Page 10 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘I am, though,’ Lady Phoebe said. ‘Truly. I was beginning to think, after everything, that you might never allow yourself such happiness.’

Again, Ashford took a draught of tea rather than answer.

‘It was not so many years ago that you were declaring you would never marry for love,’ Lady Phoebe said, still smiling. ‘I thought, then, that you had become so frightfully dour that you should never be happy!’

Ashford raised his eyebrows. ‘Frightfully dour?’

‘Oh, the hours I have spent worrying about you,’ she said. ‘Wondering what happened to the boy who used to swap my sugar for salt at breakfast and tie my shoe strings together at dinner?’

‘I grew up,’ Ashford said. ‘I should think if I were still tying people’s ribbons together you might have something to say about it.’

‘But look at you now! So head over heels that you are willing to marry a merchant’s daughter!’

‘Granddaughter,’ Ashford corrected.

‘His Grace has approved, I take it?’ Lady Phoebe asked. ‘Or will it be a runaway match?’

Ashford shook his head. ‘My father sent his approval by letter – he left for Scotland two weeks ago.’

It was more than mere duty that required Ashford to seek such approval from his father: family law stipulated that the heir could not marry without the permission of the incumbent duke, a clause created generations before to protect the family from scandal. In his father’s hands, however, this power was being used to different purpose. His own marriage having been a famous love match, the duke had always believed his son would find happiness by this means, too, no matter Ashford’s own views on the subject.

‘Oh, His Grace could not possibly resist such a story.’ She let out a rapturous sigh. ‘Love overcoming rank!’

This was rather the point. For while Ashford had known that his father wished him to marry for love, he had not thought the duke would actually insist upon it. And yet that was exactly what his father had done, rejecting every suitable lady Ashford had suggested to him.

‘It is quite plain that you do not feel a single thing for her!’ he had accused, at their last meeting. ‘For any of them!’

‘Father, there are other considerations that weigh more with me,’ Ashford had tried to explain, but to no avail.

His father could not be made to understand how seriously encumbered their Norfolk lands had become. A decade of harsh winters and severe flooding had taken their toll, despite Ashford’s best efforts. Now, if they did not wish to lose estates that had belonged to their family since the Norman conquest, they needed substantial investment. A suitable marriage to a woman of fortune was the simplest means of averting disaster.

‘I wish for your heart to be taken, not your head, my boy,’ the duke had said, hands gripping Ashford’s shoulders as if he should like to shake him. ‘You will not receive my approval for anything less. The next time you wish to engage yourself, I must know it to be different. I must know it to be love.’

It had been an unwanted complication. Ashford was determined to marry this year, and marry well – but how on earth could he appease his father’s wishes?

It had been Brandon who had given him the idea, though he had scoffed at it initially. The future Duke of Ancaster, marrying beneath his own class? It was absurd. But then – as if by fate – in the next moment he had met Miss Hanworth, of Hanworth Wool. Miss Hanworth, who had been so perfectly behaved that he had immediately begun to reconsider the whole idea: well-mannered, well-deported, very well-dowered, and obviously dangling after a title … It was perfect. And if Miss Hanworth’s family line was not one his family would traditionally greet with approval, then that was all to the good – who would doubt, that Ashford’s heart had been caught when his bride was so far beneath him?

His father had fallen for it through and through.

‘Are you certain you do not mind his announcing the engagement at your ball?’ Ashford asked his cousin now.

His Grace had landed upon the idea with a characteristic lack of consideration for the preferences of others – who was to say Lady Phoebe wished her party to be commandeered in such a way? – though, on this occasion, it rather played into Ashford’s hands. To have this week with Miss Hanworth, ahead of the announcement, to introduce their courtship to the ton, easing Miss Hanworth into the world that would soon be her everyday … It was a sensible strategy.

‘Not in the least. I only wish he could join us earlier,’ Phoebe said. ‘Oh, Ashford, I am thrilled for you!’

Ashford held her gaze with some difficulty. He did not enjoy lying, and to his cousin least of all, but it was a necessary evil. She was of the same ilk as his father, romantic to their very bones. They would not understand, not believe him, if he told them that a marriage of convenience was no great sacrifice. For him, it had always been about duty.

‘My only concern – a mere trifling question,’ Lady Phoebe went on, adjusting her skirts, ‘is whether she will know how to conduct herself, this week?’

‘Rather uppish of you, Phoebe,’ Ashford said.

Lady Phoebe flushed guiltily. ‘All I mean to say is that if she has never even been to Almack’s, are you not worried such an environment might be overwhelming?’

‘That is entirely the purpose of the invitation,’ he said. ‘When the engagement is announced, all eyes in England will be upon her so better she begins her education in relative anonymity.’

By the end of the week, he was confident he could give a solid enough performance that his father would have no qualms that this was a love match. He did not intend to debase himself – or embarrass Miss Hanworth – with lavish displays of affection for it would be entirely out of character. No, that would be quite unnecessary. From his observation of the sentiment, some people expressed love through subtler means: liberal smiles, solicitous behaviour, and a desire to spend time with one’s lady would suit well enough.

‘I do not mean to be churlish,’ Lady Phoebe rushed to assure him. ‘It is just … I have not been to a single party all spring; this week is important.’