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“Mother, you are many years from your grave. I am a mere one and thirty, and I have no reason to believe I won’t one day find someone appropriate to marry and produce my heir. When the time is right. However, constantly prodding me—or dragging young, silly debutantes in front of me—will never help.”
And so the rest of the dinner went. Once they retired to the drawing room for tea and Mother started up again, in pure desperation he raised his hand in a gesture to stop her from speaking.
“What is it, Alexander?”
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Desperation, indeed. “Mother, I did not want to speak of this yet, but there is a good chance I will be betrothed by the time we attend Vivian’s wedding.”
Both mother and daughter gasped.
“Who is she?” Mother barely got the words out, so excited was she.
He had no idea. He’d been avoiding women and any sort of entanglement with them since the Mildred debacle. But once he let this monster out of its cage, there was no stepping back. “I prefer not to say, since the lady has not formally accepted yet. We are working on the marriage contracts right now.”
Mother’s brows rose to her hairline. “Certainly you can tell your own mother who she is?”
He could if there was such a woman, but he had about a little more than a week to uncover someone irrational enough to go along with this. “Now, Mother, Vivian’s wedding is not that far off.”
Then the guessing game began. “Miss Devins?” Denise asked.
Bloody hell. They didn’t have much faith in his ability to attract a decent woman. “Miss Devins is almost Mother’s age.”
“Lady Penelope?” Mother’s turn to insult him.
The headache that had started when he was informed of their arrival had turned into a full-blown megrim. Alex stood. “Ladies, it grows late. I shall ask for your carriage to be brought around.”
Neither of them moved, and he had horrific images of them staying right there in his drawing room until he unveiled who his almost-fiancée was. He made a quick escape to where Mitchell stood at the front door. “Please bring Lady Sterling’s carriage around.” When he nodded, Alex added, “As quickly as possible.”
“Miss Evergreen?” Denise said as he returned to the drawing room.
“Lady Charlotte?”
“Miss Johnson?”
“Lady Belkins?”
“Is married, Mother.”
She waved the presence of a husband off. “Belkins is old; he will probably die in his sleep shortly.”
“Lady Elizabeth?”
“Miss Turner?”
They served up names to him like a tennis volley. Finally, Mitchell arrived and announced the carriage was ready.
He walked his mother and sister to the door. Mother patted him on his cheek. “I think it only fair, Alexander, if you arrange a small dinner party to have your fiancée meet at least the closest members of your family before the wedding.”
Knowing his mother as he did, he had no idea if she meant Vivian’s wedding or his own. Which, as far as he was concerned, might never take place.
He kissed them both on the cheek and escorted them down the steps to the carriage. He closed the door, and the vehicle began to roll.
“I know,” Mother called from the carriage like some fishwife waving a dead eel around. She must really be flustered to do so. “It’s Miss Catherine Munson!”
He shook his head and made his way up the steps and then climbed the stairs to his bedchamber. Fortunately he kept a bottle of brandy and several glasses on a tray in his room, and, after changing out of his clothes and relaxing in his banyan, brandy in hand, he sat before the fireplace and pondered the mess he had just created for himself.
CHAPTER3
Natalie took one final look in the mirror in her bedchamber and smiled. It was rare for her to dress in anything besides a work dress covered with a long apron. As much as she enjoyed her work with Rayne, there were times she would like to have a social life.
