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 duke.”
“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.”