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Ah, yes, I’m to be trusted. Give me half an hour alone in a carriage with your daughter and her virtue’s done for.
Lexham nodded to himself. “Then, too, she’ll be a duchess, and I’m no different than any other father in wishing to see my child well set up in life. Yes, it will do, it will do.”
Marchmont let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
Lexham gave him a quizzical look. “Did you think I’d say no?”
“She’s been back for only a few weeks,” Marchmont said. “I thought you might tell me I was too hasty—or you weren’t quite ready to give her up.”
“I shan’t see her any less than I do at present,” said Lexham. “She lives under my roof, but I’m hardly ever at home. And when I am at home, my daughters usually turn up, I find. They’re the very devil to get rid of.” He laughed then. “Come, Marchmont, give me your hand.”
His former ward did so and thanked him.
“A most satisfactory day this has turned out to be,” Lexham said. “The royal family has smiled on my daughter, and she’s netted herself London’s most sought-after bachelor. A duke, no less.” He laughed. “I always said Zoe was a clever girl. Well, then, you have my blessing, Marchmont. Now let me speak to her.”
Late that night
Zoe stood at the window, looking down into the garden. This time she’d obediently donned her nightgown, as well as the heavy wrapper Jarvis had insisted she wear.
“Miss, I hope you’re not thinking of running away this time,” said Jarvis as she turned down the bedclothes.
“If I did, it would only be to get away to think,” Zoe said. “I can hardly believe all that’s happened in one day. My head is a jumble.”
Marchmont at the bottom of the stairs…the presentation…Marchmont lifting her up and spinning her about…the wondrous end of her virginity…and then he’d asked her, and yes she’d said, because no other answer was possible.
She smiled. He must have had a very anxious few minutes while she was alone in the study with her father.
The duke needn’t have worried.
Yes, she was uninhibited, as Marchmont said. She was not a fool, however. She knew better than to tell Papa what had happened during the return from the Queen’s House.
She had only assured her father that Marchmont had had no trouble persuading her to become his duchess. “I’ve never felt about any man as I do about him,” she’d said, and that was simple truth.
“The Duchess of Marchmont,” Jarvis said in awe-filled tones. “I can hardly take it in myself.”
“I still haven’t taken it in,” Zoe said. “What chance had I to think, with all of them about?”
The hubbub attendant on her arrival from court was nothing to the uproar ensuing this evening at the family dinner celebrating her debut. When the dessert course arrived, her father said he had an additional treat for them all. That was all the warning he gave before announcing her engagement to Marchmont.
“It was funny,” she said. “Everyone was so surprised. Well, not so much Priscilla. She wasn’t quite as much aghast as the rest of them. But it did stop some of my sisters fussing about my traveling alone with him in a closed carriage. They all assumed he took the opportunity to propose because he was blinded by my finery. They couldn’t imagine why any man in his senses would marry me—and they could see he wasn’t drunk when we arrived at Lexham House.” She laughed. “They thought it was the dress—and perhaps it was.” He seemed to find her hoops as exciting as she did.
“Miss, if His Grace hadn’t asked, there’s a hundred who would,” Jarvis said loyally.
“That’s a hundred who don’t know me,” Zoe said. “I know he won’t be an easy husband, but I won’t be an easy wife. Still, we understand each other well enough…” She let out a sigh. “And I’m afraid I do love him.”
“Nothing to be afraid of, miss. I’ve no doubt he loves you, too. Leastways, he will, once he comes to know you better. Come to bed, please. You’ll be needing your rest after such a day. And we’ll be very busy in the next few days, packing your things and getting you ready to move to Marchmont House.” She shook her head. “Oh my, oh my, I can hardly believe it. Back into that house—that Mr. Harrison—and this time you’ll be his mistress. I do wonder what’s going through his head.”
Zoe approached the bed. “Oh, yes. Harrison. I’d forgotten about him.”
“I haven’t,” said Jarvis. “I’m glad at least I shan’t be going there as a housemaid. As you said, I answer only to you—and I shan’t have much to do with him in any event, except at mealtimes. Not that I complain, miss. It’s an enviable place to have. Lady’s maid to the Duchess of Marchmont. Who could have thought it!” She shook her head in wonder.
“I only thought of Marchmont,” Zoe said. “I never thought about the house, that great, immaculate house and all the servants. My goodness. I’ll be mistress there. What fun!”
“Miss, you said I could say my opinion, and my opinion is, Mr. Harrison isn’t going to be much fun.”
Zoe looked at her. “You’re not afraid of that man?”
“Yes, miss, I’m afraid I am.”
“Pish. Nothing to be afraid of. Yusri Pasha’s chief eunuch—now that was a man to fear. It took me years to understand him. But this one, who has all his manly parts?” Zoe paused. “The servants do keep all their manly parts in England?”
“Miss, I don’t think it’s allowed to make eunuchs here,” Jarvis said.
Zoe waved her hand dismissively. “Then there’s nothing to be uneasy about. I do know how to manage a household, and I’ll manage that one.”
Twelve
By Thursday night, the rumors were racing through the Beau Monde.
The servants, as usual, heard the rumors long before their betters did.
At Marchmont House, however, rumor swiftly turned into certainty, and members of the duke’s upper level staff knew well before nightfall that calamity had struck: Their master was marrying the Harem Girl.
They knew it because he told them so.
After the Birthday Drawing Room, when the Duke of Marchmont returned to change from court dress into evening dress, he summoned Harrison into his study. Osgood was there, too, as he always was, to write down whatever needed writing down. He did a great deal of writing down wagers lost and won.
He knew, therefore, that he could expect a draft for a thousand pounds from Lord Adderwood, who’d bet that Miss Lexham would not make her curtsey to the Queen before the end of the month.
He did not know until this moment that His Grace had lost the wager regarding Miss Lexham’s being wed before the end of the London Season.
“I’m getting married,” His Grace informed his two employees. “To Miss Lexham. Next week, perhaps.”
Both men maintained their usual wooden expressions. Both offered the correct form of congratulations.
Both felt queasy, albeit for different reasons. Osgood feared that a lady in the house would upset his neat order and disturb his papers.
Harrison, who had no intention of letting any female interfere in any
way with his arrangements, was mortified at the prospect of having to abase himself to a person who had made a spectacle of herself in the newspapers—one who had, furthermore, administered to him a setdown that a certain footman had repeated to another. Harrison had dismissed both servants without a character.
His Grace knew nothing about this. His Grace didn’t know one footman from another.
“I shall make a note for a special license,” said Osgood. “And the purchase of a ring.”
“I planned to go to Doctors’ Commons for the license tomorrow,” said the duke.
“Yes, Your Grace,” said Osgood. “Have you any particular requirements regarding the ring?”
“Indeed, I do,” said His Grace. “I shall see about that, too, tomorrow. While I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll stop at Rundell and Bridge.”
Rundell and Bridge were royal goldsmiths and favorites of the Prince Regent. The shop at Number Thirty-two Ludgate Hill included among its regular customers not only English royals and nobility but those European crowned heads who’d managed to keep theirs attached to their necks.
If Harrison had ever worn an expression, it would have grown grimmer. But all his thoughts were written on the inside.
His master, to his knowledge, had never personally selected and purchased a piece of jewelry for anybody since coming into the title. It was Osgood’s responsibility to buy the gifts His Grace gave to his amours. The duke’s wishing to visit Rundell and Bridge himself and choose the engagement ring himself boded ill. The Harem Girl, clearly, had her hooks in him very deeply, indeed.
“I must pay a brief call tonight,” Marchmont said casually to his secretary. “I shall wish to bring a gift.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
No more was said. No more needed to be said. The duke was getting married. A gift to the party he was not marrying was in order, and Osgood would be expected to have a suitable parting gift on hand.
The duke gave no further instructions. It wouldn’t occur to him to do so. Osgood, who operated independently of the household staff, knew exactly what was required of him. Harrison, as usual, would ascertain what needed to be done next in his sphere and would communicate these requirements to those in the lower ranks.
