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“What lovely sons you’re blessed with, Mrs. Carmichael,” the Dowager said. “Do you not agree, Your Grace?”
Samuel took in the aggressive, almost angry edge to the Dowager’s tone and blinked. Did she so resent being supplanted as to make her hostile to her son’s new wife?
The new Duchess smiled, nodding.
“Yes.” Her gaze moved past Richard to Samuel. “They’re both, ah, very tall.” Pink suffused her cheeks. “But I’m sure that they started out smaller and got that way.”
Richard chuckled.
“Les petits ruisseaux font les grandes rivières.”
The Duchess blinked up at him.
“I’m afraid my French is quite poor, Mr. Carmichael.”
“My apologies, Your Grace. I must be misinformed about your love of languages.”
“Her Grace enjoys books, Mr. Carmichael,” the Dowager said with a cross look for her new relation. “In English.”
“Yes, books,” Her Grace agreed, turning an even deeper pink. She smiled. “Your informant must have confused me with my younger sister, Marie. She speaks both French and Italian with enthusiasm and fluency.”
Samuel suppressed a groan for how readily she’d taken the bait which Richard had put out.
“Ah, that must be it.” Richard looked about and, as if the thought had only that moment occurred to him, asked, “Is Miss Marie in attendance? I should love to bandy French with her.”
“She is not,” the new Duchess replied. “My sisters and mother were meant to be here, but Mother had an emergency and couldn’t chaperone them.”
Richard frowned.
“Could you not have, Your Grace?”
“I… ah…”
Her Grace cast a beseeching look at the Dowager.
“Her Grace had already agreed to accompany me, and I do not care for the prattle of unwed young misses.”
Samuel doubted the Dowager cared for the prattle of anyone.
“Yes, that’s it,” the Duchess said, nodding vigorously enough to bounce her curls. “I, ah, believe I require punch.”
She whirled and hastened away.
“A charming addition to your family, Your Grace,” Samuel’s mother said brightly. “The daughter you never had.”
The Dowager shook her head, the motion waggling her ponderous jowls.
“Or had to chaperone. And you, you’ve two sons to put you through this Marriage Mart torment, Mrs. Carmichael. I underwent enough tumult with one. I do not envy you.”
“Torment, Your Grace?” Richard said on a laugh.
The Dowager turned icy blue eyes on him.
“Yes. Torment. And right now, they are both dismissed, so we may converse in peace, Mrs. Carmichael.”
Samuel bowed immediately.
“It was my pleasure, Your Grace.”
