Four of them married in little more than a year.
Ralph did not resent any of the marriages. He liked all four of the wives and thought it probable that each marriage would turn out well. Although in truth, he knew he must reserve judgment upon Flavian’s, since it had happened so recently and so abruptly, and Flave was a bit unstable at the best of times, having suffered head injuries and memory loss during battle.
What Ralph did resent was change—a foolish resentment, but one he could not seem to help. He certainly did not resent his friends’ happiness. Quite the contrary. What he did resent, perhaps—though resentment might be the wrong word—was that he had been left behind. Not that he wanted to be married. And not that he believed in happiness, marital or otherwise. Not for himself, anyway. But he had been left behind. Four of the others had found their way forward. Soon he would be married too—there was going to be no escaping that fate. It was his duty to marry and produce heirs. But he could not expect the happiness or even the contentment his friends had found.
He was incapable of love—of feeling it or giving it or wanting it.
Whenever he said as much to the Survivors, one or another of them would remind him quite emphatically that he loved them, and it was true, much as he shied away from using that exact word. He loved his family too. But the word love had so many meanings that it was in fact virtually meaningless. He had deep attachments to certain people, but he knew he was incapable of love, that something special that held together a good marriage and sometimes even made it a happy one.
There were a few social commitments he was forced to break after his grandmother’s letter arrived, though none that caused him any deep regret. He sent his apologies to the relevant people, wrote a brief letter to his mother, who was in town and might expect him to call, and set out for Sussex and Manville Court in his curricle despite the fact that it was a brisk day in early May and there was even the threat of rain. He never traveled by closed carriage when he could help it. His baggage followed in a coach with his valet, though he doubted he would have much need of either. His grandmother would be too eager to say her piece and quickly send him back to London with all its parties and balls and eligible brides.
Unless Grandpapa really was ill, that was.
Ralph felt an uncomfortable lurching of the stomach at the thought. The duke was a very old man, and everyone must die at some time, but he could not face the prospect of losing his grandfather. Not yet. He did not want to be the head of his family, with no one above him and no one below. There was a horrible premonition of loneliness in the thought.
As if life was not an inherently lonely business.
He arrived in the middle of the afternoon, having stopped only once to change horses and partake of refreshments, and having been fortunate enough not to get held up at any toll booths or to get behind any slow-moving vehicles on narrow stretches of road. The front doors of Manville stood open despite the fact that the afternoon was not much warmer than the morning had been. Obviously he was expected, and there was Weller, his grandfather’s elderly butler, standing in the doorway and bowing from the waist when Ralph glanced up at him. He was not looking particularly anxious—not that Weller ever displayed extreme emotions. But surely he would have done if Grandpapa were at his last gasp.
And then his grandfather himself appeared behind Weller’s shoulder and the butler stepped smartly aside.
“Harrumph,” the duke said—a characteristic sound that fell somewhere between a word and throat clearing—as Ralph relinquished the ribbons to a groom and took the steps up to the doors two at a time. “Making a filial visit just as the London Season is swinging into action, are you, Berwick? Because you could not go another day without a sight of Her Grace’s face, I daresay?”
“Good to see you, sir.” Ralph grinned at him and took the duke’s bony, arthritic hand in his own. “How are you?”
“I suppose Her Grace wrote to tell you I was at death’s door,” the old man said. “I daresay I am, but I have not knocked upon it or set a toe over the doorsill yet, Berwick. Just a bit of a cough and a bit of gout, both the results of good living. Well, if you were sent for, you will be expected upstairs. We had better not keep the duchess waiting.”
He led the way up to the drawing room. The butler was already stationed outside the double doors when they got there, and he flung them open so that the two men could enter together.
The duchess, who looked more like a little bird—a fierce little bird—every time Ralph saw her, was seated beside the fire. She nodded graciously as Ralph strode across the room to bend over her and kiss her offered cheek.
“Grandmama,” he said. “I trust you are well?”
She glanced at the duke. “This is a pleasant surprise, Ralph,” she said.
“Quite so,” he agreed. “I thought I would run down for a day or two to see how you did. And Grandpapa too, of course.”
“I must have the tea tray brought up,” she said, looking vaguely about her as though expecting it to materialize from thin air.
“Allow me to ring the bell, Your Grace,” a lady who was sitting farther back from the fire said, getting to her feet and moving toward the bell rope.
“Oh, thank you, my dear,” the duchess said. “You are always most thoughtful. This is my grandson, the Earl of Berwick. Miss Muirhead, Ralph. She is staying with me for a while, and very thankful I am for her company.”
It was said graciously, and for one startled moment Ralph thought that perhaps he had been brought here to consider the guest as his prospective bride. But he could see that she was no young girl. She might even be older than he. She was not dressed in the first stare of fashion either. She was tall and on the slender side with a pale complexion and what looked like a dusting of freckles across her nose. She might have looked like a faded thing, or at least a fading thing, if it had not been for her hair, which was thick and plentiful and as bright a red as Ralph had ever seen on a human head.