Page 92 of The English Duke
Notices had been sent throughout the two nearby villages. Every single villager was invited to Griffin House for a reception to honor the bride and groom.
They were expecting a few hundred people at least, which was why the kitchen staff had been increased and everyone was industriously working. Martha couldn’t walk from her sitting room to the library without smelling something delicious like Cook’s meat pies or the chocolate biscuits she loved.
She’d already decided that she would make the obligatory appearance at the wedding, school her face into a quasi-happy expression, then attend the reception for a few moments. She’d stroll through the lawn, or under the tent if the weather became inclement, say hello to those people she knew before spending the rest of the day in her room. Above all, she didn’t want to have to say farewell to Josephine and her new husband. She didn’t want to have to wave as the ducal carriage stopped at the crest of the hill. She didn’t want to imagine Josephine and Jordan arriving at Sedgebrook and having their wedding night.
Dear God, anything but that.
Would Jordan take his elixir? Would he somehow know the woman in his arms was not the same one who’d been there weeks ago?
Did he ever think back to that night? Of course, it had been a momentous night for her while it had only been a drunken dream to him.
The three of them—Gran, Reese, and Josephine—kept the conversation going. Did they even notice she and Jordan didn’t say more than a word or two?
She really didn’t want to be here and felt almost as petulant as a child. Perhaps she would invent a fever, something to keep her in her room until after the wedding. Illness wouldn’t be far off from what she truly felt.
Thunder suddenly rumbled overhead. Martha looked up at the ceiling. When she was a little girl, she’d thought thunder was God’s way of demonstrating his anger. Evidently, she and God were in the same mood tonight.
She really didn’t want to talk about ribbon and fabric and song selections and trays of biscuits. Everyone knew Josephine’s wedding and reception would be lavish despite the short notice. All the shopkeepers from here to London had been pressed into service. They’d hired dozens of extra servants. Heaven knows what they’d spent.
She just wanted it all to stop.
“I think I’ve discovered what my father did,” she said when Josephine took a breath.
There, that stopped the talk of the wedding. The two men turned to look at her. Jordan even put his fork down, his attention on her.
Josephine started to say something, but it was Gran who lifted her hand to silence her. Surprisingly, her sister subsided into a pout.
“I think it has to do with the rudder,” Martha said, and explained in more detail.
Jordan nodded thoughtfully while Reese looked on.
“Have you tested it yet?” Jordan asked.
She shook her head. “No, not yet, but if it’s a fair day tomorrow I will.”
“I absolutely refuse,” Josephine said, ignoring Gran’s look. “Must we have talk about that silly ship at the dinner table?”
There was so much wrong with her comment that Martha was silenced.That silly shipwas the reason their father had died.That silly shipwas of great interest to the man she was going to marry in a matter of days.
Standing, Martha forced a smile to her face. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said.
Without a glance toward her grandmother, she left the dining room, making her way back upstairs. Until the wedding, she was going to eat in her room, regardless of the York reputation for politeness.
Chapter 27
Martha hadn’t been able to sleep well. Part of it was the knowledge that Jordan was beneath Griffin House’s roof.
He was as handsome as he’d been weeks ago. She wanted to stare at him at dinner, mark the changes in the past few weeks. He looked tired. Did regret strip him of his sleep? Now she couldn’t stop herself from recalling everything she noticed from her quick glances: how his hair was longer and how much easier he seemed to move. Was his leg improving?
Finally, when the sky was light, she rose, but didn’t ring for her maid. Instead, she dressed in one of her oldest dresses, something suitable to her intentions for the day.
She wasn’t trying to impress anyone. Jordan wouldn’t be stunned by her beauty or silenced in admiration of her grace and poise. She was only herself, Martha York, and this morning she was going to prove her father’s invention worked.
Jordan had the strangest sensation he’d been here before, seated in a large library on the other side of a desk presided over by an officious-looking gentleman.
The man was not unlike the Hamilton family solicitor. He had bushy muttonchop sideburns, a whitish-gray head of hair, and an air of competency. The only thing he didn’t have was a funereal expression. That’s because, no doubt, he was accustomed to smoothing the way for copious amounts of York money to be transmitted to various places and personages.
Jordan’s solicitor had presided over one thing: the announcement of the deplorable state of the Hamilton funds.
