Ten Things I Hate About the Duke - Loretta Chase Page 0,107
you like, you’ll be a duchess, and you can arrange your sister’s social life. How soon, by the way, can we get this deed done?”
“As soon as my father will allow it.”
She couldn’t marry without her father’s permission. She wouldn’t. She’d never be so irrational as to commence her marriage estranged from her parents. For all the difficulties she had with them, her family was dear to her. Furthermore, even the best marriages faced difficulties, and women, having so few rights, needed as much support as they could muster.
“But first I need your consent,” he said.
“I gave it last night.”
“I want it here, in broad day, under chaperonage, when neither of us is in a state of high emotion. I want it at a time when your mind is quiet and you haven’t just taken the most stupendous risk for the most undeserving fellow, and might at any moment be discovered.”
She threw him a sidelong glance. That was to say, she meant only a glance, but he caught her gaze and held it, his blue eyes glittering, and for a moment she was nearly blinded by it: the way he looked at her, and the nearly unearthly beauty of his countenance, and the strength and grace of his tall physique. She remembered looking up at him long ago and marveling, while he told her stories about stars. The glittering being she’d regarded with awe— Was this the same one, and was he truly hers?
Yes. The same but become a man, altogether human, with the full complement of human flaws.
She said, “You are undeserving, certainly, but you seem to be the best I can do.”
He came to a halt. “In that case, Miss Pomfret, would you do me the very great honor of consenting to be my wife?”
She had paused with him. Now she looked up into his sky-blue eyes, and something within her seemed to fly up to whatever Olympus he resided upon. “Yes,” she said. “I believe I will.”
Cassandra and Ashmont had planned all—excepting weather—to a nicety, they believed. First, the accidental meeting in the park, when Ashmont and Cassandra would settle matters between them. Then he would accompany the ladies home and ask to meet with Lord deGriffith.
It had never occurred to either of them that her father would not be at home.
The first raindrops began to fall at the precise moment he and Cassandra shared their hopes with her mother.
“Oh, that is too bad,” Lady deGriffith was saying. “Why was I not given a hint? Lord deGriffith has gone out for the day. A meeting.” She glanced at Hyacinth. “But we will be home in the evening. I’ll arrange it. But do be aware that I can say nothing until you speak to Lord deGriffith.”
“Oh, Mama!” Hyacinth said. “You must say something. You will at least encourage Papa to look kindly on the duke.”
Lord deGriffith was the head of his family. Yet at this moment it became clear to Ashmont which of the pair was the sun, and which the orbiting planet.
“Very well,” Lady deGriffith said. “I believe I may say that I am not displeased. Will that do?”
“Mama!” Hyacinth cried. “Can you do no better? Really?”
The rain began to fall harder then, and Lady deGriffith unfurled her umbrella. “It will have to do for now. These matters are properly left to the head of the family. Come along, girls, duke.” They hurried along under umbrellas to St. James’s Square. Since Ashmont could hardly hang about the house all day, he had no choice but to leave them there.
He’d wanted to get it over with. He knew the meeting would be difficult. Lord deGriffith loathed him. But after all, perhaps this was better. Ashmont would have more time to prepare his speech, as well as answers to the hard questions his lordship would undoubtedly pose—if, that is, the gentleman was willing to hear him out and didn’t throw him out of the house.
As Ashmont made his way home in the downpour, reasons for throwing him out of the house piled up in his mind. In other times, he might have stopped at Blackwood House or Ripley House, and let his friends tease him over a glass or ten of wine.
Not today. Those days were behind him.
“Behind me,” he murmured. The rain beat down on his top hat and spilled from the brim. He was not quite wet through, but getting there. And yet the day . . .