Page 59 of Miss Prim and the Duke of Wylde
Meg shared a look with Drago, then returned to shaking hands and exchanging farewells.
Apparently, several of her cousins and his had noticed their absence from the ballroom, but while there were several arch looks, knowing smiles, raised brows, and cheeky grins, no one made any reference to them disappearing.
Not, that was, until Thomas Hayden strolled up with George Bisley and Harry Ferndale. With a wide grin at Meg, Thomas jogged Drago’s elbow. “Up to your usual tricks, I see.”
Drago’s expression, until then the epitome of charming geniality, instantly hardened to chiseled granite, and the look he turned on Thomas would have frozen the marrow in anyone’s bones.
Meg all but goggled at the transformation; Drago looked positively dangerous.
George and Harry saw the change and both leapt in to seize Drago’s and Meg’s hands and effusively shake them and compliment them on the evening.
“Although I did have two close shaves,” George reported.
“Consider yourself lucky,” Harry retorted. “I had to worm my way out of three!”
Meg readily encouraged their nonsense and was relieved to sense the tension in the large body beside hers slowly ease.
“My apologies,” she heard Thomas murmur. “That comment was clearly misjudged.”
From the corner of her eye, Meg saw Drago curtly nod. “Indeed.” Then he held out his hand to Thomas, who shook it, then Thomas made his bow to Meg, uttering all the right phrases, before joining Harry and George. With waves, the trio departed, making for the stairs.
Meg watched them go, then was recalled to her duty by the next group of departing guests.
As she stood beside Drago and farewelled the last stragglers, she pondered his reaction to Thomas’s admittedly ill-advised remark. She’d always been told that, when it came to men like Drago, discerning their true feelings was more a matter of paying attention not to their words but to their actions.
Or as the case might be, their reactions.
CHAPTER10
The following morning, Meg took a piece of their engagement cake, neatly wrapped and tied with ribbon, and went to call on her old governess, Miss Stirling, who lived in a small flat in a genteel building in Manchester Street.
Drago drove her to Manchester Square in his curricle, with his tiger up behind them. He’d arrived at Half Moon Street at ten o’clock and offered to take Meg for a drive in the park, but on learning of her projected visit, he’d immediately offered to drive her there instead.
Bemused, she’d inquired whether he thought to accompany her to meet with Miss Stirling. He’d hesitated, then suggested that perhaps he could meet her old governess when he came to collect her at the end of her visit. “There’s a coffeehouse on Manchester Square. I’ll spend a quiet hour there, then come and fetch you.”
She’d agreed to the arrangement, yet even as she directed him to the correct building on Manchester Street, she had to wonder if this degree of togetherness was what she should expect going forward, given they were now incontrovertibly engaged and—by their own decision—quite possibly heading to the altar.
As she’d anticipated, after drawing his horses to a halt, Drago tossed the reins to Milton, descended and handed her down, then escorted her up the steps, into the building, and up the two flights of stairs to the correct door.
In responding to Meg’s knock, when little Miss Stirling opened her door, the ex-governess’s eyes flew wide.
Meg fought not to grin too devilishly. “Darling Stirs, allow me to present my fiancé, the Duke of Wylde.”
“Oh—oh!” Miss Stirling gasped. “Your Grace!”
Drago’s charming side came to the fore. He somehow managed to capture Miss Stirling’s mittened hand and bowed. “It’s an honor to meet one who has played such a major role in the life of my soon-to-be duchess.”
Unsurprisingly, Miss Stirling turned pink and was rendered incoherent.
Meg quickly took charge, explaining that Drago understood that she wished to speak with Miss Stirling privately and that he would return in an hour and hoped to spend a few minutes with them then.
Miss Stirling gabbled agreement, and taking his cue, Drago bowed again, exchanged an understanding smile with Meg, and left.
Meg and Miss Stirling watched him go down the stairs. Even that, he did gracefully.
“Good Lord, Meg—a real duke?” In wonderment, Miss Stirling stared at her erstwhile charge. “Your dear parents must be over the moon!”
“They are, indeed.” Smiling, Meg urged the little governess back into her neat parlor and shut the door. Meg usually called every few months; Stirs had been her constant companion from the age of six until she’d left the schoolroom at seventeen, and she was deeply fond of the kind and caring woman.
