“Wait here,” Percy said, disentangling himself.
Felicity was loath to let him go, but confident that he would come back in all haste.
Percy made his way to the door and called, “Your Grace, might I ask permission for Lady Felicity’s hand?”
“That’s rather shutting the stable door after the horse is out! I suppose you’d better get on with it,” the duke called back.
“Mr. Stratton,” Lady Marchfield shouted, “open this door at once!”
Percy did not answer Lady Marchfield. Rather, he said, “Your Grace, if you could guard the door for, let’s say, a half hour?”
“Go on, then,” the duke said.
“Go on, then?” Lady Marchfield cried. “Go on with what?”
Percy Stratton was back by Felicity’s side in a flash. They did stay a further half hour, and then longer. Felicity began to wonder if it were at all ladylike to wish to tear a person’s shirt off. Then she satisfied herself with the only advice Mrs. Right had ever given her—things of this nature naturally take their course.
She supposed they would do, and then there was the further unladylike thought of wishing to hurry things along. Felicity had somehow got the impression, possibly from hints from the vicar, that a lady ought not be interested in such things. If ithadbeen the vicar, then either she was not a proper lady, or the vicar had told a very egregious fib.
By the time they emerged from the room, Felicity was very disheveled and engaged to be married. Mr. Armstrong, his mother, and Lord Haraby had departed, and Mrs. Right was seated on the floor with Valor dead asleep in her arms. Her other sisters had made their way into the dining room to demolish what was left on the table.
Lady Marchfield, like any wise general, had left the field when it became apparent she would lose the battle. Lord Marchfield had fetched a brandy for both himself and the duke and sat bemusedly on the staircase.
What a lovely evening.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As Percy hadnot had plans to wed, he’d never bothered to envision what a proposal of marriage would entail. If hehadenvisioned it, he supposed he would have imagined some sort of suave speech on a dark balcony at a ball.
Nothing so regular could have ever been hoped for when it involved the duke’s family. He was not sorry for it, though.
Lady Felicity had accepted him, and they’d had a rather delightful interlude in Lady Marchfield’s dark drawing room. So delightful that he really wondered why he’d been so eager to avoid a wedding to begin.
They’d finally emerged to find the duke still guarding the door, Lady Marchfield retired, her guests gone, the ladies Grace, Winsome, Patience, Serenity, and Verity all helping themselves to Lady Marchfield’s desserts, and Lady Valor asleep on the housekeeper’s lap. Lord Marchfield sat on the stairs with a brandy bottle at his side. He rose and kissed his niece on the cheek in congratulations, which Percy did not imagine would endear him to his wife very much.
Before they retreated from Lady Marchfield’s house, there had been some debate as to whether Lady Felicity could ride her newly-acquired horse back to Grosvenor Square. The duke did not take issue with it, but the housekeeper wisely pointed out that as Lady Felicity was not in a riding habit, perhaps too muchleg would be shown. Then, of course, Percy recalled that the horse was not properly saddled for a lady.
They compromised by the groom taking her horse and Percy riding his own next to Lady Felicity’s carriage window. It had not been the easiest thing to keep pace with the carriage while controlling his horse with one hand and holding Lady Felicity’s hand with the other. There were moments when it seemed he might pull her out the window or she might pull him through it. They’d managed it, though.
After a long goodbye, in which the rest of the family gave up and went inside, Percy finally took himself off when both of the duke’s coachmen started yawning, loudly. He made his way back to his own house in the best of spirits.
It would perhaps be tedious to recount the various shoutings and ravings that were heard in Mr. Stratton’s house when the news of the engagement was announced the following morning. Everybody in the house was warned loudly and repeatedly. And yet, the wedding would go forward.
In the end, the viscount found his son resolute. Confoundingly resolute. Percy claimed he would collect Lady Felicity and ride off to Gretna Green with her if his father attempted an impediment. The viscount, having been exposed to the duke and his lack of rationality, very much feared the couple would not even need to slip away under cover of darkness. That mad duke would probably pack them a basket from the kitchens and wave them off.
A scandal of that sort weighed heavy on the viscount’s mind. He could not escape his constant uneasiness over how new their title really was. One misstep could spell the end of all their progress. He could not escape the idea that if a viscount’s son were to elope with a duke’s daughter, it would be assumed that son was a grasping climber of the worst sort.
As well, he could not ignore that a proper wedding between his son and a duke’s daughter would more firmly cement his family as respected members of theton. Even if that particular duke was known to be mad as a spring hare.
Those ideas caused him to put up with quite a lot and quell his querulous nature. That was well. With the duke involved in the negotiations, the haggling over the marriage contract had been as no other. The Duke of Pelham amused himself with various outrages and impossibilities, while the duke’s solicitor spent most of his time sighing. By their third meeting, though, a new and more rational duke turned up. It was discovered that Lady Felicity had banned her father from calling the viscount Sir Pineapple even one more time, and had scolded him over dragging his feet for his own amusement.
The contracts were signed and the wedding was on.
Seeing as events moved forward without the least consultation as to her opinion of them, Lady Marchfield did as matrons of thetonhave done for time immemorial. She put it about that she had long hoped for the match and had been instrumental to its success.
The service was very well done—held at St. George’s and overseen by family and friends. The only flowers allowed anywhere near Felicity were tulips, and all the wedding party carried extra handkerchiefs just in case she was to get a whiff from an errant posy. The duke and the viscount were kept on opposite sides of the aisles so that all that could go on between them was glares on one side and laughter on the other.
Felicity wore a lavender silk dress and her mother’s diamonds. She had debated on the choice of a dress endlessly, but then was pleased with her decision when she noted Percy slightly stagger when he first saw her in it.
