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“We’ve missed you!” Birdie encircled Viola’s waist with her arms and placed her head on her shoulder. “Never leave us again.”
Viola’s smile faltered. She didn’t want to think about that day. She was only their hired staff, after all. They weren’t her family, as much as she’d love them to be.
And the duke was marrying an heiress, as she’d always known he would someday. The thought was like accidentally touching a boiling hot kettle, causing fresh pain every time she remembered the fact. The pain would dull with time. She had no business caring one way or the other. He was only doing what dukes must do.Marry. Miss Chandler wasn’t his social equal, but she’d make him wealthy.
“Now then, we haven’t a moment to lose,” she said briskly, pushing thoughts of the duke away. “The first ball of the Season is tomorrow which means the musicale is close at hand!”
West had never had a fiancée before. He was beginning to heartily regret the acquisition.
Fiancées of the very pampered and very American variety expected to be courted in grand and public fashion, something which West wasn’t prepared to do.
He and Miss Chandler had been placed at the most visible table in Gunter’s Tea Shop, Berkley Square. Every passerby stopped to gawk at them.
Small wonder. Miss Chandler was wearing a vibrant crimson-and-green-striped gown with voluminous puffed sleeves ornamented by an unfortunate combination of crimson bows dotted with emeralds.
Miss Chandler pursed her carmine lips. “You must present me with fifty red roses tomorrow before the ball.”
“Fifty?”
“Not enough? You’re right. Not nearly enough. I must have...” She raised her finger. “I must haveone hundredred roses.”
“Don’t think I can carry that many,” he muttered.
“Bring footmen. Make a parade of it. I want to be showered in roses.”
“You’ll be smothered by roses. Buried by ’em.No one will be able to see it’s you under all those petals.”
“They will see, and they will know.”
“What will they know?”
“That I have achieved the unachievable, landed the unlandable, tamed the untamable. That I’ve brought the mightily wicked Duke of Westbury to his knees.”
“To the altar, you mean.”
“To his knees,” she insisted. “You’ll present me with the roses on bended knee.”
“I’m not going to act the besotted suitor, Miss Chandler. Everyone knows this is a business arrangement.”
“I know...” She twirled a lock of her shiny hair around her finger. “But if you play your part well enough, and make me the biggest triumph of the Season, I’ll depart London soon after the wedding and you won’t see me for two years, at least.”
“Deal,” West said, holding out his hand.
She shook it with a smile. “I knew we could come to an agreement.”
“But within limits. It’s out of character for me to shower you with roses. No one will believe it.”
“Seeing is believing, they say. Whatever Dottie Dalrymple received during her courtship by the Earl of Dexter, I want you to give me the same thing, only ten times more grand.”
“In that case, why stop at one hundred roses? You should have a new variety of roses developed and have it named The Vanessa and instead of an arrangement that will wither and wilt, your name will be immortalized in British gardens forever.”
“Brilliant.” She clapped her hands. “Dottie will be wild with jealousy.”
“I was joking, Miss Chandler.”
“It’s a splendid idea.” She waved her hand imperiously. “Make it so.”
“You’re very accustomed to having your own way.”
