“Let me get this straight,” Jacob said. “You are marrying in two days.”
“Yes.”
“But you do not—and really, Warson, I must be wrong about this because it is absolutely fucking insane, and I do hope you know that—know for sure which woman will be waiting for you at the altar.”
“Well, it is themanwho waits at the altar,” Aaron said. Jacob’s mouth scrunched up like he’d bitten directly into a lemon. “But otherwise, yes.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jacob said with feeling.
This was, alas, as good a reason to blaspheme as any.
“As I said, I do have astrongidea of who she will be,” Aaron offered.
“JesusChrist,” Jacob said again. “Right. I—right. I see. I mean, I don’t see. But you are going to tell me more, and eventually, I will get there.”
So, Aaron told him. He kept to the bare bones of it—he wasn’t going to spread his suspicions about Miss Hannah, not even to Jacob, who he knew wouldn’t let it go any further, not when a woman’s reputation was at stake. He did, however, confess his qualms about Phoebe.
“She’s really unbelievably headstrong,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck when he thought about the way she narrowed her eyes at him while they quarreled, like she was looking for any minute chink in his armor to stab her poisoned blade. “And right now, that mostly seems to be exercised in defense of her sister which is rather admirable, but I do shudder to think what she might do with that stubbornness later.”
“Oh, yes,” Jacob said mildly. “Stubbornness. I see.”
“And she isextremelyclumsy. I’ve had to stop her from falling more than once in our short acquaintance!”
“I see,” Jacob said at that same time. “Clumsy. How terrible.”
“And,” Aaron went on, because he was beginning to suspect that his friend was willfully misreading the situation, “I had to drag her bodily out of a snowstorm!”
“You—I beg your pardon?” Jacob no longer sounded quite so sanguine.
“It’s fine,” Aaron said dismissively. “I was merely rescuing her from her own misguided efforts to freeze to death.”
“I simply do not know what to say to that,” Jacob proclaimed. He was on his second whisky at this point, and he was getting a telltale flush on his cheeks. He had never been one to hold his liquor.
“I’m certain that it will be just fine,” Aaron said. He felt as though he might be arguing with himself at this point, but that was fine, too. He was reaching a point of clarity on this whole issue, and for once, the Duke and the soldier found themselves in accord.
“I will just go to her,” he said, feeling rather pleased with the decision, “and tell her that I accept her offer, so long as she behaves in the appropriate way as befitting my duchess. And if she can agree to my rules, I do not see why we cannot have a perfectly acceptable, mutually satisfactory marriage.”
Jacob was looking at Aaron with wide, astonished eyes.
“Yes,” he said eagerly. “Oh, yes, Warson. Do exactly that. And my friend?”
“Hm?” Aaron asked through his mental self-congratulation.
“When you do, please come back to me and reportevery singleword that she said.”
Phoebe regretted…
Well, everything, honestly.
She supposed she probably didn’t need to go all the way back to the day she was born to start counting those regrets, but, frankly, if that hadn’t happened, then none of the subsequent things that had led her to standing in a gazebo with the Duke of Redcliff would have ever happened, either. Why not paint with a broad brush, then?
Because this wasridiculous.
And to think that she’d been relieved when the Duke had first arrived.
That morning, the atmosphere in the Turner household had been tense to say the least. Hannah had kept to her bedchamber, citing a headache that Phoebe suspected was feigned, and Lord Turner had paced restlessly around the house, silent except forthe beleagueredharrumphhe let out every time he crossed paths with Phoebe.
Phoebe had almost determined that she should just give up and go for a walk about Regent’s Park—snow be damned; surely it was better to freeze than to listen to one more of her father’s sighs of lament—when Hannah raced down the stairs with an energy that confirmed that, yes, that headache had been utter shite.
