The Duke I'm Going to Marry(49)

“A wise decision.” He started for the door, and then halted. “By the way, if you or my cousins ever make mention of Mary or Felicity again, I will cut off your funds.” In addition to cutting off my cousins’ balls. He hadn’t bothered to issue that threat because if given the choice of which to lose, their manhood or their money, his cousins would have sacrificed their manhood. “You will mention it to Simon and Edmund, won’t you?”

She rose with a start. “You wouldn’t dare cut us off! Who cares about your father’s by-blow or her wretched offspring? The infant is an affront to the sanctity of my marriage. Your beloved father—”

“Right, my sainted father.” The man who hadn’t spoken to him since the day James died. The man who’d cheated on his mother, just as she had cheated on her father throughout their perfect marriage. He pinned her with a warning glare. “The rumors stop. Starting now.”


***

Dillie had arranged to pick up Daisy on her way to their monthly sisters meeting, which was to be held at Rose’s townhouse. The monthly meeting had lately become a weekly meeting, and would have become a daily meeting if Dillie had her way. She was in desperate need of advice from her all-knowing married sisters.

Despite Ian’s assurances that the ton’s most eligible young men would be tripping over themselves to court her—well, he’d been right about that—none of them were in the least interesting to her. Was she the problem? Or were they? She needed to be told whether her standards were unrealistically high or her suitors as unimpressive as she’d thought them.

“Unremarkable” was the term Lady Withnall had used. It was an apt description of the gentlemen calling on her. However, Dillie gave a small shiver, for she hoped never to end up as withered and mean-spirited as that old woman.

“Play us a song before you leave,” her young cousin Charles said, tugging on her arm. She’d brought him and a few other cousins along for the ride to Daisy’s. They would remain in the care of Ivy’s nanny while she and Daisy visited Rose.

Her other young cousins, Lizbeth and Harry, chimed in with their pleas. “The shoemaker song,” Lizbeth said, referring to a silly tune Dillie had made up on a lark last year. The children adored the easy refrain. Clip, clop. Clip, clop, went the shoemaker’s wooden shoes.

Dillie quickly gave in, for she couldn’t refuse them anything when they stared at her with their big, innocent eyes. She knew there was plenty of time to indulge the children, for Daisy was still in her morning gown and had run upstairs to ready herself only moments ago.

She soon found herself in Daisy’s music room, walking over to the piano. Charles, Harry, and Lizbeth began to squeal in anticipation the moment she sat down and tickled the keys. Lizbeth jumped up and down in front of her. Dillie laughed. Ah, she loved her adoring public, even if that public comprised three youngsters who were family and therefore required to feign raptures over her talent. “There was an old shoemaker,” Lizbeth began to sing.

Harry, the youngest, joined in.

Dillie counted only two voices. “Charles, won’t you sing along?” Charles, all of eight years old, had suddenly turned quite serious.

In truth, it was in his nature to be quiet and reserved. One rarely got a squeal out of this young man.

Lizbeth, on the other hand, was rarely quiet. She was now about twelve, approaching that awkward age between child and young woman, and as to be expected, responded to everything with joyful excitement or abject tears of sorrow. Dillie hoped she would grow out of it in time.

Harry was the youngest and a very grownup five. Unfortunately, he’d been forced to deal with serious matters quite early on, for his father had died in Napoleon’s war. Gabriel and Daisy had helped him get through the loss. Harry chose that moment to cast her a beaming smile. Dillie felt a happy twinge in her heart.

“May I sing?” Charles asked, as though he required permission to let loose with his vocal talents.

“Of course you may. The song is meant to be sung by a trio.”

“But Aunt Sophie,” he said, referring to Dillie’s mother, “told us not to be a bother.”

Dillie returned his earnest gaze with one of her own. “You never are to me. I love having you with me.”

“Are you certain?” Speaking to Charles was like being put on the witness stand and hounded with questions. He’d make a fine barrister someday. “You were told to bring us here,” he said in his precise way, “because we’ve lost our nannies again. We’re to stay with Ivy and her nanny for today.”

“So you see, it worked out perfectly. I wanted to bring you along. I didn’t need to be asked.”