Page 25 of Tempting Harriet
“I knew the young bucks would be swarming all over you, my pet,” his aunt said with embarrassing loudness.“Do you have one of them singled out, eh?”
The duke and duchess exchanged glances.
“I do not,” Harriet said with perfect amiability, though a glance in her direction revealed to him the expectedblush—which unexpectedly had the usual effect on hisstomach. “I loved Godfrey, ma’am, as you know. I amquite content to enjoy every moment of the Season as it arrives.”
“Yes, you were good to him, child,” his aunt said. “But he was too old for you. You need someone more sprightly.Someone who does not have a weak heart. A man with aweak heart cannot give a gel what she needs and wants. Can he, Archibald? You would know, I wager. If I wereonly fifty years younger and you were not my nephew...”She rumbled, a sound the duke was beginning to recognizeas a laugh.
“Sophie!” His grandmother was quite outraged. ‘‘You have quite put poor Lady Wingham to the blush. Not tomention Tenby and myself.”
“Eh?” his aunt said, but she appeared to have heard. She rumbled again. “I was ever outspoken, Sadie. Many is theyoung buck I put to the blush in my time, my dear LadyWingham.”
“If you were fifty years younger, Aunt Sophie,” the duke said, desperate to release them all from the embarrassmentof the moment, “I should set my glass to my eye, favor youwith my most haughty stare, and deliver a blistering set-down. After which I would doubtless flirt quite outrageously with you.”
The rambling occupied all of the next thirty seconds.
“Saucy boy!” his aunt said.
The duke gave his coachman the signal to leave the park and take the direction to Sir Clive Forbes’s home.
“This has been very pleasant, Lady Wingham,” his grandmother said with all the grandeur she had acquired inher many years as a duchess. “I do thank you for postponing your return home in order to accompany us on ourdrive.”
“It has been my pleasure, your grace,” Harriet said.
“Eh?” Lady Sophia demanded.
The duchess repeated what she had said.
“You will come to see me again, my pet,” Lady Sophia said to Harriet. “I missed you sorely after you left Bath.You bring sunshine into my life.”
Harriet smiled at her.
The duke jumped down from the barouche when it stopped outside Sir Clive’s door and handed her down tothe pavement. He bowed over her hand and raised it to hislips. His aunt was bellowing something at his grandmother,something about Harriet being a very prettily behaved gel.
“Doubtless,” he said very quietly, and was almost distracted when her eyelashes came sweeping up and her green eyes looked directly into his, “you will have an explanation for this tomorrow, ma’am.”
Her eyes widened slightly but she said nothing. She turned and hurried through the door that a servant was already holding open for her.
His aunt appeared to fall into a doze. His grandmother regarded him steadily for a while in silence.
“When will I meet Lord Barthorpe and his wife and Lady Phyllis?” she asked. “We will have them to tea, Tenby?”
“Will that not be rather pointed?” he asked. “Perhaps a dinner would be better, Grandmama, and a larger number of guests.”
“You do not wish it to be pointed?” she asked. “You have an objection to the girl?”
“None,” he said. “She appears to have all the qualities I could look for in a duchess. She is even pretty.”
“Yet you have not declared yourself,” she said.
“Give me time, Grandmama.” He smiled at her. “I have until September before I am in danger of breaking mypromise. I will not break it.”
She was quiet for a while, but he could feel her eyes on him. “Tenby,” she said at last, “you will not look lower.You will remember who you are and what you owe yourposition. And the bloodlines you owe your heir.”
The damned woman, he thought irreverently. She always saw far more than he was ever aware of revealing. “I havenever thought of looking lower, Grandmama,” he lied, “andnever will dream of doing so. I know too what I owe youand my memories of Grandpapa. And Mother too.”
She looked at him a little longer and then nodded, satisfied.
Chapter 9
