“Our papa’s heir?”
“Yes, and our aunt too.”
“Gracious, this might be more exciting than I had imagined. Is that why the new butler looks on the verge of collapse?”
“No, he’s always like that,” Mrs. Right said. “He’s not one of Lady Marchfield’s sturdier specimens.”
“Well, I will give our aunt credit for dogged determination with her butlers. I’m sure however you manage him, Mrs. Right, this certainly must be her last effort. Val, get dressed and don your new tiara,” Felicity said. “I cannot wait until we are all together again. For now, Isabelle is in the drawing room giving her sage seven-year-old advice to Papa on what he ought to do if he finds himself in a temper, which she has vast experience with. Closeting oneself in one’s room and stomping on the floor is highly recommended.”
With that, Felicity left the room.
*
Weston held hisarms up and Stockton put on his coat. Lady Marchfield had been as good as her word and sent a very skilled tailor. The man was almost a magician, he’d returned days later with an entire wardrobe. Stockton said he employed an army of tailors working night and day to execute his designs. Considering the bill, it might have been several armies.
Despite the enormous expense, both Weston and his valet approved of the result. Weston had been forceful in his view that he did not want to be turned out as a prancing dandy and he’d not been. The clothes were elegant and simple, with a precise cut, just what hewould prefer.
It had probably been time he did something with his clothes in any case. It was just that there did not seem to ever be an extra moment when he was in Cornwall. He was awake most nights sailing and asleep most days, which did not make for an opportunity to accomplish mundane tasks.
Stockton brushed his coat and made some small adjustments to his neckcloth. “I don’t like it, my lord.”
His valet was a man of few words, but as they’d known one another and worked in close quarters for years, Weston understood his meaning. It was not a comment on the clothes. In answer, he said, “I will go to the dinner and meet this duke and then I suppose that will be that. We are not likely to become friends. He might rent me a house but that does not buy my approval.”
“Careful of that last daughter he has hanging about the place.”
Weston laughed. “I imagine you have not met many duke’s daughters. She’ll be insipid and fanning herself and fishing for admiration. She will find, though, that she fishes in an empty lake and will not find any compliments on her hook. It is always the way with a duke’s daughter.”
Stockton snorted. “How many duke’s daughters have you met?”
“Just Lady Letitia when she visited Lady Monroe and they turned up at the house. That was quite enough for one lifetime. Lady Monroe was most approving of Lady Letitia, so I presume she was a very usual sort of duke’s daughter.”
Weston had not comprehended it at the time, but he now suspected that Lady Monroe’s visit to the house with Lady Letitia in tow had been for the sole purpose of throwing that lady in front of him. They had arrived unannounced and pretended they’d thought it was Lord Ledderbey’s at-home day. The lord did not host an at-home day, which Lady Monroe would know very well. He and Lord Ledderbey went on very much as hermits and nobody would imagine they wouldfling open their doors to all and sundry. On occasion, a card had been dropped off but they generally looked at it and shrugged, never thinking about it again.
Nevertheless, Lady Monroe and Lady Letitia were persistent at the door and Ledderbey was forced to let them in. Then he had to explain how it was that Weston was still asleep at two in the afternoon. He’d made up some story about Weston just returning from a trip. After Lady Monroe put up an endless fuss over not seeing him, Lord Ledderbey was cornered into asking them to come back for dinner.
What a night that was. Lady Letitia was a tall and razor-thin lady with an oddly pinched face, rather bulging eyes, and a painful shriek of a laugh. She had apparently bathed in powerfully scented water and was a walking flower garden, the scent lingering in any room she’d been in. He’d been surprised she had not attracted bees.
The lady had encased these charms in a sickly green taffeta concoction with ruffles going in every direction. She had whipped her fan around like a sword and in fact hit him several times with it in some sort of bizarre flirtation.
None of that would have put him off a friendship, but the lady had nothing of note to say. She was all shrieky giggles and spent the evening accusing him of staring. If hehadstared, it was only out of stupefied wonder—nothing could have prepared him for the assault on his senses. By the time those two ladies should have been on their way home, Lady Letitia had threatened to play the pianoforte. Fortunately it had not been tuned in years. Both Weston and Lord Ledderbey had been exhausted by the time they’d maneuvered those two ladies out the door. He did not expect anything different from the Duke of Pelham’s daughters.
He went downstairs and found Lord Ledderbey in the drawing room. “Now my boy,” he said, “are you certain we ought to bother with the carriage?”
It was true the duke’s house was only across the square, but it wasalso true that it would be just a bit too far for Lord Ledderbey to walk, especially to have to come back again later when he would be tired.
“I do think it best,” Weston said. “It is muddy outside and we should not like to turn up looking disheveled.”
Ledderbey said, “All right, I’ll pretend to believe you on that. Well, these old bones won’t mind a ride, I suppose. We’d best be off for our thirty seconds of carriage ride to the other side of the square.”
They set off and were indeed there in under a minute. It looked as if quite a few other people had arrived too, the duke’s endless supply of daughters, Weston imagined. How on earth did he have so many of them? Had anybody ever had so many without running into a son at some point? Seven. It was bound to be a trying evening surrounded by seven versions of Lady Letitia. If they all had fans, he might come out of it badly bruised.
He helped Lord Ledderbey to the pavement and the doors flew open. “My lords! Step inside and I will announce you. Yes, announce, that is what I’m to do. Got to get it right!”
The butler was a short and squat individual whose voice shook as if he were on the verge of panic. He also seemed to be unaware that he was saying his thoughts aloud. Weston ought not be surprised. He imagined anybody working for a duke who was eleven eggs short of a dozen was bound to be a wreck.
The fellow attempted to lead them in but ended up running himself into the doorframe and clutching at his forehead.
“Are you quite all right?” Lord Ledderbey asked.
