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“Yes, indeed. I suppose we will find many things to agree on now that our families are joined.”
She annihilated him with a glare that made those he gave his employees pale in comparison. “Joined,” she snorted and stomped away, punctuating each step with her cane.
Jack and Harriet twirled on the dance floor in a waltz. “We’ve scandalized the neighborhood,” she said.
“We have that.”
“When can we do it again?”
He threw back his head and laughed. “After the honeymoon,” he promised.
***
“Have the newlyweds gone?” the Duke of Tereford asked his wife over breakfast the following morning. Jack and Harriet were to sail for Boston, where Ferrington would wrap up his affairs and his countess would meet his American friends.
“Yes. They were up at dawn and off soon after.”
He nodded. “Shall we follow their example? Not at dawn, however.”
The duchess nodded. “I’ve told the servants to pack up our things and ready the carriage for tomorrow.”
“And so we’re off to Cornwall?”
“To Tresigan, yes. I’ve had word the house is buried in ivy.”
“When you sayburied?”
“Completely smothered by a jungle of vines,” said the duchess.
“Of course it is.”
Don’t miss book one in The Duke’s Estates
Available now from Sourcebooks Casablanca
One
Three days after he inherited the title Duke of Tereford, James Cantrell set off to visit the ducal town house just off London’s Berkeley Square. He walked from his rooms, as the distance was short and the April day pleasant. He hoped to make this first encounter cordially brief and be off riding before the sunlight faded.
He had just entered the square when a shouted greeting turned his head. Henry Deeping was approaching, an unknown young man beside him.
“Have you met my friend Cantrell?” Henry asked his companion when they reached James. “Sorry. Tereford, I should say. He’s just become a duke. Stephan Kandler, meet the newest peer of the realm as well as the handsomest man in London.”
As they exchanged bows James silently cursed whatever idiot had saddled him with that label. He’d inherited his powerful frame, black hair, and blue eyes from his father. It was nothing to do with him. “That’s nonsense,” he said.
“Yes, Your Grace.” Henry’s teasing tone had changed recently. It held the slightest trace of envy.
James had heard it from others since he’d come into his inheritance. His cronies were young men who shared his interest in sport, met while boxing or fencing, on the hunting field, or perhaps clipping a wafer at Manton’s shooting gallery, where Henry Deeping had an uncanny ability. They were generally not plump in the pocket. Some lived on allowances from their fathers and would inherit as James had; others would have a moderate income all their lives. All of them preferred vigorous activity to smoky gaming hells or drunken revels.
They’d been more or less equals. But now circumstances had pulled James away, into the peerage and wealth, and he was feeling the distance. One old man’s death, and his life was changed. Which was particularly hard with Henry. They’d known each since they were uneasy twelve-year-olds arriving at school.
“We’re headed over to Manton’s if you’d care to come,” Henry said. He sounded repentant.
“I can’t just now,” James replied. He didn’t want to mention that he was headed to Tereford House. It was just another measure of the distance from Henry. He saw that Henry noticed the vagueness of his reply.
“Another time perhaps,” said Henry’s companion in a Germanic accent.
James gave a noncommittal reply, wondering where Henry had met the fellow. His friend was considering the diplomatic corps as a means to make his way in the world. Perhaps this Kandler had something to do with that.
