Page 104 of Enslaved to the Seduction of a Lady
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Jenny,” Thomas said, taking her hands and smiling down at her. They were in the coach on their way to Salsbury Manor, all four of them. “I am pleased to finally meet you properly. I am looking forward to us getting to know one another better.”
Jenny scoffed with laughter.
“We’ve been living in your home for the past few days, My Lord,” she said.
“But we have not had a chance to meet properly,” Thomas said. “Not with everything that has happened. Andplease. I am your brother. There is no need to call meLordanything any longer. I am Thomas.”
“All right,” she said, smiling uncertainly, “Thomas.” Her heart thumped wildly. To be dining with nobility seemed too unreal, and she wasn’t entirely sure how she should act.
“Things are going to change from here on in,” Thomas said. “Just you wait and see.”
“We’re almost there,” Luke said nervously.
“Don’t look so worried,” the Duke of Carrington said, reading Luke’s expression and patting him on the knee. “If the Duke had any intention of saying no to your request, he would not have suggested you ask again.”
“Are you sure?” Luke asked.
“I am certain,” he said.
* * *
“Oh, tell it again, Luke,” Alison said much later that evening, her cheeks aching from the grin.
“Yes,” Teresa said, urging Luke from across the table. “Tell us his expression when he realized who you were.”
“It was something like this,” Luke said, and he pulled an expression that was a cross between shocked and mortified. Everyone around the dinner table laughed. “Anyone would think he had seen a ghost.”
“And then when your father walked in,” Thomas added, wine glass half-raised to his lips.
“That was the best entertainment I’ve had in a long time,” the Duke of Carrington said, laughing.
“Really,” the Duke of Salsbury said, leaning forward in his seat and bursting with laughter, “if I gave a damn about the man, I would have been concerned for his heart! Surprised does not even begin to describe it.”
“Oh how I wish I had seen it,” Alison said. “That smug grin he always wore quite wiped away.”
“I think we heard him whimpering as the Constable’s guards dragged him away,” Thomas said.
“Certainly hope he was,” Teresa said with a shudder. “That man always made me feel uneasy.”
“And he was never kind,” Jenny added.
“At least he’s got his comeuppance,” the Duchess said. “Now can wepleasetalk about something else? I feel as though the Earl of Belmont has taken up far too much of our conversation as it is already.”
“Hear, hear,” the Duke of Salsbury said, raising his glass high in the air.
“Hear, hear!”
They were gathered around the dining table for a celebratory feast, the night after the coup. The Duke and Duchess were there, of course, along with Alison. Her father had invited the Duke of Carrington and Lord Denninson, along with Luke and Jenny, and her mother had invited Teresa and David.
They had eaten like kings, the cook providing a spread of jellied partridge and pigeons in a crayfish butter. There was a terrine of lark, salad and cheese, and roasted guinea fowl, too. There was posset and trifle and stewed fruit for dessert, and the butler had selected only the finest of wines.
One or another of them had mentioned more than once moving the party to the drawing room, and they had all agreed to the concept. But no one had moved, either too engrossed in the conversation or too full of good food to stand up—or, most likely, a little of each.
The mood was convivial and full of good cheer, and Luke—once a servant and now on the brink of becoming a businessman—had settled in so easily, as Alison always knew he would.
“Explain it to me again,” the Duchess said, looking first at Luke and then at Lord Denninson. “How are you related?”
