours down an alley. She recovered her before Imogene was forced to consider anything like... likemarriage to a stranger. Imogene was spared, but we are not.”
He is adukeand I am a stranger, and they keep repeating the wordmarriageas if it is a real consideration.Drew wanted to crawl out the window.
“Oh yes, so ironic,” scolded Lady Tribble. “Except Imogene is sixteen and you are thirty-three. Perhaps you should adhere to your own counsel on the matter. Good night, Ian. You’ve evicted me from my bed, marched me about the house, implicated my innocent daughters, and now you’vetrappedme here to hound me for the opinion I’ve already stated.”
“I’m not trying to inconvenience you, Timothea, I’m—”
She spun back. “Who else do you intend to marry, Ian, I ask you? Your evasion of the obvious is so very great, you’ve made me curious. And it takes quite a lot to pique my curiosity, believe me. So, congratulations—now for the reckoning.”
“What the devil does it matter who I marry?” he shouted back, glancing at Drew.
“Who? Say it,” pressed Lady Tribble.
Lachlan went silent.
Drew closed her eyes shut.
The only thing worse than being turned out by the duke would be to hear him say what all of them already knew: he would not have her.
Timothea jostled the stack of books in her arms, shaking her head back and forth. He’d provoked her to anger,and he’d done it on purpose. She did not overstate the threat of a “reckoning.” Ian didn’t care. Heneeded more time. He had his own reckoning—with Rucker Loring and the distressing news he’d brought from Avenelle, with his tenants, with Imogene and Ivy—the last thing he needed was to unexpectedly acquire a surprise wife.
“I like Miss Trelayne,” Timothea was now declaring. “She reminds me of Diana the Huntress.”
An image of Miss Trelayne in a toga, her long legs peeking from the slit, her hair loose down her bare back, flashed in Ian’s mind.
“If there is no other girl,” Timothea demanded, “then why not her? Have someone else in mind, do you?”
“If you must know,” Ian blurted out, “I thought to marry someone from Dorset.”
“Dorset?” Timothea made a face. “Who? Why?”
“Because,” he gritted out, “ofour mother.”
Timothea’s frown deepened. Their mother was an enigma to Ian, she lived in Scotland and they were barely acquainted, but her relationship with Timothea was more complicated.
“Her resentment?” Ian reminded. “Her unhappiness. She stewed in misery at Avenelle, and we all suffered. She never recovered from being plucked from Scotland and transplanted to Dorset. She was homesick and displaced, a disastrous combination in a wife and a mother. If I marry the daughter of local gentry, at least her life will be familiar. She’ll be close to her people.”
“Who?” demanded Lady Tribble. “Which daughter of local gentry?”
Ian waved a dismissive hand. “Sir Nevil Flemming has six or seven daughters. Blondes of various shapes and sizes. Fond of terriers.”
“WhichFlemming daughter?”
Ian shrugged and turned away. “What does it matter? I cannot tell one from the other.”
Timothea made a shrill sound of frustration and droppedher stack of books to the floor. “The interchangeable blond daughters of Sir Nevil? Look, Ian, I’ve made countless mistakes in life—this I admit, readily. I am distractable, I follow my own passions, I am true to myself to the exclusion of all others. But hear me now: I was a happy wife to Tribble. Exceedingly happy, happier than ever I’ve been. Marriage, in my view, is precious. A gift. Arelief.
“And it has very little to do with...geography,” she went on. “Mama was unhappy because she was married to a miserable man who made no effort to know her and even less to provide the most basic comfort.
“I’ve seen the other side of the coin, and it’s magical,” she said softly. “For however long it lasts. I mourn Tribble every day. His passing left me so very lost, it was so painful to be alone, I... I subjected myself and our dear girls to that wretched... wretched—” and now her voice broke.
“Timmie,” Ian said, taking a step to her. Miss Trelayne was closer, and she hesitated only a moment before she wrapped an arm around Timothea’s waist.
“Have a care, my lady,” Miss Trelayne whispered. “You’re overtired. Our predicament is not worth upsetting you. We’ve kept you from your bed.”
