Page 7 of Forever and a Duke (The Bridewell Sisters #1)

CHAPTER 6

T wo days later

“It goes without saying, but best behavior while we’re there,” Lily told her sisters as the family carriage—now Edwin’s carriage that he’d been gracious enough to let them borrow—rumbled toward Rosemere.

Ivy rolled her eyes.

Daphne nodded earnestly.

The twins exchanged a look of mock horror and giggled.

“I understand she’s very fierce,” Marigold said with an undeniable air of admiration for the dowager she’d only heard rumors of.

“She is…formidable.”

The twins had not yet met the Dowager Duchess of Edgerton. Ivy and Daphne had, but it had been years ago. That was the last time Lily had met her too.

It was more than a little disconcerting to realize the fearsome woman would soon be her grandmother-in-law.She wasn’t known for her warmth, though she was benefactress to every charitable endeavor in the village. Indeed, she led the way in almost all social goings-on throughout the county. Other noblewomen looked to her as their guide. But she was also known to set high expectations for those within her sphere.

Would she be content with Griffin marrying a spinster who was a mere viscount’s daughter?

“Mama would be so proud of you.” Daphne nudged Lily’s elbow as if to remind her she was not alone in this.

Ivy made a scoffing sound. “Women should not be considered accomplished because of who they marry, but because of their own merits.” She gestured toward Lily. “You know more about medicine than Dr. Crawford. You taught each of us to read. Then you taught us all French and Latin too. And you sew stitches better than Crawford and nursed us all whenever we were sick.”

“And now she’ll be a duchess, and she’ll accomplish a great deal because of it,” Daphne was quick to add.

Lily actually tended to agree with Ivy. Women should not be praised merely for the man’s name or title they acquired. But she also understood what this union would mean for her sisters.

“You'll have a Season now, Daphne. All of you will have one. And don't roll your eyes, Ivy. You’ll have the opportunity to study as you wish to. Perhaps become a journalist, if that’s still your goal.”

“I might become a detective instead.”

Marigold and Hyacinth let out little synchronized gasps.

“Very well.” Lily would not be daunted by her most challenging sister today.

“A detective. A writer of mystery novels. A journalist,” Ivy listed off. “I have many options that I'm considering. And none of them are reliant on a man.”

Lily didn't contradict her, but she knew that wasn't entirely true. Because of her marriage to Griffin, Ivy would have time to consider her options, rather than following after Aunt Margaret as her lady’s companion or a passel of children as a governess.

“What does a duchess do?” Hyacinth asked quietly.

Lily swallowed hard, unsure she knew all the duties that would soon be hers. Though she knew a few. “I’ll manage the household, much as I did at Briarfield. Organize events. Most likely engage in more charitable endeavors.” And produce Griffin’s heir.

That thought kept her awake at night, and not in a fearful way. She felt only anticipation. Now, with her sisters looking at her quizzically, she willed her cheeks not to flush.

“You do many of those things now,” Marigold said thoughtfully.

“But now she doesn’t have a husband to deal with day in and day out,” Ivy said as if it was the most challenging burden Lily would face.

How could she explain to her sisters that spending each day, and each night, with Griffin Kingsley was the part she was looking forward to most?

“Promise me, Robards.” Griffin watched out the window as he spoke to his butler, who hovered behind him. “You’ll keep her distracted for…” He consulted his pocket watch. “A good ten minutes.”

“It will be done, Your Grace.”

“Don’t fail me.” Griffin turned back to find the elderly man who’d served the dukedom longer than Griffin had been alive staring at him solemnly.

“You have my vow, Your Grace.”

“And no telling her what this is about. The dowager needn’t know about this.” It wasn’t a great secret he was keeping from his grandmother. Just a moment of distraction to take care of something she need not have knowledge of, or cast judgement on.

“Understood.”

Flicking back his gaze to the window, Griffin’s heart jolted in his chest. “Now,” he told the butler. “Go now.”

As soon Robards made his way out the door, Griffin raced down the stairs, ignoring the gasps of a couple of housemaids.

He tried to walk at a more sedate pace but broke into a sprint when he reached the conservatory. Bursting through the door that led to a stone terrace, he spotted the Bridewells’ carriage on the lane that curved around Rosemere before approaching the gravel drive.

When their carriage rounded that curve, he strode out until he was in view of the driver and waved a hand in the air. The man snapped his notice Griffin’s way, and Griffin directed him to pull in alongside the manor house rather than into the carriage circle out front.

Patience was needed as the carriage moved sedately toward the drive, but he found he was quite short on it today. His grandmother had urged him to remain occupied during the luncheon so that she’d have a chance to get to know “those Bridewell girls” on her own.

He wasn’t having any of it. Griffin knew precisely how forbidding his grandmother could seem to those who didn’t know her well. Besides, he wanted to speak to Lily and her sisters before the luncheon began and had sent around a note asking them to arrive early.

The truth was Lily had been on his mind from the moment he’d asked her to marry him. Little flashes of that day in the rain came to him at the oddest moments—the flash of her sea-blue eyes, how ridiculously good it felt to have her pressed against him, her smile, her gentle touch, her maddeningly enticing scent.

He should have kissed her—that thought played through his mind too. And then he’d tell himself that he had a lifetime ahead to kiss her. Assuming she’d want him to outside of the whole “producing heirs” matter that had almost put her off the whole notion of marrying him.

The sound of carriage wheels on gravel pulled his thoughts to the present, and the Bridewell carriage rolled up just where he’d directed.

Lily sat near the leftmost window, and the sight of her made his chest constrict almost painfully. Why on earth was he acting like a bloody smitten fool?

“We’re not entering through the front door?” Ivy called out once he’d opened the carriage door.

The driver came down from his seat, but Griffin did the honors of handing each young down from the vehicle. When they stood surrounding him, he smiled first at Lily.

“You look lovely.” And she did. They’d all turned themselves out in frills and bonnets and delicate lace gloves for this luncheon.

She blinked, her eyes widening a bit. “Thank you, Your Gr?—”

“Griffin,” he insisted, then cast his gaze at each of them. “You must all call me Griffin.”

Daphne beamed at him, and Hyacinth mouthed his name under her breath as if testing whether it sounded right. Only Ivy narrowed her eyes as if he’d just done something extremely suspicious.

Perhaps he had. “I have a surprise for all of you, so you’ll enter through the rear of the house today,” he explained.

“A good surprise or an awful surprise?” Marigold asked with all the hesitation of a child who was once told she was going to take a teaspoon of treacle and found it was some foul medicine.

“A good one, I hope.” He lifted his elbow, offering Lily his arm, and felt immeasurably more at ease once she took it. Then he led them around the way he’d come and ushered them into the conservatory.

Both Lily and Daphne seemed awestruck by the size of the space.

Noting their interest, Griffin grinned. “This is to be your home and your conservatory. You may do with this space as you see fit,” he told Lily. “It’s been a bit abandoned in recent years, but I recall how you love growing things and thought you might want to revive it.”

“I do,” she said with enthusiasm, gripping his arm a bit tighter.

Unbidden, a thought came of their not too far away wedding, and he prayed she’d have as much anticipation in her eyes that day.

“Now for the surprise,” he announced when they they’d stepped a few feet into the conservatory.

Robards had helped him with this bit too, erecting a makeshift curtain to hide a dozen items in the corner.

He released Lily’s arm and strode over.

“On the day I asked your sister to marry me, I helped her with a rather curious undertaking.”

Lily ducked her head and wore a mischievous grin when she lifted it again.

“We buried a trunk, and when she told me what was inside, I knew I wished to start your time here at Rosemere by bringing a few of your belongings over.”

He pulled back the curtain to reveal all the items his staff had found in the trunk after retrieving it from the field. Though he couldn’t be entirely certain which items belonged to which sister, he knew they were all precious in their eyes.

“I’ve added a few books, since your family appreciates them so much. A book on paleontology as one of you seems quite keen.”

“Me,” Hyacinth said shyly.

“And a medical tome my London bookseller insists is quite new for Lily.”

“Thank you,” she mouthed quietly.

“And perhaps this one will please you, Ivy.” The black volume with gold embossing was a memoir by some Frenchman called Vidoq, and his bookseller assured him a young lady interested in crime detection would value it.

“Once you’ve chosen your rooms, we’ll help you get all of this upstairs to begin making your chamber your own.”

Lily gave him an achingly sweet smile. “Thank you. This is perfect.”

Ivy approached the table, running her fingers over the book he’d purchased for her. “This was genuinely thoughtful,” she said matter-of-factly. “I hope your motives are sincere,” she added a bit more acerbically.

Lily closed her eyes a moment and sighed.

Griffin chuckled. He hadn’t spent a great deal of time with Ivy, but he knew that, like Lily, she was fiercely protective of her sisters. “I suppose we’ll need to get to know one another a bit before you can fully weigh the sincerity of my soul.”

Ivy nodded as if satisfied with his reply.

“Now”—he cast a glance at his pocket watch—“I think we have enough time to give you all a quick tour of the upstairs bedchambers. You needn’t decide immediately, but perhaps after luncheon, Mrs. Seaton can help you choose yours, and we’ll begin preparing it for you.”

The twins seemed most excited by this news, clasping their hands together and all but bouncing on their toes.

As he led the little troupe upstairs, he offered Lily his arm once more. She hesitated but a moment before wrapping hers around his. The odd twinge in his chest came again and felt suspiciously like relief.

“Do you have any advice to offer?” she whispered as they climbed the house’s main stairwell. “Before the luncheon commences.”

“You need only be yourself.”

She rolled her eyes at that, and it reminded him of how she’d responded when he and Leo would tease her.

He laid a hand over hers where she held his arm. “You’ve nothing to prove, but she does tend to make everyone feel as if they do. Give as good as you get. She admires that. But know that you’re capable of any challenge she tosses your way.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve known you a long time, Lily Bridewell.”

“I didn’t realize you were watching,” she quipped, almost under her breath.

“More than you know.” He couldn’t look at her as he said it and didn’t know why he’d made the partial confession.

“This one,” Daphne said as she stood near one of the bedchambers. It was papered in a pale-yellow silk and contained lovely mahogany furnishings and Griffin could understand why she’d chosen it.

“The one at the end of the hall has two beds,” he told Lily. “I thought the twins might like it if they prefer to share a room.”

“And these?” She pointed to two doors along the left side of the hall that were closed. All the others were open as he’d asked the staff to air the second-floor bedchambers.

“The ducal suites,” Griffin told her, gesturing toward the first door. “Yours and mine is farther down.”

Lily swept her gaze toward his as if surprised and then nodded. “Of course.”

“Would you like to see? You can change anything about it that doesn’t suit you.” For some reason, it mattered to Griffin a great deal that she approved of the room. For the first time since inheriting, he’d begun sleeping in the ducal suite because he anticipated being close to her once they’d all moved to Rosemere.

“I could take a peek.”

He led her to the door he hadn’t opened in years, though the staff were instructed to maintain the room regardless of whether a new duchess was in residence or not.

She reached for the latch first and pushed the door open.

The staff had heeded his instructions to air every room, and the windows were open to let in the light spring breeze. Sunlight dappled over the rose-hued wallpaper and lit up the gilded edges of the French-style decor.

“It’s very grand,” she said quietly. “And what are the doors on either side?”

“One leads to your sitting room and the other to my bedchamber.”

“Oh.” A sweep of pink rushed over her cheeks.

Griffin felt an answering heat ripple through him, and if her sisters hadn’t been wandering the hall behind them…

“What is the meaning of this?” his grandmother demanded in her sternest tone.

All the Bridewell sisters’ excited chattered dimmed to silence.

“I was showing them the rooms that will soon be theirs,” Griffin told her in a pleasant tone, offering a warm smile that he hoped would quell her ire.

“I did not know they’d arrived.”

“I asked them to come early.” He gestured at the guest bedrooms that would soon become family rooms. “For precisely this purpose.”

“You need only have told me,” she said with a sniff.

“Forgive me.” Griffin pressed one hand to his heart. “I promise to escort them downstairs soon and in time for an introduction before the luncheon commences.”

Her gaze swept across all the sisters, lingering with what Griffin spotted as a flicker of warmth when she took in the twins. Both of them stared at her as if awestruck.

“Very well. Do not tarry. Our guests will be arriving soon.” With that, she pivoted, the voluminous beaded skirt of her Worth gown swishing as she began to stride away.

Griffin followed after her. “Guests, Grandmama? Our guests are here.”

She swung back to him, one silver brow winged high. “Oh, I thought it appropriate to invite a few of the ladies that Miss Bridewell will soon become acquainted with as she carries out her duties.”

Griffin narrowed his eyes at her. “You promised this would be an intimate affair, Grandmama, for you to get to know Lily and her sisters,” he said quietly.

“And I shall.” She reached up and patted him on the cheek. “Fret not, my boy. If she’s all you say she is, why fear?”

Griffin tried to press down the irritation rising inside him. His grandmother had a habit of maneuvering matters to her liking, much as his father had, and expecting everyone to dance to whatever tune she set. And he hated that Lily had been spoken of as if she was not present. But bickering in front of the sisters was not the welcome to Rosemere that they deserved.

He straightened and tugged at his cuffs. “Have the staff add a place setting.”

His grandmother’s brow that had sailed high on her forehead a moment before slashed downward now.

“It seems I’ll be joining this luncheon after all.” Griffin held her gaze. If she balked, he would insist.

But instead, she nodded. “Then I shall see you downstairs.”