Only Margaret had chosen to share, taking the far end of the sofa on which Lily tried her best not to fidget. They sat at whispering distance. Lily wished her sister had chosen an armchair across the room. It was going to be difficult enough to deal with Lord Hayes—Bradford—without Margaret overhearing every word.
“And what of you?” In Lily’s angst, the question came out sharper than she’d meant it to.
Margaret raised an eyebrow. “What of me?”
Lily gave an apologetic smile. “I fear I’m quite overwrought. This entire thing is nerve-wracking.”
“I can only imagine.” Margaret nodded, smiling. “But I’m sure you’ll do very well.”
Lily’s forehead creased. “What do you mean you can onlyimagine? You’re to receive callers, too.”
Margaret flapped a careless hand. “Oh, of course,hypothetically.But less so in the practical sense.”
“Margaret Constance Preston. Do you think?—”
Lily was interrupted by the appearance of their butler. “His Grace, the Duke of Ettrick, to see Miss Margaret Preston.”
Margaret gave a quiet gasp as a large, handsome man walked through the archway to the parlor. Lily recognized him—it was the dark-haired man she’d seen studying Margaret the night before.
Lily blinked. It was good that William had designed the parlor to have high ceilings and towering doorways, as the man was well over six feet. Last night, she’d overheard several ladies whispering about the duke while she’d been hiding behind a pillar, trying to avoid Lord Rigsby.
“He is exceedingly handsome, is he not?” one of the ladies had murmured.
“If that and his title were all he possessed, he could still have the pick of any unattached lady in the room.”
“Several of the married ones, too, I’d imagine,” another said.
There was the swat of a folded fan hitting something. “What a shocking thing to say.”
“Spare me your fake outrage—I want to hear more about the duke.”
“Rumor has it, he has upwards of twenty thousand a year.”
“Surely not that much!”
“I hear he owns half of Scotland.”
“Though doubtless he has a house in town, too, with that income.”
“Over on Berkeley Square.”
“That’s good. I shouldn’t like to be that far away from London,” she said.
“As if he’d choose you!” another said.
Lily had wrinkled her nose—she was glad this was not her circle of friends, if they spoke to one another with such careless disregard for the others’ feelings.
“It’s a shame one can hardly understand the fellow.”
“As handsome as he is, I hardly think talking will be necessary,” another had murmured.
The grouping of young misses predictably dissolved into a fit of giggles that made Lily wonder whether someone had spiked the punch, after all.
But now the Duke of Ettrick was in their very house, bearing down on Margaret with a gleam in his eye that Lily could only describe asfocused.
She didn’t have long to study the awkwardness of the introduction, as the butler promptly announced, “Lord Rutheridge to see Miss Claire Preston. Lord Hayes to see Miss Lily Preston.”
Lily took a fortifying breath and stood as Lord Hayes entered just behind Claire’s guest.Bradford, she corrected herself again. Unlike the others who’d plowed forward toward their feminine targets, Bradford paused just inside the threshold and scanned the room.
