“But what about our aunt?” Grace asked, having settled herself upright once more. “Why doesshewant to go?”
Mrs. Right sniffed into the air and said, “I reckon she’s one of ’em. I reckon she hears alarming things she’s determined to repeat all the day long when she’s in Town. She was a sour thing when she was young and she’s a sour thing now. London suits her.
*
Mr. Percy Stratton,eldest son of Viscount Denderby, was just now trapped in a conference with his mother and father. He was generally skilled at slipping in and out of the house unseen, but they had been lying in wait.
The dreaded conversation he’d known was coming had arrived. His father was determined that he marry. He was only twenty-four! Three of his friends had been roped into it so far. They did not seem to be having as much fun as they once had and what was left of his set had taken note—avoid the state for at least one more season.
“Now, I do have some requirements,” the viscount said. “As you are second generation and your grandfather was not a viscount all his life—”
“Stop reminding us all,” his wife said. “Nobody else will be able to forget it if we cannot.”
Percy’s grandfather had built a shipping concern that had done some small and some large favors for the crown. He had been rewarded with the title and an estate in Kent.
“I warn you!” the viscount said in a raised voice.
Percy could not imagine who the warning was for, as his mother only looked bored.
“As I said,” the viscount continued, “I have requirements. One, the lady must be decently titled. Do not present us with a Miss So-and-So, daughter of some lowly baronet or, God forbid, the daughter of a tight-lipped cleric. I don’t care if he’s a bishop! Two, choose one with a hefty dowry—the estate could use an infusion. Three, pick a comely girl, I cannot abide ugly offspring.”
The viscountess snorted. “You cannot abide ugly offspring—I’ve seen the portrait of you as a young child. It still gives me the shivers.”
As the viscount was brows-knit and attempting to think up some sort of retort that was not the usual “I warn you,” Percy was thinking as fast as he could for a way round this ghastly situation. Then it came to him.
“I quite agree with you, Father,” he said smoothly.
“Do you really?” his mother asked, with a look of surprise.
“Of course he does, it’s only good sense,” the viscount said, looking far more sanguine than he had been.
“The only wrinkle, if itisa wrinkle,” Percy said smoothly, “is that ladies coming with the lofty qualitiesweseek are not falling out of the trees. It may take some time. Naturally.”
The viscount’s brows drew even closer together and met at the top of his nose. Percy thought he may have chosen the wrong gambit.
“You’ve got the season,” the viscount said. “That’s it. Come summer, if there is not a bride on your arm, I’ll cut off your funds and throw you out and you can live penniless until I kick off.”The viscount pounded his chest. “Unfortunately for you, I am not planning to kick off any time soon!”
“Well that was dramatic,” the viscountess said. “You’ll probably want to ease up on the port if you’re planning on hanging about long-term.”
“I warn you!” the viscount shouted, his face getting very red.
Percy thought if there were one thing that would kill off his father, it would be his mother. Port would play a very secondary role. As for himself, he had no intention of marrying this season. However, he must placate his father. He must appear as if he were desperately trying.
How hard could that be? After all, there was no end of ways a courtship couldseemto be going well and then suddenly take a disastrous turn.
Close calls, jilts, bad timing, bad luck, childhood sweethearts reappearing, diagnosis of the consumption, whispers of questionable parentage, dashing suitors sweeping in at the last moment, rumors of madness in the family line—andthosedebacles were only what he could think of off the top of his head, there must be hundreds more.
Any or all of those unfortunate circumstances must be his own to avoid a penniless summer trapped in Kent, living in a tent on his parents’ bowling lawn.
Mr. Percy Stratton must appear to be the most doomed and hapless suitor that had ever set foot in London, ending the season as a bachelor through no fault of his own.
*
Transporting one duke,seven daughters, one countess, a bevy of servants, and the piles of trunks associated with them from Yorkshire to London turned out to be not as straightforward as Felicity had imagined.
The proprietors of the various inns that this lumbering convoy descended upon learned an important lesson from the experience. Down to a man, they had hoped and dreamed that such an elevated personage as a duke might turn up someday.
It was a thing they might boast of—they could casually mention it to friends, nonchalantly recall conversations with that illustrious person, and they might even put up a plaque documenting the date of the rarified visit. Further, a duke’s rich friends might begin to stop there.
