Page 12 of The Duke and His Jilted Bride

“Was that Norfolk you mentioned?” the husband said cheerfully, addressing Evander. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I could not help but overhear. We have a property in Great Yarmouth. Bit of a retreat from here, isn’t it? Back to your fields, I suppose, rather than the city?”

“Hm,” Evander replied, looking over their heads without what seemed like real disinterest but might have been feigned.

The gentleman nodded anyway, grinning. “The farmer duke rides again. Well, can't say you're not consistent.” He laughed at his own joke. His wife laughed at a slightly lower volume, then shot a cautious look at Violet. Meantime, Evander was silent.

Violet made an excuse to walk with the couple privately, and Aurelia was grateful. She watched her aunt lead them away, the maid remaining between the two groups with the dog, though it quickly came to Evander, settling at his feet and panting.

Aurelia waited until the other group was safely out of earshot. “The farmer duke? What did he mean by that?” she said to Evander.

“It is an old joke. It gets passed around at the clubs. My father was its progenitor. Admittedly at the time of its conception I was the farmer marquess.”

“That seems cruel.”

“It is harmless.”

“But are you a farmer?”

A ghost of a smile came to his lips. He leaned down to pick up a stick for the dog and threw it along the bank with considerable force. “I am a man who finds the country more interesting than most of what London offers, which apparently amounts to the same thing.”

She thought this over. “And does it bother you? What they say?”

He glanced at her, and there was something in the look that made her neck prickle. “No,” he said. “Should it?”

“I don't know,” she replied honestly. “I haven't worked out how to not let things bother me yet. But perhaps you do not feel the same.”

He said nothing for a moment. Then, “Norfolk helps with that – even if it does make one a farmer.”

Aurelia watched the dog run back to them, golden fur blowing in the wind.

“It helps with most things,” he added. “You will see soon enough.”

“Is this your way of telling me that you have made up your mind?”

“About you being my wife?” He fought the dog for the stick and won, then rose and gave it to her, not caring for the dog’s spit or the dirt on his hand. “I decided that even before I asked you. I would not have bothered otherwise.”

Five

“If you say another word about him,” Aurelia said quietly, suppressing a smile, “I am going to ask one of Violet’s dogs to keep me company instead.”

Lydia adjusted the latest pin in Aurelia’s hair and did not appear remotely concerned by this threat. "Come now, Violet’s dogs could never do your hair like I can. And I haven't said or asked anything that bad," she replied, the rest of the pins perching between her red lips.

“You were about to, I could feel it,” Aurelia replied, trying to distract herself with her latest book from the lending library. It was a dreadful gothic novel – a woman trapped in a castle abroad after marrying an evil comte. She tried not to draw any connections to her own situation, ignoring the images of Evander it conjured in an undone, billowing shirt.

“That says very little. I am always about to say something – but not bad. That is simply my nature and you knew it when you befriended me. But that is also why you love me.” She stepped back, examined Aurelia in the looking glass of the toilette table, and tilted her head to inspect the coiffure. “I shall say this. You look absolutely devastating, incidentally.” She began packing away the leftover pins.” You can thank me later – me and my deft hands. You make masterpieces at the pianoforte, and I…” She gestured to her hair.

Aurelia smiled genuinely. “Thank you.”

“Thank me if it survives the wedding. It might all fall out at I do. Assuming you will be able to get to the vows this time.”

“You are incorrigible,” Aurelia said, fighting a laugh. “But you must keep your voice down or else you’ll alert Aunt Violet. She was pacing all of yesterday, convinced the Marquess of Canterbury was going to show up any minute and say he had made a mistake.”

She hoped, privately, that would never happen. She never wanted to have to prepare for a wedding again. Twice was one time too many.

“I don’t blame here. It is so hard to be still when I am so excited. This is the most fun thing that has ever happened in my life,” Lydia said, brushing an errant curl of black hair out of her eyes. She glanced across Aurelia’s bedroom and smiled. “Your Aunt Violet forbade me from visiting you on the morning of your last wedding – did you know that? She thinks I’m a bad influence on you.”

Aurelia turned the page while she could still feel her fingers. “She’s right.”

“But I see she has loosened the reins for this one. She must be very pleased, despite everything. You were marrying into an exceedingly important family, yes. A marchioness is nothing to baulk at. But now you will be a duchess.”