Once Upon a Maiden Lane (Maiden Lane #12.5)(42)

“I accept your invitation to dine,” Radnor said, reeling in his line. “To do otherwise would leave Lady Glenys to endure a tongue-lashing at table, which thought my gallant nature shudders to contemplate.”

“Your gallant nature wants to brag about your success as an angler.”

Radnor was being kind, ensuring Julian would have an ally when Glenys maundered on regarding her plan to end Julian’s bachelorhood. Radnor meant well, Glenys meant well, the damned trout had probably meant well, drat the lot of them.

Julian had his own plan for ensuring the succession, and according to that plan, hunting for a duchess would begin in approximately eight years and seven months, assuming no radical fluctuations in market conditions occurred.

A costly, pointless house party did not figure into his plans at all.

He and Radnor walked in silence toward Haverford Castle’s back terrace. The prospect across the gardens was lovely and should have been soothing. Unlike many titled landholders, Julian had not ripped up his ancestors’ formal parterres to replace them with an artificial—and astronomically expensive—wilderness landscape. His gardens were old-fashioned, and a duchess would consider redesigning them just one of the exorbitant projects she was entitled to undertake.

The indignant trout came to mind, thrashing his heart out to preserve his freedom.

“The young ladies invited to this house party will exhaust themselves trying to gain my notice,” Julian said. So would their mamas, if the gathering ran true to tiresome form. “Glenys will also have to invite a suitable number of bachelors. That suggests I can turn the gathering to a more worthy purpose.”

“Where young ladies gather, there are also chaperones, widowed mamas, and other delights. Is that the more worthy purpose you refer to?”

“Your imagination suffers a sad want of variety, my friend.”

“A sad want of variety characterizes your social life,” Radnor countered. “You’re suggesting that Lady Glenys’s attempt to find you a duchess will end in her ladyship’s own engagement?”

Radnor was a quick study, for all his cheerfulness. “Precisely. Glenys should have chosen a husband five years ago.” Though how much more bleak would the past five years have been, without her company and good humor?

“Lady Glenys will doubtless have a score of offers by the end of the first week,” Radnor said. “No man with any sense tarries in London during the heat of summer, and the daughters of dukes—much less lovely, sensible, gracious daughters of dukes—are rare marital prizes.”

Julian ignored the wistful quality of Radnor’s compliment, just as Glenys ignored every flirtation and lure Radnor pitched at her.

“My sister will have offers, and I shall ensure one of them is the right offer. The solution is clear: We must make a list.”

The marquess stopped and set the end of his pole on the ground. “Not another list.”

“Organization and determination have bested many a challenge,” Julian retorted, without breaking stride. “Glenys has sent out her invitations. I’ll simply send out a few of my own.”

On the remaining half-mile hike to the castle, Julian suggested names, all of which Radnor took exception to. This man was a gambler, though handsome. That one had a solid fortune, but no sense of humor.

“Why don’t you offer for her?” Julian asked, as they approached the back of the castle.

“You are hopeless, Haverford. One doesn’t offer unless the lady has expressed a desire for one’s company. I’m Lady Glenys’s spare project. When she tires of managing you and Griffin, she manages me. It’s…sweet and vexing as hell.”

“Rather like marriage, I suppose.”

The sweet part was tempting. Julian was thirty-six years old, and yet the dukedom could not at present afford a duchess. She loomed in Julian’s future as a reward for years of hard work and self-discipline, and by God, he would choose carefully and well when finances permitted him that indulgence.

Across the back terrace, a table had been set for the midday meal. Lady Glenys occupied one of three chairs beneath the white canopy, and busied herself arranging a pot of daisies in the center of the table.

“If you think to distract me with a picnic, Glenys, think again,” Julian said, brushing a kiss to her cheek. “We are not through discussing this house party of yours.”

She shared the height, dark hair, and swooping eyebrows that had been a hallmark of the St. Davids for generations. Her eyes were hazel, while Julian’s were green, and this for some reason made her jealous.

At present those hazel eyes were turned on him in a transparent facsimile of innocence. “Dock my pin money, if you must, Haverford. I am determined to have my way in this, and nobody is more determined than a St. David. Radnor, apologies for mentioning finances before a guest.”

Nobody was more determined than a St. David duke, but even he couldn’t put on a respectable house party with mere pin money.

“Now I’m a guest,” Radnor said, bowing over Glenys’s proffered hand, “after having run tame in this castle since I was in dresses. I’m onto your tricks, my lady. You’re summoning half the unmarried women in England to fawn over your brother, when in fact, it’s my matrimonial prospects that will be imperiled. Not well done of you.”

Glenys snatched her hand back, pink staining her cheeks. “Haverford, please dispense with those fish. Elfryd, see to the sporting accoutrements.”