The Unexpected Duchess(45)

Jane rolled her eyes. “I’m not interested in that way. I simply want to know for Lucy’s sake.”

“Me too,” Cass agreed.

Lucy pulled her cloak over her shoulders. “I find it quite suspect. In all these years, Garret, you’ve never introduced me to any of your friends. Trying to get rid of me finally?”

“I have a strict rule. I don’t try to matchmake with my friends. I suspect it’s one reason my friends are still my friends. I am making an exception in this case because Berkeley specifically mentioned to me that he wanted to meet you. I am now asking you if you’re interested in meeting him. That is the extent of my involvement in this little affair.”

Lucy snorted. “You never answered my question. Why have I never met him before?”

Garrett shrugged. “Because he lives in the North and rarely comes to town.”

Lucy nodded sagely. “Ah, he must not have heard the rumors about me.”

“He must have heard rumors that you are beautiful,” Jane said. “That’s why he wants to meet you, Lucy.”

“Oh, how sweet of you, Janie. And here all this time, all I’ve needed to do was to wait for gentlemen who’d never come to London,” Lucy replied. “It’s been so simple, really.”

“Or those back from the war,” Jane said. Lucy and Jane exchanged a glance.

“He doesn’t have a goiter on his neck or a clubfoot or anything, does he, Garret?” Jane asked.

Garrett pulled on his leather gloves. “No, why do you ask?”

“We merely want to ensure that Lucy may actually want to meet him,” Jane pointed out.

Lucy sniffed. “I can’t be such a chooser. A goiter and a clubfoot may end up being my fate what with my prospects. Neither sounds particularly bad at present.”

“He has neither,” Garrett replied, shaking his head. “Honestly, the way you ladies talk, I swear it’s a wonder any matches are made in this country at all.”

“You’ll notice that no matches have been made for the three of us,” Jane added with a laugh.

“Coincidence?” Garrett shot back.

Cass finished with her own pelisse. “No goiter and no clubfoot. Sounds entirely promising, Lucy.”

“But how do we know our friend Lucy here won’t chase the poor man off, as usual?” Jane said with a laugh.

“Because her cousin has recommended him. He cannot be objectionable, given that,” Cass replied with a nod.

Lucy laughed. “I’ve no objection to meeting him, but let’s not plan my wedding quite yet. And if I’m to curb my tongue, you must help me, Cass.”

“My pleasure,” Cass replied with a curtsy.

Lucy smiled at her cousin. “Come now, Garrett, there must be something wrong with your Lord Berkeley. What is it?”

“There is nothing wrong with him,” Garrett insisted. “He’s handsome, or so the ladies always say, he’s dashing, fashionable, wealthy, well educated. He may be a bit … Oh, you’ll see for yourself.”

“A bit what?” Jane asked. “Gouty? Old? Smelly?”

Garrett rolled his eyes again. “None of those things. And I’m finished talking about this. I already wish I’d never brought it up.”

“Who is gouty, old, and smelly?” Aunt Mary came hurrying out of her rooms to join them.

“No one, Mother,” Garrett said, giving the other three a warning glare.

The three ladies exchanged laughing looks as the butler held open the door for them and they all trotted down the steps and climbed into Garrett’s coach.

Once they arrived at the Assembly Rooms their little group seemed to scatter to the four winds. The Duke of Claringdon was there, Lucy noted with some ire, but she refused, refused, to acknowledge him or to go anywhere near him—or Cass for that matter, if he was speaking to Cass. It was the first opportunity to test her self-imposed abstinence from the matter of Cass and the duke, and she meant to stand by her resolve.

Lucy was tapping her slipper in time to the music, drinking a glass of punch, and having a lovely conversation with Mrs. Periwinkle about the flowers in the gardens along the Upper Crescent when Garrett tapped her on the shoulder.

“Lucy.”

She stopped tapping and turned at the sound of her cousin’s voice. “Yes?”

Standing beside Garrett was a gentle man who could be described as nothing other than gorgeous. He had golden hair, crystal blue eyes, and a physique any man would admire. Tall and muscled with a bit of a cleft in his chin, when he smiled at her, his perfectly aligned white teeth twinkled in the firelight. Ooh, in addition to having neither a goiter nor a clubfoot, it seemed Lord Berkeley was, in fact, amazingly good looking. Lucy felt a bit light-headed.