“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.