“Are you sure you shouldn’t wait to see if the document is authentic?” Nathan asked, but Leah shook her head.
“I cannot wait for that. What if it is? Then I would be completely out of time. No, I must start now. Preferably I will find someone to agree to marry me tonight. The sooner the better. I don’t know how long Lucien can stall Dubois.”
“Alright,” Vivian said, and although she heard the reluctance in her friend’s voice, she appreciated that Vivian immediately frowned in concentration, her eyes flickering from one eligible bachelor in their vicinity to the next.
“What about Lord Branson?” she suggested after a minute. “He is very handsome and very wealthy.”
“Which is exactly why he is not desperate enough to agree to this plan,” Leah said. “We need someone who is not so handsome or wealthy, someone who will be glad to be given the opportunity to wed me.”
Even though she knew it was her only choice, Leah’s heart hurt as she said the words. Never had she thought that this was the kind of match she would see out for herself. But she needed to kill all the emotion inside of herself and become cold and calculating if she wanted to escape marriage to Lord Dubois. All sentiment had to be replaced with a practicality that bordered on mercenary.
“Hmm, how about Mr. John Harding?” Vivian asked after another moment.
“He is very popular with the ladies,” her husband pointed out. “Not exactly a desperate bachelor in need of a quick wife.”
“I’m sorry I want the best for my friend!” Vivian snapped. “I don’t think she should end up with someone who is only marrying her because he’s desperate.”
“I know, darling, I know,” he said, squeezing his wife’s hand as the music mounted and took them to new positions. “But we need to think of someone practical. Someone like… Mr. Fitzwilliam.”
“Mr. Fitzwilliam…” Leah repeated. “He might just be perfect!”
“But he is so strange!” Vivian protested. “He can hardly string a sentence together without stuttering!”
“All the better,” Leah said. “He is supposed to be kind and fair, and he has a small estate in Wales, does he not? He would probably be very happy to have a large influx of cash from my dowry.”
“He would indeed,” Nathan said. “Although he is not a greedy man. But he has several sisters, so I do think he worries about money.”
“Perfect,” Leah said.
Mr. Harris Fitzwilliam. She didn’t know him well. As Vivian said, he was difficult to talk to. Nor was he particularly handsome to look at. But that didn’t matter compared to how he treated her. And she had never heard a bad thing about Mr. Fitzwilliam, only that he was gentle and very shy.
Before any of them could say another word, however, there was a collective intake of breath near them, and people began turning in the direction of the doors. Leah, Vivian, and Nathan also strained their necks to see what the commotion was.
Someone seemed to have arrived at the ball, and whoever it was, they were causing quite the stir.
“It’s the Duke of Nottington!” Someone near them gasped.
“He has returned to England?”
And then suddenly the room all around them was full of whispers as everyone began to gossip. Leah heard the name again and again, as if it were floating through the air toward her:The Duke of Nottington.
She knew the Duke, of course. He was good friends with Lucien, although he was the opposite of her brother in every way. Where Lucien had always been a strict rule-follower who barely spoke to anyone, Nottington was the most sociable and outgoing man of her acquaintance. Nor had he ever met a rule he didn’t want to break. It was a surprise, really, that Lucien was friends with him, but they got on famously.
Leah turned back to the dance. The news of Nottington’s return didn’t interest her much. It didn’t affect the situation with Dubois at all. However, when she looked at Vivian, she saw her friends watching her with a mischievous smile.
“What?” she asked, frowning.
“That is who you should marry,” Vivian said. “The Duke of Nottington.”
“You can’t be serious,” Leah said, snorting. “He is wealthy! And the most handsome man in England! The last thing he would want is a quick marriage to me.”
Vivian shrugged. “But he is worthy of you.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Nathan said, frowning. “His reputation is not particularly flattering. The man is charming, yes, but too charming.”
“What do you mean?” Leah asked, frowning. How could someone be too charming?
Nathan hesitated. Then he said, flushing slightly, “Nottington is a man who makes friends easily… lady friends. If you know what I mean?”
