Page 54 of A Lesson in Forbidden Love

“Your Grace. You have seen the paper.”

“I have seen the paper. Lady Honoria has seen the paper. My wife has seen the paper. We have spent a not very agreeable two hours over it.”

“The notice was placed by my mother. Without my knowledge. Contrary to what I said to you on the Monday and contrary to what I said to her on the Sunday and the Monday and again, this morning, in my library at half past nine. A retraction over her name goes into tomorrow’s edition. I have ridden down to tell you so myself, because the Morning Post is a poor messenger and you are owed a better one.”

The Duke looked at him for a long moment. He was a heavy man, past sixty, with a countryman’s complexion and a magistrate’s eyes, and he had been, Stirling knew, fond of Stirling’s father.

He stood now in his own bookroom with his hands behind his back and took the measure of the man in front of him, then at the end of it he spoke.

“Sit down, Greyscarp.”

“I had rather stand, Your Grace.”

“Sit down. I shall not eat you. Honoria is in the garden, and will not come in; her mother has the headache and will not come down. There is no one to see you sit, and I am sixty-two, and I will not crane my neck at you for the next quarter of an hour.”

Stirling sat down.

“Now,” said the Duke. “You said to me on the Sunday morning that you could not, in honour, offer for my daughter, because you did not feel for her what a man ought to feel for the woman he marries, and because you would not begin a marriage upon a lie. You said it very handsomely. I told you I had supposed as much and that I was grateful to you for the saying of it before it had gone further than three people in a small parlour. Have I that right.”

“You have, sir.”

“And I told you — did I not — that I held you in no worse esteem for it, and that Honoria would not, and that we should put it about, between ourselves and the Dowager, that the parties had reconsidered. Have I that right also.”

“You have.”

“Then will you tell me, Greyscarp, how a notice over my daughter’s name came to be in this morning’s Morning Post.”

“As I said before, my mother placed it.”

“On what calculation.”

“On the calculation, I suppose, that once it was printed I should not, in honour, be able to draw back.”

The Duke looked at him for a long time.

“She does not, I observe, know you very well.”

The tone was rather wry.

“She has known me thirty years.”

“That is not the same thing.” He let Stirling contemplate that for a minute before he went on. “I take it that the retraction is written.”

“It is. Hodges will have given it in at Fleet Street before two.”

“And what does it say.”

“That the notice was inserted in error and is withdrawn at the instance of both families.”

“Both families.”

“With your permission, sir. It seemed to me that to say less would lay the indignity on Lady Honoria, which she does not deserve, and I would not have that for the world.”

The Duke inclined his head.

“You are a better son to her than she has, perhaps, deserved this morning.”

“She is my mother, Your Grace.”