Claire blushed and turned away from her sister. “I suppose it is only natural, given that he is a man. They can be rather territorial brutes when it comes down to that.”
“Somehow, I cannot imagine His Grace being anything less than a gentleman but I suppose he must have his breaking point,” the younger girl shrugged. She looked pointedly at her older sister. “You do not suppose the Marquess will pull anything funny, do you?”
“I sincerely hope not,” Claire bit her lower lip in worry. “In any case, Lady Suzanna will be accompanying me when I meet him and we have chosen to meet in a park. I highly doubt that he will try anything underhanded with so many people around.”
“I sincerely hope so. He does not look very trustworthy to me,” Trixie groused.
Claire laughed and pinched her cheek lightly. “Where is all this coming from? You will never be married at this rate if you think of men so dismally.”
“Hey!” her younger sister protested, squirming out of her reach. “It is just that I have had vastly superior male role models and it feels like nobody will ever be a match to Father or His Grace, if your callers were anything to go by!”
Claire flushed at her sister’s astute assessment. Indeed, there were a lot of so-called gentlemen in Society whose behavior left much to be desired. It was also a little humiliating to know that the Marquess had been the best of her suitors and apparently, he seemed to be hiding something as well.
Trixie was right to be so worried.
“At any rate,” her younger sister declared, “I am well aware that Father left me a considerable sum so I might as well live my life happily as a spinster, bound to no man, just like Lady Suzanna.”
She smiled at her sister’s naiveté. Even beautiful Lady Suzanna dreamed of a love similar to the one Claire shared with the Duke. In fact, she would rather not marry than settle for anything less.
What Trixie was proposing was to eschew men altogether and live life on her own terms.
She shook her head. Claire could not fault her sister for thinking so but she was still young. There would be more opportunities for her to meet a decent gentleman, who could capture her heart and keep up with her spirit.
Claire would hate it if someone were to suppress her sister’s fire. It was one of the things they loved the most about Trixie.
“When it comes to your turn,” she said gently, “I pray that you may be able to find someone who will love you as much as I love the Duke. You will never have to worry about finances, because Father made sure of that for us.”
“I hope so,” Trixie bit her lower lip. “At any rate, I suppose I will just do the same thing Lady Suzanna does—make sure that he is not merely after my dowry. If not, I suppose I can happily live enough on my own.”
“You most certainly can,” Claire smiled at her. She looked outside and turned to her sister. “One would think, though, that you ought to get back to your books.”
Trixie groaned. “I was hoping you would forget that, in all the excitement.”
Claire laughed. “Well, there are some things I have to get to and you are distracting me.”
After a few more complaints, Trixie finally left her to her own devices. Claire could only shake her head at her sister’s insights. With her and Lady Suzanna as examples, it was only natural she would hold men to a higher standard and with her dowry, it was very possible she was going to attract a lot of unsavory characters who would wish to marry her for her money.
Trixie was quite justified in her apprehensions, which was more than Claire herself ever worried about, very nearly jumping into marriage with the Marquess.
If I did not have feelings for His Grace and he did not have feelings for me, I could very well have fallen into that sort of trap. I suppose, all things considered, I am quite fortunate that circumstances turned out the way they did.
But still, she would have to meet with Lord Draydon and politely inform him that she would have to let him down, that she simply could not marry him when her heart belonged to another.
She only hoped that Oliver and Trixie were wrong and that the Marquess would take the news with as much grace as she could hope possible for someone in his situation.
* * *
After luncheon, Claire and Lady Suzanna boarded the carriage that the Duke had prepared for the both of them. It had initially been commissioned for Lady Suzanna and was lavishly appointed with plush velvet seats that guaranteed the comfort of its passengers. It could easily seat four people but most of the time, only Claire and Lady Suzanna used it.
“Are you nervous, dear heart?” Lady Suzanna asked her gently.
Claire bit her lower lip and nodded. “I must admit that I did not think too much on where this could all lead. I did like Lord Draydon very much, although my judgment was clouded at the time.”
“I understand completely. He is a very handsome man and quite knowledgeable about many things, too,” the Duke’s sister confided in her. “There is just somethingoffabout him, though, which was why I thought to warn you.”
“I only wished I had listened to you,” Claire shook her head sadly. “Then, we might have been able to avoid such a complicated situation.”
“Well, that was partly my brother’s fault as he kept vacillating between admitting his true feelings to just keeping it all a secret,” the older lady huffed. “You would not believe the amount of cajoling I have had to do forweeks. In the end, it took nearly losing you for him to come to his senses. Imagine that!”
