Only Beloved

by Mary Balogh

  “Do they know?” Dora asked. She could feel the fluttering of anxiety in her stomach.

  “I did not feel I had the right to make any announcement,” he told her. “It struck me as altogether possible that after thinking things over you would change your mind about facing the upheaval in your life that marrying me will bring. I did not want to embarrass you unduly if you had changed your mind. I was extremely anxious as I walked to your house earlier. I did not know what awaited me.”

  She glanced at him suspiciously, but he looked perfectly serious.

  “It never once occurred to me to change my mind,” she said. “I thought perhaps you would be the one changing yours after having seen me again yesterday afternoon. But I remembered that you are a gentleman and would not cry off, having made your offer.”

  He laughed softly. “I do assure you, Miss Debbins,” he said, “that seeing you again yesterday only made me more eager to marry you.”

  Oh, dear, Dora thought. Why? But she felt warmed right through to the center of her heart anyway.

  * * *

  George was feeling anxious all over again. Vincent and Sophia, he could see, were outside, sitting in the formal gardens while Thomas, their son, toddled happily along the path near them. He stopped even as George spotted him to pluck the head off a flower and hold it out to his mama with a look of triumph.

  “Oh, dear,” Miss Debbins said, “they are outside, and Lady Darleigh has seen us. She will think it very presumptuous of me to be approaching the house from the direction of the lake and to be walking on your arm. I am their music teacher.”

  He smiled down at her and patted her hand. “I did inform them when Vince told me about his harp lesson that I would walk into the village and escort you back here,” he told her. “Do I have your permission to tell them about our betrothal?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Yes, I suppose so. But whatever will they think?”

  He was charmed by her primness, her modesty, her anxiety, for after all she was a lady, daughter of a baronet, and had probably expected to make a perfectly respectable marriage when she was a girl.

  “I believe we are about to find out,” he said. And yes, he was a bit nervous himself. His friends, he suspected, were going to be taken totally by surprise. He did not need their approval, but he certainly wanted it.

  Vincent and Sophia were both smiling at them—she must have said something to him. Thomas was beginning to toddle in their direction, but Sophia scooped him up in her arms.

  “I do believe, Miss Debbins,” Sophia said when they were within earshot, “that George feared you would skip your lesson today on account of the lovely weather. He insisted upon going to fetch you here in person.”

  “I did indeed,” George said. “If I had waited for her to come alone, I would have seen her for only a minute or two before she disappeared into the music room with Vince and the harp, and I would not have liked that at all.”

  Sophia looked speculatively at him as Vincent came up beside her, led by his dog, and Thomas changed his affections and held out his flower head to George.

  “Miss Debbins has not let us down yet,” Vincent said with a smile. “Good afternoon, ma’am. You will be cross with me, I fear. I have hardly had a chance to practice since my last lesson.”

  “That is quite understandable, Lord Darleigh,” she said. “You have been to London.”

  “But before you whisk her away, Vince,” George said, “I have something to say. You were mystified by my arrival yesterday, as well you might be since I had seen you in town just a few days before. I came for a particular purpose and accomplished it successfully after tea yesterday when I called upon Miss Debbins at her cottage.”

  Sophia looked from one to the other of them. Thomas offered his flower, slightly squashed from his grip, to Miss Debbins, who took it with a smile of thanks and raised it to her nose.

  “Miss Debbins has done me the great honor of accepting my hand in marriage,” George explained. “We plan to wed as soon as the banns have been read. I will then take her away from here and from you, I am afraid. I am also going to insist that you return to London within the month since we plan to marry with a great deal of pomp and circumstance at St. George’s and we absolutely must have all our family and friends about us.”

  Miss Debbins was giving a great deal of attention to her flower. For a moment, Sophia and Vincent—yes, Vince too—gazed at them with arrested expressions while Thomas leaned out with both arms and nudged his father’s shoulder.

  “You are going to marry?” Sophia asked as Vincent took the child with his free arm. “Each other? But how absolutely . . . perfect!”

  There was a great deal of noise and activity then and even some squealing as everyone hugged everyone else and hands were shaken and backs were slapped and cheeks were kissed and something was hilariously funny, for they were all laughing.

  “I cannot decide for which of you I am more delighted,” Vincent said as he beamed from one to the other of them for all the world as though he could actually see them. “I cannot think of anyone who deserves George more than you do, Miss Debbins, or of anyone who deserves you more than he does. But this is devilish sneaky of you, George. What are we expected to do now for a music teacher?”

  “I would imagine, Vince,” George said, slapping a hand on his shoulder, “all your household staff will offer up a prayer of thanks.”

  “Is that a reflection upon the quality of my instruction?” Miss Debbins asked severely.

  “That will teach you to insult me, George,” Vincent said with a grin. “Thomas, my lad, Papa’s hair was not made to be pulled, you know. Those curls are attached to my head.”

  Sophia had linked an arm through Miss Debbins’s and was drawing her in the direction of the house.

  “I cannot tell you how excited I am,” she said. “Are we the first to be told? How splendid. Come up to the drawing room for some tea and tell me about your plans. Every single one of them. Did you know George was coming? Did he write to tell you? Or did he just turn up on your doorstep unannounced? How very romantic that must have been.”

  “I cannot have any tea,” Miss Debbins protested. “It is time for Lord Darleigh’s lesson.”

  “Oh, but we would not dream—” Sophia began.

  “I am not married yet, Lady Darleigh,” Miss Debbins said briskly. “I still have work to do.”

  George took the child from his father’s arm and grinned at Sophia.

  “Off you go, Vince,” he said.

  5

  Miss Debbins’s list, neatly written in a small, careful hand, was indeed very short. It consisted of her father and his wife—whom she did not call her stepmother, George noted—her brother and his wife, her sister and Flavian, her aunt and uncle from Harrogate, three couples from Inglebrook, and one from her former home in Lancashire.

  George handed it to Ethan Briggs when he returned to Stanbrook House after being away for five days.

  “Have I kept you very busy while I was away, Ethan?” he asked.

  His secretary looked pained. “You know you have not, Your Grace,” he said. “I have paid twenty-two bills and refused thirty-four invitations, some of which needed to be worded more tactfully than others. I have not done sufficient work to justify the very generous salary you pay me.”

  “Is it generous?” George asked. “That is good to know, for you will soon be earning it and more. Your time and energy will be taxed, Ethan, as they were during the weeks preceding Lady Barclay’s wedding. Invitations are to go to everyone on this list. It is admittedly short, but Miss Debbins assured me she has included everyone of any importance to her. Ah, and there is this one too—my own list. It is lamentably long, I am afraid, but Miss Debbins did agree with me that if we are to do this thing properly, then we really ought to invite everyone who is anyone. There are certain expectations when one holds the lofty title of d
uke.”

  “Miss Debbins?” Briggs asked politely, taking both lists from his employer’s hand.

  “The lady who has been good enough to consent to marry me,” George explained. “There are to be wedding invitations, Ethan. To St. George’s, of course, at eleven o’clock in the morning four weeks from this coming Saturday if I am in time to have the first banns read this coming Sunday. As I daresay I will be.”

  His secretary, who had never before displayed anything approaching open astonishment, looked up at him with a slightly dropped jaw.

  “I daresay it was that other nuptial service last week that aroused in me a distinct hankering to have a wedding of my own, Ethan,” George said apologetically. “I am afraid your rest period is over. There will be a great deal more work for you to do even after you have written and sent the invitations. But at least you have had some practice.”

  His secretary had recovered his usual poise. “May I be permitted to wish you all the happiness in the world, Your Grace,” he said.

  “You may,” George said.

  “No one deserves it more,” the usually impassive Briggs added.

  “Well, that is remarkably handsome of you, Ethan.” George nodded genially and left him to the arduous work ahead.

  His own next task, not to be delayed one moment longer than necessary, was to make arrangements for the banns to be called. Not much longer than an hour after his arrival in town, however, he was back on Grosvenor Square, knocking on the door of Arnott House, which was on the opposite side of it from Stanbrook House. He was informed by Viscount Ponsonby’s butler that my lord and my lady had returned from an afternoon outing not ten minutes before, and he was escorted up to the drawing room, where they joined him a few minutes later.

  And no, George thought with a keener than usual glance at the viscountess, Miss Debbins did not much resemble her sister, who was taller, fairer haired, and more youthfully pretty.

  “George.” Flavian beamed at him and shook his hand before crossing to the sideboard to pour them each a drink. “We have not set eyes on you since Imogen’s wedding. We were beginning to think you must have f-fled back to Penderris to recover from all the excitement.”

  “Do have a seat, George,” Agnes said, indicating a chair and smiling her welcome. “You have probably been enjoying a well-deserved rest.”

  “I have been out of town,” George admitted as he sat. “But not to Penderris. I have been at Middlebury Park.”

  They both looked at him in some surprise.

  “You went with Sophia and Vince?” Flavian asked.

  “Not with them, no,” George said, taking the glass his friend offered him. “I went a few days after them. I had to wait until after my cousins left, though actually I had no intention of going anywhere myself until they had set out for Cumberland. Vince and Sophia were taken rather by surprise when I descended upon them without any warning.”

  “I am quite sure it was a happy surprise,” Agnes said. “Did you by any chance see Dora while you were there?”

  “I did indeed,” he said. “Miss Debbins was, in fact, my reason for going.”

  They turned identical frowns of incomprehension upon him.

  “I went,” George explained, “to ask Miss Debbins if she would be obliging enough to marry me. And she was—obliging enough, that is.”

  “What?” Agnes laughed, but there was puzzlement in the sound. She was not sure if he was serious or making some sort of bizarre joke.

  “I proposed marriage to Miss Debbins,” George said, “and she accepted me. We are to marry at St. George’s in one month’s time. She will be following me up to town within the week. She has shopping to do, it seems, though she flatly refuses to allow me to foot any of the bills before she is married to me. Your sister is an independent, strong-minded lady, Agnes. Although she has never before been to London and is clearly somewhat awed, if not terrified, at the prospect of coming now in the middle of the social Season as the betrothed of a duke and of marrying him in grand style with all the fashionable world looking on, she still insists upon doing it at her own expense. She has agreed, though, that it is the sensible thing to do to come early so that she may meet the ton and allow the ton to meet her before the fateful day. She will not attend any formal entertainments, she assures me, but she has agreed to a betrothal party close to our wedding date. I am all admiration for her courage.”

  Agnes’s hands had crept up to cover her cheeks. “It is really true, then?” she asked, doubtless rhetorically. “You are going to marry Dora?’ Her eyes suddenly brightened with unshed tears.

  “Why you sly dog, George.” Flavian set down his glass, jumped to his feet, and crossed the distance between them in order to pump George’s hand up and down in a hearty shake and then thump him on the back. “And to think that all of us in the club have been busy p-putting our heads together to think of a worthy lady who might t-tempt your fancy and take you off our hands. It is very lowering, let me tell you, for a man to be reduced to m-matchmaking, but you showed no sign of doing it for yourself. Yet all the time you had your sights upon my sister-in-law. I could not be happier, and Agnes is ecstatic. You can tell by the fact that she is w-weeping.”

  “Oh, I am not,” she protested. “But . . . Oh, George, you cannot possibly know what this means to me. Dora gave up her life for my sake when I was a child. She stayed at home to raise me after our mother left when she ought to have been enjoying a come-out Season here in London. She might still have had that Season after the worst of the scandal died down if she had pressed the matter with Papa, but she never did. She would not even go to Harrogate when our Aunt Shaw would have taken her about and introduced her to some eligible gentlemen. She was quite adamant that she would stay with me, and she never once complained or made me feel that I was a nuisance and had blighted all her hopes. But now at last she is to have her happily-ever-after? With you of all men, George? And oh, dear, now I am weeping. Thank you.” The thanks were for the large handkerchief Flavian had pressed upon her. He rubbed a hand over the back of her neck while she dried her eyes and blew her nose.

  Happily-ever-after? The term made George a bit uneasy. He certainly did not have that to offer, but then Miss Debbins did not expect it. They were both old enough and experienced enough at life to understand that no marriage could offer unalloyed happiness. Not that he was a cynic. He was not, and neither, he was quite sure, was she. They were both realists. Of that he felt sure.

  But . . . Happily-ever-after? For a moment that sense of foreboding threatened again.

  The next ten minutes or so were taken up with answering all the questions they had for him. Finally, though, he got to his feet and withdrew a letter from an inside pocket.

  “I have other calls to make,” he said, “though I made this one the first for obvious reasons. I shall do my very best to make your sister happy, Agnes. She wrote to you while I was still in Gloucestershire so that I could bring the letter in person.”

  Agnes took it from him. “I am quite confident that you will make each other happy,” she said.

  Flavian shook hands with him again. “I hate to say anything to deter you, George,” he said, “but has it occurred to you that we will be b-brothers-in-law?”

  “A terrifying thought, is it not?” George said cheerfully.

  He was still smiling as he left the house and made his way to Portman Square to see if Ralph and Chloe were at home. Wheels had been set in motion, and everyone of importance to him must be informed in person.

  He was a bit surprised to discover that he was feeling something very like exuberance. If he was to regret his hasty decision to marry, it was certainly not happening yet.

  He hoped it never would.

  * * *

  Dora left for London five days after her betrothed, having taken a hasty and, in some cases, a tearful farewell of her pupils, her neighbors and friends, and Mrs. Henry,
who had decided to remain among her family and friends in the neighborhood of Inglebrook rather than accept the offer to accompany her employer into her new life in the capacity of personal maid. Dora traveled in opulent style, the duke having insisted upon sending his own carriage for her along with what seemed an extravagant complement of liveried footmen and burly outriders and even a maid. It was really almost embarrassing—and undeniably pleasurable. The deference shown her wherever they stopped along the road during the journey was something to which she must accustom herself, she supposed. Plain Miss Debbins, traveling post, as she had planned, would have been virtually ignored.

  For the final hour before arriving at Arnott House on Grosvenor Square, she sat with her nose almost pressed to the window of the carriage, even though rain was drizzling down outside and the heavy gray sky added a pall of dreariness to everything below. It did not dampen Dora’s spirits. This was London at last, and she could almost believe that the streets were indeed paved with gold. It was a good thing, she thought, that the maid was dozing against the opposite corner and therefore was not watching her quite unsophisticated delight in it all.

  Her stomach was feeling more than a bit fluttery, however, by the time the carriage rocked slightly on its springs and drew to a halt. Here she was, twenty years late but about to carry off surely the greatest matrimonial prize the Season had to offer—even if he was forty-eight years old. She controlled her smile at the silly thought—the maid was waking up and setting her skirts and her cap and bonnet to rights.

  What would Agnes say? And Flavian?

  She was soon to find out. As one of the duke’s liveried footmen set down the steps and reached up a white-gloved hand to help her down, the doors of the house opened and both Agnes and Flavian appeared in the doorway. Dora lost sight of them for a moment as the footman angled a large umbrella over her head and she hurried across the wet pavement and up the steps. And then she stepped inside and was enfolded in her sister’s arms. Flavian stood to one side, beaming at her.