Page 1 of His Darling Duchess
Chapter One
“Are you ready, mydear?” Lord Lymsey asked, and Lady Aurelia gathered her silken skirts, took as deep a breath as her firmly laced stays would permit, and nodded. Her father nodded in return, but it was her brother Louis who extended his arm for Aurelia, leading her up the gleaming white marble steps of Stowe House.
They were hardly alone, of course. Half the beau monde were proceeding up the steps too, eager to enter the magnificent house which had not hosted a celebration in more than a decade. The Duke of Stowe was hosting a ball, and an invitation was the most sought-after in town, particularly since the gossips said the duke’s cousin and heir Lord Grantleigh was the hot favourite to win the hand of the year’s most beautiful debutante, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Lymsey.
Lady Aurelia Cole, she of the golden curls, melting brown eyes and skin as perfectly soft and smooth as a fresh peach, daughterof a highly influential Whig politician and dowered with twenty thousand pounds.
“Everyone’s staring at me,” Aurelia whispered as Louis led her to join the receiving line.
“Dare say they’re placing bets on whether tonight’s when the engagement will be announced,” Louis answered casually, and she pinched his arm.
“You know it won’t be!”
“Only because Mama’s instructed Papa to put Grantleigh off until you’ve had a full Season.” Louis gave her a fond glance. “He’s been waiting to propose since you turned sixteen, sprite.”
A smile tugged at Aurelia’s lips despite the nerves churning her belly. Her brother and Nathan Wallace, Lord Grantleigh, had been best friends since their Eton days. Six years younger, she’d tagged around after them every time Nathan came home with Louis for the holidays, which was frequent, since his father was a diplomat and his parents spent much of their time abroad.
It wasn’t until Aurelia turned fifteen that Nathan really took any notice of her; he and Louis were in their final year of study at Cambridge then. He’d been dismissive of her until then, but after not seeing her for a couple of years due to a mourning period following his father’s death, her blossoming beauty had caught him by surprise. She, of course, had been nursing a crush on her brother’s handsome friend for years, so when he returned her interest it was her dream coming true.
Of course, she was too young to marry, and her sharp-eyed parents saw which way the wind was blowing and made sure she was never alone with Nathan. And despite her entreaties, neither her doting father nor her easy-going mother would countenance their becoming engaged until Aurelia had been presented at court and had at least one full season to, as her mother put it, ‘make sure there’s nobody else you would prefer’.
Aurelia sighed softly as the line edged forward a little and she caught a glimpse of Nathan; so tall and handsome in his immaculate burgundy-red evening coat, he looked bored out of his mind having to stand and exchange pleasantries with everyone arriving.
“Don’t crane your neck, Aurelia,” Lady Lymsey chided quietly, her lips not even moving as she delivered the rebuke.
“Yes, Mama,” Aurelia said dutifully, and pinched her brother again as he snickered. It wasn’t fair, she thought rebelliously, how young ladies had to follow so many rules she could hardly remember them all, and yet young men like her brother could behave however they wished. Why, not a word had yet been said about Louis looking for a wife, and sooner or later he would need to, in order to produce the next heir for the Lymsey earldom.
Plenty of pretty debutantes were eyeing Louis behind their fans, giggling and blushing if he so much as glanced in their direction, Aurelia noted, and yet he didn’t so much as glance at them. Instead he was returning the bold smile of a beautiful woman in a dramatic gown of black and red satin.
“Who’s that?” Aurelia asked.
“Nobody you should know.” Louis hastily turned his gaze elsewhere.
“I suspect she’s not anyone you should know either,” Aurelia said dryly.
Flushing red, Louis tried to divert her attention by asking “Can you see the duke yet?”
Aurelia leaned slightly to her right in an attempt to see. Nathan’s mother, Lady Grantleigh, was visible now on his far side, and beside her Aurelia could just make out the dark-sleeved arm of another man. That must be the Duke of Stowe, Lady Grantleigh’s niece and Nathan’s cousin.
“Not yet,” she told Louis. “It’s so curious, that nobody so much as knows what he looks like!”
“Not so strange, he’s been on the Continent these last dozen years. The old duke was a beast of a man, apparently, and his son ran off to join the army when he was only eighteen. As a common soldier, if you can believe that!” Louis shook his head incredulously.
Aurelia couldn’t truly imagine what might have driven a boy of her own age to flee his home in that way either, but her sympathies were certainly engaged. She leaned over and craned her neck again, until her mother’s reproving hiss made her pull back.
“Does Grantleigh remember his cousin at all?” she asked Louis.
“Not well. As the heir, Stowe wasn’t sent to Eton, but educated at home, else I’d probably have met him too, though he’s older than I am. Grantleigh says he just recalls Stowe being very quiet.”
“And Stowe has only been back a few weeks?” Aurelia pressed.
“Indeed. He inherited two years ago when the old duke died, but by then he was doing something very important with the army he wasn’t willing to quit, so he wouldn’t leave until after old Boney was finally caught and shipped off to Elba.”
“But he was sent there months ago!”
Louis shrugged. “Maybe Stowe didn’t want to come back at all.”
That explanation made as much sense as any, she supposed. The line moved forward a pace or two, and she moved forward with them, stifling an impatient little sigh.
