Page 24 of A Duchess of Mystery (The Mismatched Lovers #3)

“W e should hold a ball here at Stourbridge,” Isabella said to Richard and Dora.

“To introduce Richard to our neighbors.” They were seated opposite her in the drawing room taking afternoon tea.

Wyndham had taken a rather precipitate leave several days since, straight after his breakfast encounter with Richard, but neither Dora nor Isabella knew why he’d gone, to Richard’s relief.

Isabella set down her cup. “We can invite everyone who is anyone, and Dora and I can advise you on which are the most suitable of the local young ladies for you to consider as brides.” A glint showed in her eyes.

“If there are any, which I seriously doubt. But, nevertheless, it will be fun to show you off.”

Richard frowned. So did Dora, but probably for a different reason.

“Should we be actually holding a ball of our own?” Dora asked, it had to be said, with a certain degree of timidity. “I mean, what with being in mourning still. You know. People might think it an inappropriate thing to do. They might not want to attend.”

Isabella shook her head with determination.

She was fast becoming the most determined person Richard had ever met, and she had the look about her right now of a horse with the bit between its teeth.

Not that he didn’t find this assertiveness attractive, because he did.

Although he wasn’t about to let on. She might become uncontrollable if he did.

She shot Dora a hard stare, something she seemed very good at.

“Nonsense. Of course people will come if we invite them. They won’t be able to resist. And what is more, they’ll bring their eligible daughters in their droves, because they will all know by now that the new Duke of Stourbridge has returned from the Continent and is in the happy state, for them, of being unmarried.

You know what the local gossips are like.

Heaven knows how the news gets out, but it always does.

And pooh to it being inappropriate. When have I ever cared for that? ”

Dora pursed her lips, that worried frown deeper than usual. “You may not care for your own inappropriateness and reputation, nor mine, but I’m sure Diccon might for his own.” She glanced sideways at her cousin. “Do you not?”

Richard did his best to look stern, disguising the fact that he, too, didn’t give a fig for what others thought of him.

Although the idea of being the host of what could be a large gathering of the cream of local society disturbed him more than he cared to admit.

It wasn’t as if he’d ever even attended a ball.

He would be a complete ball novice, and was sure it would show.

Having learned so long ago as a child, he wasn’t sure he could even remember how to dance.

But he didn’t want either of them guessing this.

Well, not Isabella, at any rate. He didn’t mind what Dora thought of him, but, somehow, in a relatively short time it had come to matter to him what Isabella thought.

He swallowed down his nerves. “I suspect Isabella might well be correct in her summing up of our neighbors’ attitudes.

I gather nothing is more alluring to the mamas of society than the prospect of an unmarried duke. ”

Dora laughed, the frown lessening. “You are paraphrasing Bella; I know it. She used those self-same words to me just yesterday.”

“What if he is?” Isabella said, with a resigned sigh.

“Come, Dora, we have to consider how things here are changing. We are not so much a house in mourning now, as a house that is preparing for that change. We have a new duke amongst us, and he requires our assistance.” She paused, a decidedly naughty twinkle in her eyes that sent an unexpected current of electricity through Richard.

Damn it. She was far too attractive a young widow to have to share his new home with.

Perhaps he should suggest she, too, look for a new marriage partner, to get the temptation of her out from under his feet.

And from inside his head, a space she had begun to occupy more than he liked over the last few days.

She made a moue, which only served to render her more attractive and him more uncomfortable.

“And besides which, haven’t I been attending all the balls and parties held by our neighbors?

I think they would find it most odd if we didn’t hold some sort of entertainment of our own, in return for all the events they’ve hosted.

They’ll all be expecting us to present our new duke to them, post haste.

And it would be manifestly unfair of us to keep him to ourselves.

” She turned those beautiful eyes on him and held his gaze for a few long seconds before looking back at Dora as though she hadn’t just seared him to the heart.

Dora frowned. She’d always been the most conservative of Richard’s three cousins, with an inclination not to rock whatever boat she found herself in.

A peacemaker, sandwiched between the more volatile Marcus and Grace, not a troublemaker.

“You know how I cautioned you about attending balls whilst in mourning,” she said, giving Isabella a reproving stare.

Or at least, as reproving a stare as she was capable of, which was probably nothing compared with Isabella’s.

Isabella narrowed her eyes. “Oh pooh to that. You know I don’t give a fig for what others think of me.”

Yes, they all knew that. There was no need for her to repeat herself.

She glanced at Richard as though for support. “And anyway, it is our new duke who will have the final say, is it not?” She raised her delicate brows at him. “What say you… Diccon?”

She let his nickname roll off her tongue in a purr that almost made him laugh out loud at its evident intention to beguile and win him to her side.

What a flirt she was. And it was working, despite his disinclination to fall for it.

He began to think she might have been a good match for Marcus.

Whatever she was, murderer or innocent widow, she was not someone who could be browbeaten by convention. And probably not by a man.

She batted her eyelashes, which were long and thick, at him, eyes wide and brimming with fake innocence.

“Well? Shall we hold a ball here at Stourbridge and invite all the young ladies from far and wide to see if any of them meet with our approval? Although I fear they might be a rather motley bunch from what I’ve seen of them so far this autumn. ”

Richard suppressed the impulse to laugh, once again, at her use of “our.” That she thought she was going to be the one to choose his wife-to-be was obvious.

He wasn’t the idiot she took him for. That he needed her help in steering clear of the unsuitable ones was true, but the final choice would be his.

He wouldn’t divulge this as yet, though.

Let her continue to believe she could choose him a wife who would suit her purpose.

That was evidently what she thought she was going to do.

And it was unlikely that either of them were going to come across the sort of wife he was beginning to think he wanted.

Not unless Isabella looked in the mirror, that was. And that could never be.

“Yes,” he said, with determination. “Mourning be damned. None of us had any love for Marcus, so we shouldn’t be feeling guilty at throwing off our weeds.

” Not that he’d ever worn mourning, anyway.

Not even a black armband. No one had suggested it and, like Isabella, he had no love lost for Marcus.

However, maybe someone here should be feeling guilty.

If they’d had a hand in Marcus’s demise, that was.

He put that unwelcome thought out of his mind.

“Let us hold the biggest and best ball of the autumn. No, of the year. Isabella is right, Dora. The local gentry will want to meet their new duke, odd as it still seems to me that he and I are one and the same. I owe it to them to put myself up for their inspection. And as Isabella already knows, I do indeed wish to be married as soon as possible.” No need to repeat what he’d already told Isabella, and now rather regretted having done, that once he had an heir he intended returning to his regiment.

Dora might be upset and Isabella might crow with triumph, thinking herself destined to return to power at Stourbridge in his absence.

She probably thought a wife of her choice would be easy to browbeat into submission.

Isabella clapped her hands, shooting Dora a somewhat smug grin.

“I knew you would see it my way. Now, which day shall we have it? There’s so much we have to do.

We’ll need to send invitations out immediately and engage an orchestra for the dancing.

It’s an age since there was a ball here at Stourbridge.

Marcus was never here long enough to host one.

And of course, both Dora and I will need new gowns, and everything that goes with them. ”

Would they? Surely they both had armoires full of suitable gowns? Richard looked from one woman to the other in perplexity.

“Oh no,” Dora, who must have similar sensibilities to his, interrupted. “I shall be quite all right in my black silk. I’ve barely worn it. I don’t need a new gown.”

Isabella’s expression of disgust was enough to make Richard have to fight to control his laughter. She was in full flow now, obviously didn’t agree with Dora, and nothing was about to stop her informing them of this fact. He had to admire her determination.