Page 9

“Yes, Your Grace. Is it true?”

Gregory looked at the cradle, and the small fist, and the chin. “Ask me tomorrow, Martha.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” said Martha, and bowed her head with an expression of such radiant contentment that he understood he had told her a great deal indeed.

They were interrupted.

Mrs. Glenn had a way of appearing in doorways as though she had been built into them. She was fifty-four years old, and had been in the estate for longer than Gregory had been alive for.

“Your Grace. Forty-one cards have arrived since seven, along with eleven bouquets and a note from the Dowager Lady Pembury requesting an audience at your earliest convenience, which I understand to mean within the hour,” she paused. “You have not eaten.”

“I am not hungry.”

She looked past him into the room, and something in her face eased by perhaps a degree. “I hope I did not presume, Your Grace. The cradle, I had it placed here.”

“It’s fine.”

“Nobody has slept in it since Miss Theodosia,” said Mrs. Glenn, “I shall ask Cook for eggs. And I must ask, Your Grace, whether I am to make ready the Duchess’s apartments.”

“Perhaps.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Proceed cautiously, Mrs. Glenn.”

“I shall proceed cautiously,” said Mrs. Glenn, “with the sheets aired,” and went away, leaving him with the distinct impression that the apartments had been ready since half past three.

“You look dreadful,” said Ronan Parsons, with great cheer.

The Duke of Ravenhill had arrived at nine. Marriage had softened him, to the point where he now smiled in company without visible effort, which Gregory found alarming.

They had decided to have fencing match, which Gregory thought was the best way to get his mind off everything.

“I am in excellent health,” said Gregory.

“You look like a man who has been hit by a carriage.” Ronan tossed his coat over a chair and rolled up his sleeves. “I am sorry about last night. Augusta was feeling poorly, and I would not leave her. I gather I missed something.”

“Mhmm.”

“I gather,” said Ronan, saluting, “that I was told at breakfast by three separate persons, in three separate orders, that you have a child, that you are engaged, and that you have been engaged to a lady who is, in fact, the mother of the child. I have not managed to reconcile all three.”

“You will not. Guard.”

They fenced.

Ronan was quick and precise. Gregory was neither, and made up for it in reach. The steel rang, and rang, and for four or five minutes there was nothing in the world but the next parry.

Ronan broke it off.

“Is it true?”

“Which part?”

“Gregory.”

“The engagement.” Gregory lifted his blade and did not press. “Well. The proposal, at least. I have proposed. The lady has said she will think about it.”

“Ah.” Ronan’s eyebrows went up. “Then she has more sense than either of us.”

“She has a great deal more sense than either of us. She has also had a great deal less to drink.” Gregory feinted left. “Are you jealous?”

“I beg your pardon?”