Predictably, Mrs. Henry bustled in no more than a minute or two after the duke had left, openly agog with curiosity.
“You could have knocked me down with a feather when I opened the door, Miss Debbins,” she said as she bent to pick up the tea tray. “I had not heard that the viscount and his lady brought visitors back with them from London.”
“They did not. His Grace arrived today,” Dora said.
“And came to call so soon?” Mrs. Henry was rearranging the dishes on the tray. “I hope he did not bring any bad news about Lady Ponsonby.”
“Oh, no,” Dora said. “He was able to assure me that Agnes is well.”
“I did make a fresh pot of tea to bring in,” Mrs. Henry said, “but you did not call for it and I did not like to disturb you.”
“His Grace had tea at Middlebury Park,” Dora explained.
Mrs. Henry decided that the sugar bowl was not positioned to her liking on the tray, but after moving it and glancing at Dora, who was obviously not going to volunteer any more information, she removed the tray and closed the door behind her.
Dora set two fingers of each hand to her temples and imagined how her housekeeper would have reacted if she had been told that the Duke of Stanbrook had come to Middlebury Park for the specific purpose of calling here to propose marriage to her mistress. But Dora’s own mind could scarcely grapple with the reality of it. She was certainly not ready to share the news.
He knew about her mother. That was the first clear thought that formed in her mind. Agnes and Flavian must have told him. Or perhaps he had heard it from general drawing room gossip in London last year. He knew, yet he had still chosen to make her a marriage offer and wanted to wed her very publicly in London before the Season was over. He was even prepared to invite her mother to the wedding.
Did his status allow him to flout public opinion so?
For the whole of the evening and on into the night the fact that he would invite her mother if she wished churned about and about in Dora’s mind along with everything else that had happened after he stepped into her living room. Even the next morning the unreality of it all continued to distract her while she tried to give her full attention to Michael Perlman. He was one of her favorite pupils, a bright little boy of five whose plump fingers always flew over the keyboard of his mother’s harpsichord with amazing precision and musicality for one so young. His round little face always beamed with pleasure as he played, and he did so with such total absorption that he would start with surprise if she spoke. Michael Perlman was one she would miss.
Her mother had run away from their family with a younger man after Papa had accused them at a local assembly one evening of being lovers. In a dreadfully public scene that still had the power to haunt Dora’s dreams, he had accused Mama of adultery and declared his intention to divorce her. He had been drinking too deeply, something his family always dreaded though it did not happen often. When it did happen, he was almost invariably in company, and he would say or do horribly embarrassing things he would not dream of saying or doing when he was sober. His behavior that evening had been worse than usual, the worst ever, in fact, and Mama had fled and never come back. The threat of divorce had been carried out amid lengthy and terrible publicity. Dora had neither seen nor heard from her mother since the evening of that assembly. Nor had she wanted to, for her mother had fled with her lover, surely confirming Papa’s accusation. Dora’s own life had changed catastrophically and forever.
Last year, when the old scandal had threatened to rear its head again, Flavian had discovered where her and Agnes’s mother now lived and had called upon her. She had married the man with whom she had fled that night and they lived quite close to London. Agnes had chosen not to pursue the acquaintance, though she had told Dora about Flavian’s meeting with her.
The duke’s offer to invite her mother to their wedding had been the final straw for Dora when her mind had already been in a hopeless whirl. Good heavens, one minute she had been relaxing in her sitting room, too weary even to read, and thirty minutes later she was betrothed and discussing plans for her wedding in St. George’s, Hanover Square in London—with the Duke of Stanbrook.
Had she really had the effrontery to ask him to leave her house? Perhaps today he would consider his offer null and void. There was a note awaiting her on the tray in the hall when she returned home after the lesson. Her name was written on the outside in a firm and confident hand that was unmistakably masculine.
“A servant from Middlebury brought it,” Mrs. Henry said as she came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She hovered in the hall for a few moments, probably in the hope that Dora would open the note there and divulge its contents.
“You need not bring me coffee this morning, Mrs. Henry,” Dora said. “Mrs. Perlman was kind enough to send some in to the music room.”
She took the note into the sitting room and opened it without even sitting down or removing her bonnet and pelisse.
Her eyes moved first to the signature. Stanbrook, he had written in the same bold hand. She unconsciously held her breath as her eyes moved up the page. But he was not after all rescinding his offer—and how silly of her to fear that he might. The offer had been made and accepted, and no gentleman would withdraw from such a commitment. He had written that he understood she was to come to the house during the afternoon to give Vincent a lesson on the harp. He would do himself the honor, then, of coming to fetch her after luncheon. That was all. There was nothing of a personal nature.