Page 38 of The Trouble With Dukes
“I’m to meet with the lady’s papa on Monday afternoon, and I hope to convince his lordship that I offer Megan a love match, in the great Windham tradition. She’s a shortsighted, plain spinster with red hair. She knows she could domuchworse.”
Particularly if she attempted to refuse Sir Fletcher’s proposal.
Megan’s Monday afternoon had not gone well, and her evening was turning into a disaster.
“You will please spare a dance for Garner Puget,” Sir Fletcher said as he bowed over her hand. “If he’s seen dancing with a Windham, then he won’t look as presumptuous for standing up with Lady Pamela.”
Megan curtsied, though fatigue weighted her limbs. The social season was exhausting, and for the past few nights she’d slept miserably. Garner Puget was a good dancer, though he had an unhappy mien and little conversation.
“The hostesses and matchmakers generally see to apportioning the bachelors among the wallflowers,” Megan said as the orchestra struck up the introduction for the supper waltz. “Lady Halstrop and her sisters are conscientious in that regard.”
As conscientious as hungry raptors flying over a freshly scythed hayfield. No single gentleman would sit out a dance if the matchmakers could arrange it otherwise. Megan had seen the Duke of Murdoch twirling down the dance floor earlier in the evening, though not for the past hour.
“If your attention were any more fixed on that clock,” Sir Fletcher said, “I’d think you had an assignation, Megan, my dear.”
Megan did have an assignation. Tomorrow morning, she desperately hoped to entertain Murdoch in her mama’s best parlor, and to retrieve from His Grace every single letter she’d written to Sir Fletcher Pilkington.
“I’m tired,” she murmured. “Meaning no disrespect to present company, but my feet ache.” As did her head and her heart.
The waltz began, Sir Fletcher pulled Megan too close, and they moved off. To anybody observing, Sir Fletcher would be a dashing, besotted fellow, quietly enraptured by the lady in his arms. He smiled sweetly, his gaze was devoted, and his partnering only a bit presumptuous.
Megan wanted to presume her last cup of punch all over his snow-white cravat.
“Poor darling,” Sir Fletcher crooned, loudly enough for the couples nearby to overhear. “Of course, you’re exhausted. If you’d rather leave the dance floor we can enjoy the gardens instead.”
God, no.Megan knew what Sir Fletcher was capable of in a moonlit garden or a secluded alcove.
“If I were to sit out a dance, it wouldn’t be the waltz.” Not the waltz promised to Sir Fletcher in any case. “Is that Lady Pamela dancing with Mr. Puget now?”
“You truly can’t see them?” Sir Fletcher asked, his tone quite un-besotted.
“Lady Pamela is carrying a blue fan and wearing a peach-colored gown tonight, so I assumed it was she. I cannot discern features at this distance.” Megan could tell that her admission annoyed Sir Fletcher, though.
“See that you don’t pass on this miserable eyesight to my children,” he said. “As long as you bear me sons, my father will deal generously with me, but I don’t fancy the notion of my offspring sporting about in blue spectacles.”
Then marry somebody else.Megan couldn’t say that, not until she had her letters back.
“I am the only Windham with any significant impairment of vision or any other faculty, Sir Fletcher.” Anwen was shy to a fault, but shy women bore healthy babies every day. “You needn’t worry about the trait showing up in your progeny.”
In Megan’s progeny, perhaps.
“You do look fatigued,” Sir Fletcher said, turning Megan under his arm. “You’re not thinking of dodging off to Wales with your parents, are you?”
Well, yes, she had been. When Sir Fletcher had closeted himself with Papa for a half hour earlier in the day, Megan had been ready to dodge off anywhere rather than risk appearing for tonight’s ball.
“My parents prefer to make those journeys without benefit of their daughters’ company.” She used the next turn to reestablish a proper distance from her partner.
“Is it my imagination, or are there more Windhams in evidence this season than in previous years?” Sir Fletcher was brandishing his smile again, while his gaze remained calculating. “I’ve seen more of Keswick, Rosecroft, Deene, and your cousins these past two weeks than during last year’s entire season.”
Megan had her suspicions regarding what Murdoch had called a gathering of the Windham clan. Her theory ought to make her sisters nervous, for it was certainly no comfort to her.
“I am not the only unmarried Windham,” she said. “Their Graces take matchmaking seriously, and have likely assembled the family with that situation in mind.”
Sir Fletcher laughed the golden, public laugh that made Megan’s insides curdle, especially when she’d said nothing humorous.
“You will not remain unmarried much longer, my dear. I met with your papa today.”
And Papa, the wretch, hadn’t even warned Megan the appointment had been made.
