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“Will we? I have yet to be asked. In a manner indicative of my position in life.” She swanned out of the front office and inspected the stalls that ran along the left side of the structure.
“I will sort out the special license and then propose in a style due your consequence. Thus, I must to Town.”
“I am certain the proposal comes before the license.”
“I have a plan. It is a secret.”
“Another surprise? How I have grown to enjoy them. Away with you, then.” She made her way over to the right side of the building, peering over dividing walls, opening cupboards, beaming like the sun. “Perhaps on the way you may like to think on a proper application for my hand.”
“Or an improper one, perhaps?” he called, but she ignored him as she set about going over her new offices with a fine-tooth comb.
* * *
The nearly full moon hung overheard, a beacon in the night. As Alfred entered the Hall, after a day spent in London setting certain events in train, it was as if the whole estate had woken from a long sleep. He made his way through his ancestral birthplace—very nearly doomed by his parents’ calumny—went up and down the stairs, and through the corridors, taking in the vitality of the servants, the chatter and laughter, the joy with which he was greeted, and his heart filled with exultation. The Hall was becoming a home before his eyes.
He saw this joy reflected in his Beta’s expression as he entered his steward’s office. “Matthias. All is well?”
“Alpha.” Bates handed Alfred a sheaf of foolscap. “It is. Depending upon that.”
Arthur raised a brow, and his steward fought to keep a straight face. He glanced at the opening lines set down in a feminine hand. “Is this a marriage contract?”
Matthias gave in to the grin and followed Alfred out of the room. Alfred read aloud: “Your Grace. Herewith I present to you the articles of our marriage, an event that will inevitably unfold, despite the fact that you have yet to ask it of me with anything like the approximation of a maiden’s dream.”
Matthias’s wolf snorted with delight. Alfred elbowed him in the side, to the amusement of Felix and Leo, who had been chuntering at each other in the corridor. “You two. Fetch Mr. Coburn, if you would.” The footmen raced away; he continued reading. “I set before you my terms for this union, embracing not only the marriage, but the welfare of all in Lowell Hall.” He stopped, overwhelmed, and his friend’s hand gripped his shoulder. Alfred’s wolf was like to howl his joy for all to hear. “My mares are settled in the southern meadow, and in concert with Mr. Marshall, I have agreed that my head lads, Aherne and Bailey, late of Templeton House, are responsible for their care. I will require a steward or chamberlain of my own to aid me in bringing Templeton Stud to its fullest potential.
“All staff are to be given pay rises.Is this your work, Beta?” he teased. “Mary Mossett is to be encouraged in her gifts as a seamstress and a mantua-maker in her own right through an apprenticeship to Lady Jemima Coleman. We will secure a tutor for any staff who desire, as does Miss Mossett, to further their education. Mrs. Birks may have someone in mind to attend me as my personal maid. I do not wish to be served by a fraudulent French maid found in a servants’ registry. Unless the one Mrs. Birks has in mind is, in fact, French.” The men headed for the green baize door. “Monsieur Louveteau is in need of an apprentice in order that such a person take charge of the lower servants’ meals. This will appease a complaint rendered by Mr. Coburn. What has Coburn been complaining about? Never mind, she’s got it sorted…” He mumbled through the rest of her directives. “There’s nothing here about her own jointure.”
Bates pointed to the next page. “Ah.As regards my portion should you predecease me…I cannot write of this, it is too difficult. I see now why such documents are drawn up by unfeeling parties. It is my intention that Templeton House, which would fall under your remit as my husband, be returned to me in a settlement of trust that it may be used as a home for business-mindedwomen with no family or whose relations are hostile to their ambitions.That’s moot, or will be once she learns of her father’s true bequest.” He paused at the door to his suite and tapped the papers on his thigh.
“Once she learns of it?” Bates looked at him as though he were a lunatic. “Did you not tell her we found the will?”
“She is weary of the entire business and chooses to leave off reading it for now. I told her of it and that the legacy was not as she expected. It was not as if I set out to hold back the knowledge.”
“Wives dislike being left in the dark.”
“I bow to your infinitely greater experience. All those wives you’ve had.” Alfred resisted the desire to shift and let their wolves loose on each other. Just for a lark. “I will tell her when I deem the time is right.”
“I bow to your infinitely greater desire to live dangerously.” Matthias rolled his eyes.
“In any case, it would be poor form did I not strive to negotiate,” he said, turning back around to head for the staterooms.
“She is not here, Alpha.”
“Had she thought to meet me in Town?” Bates turned over the last paper in Alfred’s hands. “Oh.I have repaired to London and am making use of the Lowell town house in St. James’s Square to collect my thoughts as I prepare to reenter society as an imminent duchess and face down theton.Like it or not, our children…” Emotion swamped him, and he had to take a breath. “Our children will have to mix with these people and do the pretty, and so we must begin our rehabilitation sooner rather than later. I shall attend the Montague ball tomorrow evening. Invitations are unexpectedly easy to obtain when one is as notorious as I. You may stay at your club and turn yourself out in full ducal vesture, as you seem wont to do, to join me there. As I mentioned earlier, an improved approach to proposing marriage would not go amiss. Yours, et cetera.Hers, et cetera, indeed.”
“Your Grace.” Coburn stood at the end of the corridor, pretending he hadn’t heard a thing. Alfred looked between his friend and his faithful retainer, and for the first time, perhaps since he’d been a young man, perhaps since he’d been a very small boy, he fully, completely, and unabashedly smiled. Coburn cleared his throat, and Bates’s eyes glistened even as he grinned in return. “We have our orders, gentlemen. Let us prepare a run to London, posthaste.”
Twenty
It was a veritable crush.
The utter squeeze that packed the ballroom of the minor Viscount Montague sent his viscountess into alt. Servants ran hither and yon like chickens with their heads cut off in search of more ice, more ratafia, more wine, more flowers, for it was not until almost the very last moment that Fallen Felicity chose this ball to reemerge into society. Had she even been invited? It was of no consequence: word had spread like wildfire, and simply everyone was there. Including the Duke of Lowell himself. The event was set to go down in history—or in infamy.
It was all of eleven days since the fall of Felicity Templeton. The orchestra played, the dancers danced, and the gossipers gossiped, as they had at the Ball At Which It All Happened, and if theon-ditswere to be given credence, something would transpire tonight to put that in the shade.
“If he hasn’t wed her by now, he never will.” A dowager nodded to Sally Jersey across the room. Only an incipient scandal of this caliber would induce such a lady to enter the ballroom of a lord of middling repute. “Should they find themselves in this room together, I assure you he will give her the cut direct.”
“She intends to cut him,” said an old fellow. “She has fallen under the care of the prince regent himself.”
