Page 16 of 1797 Club 2nd Epilogue Collection (The 1797 Club #11)

L ucas Vincent, Duke of Willowby, watched from a few steps away as his wife of twenty-five years smoothed an errant curl from their daughter’s forehead.

Imogene looked so much like her mother. She had inherited Diana’s dark red hair and high cheekbones, but she had Lucas’s eyes and the dark brown danced, just as his own danced whenever he was with his wife.

“Mama!” he heard her protest with a laugh as Imogene shot him a look.

He moved toward them with a wide smile. “I see my girl needs rescuing from her well-meaning mother.” He put an arm around Diana as she shot him a playfully dark glare.

“Saving?” she said with a snort. “Well, I never.”

“Mama, it’s the healer in you,” Imogene said. “You never shut off your very lovely, but occasionally overbearing need to help.”

Diana’s cheeks flushed slightly. “Very well, I admit I sometimes fuss. Go on then, I see several of your friends tapping their toes anxiously awaiting your company. ”

Imogene grinned and then leaned forward to buss her mother’s cheek. “Thank you, Mama!”

“Save a dance for me,” Lucas called out as she hustled away.

“Of course, Papa!” she called back and then she was gone into the crowd toward her friends.

Lucas squeezed Diana a little tighter before he turned her toward him. “You only get overprotective like this when you’re spiraling away in your head. Do you want to talk about it?”

Diana stared up at him and for a moment there was no one else around in the crowded ballroom but her. It was always that way, always had been. And he loved that through time and trouble and love and laughter, she still took his breath away.

“I…I was working in my apothecary hut earlier today, making some cuttings and drying some herbs for poultices when I stumbled upon the little rock that Rowen painted for Mirabelle years ago.”

Lucas caught his breath. Rowen was their son, two years younger than Imogene.

At present he was away in the country visiting the estate of their good friend, the Duke of Abernathe.

And Mirabelle was the daughter Diana had lost at birth years before she’d met Lucas.

They had always raised their children with a knowledge of her, and a love for their half-sister, who would have been twenty-six if she had lived past her first breath.

“Love,” he said gently. “I wish you had said something.”

She gave a wobbly smile. “It is a good sadness to miss her, and we were busy preparing for the ball. But I thought about the fact that she and her sister would have been laughing and dancing and preparing together. Unless she was already married by now. Lord, she probably would have even given us grandchildren by now.”

“There are a great deal of what-ifs, I know,” Lucas said and leaned in to kiss her temple. “And wishes for what could have been for her.”

Diana nodded and then she straightened a little and smoothed her gown. “I am sure I’ll have a longer cry about it later, but I don’t want to spoil the night.” She touched his arm. “Are you up for a dance with me before you take a turn with our dear daughter later?”

Lucas caught her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. “Most definitely.”

As one song ended and the next began, they added themselves to the line of dancers readying themselves on the floor.

It was a country dance that played and Lucas fought not to flinch as he made the first turn.

When he and Diana had first met, he had been terribly injured, nearly killed.

His wounds had healed thanks to her intervention, but there was still pain, especially when he was forced to do certain motions.

He knew she saw the flutter of discomfort over his face when he extended his bad arm or put extra weight on his damaged leg.

She arched a brow but said nothing. Still, he knew he was going to receive a bit of healing from her later.

Something he looked forward to, as her sliding her hands over his flesh to ease his muscles almost always ended with their bodies tangled and her sighs of pleasure echoing in his ears.

They continued through the dance and he saw her tension bleed away as she laughed at the merriment of the song and the good company amongst those who shared their circle for the dance. God, how he loved that laugh. Loved that smile. Loved everything about her and the life they had shared.

The music finally came to an end and they all bowed to the others and then he took her hand and together they left the floor. She smiled up at him. “How much does it hurt?”

“Not much,” he said.

She shook her head. “My poor liar.”

“I will have you know that I’m a very good liar, as you well know I made a living out of that very thing for years in the War Department.”

She shook her head. She, too, had worked with him on many cases after their marriage. It had been a very long time though. They were happily retired.

“Well, you could never lie to me,” she said .

“No, never that. I wouldn’t risk it,” he replied with a wink.

“I’ll fetch us some drinks. See if you can find a pillar to lean on and look mysterious and handsome.” She patted his hand and disappeared into the crowd.

He laughed as he looked for exactly what she had suggested.

He had once fought the idea of making accommodations for his disabilities, but over the years Diana had insisted and time and her love had made him realize that needing help didn’t make him weak.

He took a place with his back to a pillar and had begun to watch the dancers who had next come to the floor when he caught a glimpse of Imogene entering the fray on the arm of a young man.

He scanned his mind for the information of her partner.

Henry Cosgrove, second son of Viscount Cosgrove.

A handsome young man, with light brown hair and dark blue eyes, he was three years older than Imogene.

They clasped hands and Lucas couldn’t help but notice the way Cosgrove’s thumb slid across the top of her gloved hand before they stepped into the dance.

“Your brow is wrinkled,” Diana said as she returned to him and held out a cup of punch.

“That is because I’m old,” he said, teasing without thinking, even as he watched their daughter continue her dance.

“We may be advancing in years, yes, but that isn’t why your forehead is wrinkled.” Diana took a sip of her drink. “What is troubling you?”

Lucas motioned his head toward the dance floor. “Imogene is dancing with Viscount Cosgrove’s son.”

Diana followed his gaze and he knew the moment she found Imogene because her own forehead wrinkled. She drew in a shallow breath. “Yes, Henry, the second son.”

“She seems to dance with him every ball or gathering,” Lucas said. “Sometimes twice.”

Diana nodded and glanced up at him. “And you say I’m over-protective.”

“I suppose we both are. We know loss. ”

“That we do. Are you concerned about him?” she asked.

He didn’t answer for a moment as he watched the two turn around the floor.

It was a waltz and the pair were somewhat close.

“Not specifically,” he said. “I know that his father is rather worthless, both in behavior and in finance. But I should know better than to judge a man based on his family.” He thought briefly of his own parents, both long gone now. Both terrible in their own right.

Diana nodded. “Yes. But I suppose one must be careful. After all, Imogene has a well-known fortune to be settled upon her once she weds. None of us should be na?ve about what that could invite." She looked a little harder and then her breath caught.

“What is it?” Lucas asked.

She glanced at him. “She…she likes him. Very much.”

He looked toward their daughter again and found her talking and smiling at Cosgrove, but no more so than she seemed to do with other gentlemen who took her for a turn around the ballroom since her coming out years ago. But he didn’t doubt Diana’s observational skills.

“More than others? Why do you think so?”

“It was the way she looked at him when he briefly looked away into the crowd,” Diana said. “It’s the same way I look at you.”

He brought his stare back to her and smiled despite the troubling subject. “Then it’s very serious.”

“I think it might be,” she agreed. She worried her lip. “Perhaps we should…investigate the young man.”

His brows lifted. “You and I have not put on the cloak of spies for years. Not since Stalwood died and William took the crown.”

“I do miss Stalwood,” Diana said, her face falling a little at the mention of their old spymaster and friend.

“But we have the resources to do a little searching about the young man. If he’s true and makes an offer that Imogene wishes to accept, we’ll be able to happily agree.

And if he has ulterior motives in pursuing her, we can begin to gently turn her from the idea of him if she’s beginning to become attached. ”

“As easy as that?” Lucas said with a shake of his head.

“Probably not,” Diana conceded. “But it’s still better than waiting until a request for courtship or marriage is made to begin the investigation.”

“You’re correct,” he said. “As always. Perhaps I can begin by dancing with her once he is through with her.”

Diana nodded. “Yes, but don’t push her. Let’s do some work before we press. She’s far too clever not to notice our sudden interest and that could cause more problems than solve.”

“Very well,” he said as he lifted her hand to kiss the knuckles. “I will speak to her of nothing more interesting than the weather.”

She laughed as he headed into the crowd to wait for Imogene but he knew the look in her eyes.

Diana was concerned. And so was he. But if there was one thing that had always been true, it was that they worked well as a team and they would figure out the truth of a matter if they put their heads together.

D iana always noticed the way that Lucas slightly favored his left arm and his right leg.

It didn’t matter that two and a half decades had gone by when he first arrived at her doorstep in terrible shape, she still worried about him pushing too hard.

But she trusted him to know the signs that he needed a rest. At present, as he turned Imogene around the dance floor, he didn’t seem to be exhibiting any of them.

She couldn’t help but smile. She did love to see him with their children.

He’d been hesitant to start a family all those years ago, as he hadn’t had much good influence in that arena.

But he had been a wonderful father, loving and kind to both their children.

They had both healed their own troubled pasts through doing things differently and she loved their little family to distraction.

Which was why she would do anything in her power to protect it.

“You look very serious,” came a voice behind her and Diana turned with a smile for Sarah, Duchess of Kingsacre. She was the wife of Kit, one of Lucas’s old friends from their long-ago duke club. The women they had each married had become like sisters just as the men were like brothers.

“And you look beautiful,” Diana said, putting her arm around her friend. “As you always do.”

Sarah blushed and looked down at her gown. “Phoebe picked this fabric out for my birthday last winter. I do adore it.”

“She’ll be having her baby soon, yes?”

“Her second. And though she is Kit’s sister, it’s more like we’re grandparents, since we raised her.” Sarah shook her head. “It’s all happening so fast.”

“Yes,” Diana said, looking across the room at her daughter with a little frown.

She then found Henry Cosgrove along the wall.

He was standing with friends, but watching Imogene.

Was that young love or the sharp eye of a hunter?

“So fast.” She forced herself to attend to Sarah again.

“How long are you and Kit in Town? Until after the birth?”

“Yes. We’re setting up Adam’s new townhome in London and buying some fabric for the dresses Bethany will wear for her coming out next year.”

“A busy time, then,” Diana said and glanced again at Cosgrove. “May I ask you something?”

“Anything,” Sarah said.

“Viscount Cosgrove, he’s a neighbor of yours isn’t he?”

Sarah pulled the slightest face, almost imperceptible except to a person who had been trained to read it. “Yes, at our house in the Lake District, why?”

“I can see he isn’t your favorite.”

“No,” Sarah admitted with a little smile. “Gods, I’d forgotten you can read everything. It’s so disconcerting. He’s a braggard and a drunkard, and then there was that whole situation with his debts.”

“And what of his sons? ”

“The eldest is just waiting to inherit whatever little is left of the family title and seems to be rather like his father,” Sarah said.

Diana pinched her lips together with displeasure. That didn’t bode well. “And the younger?”

“I don’t know him as well,” Sarah admitted. “Why all the questions?”

“Just curious,” Diana said. “All the younger set around Imogene and Rowen’s age always interest me.”

Sarah stared at her for a long moment. “You might ask Kit if you want to know more. He spends more time with the family, at least the men of the family, when we are forced to meet them.”

“Yes,” Diana mused. “A good idea.”

She could see Sarah wanted to press more about her interest, but since she wasn’t ready to share her worries with her friends, she changed the subject and the two fell into a deeper conversation about children and the Season and the charitable Society all the duchesses ran together.

But even as her words turned to different things, her mind remained in its worries.

And it would until she knew for certain that her daughter was safe.