Page 47 of The Duke’s Hidden Runaway Bride

“You had no right.”

“I am your mother. I have a great many rights, though you have lately developed a tiresome interest in disputing them.”

“What did you say?”

“The truth. That society will punish her, and that it will punish you if you bind your future to hers. The Calder name is not an ornament to be spent in a fit of romance.”

“It is mine to use.”

“To hold in trust.”

“For what purpose, if not to stand behind something worth defending?”

His mother’s expression hardened. “You speak as though I object because of her mother.”

“Do you?”

The question hung between them. Lady Daventry looked away first.

“I do not know,” she admitted. “That is the honest answer, and I dislike it. I have spent my life among people who would swear themselves free of prejudice while speaking of Miss James as though her ancestry were an unfortunate stain. I have not often contradicted them.”

“Neither have I.”

“No.” She looked back at him. “At least we know the company we have kept.”

His mother’s use of his own thought might once have amused him. Tonight it merely made him sad.

“I will receive her,” she continued. “If Crispin insults her beneath my roof, he will leave it. If others follow him, I shall discover that I have been feeding far too many people at supper.”

Adrian crossed the room and kissed her cheek. She caught his sleeve before he could draw away.

“Standing beside her tonight is one matter. Marriage is another.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

His mother searched his face. “Your promise was a bride by spring.”

“It is not yet spring.”

“Adrian.”

He covered her hand briefly with his.

“I will not offer for Ophelia while Markham has any claim hanging over her, nor while the whole world might tell her she accepted me because she required protection. I will not exchange one cage for a grander one.”

Lady Daventry released his sleeve.

“But if she is free,” he continued, “and if she will have me, there will be no other bride.”

Pain crossed his mother’s face, and love with it, unmistakable. The first trace of resignation followed. She studied him for a long moment. “You have changed.”

“I have become extremely inconvenient.”

“You were always inconvenient. You merely used to make it amusing.”