Page 18 of Manufacturing a Duchess

“Goodness knows. What a horror. I probably shan’t sleep a wink all night. I am sure there was something alive in her hair. It doesn’t signify,” she finished with a delicate, almost imperceptible shudder and whisked open her fan. “La! What a crush.”

Aurora glanced around her. It was a sea of colors—gowns and feathers and flesh perfumed with a variety of scents as people wafted past her. Lavender. Bay Rum. She flinched slightly as one particular dandy swept by—a touch of sweat and the stables as well. What am I doing here? She asked herself. She felt lost and reached for something, anything, to give her back her footing. Homer was a no in a situation like this. A picture of the poet weaving through this crowd sprang to mind, and she almost let out a desperate giggle. For the first time, she wished she had spent more time listening to the lectures of how to navigate in situations like these, on how a lady was to behave, on how to make conversation (should the properly introduced opportunity present itself), and a little less on Homer or the best way to tot up a string of figures so the books balanced.

She glued her eyes onto Missie’s back, as though this could save her from drowning. Aurora whipped open her fan and ended up whacking the arm of a very stately dowager passing by at that moment. Her face crimsoned in shame, and she snapped it shut again. Aurora began to pray fervently for the moment when they could take their seats and the music would begin. At least during the music, she could simply listen as everyone else would be forced to stillness and quiet. It would give her a respite. Until supper, then the dancing. And maybe he would be there. The dark, broodingly handsome duke. Marjorie’s father. She was uncertain whether the possibility thrilled or simply and overwhelmingly terrified her.

Sixteen

After retrieving a glass of Negus for his mother, Lord Finlay, aka Henry Mackenzie, steered her over to a group of her acquaintances and nodded in acknowledgement when she reminded him to be back to escort her to her seat when the time came. He then rejoined Alec, surprisingly well assembled this evening, who had positioned himself at the back of the room. While people ebbed and flowed around them, they occupied a tiny pocket of privacy. Glances occasionally came their way, but everyone was so focused on seeing and being seen, no one would be listening. They thus had the perfect opportunity to observe the entrance of the Wentworth party.

“She is magnificent,” Alec breathed, as Millicent held her moment at the doorway.

“Wentworth! Oh, Lord!” Finn muttered under his breath, but loud enough for Alec to hear.

“What? What is it?”

Finn turned to look at his cousin with a grimace of dismay. “Lord Wentworth is terribly to let. He has gambled away the family’s fortune. They are only able to launch their daughter this Season, I have been told, because they have undertaken to present the daughter of some prince of manufacturing from the Midlands or thereabouts. Word is, said prince will settle somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand pounds on the daughter at marriage, but then, she is his sole heir. So, what will she inherit? Significantly more.”

Alec lifted an eyebrow. “That is remarkably specific for ‘I have been told,’ and ‘some prince of manufacturing.’”

“Yes, well, very little escapes the mamas who are overseeing the Season. And when you are a Nonpareil,” at this, Finn coughed politely behind his hand, “one’s man is made au courant with the latest gossip.” He dropped his dandy pose for a moment and looked at Alec ruefully. “You must scratch the Beauty from your list, Alec. She cannot help you.”

“I refuse to believe such an exquisite creature⁠—”

“Alec,” interrupted his friend.

Alec stopped and glared at Finn. And then he relaxed. “She reminds of Mary, though she’s even more beautiful. What Mary would have looked like if she had come to London for a Season.”

The wistfulness in his cousin’s voice surprised Finn. It was the first time he had said anything that touched upon his feelings about his late wife. “Yes, she does.”

“Then it is the second young woman?”

“Hardcastle, I believe.”

“Ah, Hardcastle. Then it is Miss Hardcastle—of the two—I should fasten my attention on. Unless you can point me toward anyone else? I see I must rely on your guidance. Good God, how mercenary this entire process is.”

“What? Oh, yes,” and Finn struggled to come back to the present from where he had been caught up—a sudden memory of a ride out into the hills, the two of them and Mary, and hearing her laugh at something.

Alec gave him a crooked smile, one that implied he might be reading his mind, and said softly, “Yes, I remember her. And it is all right, Finn—I mean, Henry. I know you loved her, too.”

For the first time in a long while, Lord Mackenzie, Duke of Galloway, completely lost his countenance and blushed to the roots of his hair. “You—you knew?” he managed to stammer.

“I think I’ve always known. We both loved her. I try to think of those early days, before, before everything changed.” Keenly watching his cousin, Finn saw Alec’s eyes turn stormy, and a shadow appeared to pass over his face. If anything, the sudden sternness threw his profile into sharp relief, and several women, young and old, available and officially off the market, gaped at him. Finn sighed. Though he was the more exquisitely dressed of the two, Alec was able to make him into a nonentity where women were concerned. As usual, Finn could see the man was completely unaware of his effect on the women around him.

Alec set his shoulders back and spoke again. “So, Miss Hardcastle.”

“Yes. Miss Hardcastle.”

“Unless another worthy prospect…?”

“Unless another worthy prospect. There is a Miss Fortescue I have heard tell of, but her fortune is perhaps an eighth of what Miss Hardcastle would bring to a marriage. From what I have been hearing, if you are looking for a secure sum of money for the future, Miss Wentworth’s companion should be your focus.”

* * *

Blissfully ignorant of any discussions going on around the room concerning her, Aurora waited patiently for all to be seated and the concert begin. At first, she had been too shy to look at anything other than the floor. Then, gradually, she had taken some wider glances around the room at large.

Missie stood nearby, tall and graceful, her head floating on top of her neck as if she were an empress, coolly surveying the room. I am such a goose! A complete ninnyhammer! All right, take a deep breath, square my shoulders, and tear a page from Missie’s book. There. That wasn’t so bad. No one is staring at me. I have done nothing dreadful (at least, not yet—oh, shush!). Take another breath. I am a young lady of wealth and some consequence. I am beautifully dressed. I am—and here her thoughts broke off in a rapid tumble.

Because there they were, the two gentlemen from the Tower. Standing on the far side of the room, close to the punch bowl. The tall, pale one was very elegantly dressed; his neckcloth looked like it had taken hours of work to achieve its complexity. His hair towered even higher above his head, swept into a sculpture which bested that of any other man in the room. The other one, with his broad shoulders and dark hair, was more elegantly dressed than the other day. Of course, you silly! He had not been going to an event then. He’d been out for the day with his friend and his daughter. Lord Raeburn. Duke of Selkirk. A Scotchman. He hadn’t sounded Scotch when he had spoken to Marjorie. It had been a low voice, low and—musical. It had a resonance to it, a bass rumble beneath the baritone that had wrapped itself around her, and—Goodness, Aurora! Do not be so ridiculous. He is a duke. I am simply the daughter of a rich nobody.