Felicity was relievedto see the dessert course come round. The stages of the dinner marked the time passing by. With any luck, they would soon be in the drawing room. Lord Marchfield was to take her home and she was toying with the idea of claiming a cold coming on to end the evening before she was trapped into a card game with the two awkward boys who were attempting to pass themselves off as men. She might even deliberately sniff at some flowers to frighten them off with sneezing.
The conversation had never got more interesting than discovering that Mr. Armstrong’s father was gassy. Though really, every time Felicity thought of that moment in the conversation, she had to bite her lip not to laugh.
Just now, Mr. Armstrong’s mother was expounding on the charms of the wilds of Cornwall, which apparently involved a lot of opportunities to break one’s neck by way of falling off a cliff. Lord Haraby was attempting to make eyes at her from across the table.
“I always say,” Mr. Armstrong’s mother said, “that there is nothing more steady than a Cornwall man.”
It was an interesting thought that was in direct contradiction to what was in front of them—her son had seemed to perspire out all the liquid in his body and looked anything but steady.
Quite unexpectedly, there was the sound of the door being pounded on. Felicity craned her neck to see the butler dashing through the hall to answer it.
In a moment, the duke appeared, along with all her sisters and Mrs. Right. Goodness, why had they all come? Was somebody taken ill? Had the house caught fire?
Lady Marchfield leapt from her chair. “Roland! What is the meaning—”
“Don’t bother going on a tirade,” the duke said. “Stratton is here to say his piece and he’s brought Felicity a horse.”
Felicity felt as if she could not move. She was bereft of speech. He was here. Was he really here? Or was this some strange joke her father had thought up to drive Lady Marchfield mad?
The duke stepped aside. There he was. He was here. Gloriously here.
Had he really brought a horse? Why? What did bringing a horse say? Was there some meaning in bringing a lady a horse?
“My apologies, Lady Marchfield,” Mr. Stratton said, glaring at Mr. Armstrong and Lord Haraby. “The interruption could not be helped.”
“I dispute that strongly, Mr. Stratton, this is outrageous,” Lady Marchfield said. “Bursting into a private dinner? Bringing one’s housekeeper through the front doors? It is everything inappropriate. You ought not to allow yourself to be influenced by my deranged brother.”
“Don’t worry about her,” the duke said to Mr. Stratton, “she’s a regular polecat, sticking her nose into henhouses that don’t belong to her.”
“You see what he is. I strongly counsel you to avoid his influence,” Lady Marchfield said.
Mr. Stratton nodded. “Yes, well, perhaps too late for that, I’m afraid. Now, Lady Felicity, I’ve come to tell you, with your whole family who it was not my idea to bring, that Ididsay I would not be chained. But that was only until I realized I wanted to be chained. To you. You see, that was the whole problem—I could not envision marriage because I’d not met the lady I would wish to marry. Now I have. I have acted a disgraceful idiot—”
“He really has,” Valor said.
“But that is the truth. If you do not harbor any feelings for me, you may tell me to be on my way. I will keep sending thingsto the house in case you change your mind, including the horse I brought with me tonight. I swear I will never marry anyone else. If I cannot wed Lady Felicity, then it’s all up for me. I am undone.”
“Say nothing to this outrage, Felicity,” Lady Marchfield said, rising. “I will shortly have Mr. Stratton, and my brother and his diabolical housekeeper, removed from this house.”
Felicity stared at her aunt as if she spoke in a foreign tongue. Did she say remove him? Was the lady mad? She leapt up and pushed past her aunt.
Felicity grabbed Mr. Stratton by the hand and pulled him into the drawing room, slamming the doors behind her. “You’ve brought me a horse?” she asked.
“Well, yes, I ran out of other ideas, and I was passing by Tattersall’s…”
She threw herself at him and his strong arms caught her effortlessly. Somehow, somewhere very deep in her heart, she’d always known they would.
“I am forgiven, then,” he said quietly.
“I am not sure,” Felicity said. “You’d better kiss me first, and then I will be convinced.”
Mr. Stratton turned out to be very obliging. As Felicity had never been kissed before but had been imagining kissing Mr. Stratton for quite some time, it was marvelous. His lips were soft, but delightfully firm.
He played with her hair, which it turned out he found stupendous, and kissed her eyelids, as it turned out she had the prettiest eyes of any lady living.
Outside the doors, she could hear her father gamely guarding it as Lady Marchfield made attempts to get in. “Step back, Lady Misery, lest you injure yourself! Or I injure you! Doesn’t much matter to me!”
Her poor dear uncle was gamely attempting to calm the situation, but pleas for his wife to stop beating the duke about the head with a napkin seemed to be going nowhere.
