Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(4)

Georgina couldn’t decide whether to shudder or laugh. “I’m not sure Papa would like it.” Her father had what could only be described as an uneven relationship with the pugs.

Her mother acknowledged this with a grimace. “Your father cannot wear that tabard at the ceremony,” she replied. “Nor will there be any drinking horns at the wedding breakfast.”

“No, Mama. I was thinking of something very simple. And modern.”

“Very right. Although…” She stopped a few paces away and blinked as if struck by a sudden thought. “What about a sword dance? Like those astonishing Highlanders at the last church fete. Your Sebastian is a soldier, after all.”

Georgina wasn’t certain how the two things connected. “Oh, well, I don’t know.” Setting aside this dispute for another day, she took her mother’s arm to urge her along the corridor.

Sebastian picked the two offending dogs off his legs once again. He held them up by their napes, glaring into first one, then another pair of bulging brown eyes. “You really must stop this,” he said to them. “It won’t do. These are not the manners of a nobleman’s household.” The pugs panted. They really did seem to be giving him mocking smiles. He was not imagining it. The larger dog looked positively gleeful. And unrepentant. He was obviously only waiting to be loosed so that he could go right back to what he’d been doing. “My father’s dogs would cringe with shame at the idea,” Sebastian told him.

A stifled giggle told Sebastian that he was under observation. Two young faces peered at him through the wooden stair rails. “Hello,” he said.

With this encouragement, two girls stood up and trotted down the steps. Golden-haired, in similar simple white dresses, they looked to be in their mid-to late teens. Their general resemblance to Georgina helped Sebastian recall that his fiancée had two sisters. There was a brother as well, he remembered, though he couldn’t bring any of their names to mind just now. He realized he was still holding the dogs. He set them down as far from his boots as he could reach.

“Hello,” said the taller, obviously elder girl. “I’m Emma.”

“I’m Hilda,” said the other. “It’s a hideous Anglo-Saxon name.”

With the intensity of obsession, the two dogs sought to return to his boots. The others continued to mill about Sebastian’s feet, snuffling and yapping as he sidestepped to evade their leaders’ attentions.

“Our mother breeds pugs,” said the younger girl, with no trace of embarrassment over the creatures’ behavior. “They’re very popular. She sells them for fabulous sums.”

“You’re Lord Sebastian,” said the other. “Here to marry Georgina.”

“Finally,” said Hilda.

Sebastian did not often find himself at a loss in social situations. Although never a wit like his brother Robert, he’d found that a warm smile and a compliment could get him through just about anything. But he was nearly at a standstill by this time, and mightily relieved to see Georgina coming down the stairs with a small, older woman in tow. As soon as the latter’s foot touched the stone floor, all the dogs flowed over to surround her. They sat about her feet like a spreading skirt, as if the deity of their little world had arrived. Sebastian heaved a sigh of relief.

“Emma, Hilda, go and fetch Papa,” Georgina said.

She still didn’t sound quite like herself, Sebastian thought. It began to worry him.

“Can’t you just ring?” asked Emma.

Georgina cut her off with a look. The two girls trailed out through a door in the back of the hall as she said, “Mama, this is Sebastian. Sebastian, my mother.”

He made his best bow, sweeping off the hat that no one had taken as yet. “Very pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

Charlotte, Marchioness of Pembridge, looked him up and down. “He’s a handsome lad,” she remarked in a surprisingly resonant voice. Not at all what one expected from such a little woman. “But then he comes of good stock. How is your mother?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“I met her in Bath. It must be, oh, more than twenty years ago now. It was just before I accepted Alfred’s offer. She had the whole raft of you lads with her. Quite a good breeder. A real run of boys, eh?”

Sebastian could think of no reply to this. He cast a glance at Georgina. She wasn’t looking at him. He settled for the smile that usually had a good effect on females. Human females, that is.

“Perhaps I’ll send her one of my puppies, now that we’re all to be family.”

It was obvious that she thought this a great favor. Sebastian knew better than to mention that the duchess disliked lapdogs—particularly pugs, he recalled.

“Are you fond of dogs?” Georgina’s mother asked him.

This one was easy. “Yes, indeed. Of course.”

“Here is Papa,” said Georgina.

Her sisters were back with a big man, nearly as tall as Sebastian. The marquess was square jawed and deep chested, his blond hair in an odd bowl cut. Green eyes twinkled out at Sebastian from under thick brows. Long, drooping mustaches half hid a smile. He wore a hip-length white shirt with wide sleeves over buckskin breeches and top boots. His waist was cinched with a wide leather belt holding a sheathed dagger. Was it some sort of costume? Sebastian wondered.