So an unsuitable gown it would have to be, which seemed fitting, since she was soon to become an unsuitable duchess.Again.
Anthony, meanwhile, had a perfectly adequate selection of garments, because he had hoped for—and planned for—exactly this. He and Thomas had gone tromping through the snowy landscape down to the village just a half an hour or so ago, so that Thomas might introduce him to the local clergyman and beg him to perform a simple ceremony here at the Armitage estate the following week.
Charity had remained behind, for she had thought it best not to appear before a man of God in a vibrant red gown. Which was all she had thought to bring. But come their marriage, she would not have a choice, and red it would be unless she cared to go to her wedding naked. Whichwouldbe appropriately scandalous, but something less than savory with so many of herrelations present.
And perhaps a few more of her soon-to-be relations, she thought, as she watched a carriage—Anthony’s carriage, unless she missed her guess—turn off the main road and onto the drive.
Uncertain even now whether she had hoped Anthony’s family would choose to remain in London or whether she had hoped they would accept the offer to come down to the countryside for Christmas, she climbed out of her seat near the drawing room window and headed for the foyer to retrieve her pelisse from the butler in deference to the snowy weather without the house.
All the to-do of greetings would fall upon her shoulders at present, since Mercy was taking a well-earned nap after putting Flora down for hers, and the dowager baroness, Juliet, and Mercy’s father had all gone for a ride. There was no one left to do it, and someonewould have to greet them. Helen would be reasonably polite, she thought, and so too were her children likely to be. Esther was an unknown quantity. But the duchess—
They had not, exactly, parted on the best of terms at their last meeting.
Still, Charity braved the frigid breeze, and perhaps an even chillier reception, to walk through the door and down the steps onto the drive. Hattie and a child who she supposed must be Evelyn tumbled out of the carriage first, and Charity found herself relieved that they had been permitted, for this trip to the country, to shed their mourning black for dresses in a lovely shade of lavender. Still half-mourning, but…softer, she thought. Something less stark and grim than the unrelieved black in which she had first seen Hattie.
Then Helen emerged, followed by another lovely, elegant woman that Charity assumed must be Esther. And at last, the duchess. She stepped down from the carriage swathed in the voluminous folds of a neat black traveling cloak, looking frostier than the winter snow that had settled upon the ground. A snow queen in her natural habitat.
Charity opened her mouth to force out some sort of greeting—
The duchess said, “How is it exactly, Miss Nightingale, that you are acquainted with the Armitages?”
Well, then. Straight into it. “My half-sister is married to the baron.”
“Yourhalf-sister?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Through our mother,” Charity said, with a sharp slice of a smile. “I believe I might have mentioned her to you before. My mother, I mean to say. I don’t tend to spread gossip about the worthier members of my family.”
“Your half-sister is a baroness.” This, with a measure of disbelief.
“There are occasionally, Your Grace, aristocratic men who manage to find something worth loving even within women whomTonsociety would consider beneath them.” She gave a gesture to the house behind her. “Would you care to come in out of the cold? I’m afraid we weren’t certain when—or indeed if—you would arrive, so it may be some time before rooms can be made up for you.”
“Yes, naturally,” the duchess said, brushing at the wrinkled folds of her cloak. “And some tea would not go amiss. Where is my son?”
“Out.” Charity had considered leaving it at that. But better, she thought, to manage expectations from the outset. Now, while the carriage was still in the drive. Now, while she was the only one present to witness whatever sort of tantrum to which the duchess might find herself disposed. “He is in the village with my brother-in-law,” she said. “To speak with the local reverend. We are to going to be married.”
The duchess hardly blinked. “Yes, I know,” she said breezily. “What day?”
Dumbstruck, Charity could only respond, “The nineteenth.”
“Pity. Christmas would be better.”
“A few days will not make a difference. We have already decided. Our minds”—hearts—“will not be swayed.”
With a delicate nudge upon Hattie’s shoulder, the duchess sent her granddaughters scurrying toward the house, and Helen and Esther hurried after them, no doubt to keep them from coming to mischief if left unsupervised. “It is a pity,” the duchess said, “because men so seldom recall little things like anniversaries. Best to have it on a memorable day.”
Oh. Well, then. While she would not have called the duchess amiable, precisely, still the woman had been somewhat less hostile than Charity had expected.
“Is my son expected back soon?” the duchess inquired.
“Not within the hour, I shouldn’t think.” And she couldn’t possibly hazard a guess as to how long such a meeting might take, whether Anthony and Thomas might find some amusement in the village afterward, or how long their walk back might require with the falling snow growing deeper by the moment.
“Good,” the duchess said. “Then you and I shall take tea. In private.”
Somehow, through sheer dint of will, Charity found the restraint to wait until the duchess had swept past her to roll her eyes to the heavens and sigh.
∞∞∞
“My sonhas informed me that I owe you an apology,” the duchess said as she selected a tiny square teacake from a plate.
