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Thea’s eyes went wide and blue as a summer sky. “I’d like to read this book.”
“And you shall. As soon as my missing chapters are reunited with the whole.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Charlene said grudgingly, “but maybe marrying Hatherly is an expedient way to achieve your goal.”
Thea reached over and touched Alice’s cheek. “Never mind that I don’t want you to leave for purely selfish reasons, but have you thought that marrying Hatherly means you can’t marry anyone else? I had thought... well, there was someone else I had thought of for you.”
“Someone else?” asked Alice. This was the first she’d heard of such a notion.
“I was waiting to tell you. I know how you feel about matrimony, but now that you’re willing to marry, you should think of Patrick.”
“Your brother-in-law?” Alice tilted her head. “Somehow I don’t think Patrick’s looking for a wife. He always has such a sadness hidden in his eyes, even when his lips are smiling.”
Thea had told Alice of Patrick’s troubled past and all of the loss he’d experienced.
“Yes, but he truly is the most wonderful man,” said Thea. “Such a good father to his son, Van. And you make him laugh more than anyone else, Alice.”
“I make everyone laugh,” Alice replied. “Because I’m so odd.”
“Patrick would be better than Hatherly,” Charlene mused, sipping the last of her cocoa. “Actually, anyone would be better than Hatherly.”
“Dalton and Patrick are in the library right now.” Thea set down her mug and jumped from her chair. “Let’s go and talk to them.”
“Thea, I’m not going to marry Patrick.” Alice motioned for her friend to resume her seat. “It’s not a good, or even a decent, gentleman I require. At this point what I need the most is the freedom to travel. And the best way to achieve that is by marrying Hatherly. He wants nothing from me save my absence.”
“It sounds rather lonely,” Thea said. “What happens afterward? After you return from India?”
“I’m willing to relinquish the dream of reading by the fireside with a loving spouse, for a month of instruction in the arts of love from a temporary husband, followed by blessed freedom.”
Thea smiled. “It’s possible to have both freedom and love, isn’t that so, Charlene?”
Charlene nodded. “The right gentleman won’t take away your independence, Alice.”
“The right gentleman hasn’t come along yet,” Alice said, with a hint of bitterness. “As Hatherly’s wife I will have my language scholarship, my travels, and I will not be married to some vain prig like Lord White who would expect me to fawn all over him and listen to his unpoetic pronouncements all day long. Or, even worse, a gentleman who might be cruel to me.” At her friends’ worried expressions, Alice smiled bravely. “I know what I’m doing. I’m far too sensible to fall in love with Lord Hatherly.”
She’d never felt herself to be even in the slightest danger of falling in love. And she certainly would never be so imprudent as to give her heart to a rake like Hatherly.
“I hope so,” Thea said.
Charlene squeezed Alice’s hand. “I know you’re strong, and I know you have a plan for your life. But please be cautious and careful. Be very, very careful, sweetheart.”
“Have you seen this one, Hatherly?” Dalton, Duke of Osborne, asked as Nick strode into his library at Osborne Court. He flourished a roll of newsprint at Nick.
“I’ve seen them all,” Nick said glumly. He flung himself into a chair and held out his hand for a glass of Dalton’s excellent Irish whiskey.
The penny paper satirists were having a ball with his forced betrothal to Miss Tombs. Drawings of him in bonnets on an auction block, or him in a bridal gown and veil with Miss Tombs at his side with a drooping moustache and a dress sword.
“All of London’s laughing at me,” Nick said. “It’s not that funny, Patrick.”
“It’s hilarious,” said Dalton’s brother Patrick Fellowes, with another snort of laughter and a devilish gleam in his light green eyes. “You look so fetching in a bonnet, Hatherly.”
“Doesn’t suit me, that bonnet,” Nick grumbled. “I’d have preferred a stuffed finch on top instead of a cluster of cherries.”
Patrick chuckled. “Cherries are more symbolic.”
“Ha ha,” Nick said.
He swallowed half the whiskey and felt almost immediately more cheerful. “So what have you two uncovered? Any news of Stubbs? Was he the one who escorted the duke to the Crimson?” He turned to Patrick. “And was the wager even binding?”
