“Then an escort you shall have.” With that, he strode back in the direction of a big gray. Already Iris was attuned to the pattern of his footfalls, already she was tempted to watch his retreat.
Hattie patted her hand. “It could be worse. He could be a madcap buffoon like that Berringer fellow, flaunting his lightskirts before proper society. He could be cruel, stupid, slovenly, or a drunkard. The earl knew what he was about when he unearthed that letter from the previous duke. At least one of Falmouth’s daughters will end up with a happily ever after.”
Iris gave the reins a shake.
CHAPTER 3
ONE THING WAS CERTAIN, Falmouth had a daughter worth further consideration as Clonmere’s duchess. Lady Iris was sensible, brave, self-possessed, and pretty. Not pretty in a loud, look-at-me way, but pretty in a quiet, I-am-a-duchess way.
She, however, had not looked at Clonmere as if he were her duke. This was unusual. Word had gone out among Mama’s cronies and correspondents that Clonmere must find a duchess. He was besieged by sweet young things, by their widowed mothers, by their ambitious chaperones.
While Lady Iris had driven away without sparing him so much as a glance.
Clonmere steered Boru to Lady Iris’s side of the carriage, prepared to earn her notice as something more than an untangler of carriage wheels.
“Were you aware that we might become family?” he asked.
She wrinkled her nose. “One must exercise discretion discussing such a topic in public, Your Grace.”
“No, one must not. If the matchmakers, merry widows, and debutantes were any more determined in their efforts to drag me to the altar, you’d see harpoons protruding from my backside.”
Was that a twitch of the lips? “You poor, beleaguered dear.”
“I’m hounded, I tell you. I’ve been waltzed to exhaustion, partnered at whist until my exchequer is down to two bent farthings, and musicale’d to the point that one more
“Lily is
The companion or cousin was smiling at her reticule. Clonmere took courage from that, for a companion would know Lady Iris well.
Clonmere hoped to know her very well. “Why did Falmouth tell me he had only three daughters?”
Was Lady Iris engaged? The thought was unacceptable, for reasons Clonmere wouldn’t examine until he’d been fortified with solitude and a tot of good French brandy.
“I am the earl’s secret weapon,” Lady Iris said. “I am to spy on you, and learn everything about you.”
“Novel approach to spying, announcing the fact in broad daylight where I’m told one must ever exercise discretion.”
“I thought that business about tangling my carriage with Mr. Unbearable’s was a clever touch,” Lady Iris said. “Creative of me, don’t you think?”
Boru craned his neck to sniff the mare’s rump. The mare batted him in the face with her tail.
“Behave,” Clonmere muttered, shortening the reins. “So what secrets would you like to learn? I wet the bed until I was six. My siblings delight in that fact and announce it to all and sundry as often as possible. Formal dinners, fancy dress balls, the more public the better. I endure this stoically, because I will have my revenge by tattling to their children about all manner of peccadillos. I don’t smoke, I do prefer coffee to tea, particularly coffee with a touch of cinnamon in it.”
He’d never told a woman that last tidbit before, though it was hardly intimate.
“And your favorite color?”
“Who is your favorite composer?”
“Robert Burns. I don’t fancy blaring horns and thumping kettle drums. Give me a pair of fiddles in close harmony and a tune I can recall over breakfast. Tell me about your sisters.”
She turned the mare down a less crowded path. “They are lovely young women. They’ve been raised to be gracious hostesses, conscientious wives, and virtuous women. You should esteem all of them greatly.”
This recitation was not grudging at all. To the contrary, Lady Iris offered her summation sternly, and few people ever spoke to Clonmere sternly.
Lady Iris was protective of her family, a fine quality in a prospective duchess.
“Your sisters are Lily, Holly and Hyacinth. Lily being the eldest, the twins two years her junior. Tell me their favorite colors, how they take their tea, their greatest sources of worry.”
Clonmere told himself he really ought to keep an open mind. Lady Iris was impressive, but her younger sisters might be equally so, or even more so. She described them in glowing and loving terms, right down to their respective fears.
