She and the duke turned between the gates into the private park about Middlebury but did not remain for long on the main driveway. Instead, the duke turned them to their left to walk among the trees that bordered the southern wall of the park, and there was an instant impression of peace and seclusion. The light of the sun was muted by the branches and the canopy of green leaves overhead. There were the lovely smells of earth and greenery, something Dora had never noticed in her many walks along the driveway.
It struck her suddenly, just as though one of the shafts of sunlight penetrating the trees had shone directly into her mind, that she was happy. It was a strange realization, perhaps, for she had lived most her life with the conscious determination to be contented with her life. She had never allowed herself to dwell upon any of the factors that might have made her unhappy. But she knew in these moments, as they enjoyed their surroundings in a companionable silence, that she had never known true happiness until now.
She felt it with an inner bubbling of exuberant joy. All her dreams were suddenly, unexpectedly coming true, even if it was happening twenty years later than she had once hoped. That did not matter, though. Nothing mattered but the fact that it was happening at last. It was happening now. She wondered how the duke would react if she removed her hand from his arm and twirled about, her arms stretched to the sides, her face turned up to the distant sky, song and laughter on her lips. She smiled at the bizarre image of herself the thought provoked and lowered her chin so that he would not see beyond her bonnet brim.
But something needed to be addressed before they went any farther.
“I would rather we did not invite my mother to the wedding,” she said abruptly.
“Then we will not.” He set a hand over hers on his arm and looked down at her. “You must provide me with a list of the people you do wish to invite, Miss Debbins, and I will put it into my secretary’s capable hands with my own list the moment I return to London within the next couple of days.”
So soon? The next couple of days?
“I wish to arrange for the first banns to be read next Sunday,” he explained, “if, that is, I am not rushing you too much. But having conceived the idea of marrying, and having secured your consent to my offer, I am now all impatience to have the deed done.”
Could he possibly know how sweet those words sounded to her ears?
“I will make a list when I return home,” she said. “It will be a very short one, though.”
“Then you must tell me,” he said, “whether you wish my list to be equally short. I really do not care how small or how large our wedding is, provided only that you and I are there with the requisite number of witnesses to make all legal.”
“Oh,” she said, and was conscious of a certain disappointment.
Perhaps he saw it in her face.
“But if you have no strong preference either way,” he continued, “may I reinforce a suggestion I made yesterday? You told me then that you could not possibly be a duchess. Until you said that, I had thought only of persuading you that perhaps you would care to marry me. I had forgotten that I must also convince you to marry that formidable being, the Duke of Stanbrook. I suppose I take him for granted because he has been with me for a long time. But though I hope we will spend most of our married life at Penderris, there will undoubtedly be times when I must be in London, and I most certainly would not wish to leave you behind in the country. You also told me yesterday that you have never been to London or mingled with the ton. Perhaps the best time to do both is now during the month leading up to our wedding and during the wedding itself—the grand wedding, that is. Will you come to London, if not with me during the next day or two, at least soon after? Your sister and Flavian are still there. So are most of the other Survivors, and I fully expect that Sophia and Vincent will return there too. Let them all introduce you about town. Let me do likewise as soon as our betrothal has been officially announced. Let me organize a betrothal party.”
They had stopped walking and she had drawn her arm free of his. He stood looking down at her, his hands clasped at his back, kindness and concern in his eyes.
“Oh,” she said again.
“But it is a mere suggestion,” he said. “I am your servant, Miss Debbins. All will be as you wish.”
Dora was strongly tempted to take the coward’s way out and choose the quietest of weddings in London after all—or even perhaps a wedding here at the church where Agnes had married Flavian last year. But . . .
London?
During the Season?
As the betrothed of the Duke of Stanbrook and the sister-in-law of Viscount Ponsonby and the friend of the Earl of Berwick, who was now also a duke, and Baron Trentham and Sir Benedict Harper and Viscount Darleigh and the Countess of Hardford?
It was the stuff of which dreams were made. It was the stuff of which fairy tales were made.
“There is no need to be frightened,” he said.
“Oh, I am not frightened,” she assured him. “A little overwhelmed, perhaps—again. But you are quite right. If I am to be your wife, then I needs must be your duchess too. Besides, I have always thought it must be lovely to attend the theater in London, to stroll in Hyde Park, to waltz at a real ball. Am I too old for that?”
His smile had turned to real amusement. “Do you have the rheumatics in both knees, Miss Debbins?”
“No!” She was a little shocked at his open reference to her knees.
“Neither do I,” he said. “Perhaps we can contrive to waltz together in some dark corner of some dark ballroom without making too much of a spectacle of ourselves.”