“Old Hooky’s to be at this damned card party?” Rudolph, Baron Twillinger cried—and he nearly was in tears. “Wellington himself? I could have pled a last-minute bilious stomach and sent along a few genteel shillings, but not if…Wellington, himself?”
Men who’d risk snubbing a duchess, even the Duchess of Moreland, could never treat the Duke of Wellington to the same slight.
“Can’t be helped,” Pierpont said. “If Wellington’s attending, we’re attending. I could call MacHugh out for this.”
“Why don’t you?” Twillinger countered, though he kept his voice down.
Win had tracked them to one of the more modest gentlemen’s establishments—one of the cheaper ones—and found them both swilling ale rather than port or brandy.
One always drank ale near the end of the quarter, though that was a good six weeks away.
“Dueling’s illegal,” Pierpont rejoined, nose in the air. “I am a father, and must think of my progeny when the demands of honor weigh heavily upon me. Wouldn’t do to make an orphan of the children so early in life. Not considering who they have for a mama.”
“No orphans, please,” Win said. “I cannot think of a drearier topic. Orphans are why we’ll all flirt with penury tomorrow evening.”
Though Twillinger’s new phaeton had to have cost a pretty penny.
“I’m not above passin’ a few farthings to the less fortunate,” Pierpont said, “but Colin MacHugh is a problem. Just because his flamin’ brother’s a duke all of a sudden doesn’t mean he’s good ton. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“Hear, hear,” Twillinger said, rapping on the table as if they were in the corner pub. “The next time some presuming Scot is plucked from obscurity and given a lofty title, his whole family will expect vouchers from Almack’s delivered to their very doorstep. What is the world coming to?”
Pierpont licked the ale foam from his upper lip. “A bloody sad pass, I can tell you. ‘Scottish duke’ ought to be one of those what-do-you-call-’ems. Contradiction whatevers. I’m as titled as MacHugh is, and a damned sight better bred.”
He belched, beery fumes wafting about the table.
“So you are,” Twillinger agreed, patting Pierpont’s hand. “Montague, why so silent?”
“I’m thinking.”
Pierpont and Twillinger smiled and ordered another round of ale.
“I do so love it when you think,” Twillinger said. “Spares me the trouble. Think me up a way to earn some blunt, would you? Not earn-earn it, but come into it, proper-like.”
“Lord Colin would tell you to rent out your phaeton.” Win was jesting, though Twillinger appeared taken with the idea. Twilly was half-seas over, as usual.
“I would tell Lord Colin to put Twilly’s vehicle up his strutting Scottish—”
A waiter bearing three glasses of ale interrupted Pointy’s musings. “Separate accounts, gentlemen?”
“Please,” Winthrop said, before either friend could send him a hopeful look. They’d put their whole afternoon’s drinking on his account, and that would not do.
When the waiter had gathered up empty glasses and departed, Win set his ale to his right, away from Pierpont. Pointy was notorious for drinking out of the “wrong” glass as his own grew empty.
“I’ve been thinking,” Pointy said, using the back of his sleeve to wipe his mouth this time. “What if the card party is a failure? Not much blunt donated, for all we waste a fine evening at the tables?”
“Then the orphans go hungry,” Twillinger said. “Which I thought orphans did most of the time anyway.”
“Quiet,” Win said as Jonathan Tresham walked by. The damned man had no title at all, not even a courtesy title, but he was some sort of nabob, and heir to the Duke of Quimbey. Worse, Mrs. Bellingham professed to like him.
“He’ll be there,” Pointy said, following Tresham with his gaze. “And if Tresham is there, Quimbey will likely be as well. With Moreland and Wellington, that’s a three-duke card party. It can’t fail. His Grace of Anselm will doubtless put in an appearance, and that’s four dukes.”
Win waited until Tresham had chosen a table across the room. “Pointy, I hadn’t realized you’d been working on your counting skills. I’m impressed. The card party will be a great success, which can’t be helped. It’s not Lord Colin’s card party, though, it’s Miss Anwen Windham’s, whom we all esteem greatly.”
They drank to that sentiment.
“Lord Colin dances with Miss Anwen,” Twillinger said. “M’sister has remarked it.”
“Lord Colin dances with the lot of them,” Pointy countered. “All the red-haired spinster Winsters. Windhams, I mean. Has to. Family, you know. I dance with my wife for the same reason.”
“Or she dances with you,” Win said. “The challenge is how to bring Lord Colin down without letting the scandal touch Miss Anwen. The card party itself must go smoothly.”
“The Duchess of Moreland’s affairs always go smoothly,” Pointy said. “Spinster-winsters. I rather like that.”
“We had a bit of trouble at the orphanage a few weeks back,” Win said as ideas began to mix with excellent ale. “One of the boys got loose and pinched a purse.”
Pointy took a sip of Twilly’s ale. “Stole goods from a man’s very person? That’s a criminal act, plain and simple. Such a boy should have been bound over to Newgate, not given a soft bed, three meals, and a hymnal.”
Win kept a hand on his own tankard, for the summer ale at the club was superb—for ale—and by no means free.
“Lord Colin, without any authority whatsoever, decided the matter could be informally resolved. The boy returned the purse, apologized, and has been a model citizen ever since. The headmaster keeps me informed of these things.”
“Why did you ever involve yourself with that place?” Twilly asked. “Sounds like a cross between Eton, Bedlam, and Newgate.”
“My father offered to increase my allowance if I undertook participation in management of a charity. Somebody suggested the House of Urchins, and I’ve been regretting it ever since.”
“Paters are like that,” Pointy said. “My own promised an increase when the wife dropped another calf. Pater forgot to remind me the little fellow would need a nurse, nappies, dresses, rattles…Sending my heir off to Eton will be a savings at the rate the boy runs through blunt now.”
They drank to dear old Eton, where nobody had learned much of anything except how to drink, smoke, and commit the sin of Onan.
“You’ll see that Lord Colin is ruined?” Twilly asked.
“Somebody should,” Pointy agreed, taking a second sip of Twilly’s ale. “Principle of the thing. Got well above himself, putting on airs and so forth.”
“I may not be able to see him transported, but I can at least send him packing back to Scotland with his tail between his legs. He’s quite possibly toying with a lady’s affections, and taking advantage of her soft heart, but I can show her the error of her ways.”
“We should always be looking out for the ladies,” Pointy said.
“When we’re not looking up their skirts.” Twillinger lifted his almost-empty tankard. “Are they pouring the pints short these days?”
“You simply hold your liquor well,” Win said. “I’m off to look in on the orphanage.”
Win sketched a bow and left, though he wasn’t about to set foot on the premises of the orphanage. Mrs. Bellingham’s establishment was open, and a gentleman could drink ale there as well as anywhere else.
* * *
“You made Jonathan Tresham smile,” Charlotte said beneath the soft lilt of a string quartet. “Anwen Windham, you’ve been working on your flirtation skills. Perhaps Lord Colin has assisted you in this regard.”
Mr. Tresham had not only smiled at Anwen before the entire ballroom full of card players, he’d waxed congenial about donating a watchdog to the orphanage out of a mastiff litter much anticipated by his ducal relations.
Jonathan Tresham, congenial. The whole gathering was congenial, as if a chance to do something for the less fortunate was a relief rather than imposition.
“Lord Colin isn’t half the flirt he’s made out to be,” Anwen said.
Charlotte leaned near and whispered, “Your evening is a success already, Wennie. You should be proud of yourself.”
“I’m proud of us, Charlotte. You and Elizabeth pitched in, Her Grace lent her considerable expertise, Lord Colin has helped, and the cousins are here in force.”
Charlotte took a sip of her lemonade, and waggled her fingers at Rosecroft who walked past in company with Baron Twillinger. If the two were discussing horses, Rosecroft probably hadn’t seen Charlotte’s greeting.
“We need family projects,” Charlotte said. “Activities we can all support, and the brilliance of your card party is that we’re doing something useful. If Her Grace doesn’t turn this into an annual event, we sisters should. Lady Rhona and Lady Edana would help, and—his lordship does cut a dash in that kilt, doesn’t he?”
Anwen had asked Colin to trot out his Highland finery. In full dress regalia he was formidably attractive, which might explain why Lady Rosalyn had been hanging on his arm rather a lot.
Poor dear—and poor Colin too.
A whiff of spiked fruit punch presaged Winthrop Montague joining them at the edge of the ballroom.
“My sister and Lord Colin make an interesting couple, don’t they?” he said. “Not Rosalyn’s usual style, but she is ever kind and Lord Colin knows better than to get ideas where her ladyship is concerned.”
Win was in typical evening attire, and he looked like every other gentleman in the ballroom, with the exception of Cousin Valentine, who had the panache to wear more lace than most men favored.
“You think Lord Colin might entertain aspirations where Lady Rosalyn is concerned?” Charlotte asked.
“He’d best not, for it can’t come to anything. Rosalyn is very discerning about the company she keeps, and while she can admire initiative in a man, a Scottish distiller whose family stumbled into a title is hardly likely to hold her interest in the matrimonial sense. I mean no insult to MacHugh—he’s a friend, after all—but standards must be maintained.”
Given her brother’s example, Lady Rosalyn was unlikely to recognize initiative in a man, much less admire it.
“I esteem Lord Colin greatly,” Anwen said. “He’s taken the orphanage’s situation to heart, and tonight is the result of ideas he sowed in discussions with me. If he’s an example of the men you consider a friend, Mr. Montague, then your taste is to be sincerely commended.”
Charlotte became fascinated with her lemonade.
“You have such a good heart,” Mr. Montague said. “I’ve always admired that about you, Miss Anwen.”
His compliment was accompanied by a peculiar contortion of his features. He lowered his lashes, pooched out his lips, peeked over at her, then lowered his lashes again. A moment later, Anwen realized she’d been the recipient of a melting glance.
“You two will excuse me,” Charlotte said, holding up her glass. “Time to make sure the punch bowls are all refilled.”
She shot Anwen a you-can’t-kill-me-unless-you-catch-me look and bustled away.
“Such a shame,” Mr. Montague said, “when a woman of excellent breeding and decent looks can’t find a man who appreciates her, don’t you agree?”
“Of course, just as when a man of excellent breeding and decent looks endures a similar fate. Loneliness is a heavy burden, regardless of gender.”
His nose twitched, as if he might have caught the scent of something overripe. “There’s your kind heart in evidence again. Might I convince you to take pity on me, and join me for a stroll about the terrace?”
He gave her the portentous look again, and it occurred to Anwen that Winthrop Montague was attempting to flirt with her.
Oh, dear. Oh, gracious, oh, ye gods and little fishes. What on earth could he be thinking?
The quartet launched into a lively gigue, and the chatter in the ballroom swelled accordingly, as Mr. Montague escorted Anwen toward the doors to the back garden. Perhaps he sought to curry favor with Aunt Esther or Uncle Percy by paying attention to the most retiring Windham sister.
He’d do that. Think himself clever for flirting with a wallflower—the toad.
“I can’t tarry outside too long,” Anwen said. “I’d like to be on hand if Her Grace needs me for anything.”
Aunt Esther could organize a function twice this size in half the time with half the help, and the evening would still be splendid.
“I am honored with whatever time you will spare me.” Mr. Montague patted the hand Anwen had laced about his arm, and looked her squarely in the eye.
If this was what Mrs. Bellingham had to endure three nights a week, no wonder the woman had declined Mr. Montague’s overtures.
Just before they left the ballroom, Colin shot Anwen a puzzled look across the buffet table. She winked and got a smile in return.
“You must know how much I respect your entire family,” Mr. Montague said once they were on the terrace. “That they’d rally around an institution facing dire financial straits is indicative of the values I admire most. Sometimes, our pragmatism must be informed by a generosity of spirit and nobleness of gesture that defies the understanding of the less loftily situated.”
Even young Tom would have difficulty translating that sermon. “Are you saying the orphanage is a lost cause, but a noble lost cause?”
He tilted head his up when they reached the terrace balustrade, as if striking a pose, “Handsome Swain Admiring Invisible Stars.”
“More or less. This evening looks to be quite a success, though these funds will soon run out. The fate of the orphanage is sad but predictable, and we must comfort ourselves with the knowledge that our feeble efforts, temporary though they might be, have made a difference in the lives of a few unfortunate boys.”
Some efforts had been notably more feeble than others. Mr. Montague was working very hard on his smile of manly regret, for example, far harder than he’d worked on behalf of the orphanage.
“I am pleased to inform you, sir, that this card party will likely become an annual event. Her Grace hosts many affairs at which four dukes are present. She mentioned she’d like to try for six next year.”
A dozen dukes would not be beyond Her Grace’s abilities, though she might have to summon a few from the Continent.
“That is…well.” Mr. Montague rocked up on his toes, then settled back, like a nervous scholar who’d failed to memorize the day’s recitation. “That is most kind of her, most charitable. Exactly the sort of dedication to worthy causes I’ve noticed in you, Miss Anwen.”
He was working up the nerve to kiss her. This realization presented itself in Anwen’s awareness as if her bodice ribbon had come loose in the middle of a reel. Discreet escape was both imperative and impossible.
“It’s a shame your own inclinations are taking you away from the charity dearest to my heart,” Anwen said. “We’ll feel the lack of your wisdom and perspective once you leave the board, Mr. Montague. You have my thanks for all you have done.”
She gave him her brightest, most brisk smile.
“I will eventually and reluctantly step aside from the House of Urchins solely so that Lord Colin can continue to associate with the place in my stead. He has much to learn about comporting himself as a member of polite society, but I’m doing what I can for him.”
Mr. Montague’s tone combined long-suffering and resignation.
“That’s very humble of you,” Anwen said. “Stepping back so those with greater native talent for administration have a chance to shine. Humility is one of the greatest virtues, don’t you agree?”
His nose did that wrinkling thing again. “Moderation in all things, my dear, including moderation, right?”
Such brilliant wit. “If you say so, Mr. Montague. Perhaps you’d be good enough to escort me back to Lord Colin’s side?”
“You’re trying to keep an eye on him as well? I wish he’d have done with that Scottish nonsense when an occasion calls for formal attire.”
So Colin would stop outshining all the dandies dressed exactly as Mr. Montague was?
“I very much enjoy keeping an eye on Lord Colin regardless of whether he’s wearing his national dress or less imaginative attire. He’s asked to pay me his addresses.”
Mr. Montague came to a halt just outside the French doors. “I beg your pardon?”
“Lord Colin has asked to pay me his addresses.” Small words and not too many of them. Even considering how much punch Mr. Montague had consumed, their meaning should be within his grasp.
His expression turned pensive. “I’m so sorry. That must be terribly awkward for you, given the family connection. I could have a word with him, but you mustn’t blame Lord Colin too much. His brother did marry your sister, and subtleties such as lack of a ducal title might be beyond Lord Colin’s notice.”
What on earth to say to that? You’re a presuming dolt who’s not fit to polish his lordship’s boots?
“He’s put you in a very difficult position,” Mr. Montague went on, patting Anwen’s hand again. “As devoted as you are to the orphanage, you’ll encounter him there, even aside from family gatherings. I’ll simply tell him his overtures are a bit too late, shall I? And nobody will blame you if you take a repairing lease from the House of Urchins now that the coffers are in better health. I’ll explain to Lord Colin that my own interest in you predates his, and he’ll leave the lists as any gentleman should—any honorable gentleman.”
“You’d lie to him, pretend you and I had an understanding, and suggest I step away from the orphanage?”
Mr. Montague drew himself up, which coaxed forth a burp from his belly, though he stifled it, probably from long practice.
“For you, Miss Anwen, yes, I’d take a small liberty with the chronology of the factual details, as it were. I do esteem you greatly, so greatly I might not be entirely misrepresenting the situation, if you take my meaning.”
He peered down at her, one eyebrow arched in question.
“Your sacrifice is entirely unnecessary, Mr. Montague. Honesty is the best policy, provided it’s tempered with kindness. In that spirit, I must tell you that I have not rebuffed Lord Colin’s overtures. You’ll excuse me now. I’d like to invite Lady Rosalyn to join me at the orphanage tomorrow morning. She’ll doubtless be as eager as I am to tell the boys of the evening’s success.”
Anwen wiggled her hand free of Mr. Montague’s grasp and marched into the ballroom. She’d rather have stayed with him on the terrace, giving him the setdown of his presuming, arrogant, useless life.
This was the Windham charity card party, though, and standards must be maintained.
* * *
“At the risk of approaching vulgarity,” the Duke of Moreland said, as the clock struck twice, “that is a bloody lot of money, gentlemen. My duchess has much to be proud of.”
Colin let the old boy preen, because Moreland was right, not because he was a duke. “My thanks, Your Grace, for making the party possible. The evening has been in every way a success. A dozen children will benefit and possibly many more.”
“And I thank you as well,” Winthrop Montague said from opposite Colin at Moreland’s library table, “on behalf of the House of Urchins, and also on behalf of all who enjoyed themselves this evening thanks to your hospitality.”
Moreland ran a finger down a long list of figures. “Her Grace was getting bored with the same soirée, year after year, and frankly so was I. My brother claims soirée is the French word for standing around making idle chatter at the expense of one’s wits. This card party will be the talk of the town for the rest of the season, and one does like to do one’s part for the less fortunate.”
The difference in fortune between a child like Joe, and the card players who’d kept the Moreland staff busy into the small hours, was the difference between John O’Groats and Mayfair.
“If that’s all, then,” Montague said, reaching for the sack that held all of the cash and coins. “I’ll take this to the House of Urchins and stow it in the strongbox until the banks open on Monday.”
“We’ve yet to list the jewels,” Colin said. You never finish a job without counting the take. The boys’ advice seemed appropriate when Win Montague and a sum of money were involved.
“That will take another hour,” Montague protested. “It’s the middle of the damned night, MacHugh.”
The duke paused in his ciphering. “You’ll think me old-fashioned, Montague, but indulge me, please. In this house, we observe proper address when wearing our evening finery. Yonder Scot is Lord Colin until he’s back in his riding attire. Her Grace put that rule in place nearly thirty years ago, and it’s served us well.”
What a splendidly gentle rebuke. Montague’s ears turned an equally splendid shade of red.
Rosecroft spoke up for the first time. “We divide the jewels into four piles, each of us making a list of one pile, and each checking the work of the man to his right. We’ll be done in fifteen minutes.”
“Excellent notion,” the duke said, which settled the matter without Colin having to call Montague out for attempting to abscond with the jewelry.
The lists were an impressive display of the generosity polite society was capable of. Rings, necklaces, cravat pins, even the occasional pair of cufflinks or earrings sat in glittering heaps about the table.
“We shouldn’t sell all of this at once,” Colin said, when the lot had been inventoried. “We’ll get a better price if we parcel it out a little at a time.”
“How do you propose we keep it safe while we’re parceling it out?” Win retorted.
“The banks will keep it safe,” Colin said. “And until we can get the lot of it to the bank, we have a strongbox at the orphanage, to which only you and the headmaster have the combination.”
Colin did not, and wouldn’t ask for it, not while Win was playing dandy in the manger as chairman of the board.
“I don’t like having so many valuables stowed among those children,” Montague said, collecting the jewels into another sack. “But I suppose it will have to do. Now might I take this lot to the orphanage, Lord Colin?”
“Don’t be daft,” the duke said, rising. “You will take his lordship and Rosecroft, as well as three of my largest footmen, and the Windham town coach. Half the thieves in London probably got wind of this party, and are lurking among Her Grace’s hedges to waylay you. A man who’s hungry enough will steal from orphans. We don’t have to make that crime easier to commit.”
The duke shook hands all around, and Colin was soon ensconced in a capacious crested coach with a small fortune and Win Montague’s small-mindedness. Rosecroft had chosen to ride up on the box, and Colin might have joined him except for the covetousness he’d seen in Montague’s eyes as the jewels had been counted.
“I had a private chat with Miss Anwen,” Montague said as the coach pulled out of the mews.
Colin had seen them walking out to the terrace, and he’d seen Anwen return to the ballroom alone not ten minutes later. He hadn’t found time to ask her about the conversation.
“Is your discussion any of my business?”
“I’m making it your business, MacHugh. The lady admitted that you’ve pressed her to accept your addresses. That is the height of bad form, and I expect better from even you.”
Ach well, then. Whatever else was true about this private chat Montague was so fixed on, Anwen had let the fool live. Colin took his inspiration from her gracious example.
“I trust you will enlighten me regarding particulars of my bad form,” Colin said, “as you have so generously done on many previous occasions.”
Montague propped his foot on the velvet-cushioned bench opposite him. “Anwen can’t put you in your place, you idiot, because of the family connection, and because she must face you across a conference table every time she attends one of our meetings. The orphanage means a lot to her, and her family means even more. If she tells you to pike off, as she ought, then she creates awkwardness on every hand. A shy little mouse like Miss Anwen can’t do that.”
A shy little mouse, who’d told Colin to pike off for the sake of the boys, the first time he’d threatened their well-being. Montague was lucky Anwen hadn’t parted his cock from his cods.
“So you’re running me off on her behalf?”
“I will make it plain to the lady that she has options, MacHugh, plainer than I already have. Let me make something else plain to you.”
In the dim light of the coach lamps, Montague’s complexion was sallow, and fatigue grooved his features. His golden good looks would soon give way to a saturnine countenance, if the French disease didn’t do worse than that.
“Do go on,” Colin said.
“I am chairman of the board of directors for the House of Wayward Urchins,” Montague said. “The building is rotten with rising damp, and by rights should be condemned. The safety and comfort of the children must be my foremost concern, and if you continue to bother Miss Anwen with your rutting presumptions, I’ll have the building razed to the ground. Every effort will be made to find other accommodations for the children, but the boys would be safer in the streets than at a ruin of an orphanage.”
Montague was concerned with the safety and comfort of only one person—himself. That he’d try to come between Colin and Anwen was merely selfish and arrogant. That he’d threaten the well-being of children to effect his claim was vile.
“You’d put the children back on the street, if I paid my addresses to Anwen Windham?”
“Go back to Scotland,” Montague said. “She doesn’t want you, and neither does anybody else. I have tried to be decent where you’re concerned, but you don’t fit in, you’re not welcome, and you impose on the good graces of your betters every day you remain in London.”
The cold, calculating temper Colin had relied on to see him safely through battle rose, and stayed his hand when he might have slapped a glove across Montague’s face.
“Your advice, as always, bears consideration. I am touched, Montague, at the tenderness of your regard for innocent children. I’m sure Miss Anwen would be too. I take it you intend to offer her marriage?”
Winthrop expelled a gusty sigh that bore the rank scent of overimbibing.
“One doesn’t march up to a gently bred woman and haul her off to the altar. Even you knew to start with a request to pay the lady your addresses. I will observe every jot and tittle of protocol, lest any think less of Miss Anwen for seizing hastily on the first proper offer to come her way.”
“And what about Mrs. Bellingham?”
“None of your bloody business, though you’ll stay the hell away from her too, MacHugh.”
Colin had known the building was a problem, and he’d given Anwen his word he’d keep the children safe. That wasn’t a new challenge. If Winthrop had the orphanage condemned, then the time to ensure each boy was in a situation suited to him was being ripped away.
That was a problem because these boys had been tossed about too much already in their young lives. The idea that Winthrop Montague would pitch the children into the street if Anwen refused his proposal was arrogance of a magnitude that eclipsed mere sin and flirted with evil.
“You’re not smitten with Miss Anwen,” Colin said after the coach had rattled along for some minutes. “Why marry her?”
Montague smiled, and such was the smug self-satisfaction in his eyes that he should have been tasting the air with a forked tongue.
“The poor dear has to marry somebody, as do I. Our kind grasp what marriage is and is not about. I don’t expect you to understand, but I’m doing you a favor, MacHugh. You’d make her miserable and regret the match within a year.”
Colin let that masterpiece of self-deception remain unanswered. Montague had at some point come to believe his own handbills regarding the privileges of his station. Whatever he wanted, he was entitled to have, even a woman who’d shown no interest in him. Whatever he believed became fact, despite any evidence contradicting such a contention.
Were he not the son of a wealthy, titled Englishman, Montague would be a bedlamite.
But he was the son of a wealthy, titled Englishman, and enormously well connected in polite society. Until Colin—who was enormously without connections—had done proper reconnaissance, had at least a few hours’ sleep, and had thought the matter through, he’d keep his own furious counsel.
* * *
“You are the sole defendant of the sideboard this morning?” Anwen asked.
Elizabeth sat alone at one end of the breakfast table, and a trick of sunlight had turned all the highlights in her hair to molten gold. Sipping her tea, she looked like a cross between the English spinster in training and some fantastical creature from one of Mama’s Welsh fairy tales.
“I wanted to review the new invitations before Aunt got hold of them,” Elizabeth said, eyeing a stack of correspondence near her plate. “The house parties are already trying to wedge themselves onto the calendar.”
Soldiers probably volunteered to serve with a forlorn hope in the same brave, stoic tones.
Anwen pulled out the chair at Elizabeth’s elbow, because Elizabeth had taken the place at the foot of the table—the duchess’s seat—where the light was best at this hour.
“You could visit Megan in Scotland, Bethan. Charlotte would happily come with you.”
Elizabeth poured Anwen a cup of tea and set the toast rack before her. “I could visit you in Scotland, you mean? And Megs, of course. Your card party was a smashing success, Wennie, and all that remains is for Lord Colin to speak his vows with you.”
More bravery. Anwen was abruptly reminded that all might be coming right in her world, but Elizabeth and Charlotte would be left with not one younger sister married into a ducal family, but two.
“You might ask Megan about Perthshire’s lending libraries,” Anwen said. “If they are in anything less than excellent repair, you could put them to rights in no time.”
Elizabeth was passionate about lending libraries, of all things. Anwen had overheard Cousin Devlin remark that at least dear Bethan didn’t crusade for temperance.
Cousins could be idiots.
Elizabeth tidied the stack of letters. “Was this how you felt when all and sundry prescribed plasters and nostrums for you when you weren’t ill, Wennie?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t forget to sugar your tea,” Elizabeth said, setting the sugar bowl near Anwen’s teacup. “To be unmarried is not an illness, such that desperate measures must be taken to stop its course. The tipsy bachelors haven’t chased me through anybody’s gardens for a good two years, and if I’m patient, I will eventually have my own household.”
For the first time, Anwen heard not determination when Elizabeth spoke of her eventual independence, but more of the stoic bravery of the doomed infantryman.
“At least at the house parties,” Anwen replied, “the ladies and gentlemen are present in comparable numbers. I’ve kept up with many friends that way.”
One or two being many, some years.
“It could be worse. Nobody is throwing a house party for the sole purpose of getting me engaged. The Duke of Haverford’s sister is apparently to endure that indignity.”
Anwen applied a generous portion of butter to her toast. “I’ve wondered why Lady Glenys is yet unwed. She’s a decent sort. Not prone to cattiness or gossip, and not silly. I’ve heard another theory about Haverford’s house party.”
Colin had passed this speculation along.
“Do tell, because I’ll likely be forced to attend. Any pretext to journey into the wilds of Wales will meet with Mama’s approval.”
Most of Wales was wild, from what Anwen had seen of it. Also beautiful. “The gentlemen speculate that Haverford’s sister is throwing the house party in hopes that His Grace will find a bride. Mama would be ecstatic if you caught the attention of a Welsh duke, my dear.”
Anwen would be happy for her sister too. Elizabeth needn’t marry the fellow to enjoy what ducal attentions might do for her spirits, after all.
Elizabeth took a slice of cold, plain toast from the rack. “A duke is the last sort of husband I’d accept. I’ve seen what a duchess has to put up with—no privacy, no rest, very few real friends, one political dinner after another. I’d go mad.”
The right duke would be worth a little madness, so was the right Scottish lord.
“Do you know Haverford?”
“I cannot claim that honor. He votes his seat, I’m told, but other than that, he lurks in his castle. Why is it a man can lurk in his castle, but a lady isn’t permitted the same pleasure?”
A castle in Wales sounded a bit lonely to Anwen, but then, anywhere without Colin would be lonely.
“Don’t you want butter on that toast?”
Elizabeth stared at the toast from which she’d just taken a bite. “I forgot butter. Perhaps I’d best go back up to bed and try starting this day over. There are at least four house party invitations in this pile of mail. I’ve considered declining them and signing Aunt’s name to the note.”
“That is desperate talk.” Though Anwen had been desperate to save the House of Urchins. Why shouldn’t Elizabeth be desperate to save her freedom? “Do you suppose Haverford might feel as unwilling to marry as you do?”
Elizabeth took another bite of dry toast. “Dukes must marry. That’s holy writ. He needn’t be faithful or even loyal, but he must marry.”
“Maybe he’d rather not,” Anwen said, appropriating Elizabeth’s toast and slathering butter on it. “Maybe he lurks like a dragon in his castle because he’s not keen on finding a duchess. Maybe Lady Glenys has turned down all offers because she doesn’t want to abandon her brother.”
Elizabeth ignored the toast on her plate and regarded Anwen severely. “Listen to me, sister mine. You will accept Lord Colin’s proposal of marriage, and you will waft away to the Highlands with him on a cloud of connubial bliss. You are not to prolong your engagement or put him off in hopes that Charlotte or I will bring some duke or other up to scratch. Megan is happy, beyond happy, and I want that for you too.”
For a retiring spinster, Elizabeth could be ferociously dear. “Colin and I are agreed that a short engagement will be best.”
Elizabeth picked up the toast. “Like that, is it? Anwen, you little hoyden. I’m proud of you.”
Anwen was proud of herself, but wished her sister might have been just the smallest bit envious.
“Be proud of Lord Colin. He’s not the average London dandy trolling for an heiress.”
“While trolling dandies are about all I can look forward to if I let myself be dragged to these house parties.”
“Say no. Refuse to go. We’re no longer six years old, such that our cousins can scoop us up bodily and deposit us in the nursery when we’re bothersome.”
Elizabeth munched her toast in silence, while Anwen helped herself to eggs and ham from the sideboard. She was in good appetite this morning, and looking forward to sharing happy news with the boys.
While Elizabeth feared falling into the clutches of a Welsh dragon.
“I should return the mail to the library before Aunt rises,” Elizabeth said. “You won’t tell her I was spying?”
“Don’t be daft. I’m on my way to the House of Urchins and you haven’t yet left your bed.”
“You are the best of sisters. I will miss you.” Elizabeth rose, collected the letters, and left the parlor at a near rush. Her toast remained on her plate, so Anwen added jam and finished it in a few bites.
Elizabeth’s situation was troubling—Anwen had rarely seen her eldest sister reduced to tears—but Bethan was the equal of any duke, and whatever else was true about Haverford, no scandal attached to his name. The only fact Anwen could dredge up about Julian St. David, Duke of Haverford, was that—like a dragon—he’d inherited a family tendency to hoard a certain object.
Perhaps Elizabeth had forgotten this about the St. David family. His Grace, like all the dukes of Haverford, was an avid collector of…books.