“Well,” Charles said, “the marriage mart is booming just now. There certainly are enough ladies to choose from. It seems like a marquess could convince at least one of them to step into a church. But I suppose we will see if this season ends like the last two—in disappointment.”
“Do shut up, Charles,” Roland said, striding forward toward Lady Serenity. If Charles had an answer to that, he did not hear it. Nor did he care.
“Your Grace,” he said with a bow. “Roland Garner, Marquess of Thorpe. The Duchess of Devonshire has been so good as to put me down on your daughter’s card.”
He turned and bowed to Lady Serenity, who answered with a tidy little curtsy.
“Hah!” the duke said, “the window peerer. The peer who peers.”
Roland hardly knew what to do with that assessment so merely nodded. “Lady Serenity, you seemed to be enjoying our unseasonably cold weather last evening.”
“It was magnificent,” Lady Serenity said.
“I warn you, Thorpe,” the duke said, “my daughter weeps over anything and everything Mother Nature chooses to do.”
“I certainly do not, Papa,” Lady Serenity said. “My father likes to jest, Lord Thorpe.”
“Helps keep me sane, you see,” the duke said. “Seven daughters are enough to send anybody over a cliff and we live on the moors—all too many opportunities for it. Oh, what ho? Here’s another of the fairer sex intent on sending me over a cliff.”
Roland turned to see Lady Marchfield, a very respected matron. If he was not mistaken regarding family connections, she was the duke’s sister.
“Lady Misery,” the duke said, “who let you in? I thought this place congratulated itself on its standards.”
Roland’s eyes widened, though Lady Marchfield herself seemed to give little notice to it.
“Serenity, you look very well indeed,” Lady Marchfield said. “Lord Thorpe, good to see you again.”
Roland bowed. “Lady Marchfield,” he said.
“Thorpe here has got himself down on Serenity’s card,” the duke said. “Saw her cavorting round in the snow last evening.”
Lady Marchfield’s brows raised ever so slightly over that information. She said, “Lord Thorpe, do not pay much mind to anything my brother has to say, and certainly do not hold it over his daughter. He thinks himself original, though the world finds him otherwise.”
The duke nodded. “You see what I’m up against, Thorpe.” He patted his coat and said, “I’ve brought a flask of brandy in case you need a nip—Lady Misery could make a Rechabite gulp down a whole bottle of the stuff.”
Roland had never been involved in such an awkward exchange in his life. Clearly, the brother and sister were not admiring of one another. Further, the duke was his own brandof eccentric. It was not every gentleman who could work the mention of an ancient sect of Israelite teetotalers into a conversation.
“Do not be fooled by his pretensions of knowing the bible,” Lady Marchfield sniffed. “He would be more likely to have a deal with the devil than God.”
“You’ve gone wrong again!” the duke cried. “My housekeeper has a deal with the devil, or so she says.”
“I would not at all doubt it,” Lady Marchfield said.
Roland looked toward Lady Serenity to see what she would make of her father’s and aunt’s exchanges. He had imagined she’d be ready to sink through the floor at the insults hurled back and forth. As it happened, she did not look at all perturbed. She must think what was occurring was quite usual. Perhaps it was.
He supposed he ought not be too surprised. His relations with his brother were not much better. Perhaps all families had such disputes? If they did, they hid it better than the duke and Lady Marchfield.
“Your Grace, Lady Serenity, Lady Marchfield,” a voice said behind his shoulder. It was a voice he knew all too well and had just left on the other side of the ballroom. Charles.
“Lord Charles,” Lady Marchfield said.
“Lady Marchfield, the Duchess of Devonshire has very kindly put me down on your niece’s card, if she does not object to it.”
Lady Serenity said, “No, certainly I would not object.”
“Lord Charles is Lord Thorpe’s younger brother,” Lady Marchfield said, explaining the connection.
“Hah!” the duke said, “that is amusing, is it not? Two brothers take Serenity round the floor. Not at the same time, I hope.”
