Chapter 4
Marriage.
“Did you see him? He seemed absolutely smitten! Every time he looked at Catriona, it was as if he was staring at the love of his life.”
The words milled around Catriona’s head without any of them truly registering. She could only think one thing.
Marriage.
“I was thinking the same thing!” Ava’s excitement was a force to be reckoned with. She shifted forward in her seat in the carriage, and it nearly sent her across the small space into her uncle’s lap. “Uncle Frederic, how could you not tell us that the Duke of Irvin was interested in our sister?”
“The Duke of Wirmington?” Frederic asked with a deep frown.
His confused question nearly pulled Catriona out of her stupor.
She knew they were talking about her, but heaven knew she couldn’t think about anything else but the Duke’s proposal.
Joseph’s proposal. He’d insisted that she call him by his given name seeing that they would be married soon.
He was certain that she would accept, confidence dripping from every word he spoke. And the way they parted ways would not inspire much doubt after all.
“Irvin,” Maisie repeated, basically shouting in her uncle’s ear. “Our neighbor, the Duke.”
But Frederic’s frown deepened. “Our neighbor’s a fluke?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Ava sighed in exasperation, rolling her eyes dramatically. She twisted suddenly to face Catriona who sat next to her, their knees bumping. “Cat, you’ve been so quiet. Don’t you intend to tell us everything?”
Everything? Slowly, Catriona looked at her, blinking. What on earth could she even say?
She couldn’t possibly let them know that the Duke had asked her to dance so that he could propose marriage.
She couldn’t tell them that instead of immediately turning it down like she should have, she’d fumbled and stuttered and asked him to give her some time to think of it.
He’d conceded, but the way he looked at her gave her the impression that he didn’t expect her to take very long to decide, that he already expected her to accept.
He was a duke, after all. And she was nearing spinster age with absolutely no prospects to speak of.
Anyone in her situation would jump at the chance.
Only, there weren’t many in her position who had two younger sisters who would fare far better on the marriage mart than she did. Two sisters currently staring intently at her, waiting for her to reveal the secrets of her dance with the Duke.
“It was nothing of interest,” she said dismissively. “He only wished to thank me.”
“Thank you?” Maisie leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. Her romantic heart was already melting, Catriona could tell. “For what?”
“For saving his daughter.”
“He has a daughter?” Ava gasped. Her head whipped back to Frederic. “Why dinnae ye tell us?”
“Ava,” Catriona murmured in warning. It had been a while since her sister slipped into brogue, but she always tended to let her guard down when she was over impassioned.
Ava thinned her lips, but her attention remained on her uncle. “That is important information to know, Uncle.”
Frederic, to his credit, was never bothered by Ava’s antics. “How come no one wants to know about my night?”
Silence met his words, all three ladies only staring at him, and then Ava and Maisie’s heads turned back to Catriona in unison.
“It was quite fun,” Frederic mumbled under his breath, but he was ignored.
“So, what did you save his daughter from?” Maisie asked Catriona.
Catriona sighed. She knew it was only a matter of time before she had to reveal this tidbit of information.
She’d simply hoped that it would be deemed such immaterial information that it would not garner this much attention.
The Duke’s obvious interest in her at tonight’s ball, however, changed that.
And her sisters weren’t the only ones who noticed.
She’d earned far more than her fair share of curious, assessing looks from the other ladies in attendance, not to mention more than enough scathing looks from Miss Cassandra and Miss Hannah.
So, she gave them a quick briefing on what had occurred at the river while they listened with rapt attention. By the time she was finished, Ava’s mouth was agape, and Maisie’s grin was from ear to ear. They looked at each other and then back at Catriona then descended into a fit of giggles.
Catriona tried not to sigh again. “Whatever you two are thinking, it is not the case.”
“I beg to differ, Cat,” Maisie told her with a superior shake of her head. “It was easy to see that the Duke was rather smitten with you. He could not take his eyes off you all evening, even after you two parted aways after your dance. He may even call on you in the morning!”
Catriona shifted her gaze out the window and fervently prayed her sisters could not see the blush now staining her cheeks. She didn’t know how true that was because she’d spent the rest of her night trying not to look at the Duke.
But if that were really true…
No, it doesn’t matter. I have no intention of marrying him. I have to focus on my sisters, and I would make a terrible duchess anyway.
“You two are only being overly romantic,” she dismissed. “And you shouldn’t care too much about my night. You two received quite a lot of attention tonight, so I would not be surprised to find a number of flowers in our drawing room tomorrow morning.”
“Lord Wentworth is sure to send his,” Maisie squealed. Catriona glanced at Ava just in time to see her face turn beet red as she slumped back against her seat. For once, she had nothing to say which gave Maisie all the more reason to keep teasing her about the Baron’s attention.
Just like that, the conversation shifted away from Catriona. Just the way she liked it. She didn’t mind when her sisters teased her, but not when it involved the Duke. Not when she was still trying to figure out how she was going to reject his outrageous offer.
And the more she thought about it, the more outrageous it felt. They hardly knew each other! Why would he think that she would make a good wife? A good mother? A good duchess?
It wasn’t possible. So as soon as she found the right words, she would tell him just what she thought about his proposal.
Catriona was right about one thing: the morning came with bouquets of flowers steadily filling the drawing room, many of which came from Lord Wentworth while the others were a mixture of romantic gestures offered to both Maisie and Ava from the other gentlemen they’d met last night.
Unfortunately, Maisie was also right about one thing. The Duke of Irvin had come to call on her.
Catriona stood at the top of the staircase, staring down at the Duke in the foyer. In one hand, he held a bouquet of hothouse roses, and the other was clasped behind him as he stood at attention like a man in the military. He stared back at her, waiting.
Her sisters stood to the side of the foyer, giggling and whispering to each other in excitement.
It was Ava who had come racing to Catriona’s bedchamber to tell her that she had a visitor, but she decided not to say who it was until Catriona saw for herself.
Catriona hadn’t allowed herself to assume it would be the Duke. It simply couldn’t be.
Yet, there he was.
“Do you intend on standing there all morning?” he finally asked, his strong voice carrying across the distance.
Catriona gripped the railing tightly, thinning her lips. “Perhaps,” she clipped, mostly to herself.
“Then I shall come to you.” He began making his way to the staircase.
“There’s no need!” Catriona quickly said, holding out a hand. He halted, one foot on the first step of the staircase. “Why don’t you wait in the drawing room? I will be there in a moment.”
The Duke stared at her for a moment too long, and she was suddenly afraid that he would ignore her request. He did strike her as the type of man who did as he wished at all times after all. But then he nodded.
Francis spawned suddenly, likely milling around the side of the staircase and out of Catriona’s view. He gestured that the Duke follow him and then led him away to the drawing room.
Only then did Catriona find the strength to uproot her feet from the floor. She made her way down to the foyer with her heart thudding painfully in her chest, the roar in her ears so overwhelming that she hardly heard her sisters’ excited squeals as they rushed to her side.
“We told you!” Maisie gushed. “We knew he would call on you.”
“I suppose you did,” Catriona murmured. She still didn’t know what to make of this. She didn’t think that the Duke would be so serious about his proposal that he would come back the very next morning. Was he intending to court her?
The thought sent a flutter of butterflies through her stomach. It took everything in her power not to show how nervous she was all of a sudden, since her sisters were watching.
“Do you know where Uncle Frederic is?” she asked as calmly as she could.
“He is in the drawing room, I believe,” Ava told her with a grin.
“The very same drawing room your duke is headed to,” Maisie added with a matching smile.
“He is not my duke,” Catriona corrected, but she knew the words were going in one ear and out the other. She suppressed her sigh, turning in the direction of the drawing room. “I suppose I should get this over with. Do not follow me.”
“Oh, surely it would not hurt to have one of us in the room with you,” Ava complained instantly, her bottom lip jutting out in a pout. “The older of the two of us will suffice if you must choose.”
Maisie opened her mouth to protest, but Catriona beat her to it. “Neither one of you are needed. Uncle Frederic will more than suffice as a chaperone.”
“Very well,” her sister conceded. “But you must tell us everything.”
She didn’t think she had much of a choice in the matter. They would not stop hounding her until she did. So, she nodded before walking off.