Chapter One #2
He slipped off the desk and towered over her.
“But we are discussing you, my girl. I have decided that you will return to London with your Aunt Elizabeth tomorrow. She has kindly agreed to chaperone you. You will stay at her townhouse. Although the Season has little more than a month before most of Society escapes London’s heat, I have been assured there will still be suitable engagements, balls, breakfasts and such, which you can attend now that the threat of measles has passed.
And before you ask, you may take your unruly dog with you. ”
This was splendid and unexpected news. A hand on his shoulder, Alicia reached up to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Papa.”
Her father shook his head, fighting not to smile. “And if I hear one whisper of bad conduct concerning you, miss, you will be sent to Rose Court Manor and remain in Surrey until we join you at Christmas.”
“Oh, no, Papa.” The thought of spending five whole months at their country estate, bored to death, was too awful to contemplate.
“Earl Wallace has told me his son, Lord Bartholomew, is eager to see you again.”
Alicia nodded and tried not to grimace. Lord Bartholomew was very thin and frightfully dull.
Dancing with him, she found herself staring at his bulging Adam’s apple.
Should the Prince Regent insist she marry him, she would decline and become a recluse.
She wanted passion, desire, and excitement in her marriage, just like in the novels she read.
And a marriage where they cared for each other.
He gestured to the door. “Go and supervise your maid to pack your clothes.”
“Yes, Papa,” Alicia said meekly, relieved that she had got off so lightly.
She had barely begun her come-out when she’d had to return home due to her family’s bout of measles, with no time to make friends with the other debutantes, and she had only danced with three gentlemen, counting Lord Bartholomew.
She wouldn’t find a husband at Rose Court Manor!
And she longed to have her own house and a family.
To fall in love. A man who liked to ride. And he must love dogs.
As she climbed the stairs to her bedchamber, the handsome man, Figaro’s savior, swept into her mind, his athletic build and handsome face, and his infectious grin.
A duke? Who was he? Anthony could tell her, but now she wouldn’t get a chance to ask him.
She’d be gone tomorrow; her father never changed his mind.
“But what does it matter? I’m unlikely to see him again,” she murmured as she entered her bedchamber.
Johns, her lady’s maid, turned from sorting through the pile of clothing, the open trunk sitting on a stool at the foot of the bed. “Who is he, Miss Bolton?”
“It’s not important now. I see the housekeeper has told you?”
Johns’s round face broke into a smile. “Yes, miss. You must be excited to return to London.”
Alicia nodded; she was, of course, but she would have preferred to remain here to see the last of the race.
She might have gotten another glimpse of the duke.
“Oh, bother! I must stop wool-gathering, Johns.” She glanced down.
“Not that horrid jonquil walking dress. Mama says the color makes me look washed out. Pack the sage green spencer; it goes nicely with the primrose gown.”
“Yes, miss.”
*
When Robert Hepburn, Duke of Exeter, had joined his crew, the ribbing began.
“I’ve seen women throw themselves at you, but that’s a new approach,” Oswald Carey said, his long face reddened by the sun.
Robert laughed and swiped his wet hair out of his eyes.
His quick appraisal of the lady had revealed glossy, fair ringlets framing her charming face below her straw bonnet, and appealing, wide, brown eyes that had struck a strange chord in him.
“I doubt she wanted her beloved dog to drown.” He gazed at the grinning faces.
“I see our path is clear. I would like to return to the clubhouse for dry clothes. Or I might take a chill and be unable to continue the race tomorrow.”
The men chuckled and picked up their oars while Benjamin, Robert’s oldest friend from Eaton College, offered his opinion from the coxes’ seat that Robert had not been sick a day in his life.
A week later, Robert left university for the final time and drove his curricle to his estate, Hepburn Park in Devon, with his valet, Stevens, seated beside him.
He had finished his studies, having completed his law degree, although his mother complained he would hardly need it when he had an excellent staff to deal with most matters as well as the family’s solicitors.
But Robert had not been the duke when he’d first begun at university; he’d inherited the title when his older brother, whom he had loved and admired, had suddenly died.
It had left him bereft and ill-equipped to step into his brother’s shoes.
But Robert had screwed his courage to the sticking place, to quote Lady Macbeth.
Robert enjoyed the law; while there were those who found it dry and dull, he did not.
He believed it prepared him for leadership, and also his role in the House of Lords.
And once he decided on something, he finished it.
The day was drawing to a close when, after spending a night at an inn along the way, Robert guided his horses through the grand gates of Hepburn Park.
Ahead, the mansion, a grand example of medieval architecture, was six miles away at the end of a long avenue of elms, its massive roof rising above the mature trees in the parkland.
Robert drew up his curricle outside the pretty, pale-stoned Dower House where his mother now resided and left a groom to see to the horses.
She had no need to leave the main house with its fifty empty bedchambers, as he hadn’t yet married, but she had insisted.
He knew she hoped he would marry soon, come home, and begin a family.
It was her fervent wish. “As you are now duke and six and twenty years old,” she would lament.
“Surely, it is time for you to consider marrying and setting up your nursery with an heir.”
He found her at her embroidery in her flowery-papered sitting room. Not to his taste, but she loved it. “It’s like living in a flower garden.” Robert kissed his mother’s soft, powdery cheek. “Are you well, Mama?”
“I am, my love, but for how long will I remain so? I should like to see my grandson before I die.”
Robert lowered himself onto a rose-pink, chintz-covered armchair. This was a discussion they had had far too often. It frustrated him when marriage in the foreseeable future was not in his plans. “I pray you will be with us for many years, Mama.”
“Your brother, Colin, didn’t expect to die when his horse threw him. He never saw the urgency to produce an heir.”
“It was a tragic accident. Colin was a first-class rider, but a rabbit hole felled his horse.” Robert gazed sadly at her. “But aren’t you being a little pessimistic, Mama?”
As the footman brought in the tea tray, the expression in his mother’s eyes took on that steely resolve that made him groan inwardly.
She poured the tea. “You know how much your father wished you to marry the daughter of his good friend, Sir Laurence Hardwick. Her mother and I write regularly. I received a letter from her just yesterday. She tells me her daughter is in London. There is still a month or so of the Season left. Do you plan to attend Lady Blake’s ball?
She sent an invitation. I imagine you received it? ”
His secretary had forwarded it to him, but he’d forgotten all about it in the rush to sort out his affairs and leave Cambridge. “Yes, I did. I haven’t yet replied.”
“Then do so. It would please me, Robert.”
“It will please the debutantes’ mothers,” Robert said with a groan. “I don’t care for all that fuss.”
His mother handed him the dainty cup and saucer, which bore the family crest in gold. She pushed the plate of cress sandwiches and iced cake toward him. “I know, but you need to attend these functions. Miss Hardwick and her mother will be thrilled to see you.”
Robert sighed as he reached for a dainty sandwich a man could swallow in one gulp. “Very well, Mama.” He supposed he could stand a month or so before guests arrived for the shooting and the traditional hunt ball always held here at Hepburn Park.