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" 'Your grace' will do," Jordan interrupted.

"What?" Mary Ellen echoed blankly, her flush deepening.

"I'll explain upstairs," Alexandra whispered. Regathering her wits, she looked uncertainly at Jordan, who was looming in the doorway like a dark, giant god. Larger than life. Forbidding. Yet strangely compelling. "If you'll excuse us, your grace, I will take Mary Ellen upstairs."

"By all means," Jordan drawled, and Alexandra had the humiliating feeling that he found the pair of them as absurdly amusing as a pair of clumsy mongrel puppies tumbling about in a stableyard.

As they passed the salon, the duchess' voice rolled out like a muted clap of thunder: "Curtsy!" she snapped.

Both girls lurched around and curtsied in unison to the doorway of the salon.

"Is she demented?" Mary Ellen burst out the moment they had gained the privacy of Alexandra's bedchamber. Her eyes wide with fright and affront, she looked around the luxurious room as if she expected the duchess to materialize like an evil specter. "Does she always go about snapping single words at people—'Irish'? 'Catholic'? 'Curtsy'?" Mary Ellen mimicked.

"This is bedlam," Alexandra agreed, her spontaneous laugh choked off as her dire predicament reclaimed her thoughts. "And I'm marrying into it."

"But why?" Mary Ellen breathed, her open features a mask of alarm. "Alex, what has happened to you? Only four days ago, we were jousting and laughing together, and then you vanished, and now the whole village is talking about you. Mama says I mustn't pay any mind to anything I hear until we talk to you ourselves, but the squire's wife told Honor, who told me, that we mustn't ever speak to you again. We must cross the street if we see you coming and avoid you because you are soiled now."

Alexandra did not know it was possible to feel more alone and wretched than she already did, but this piece of news made her heart cry out in anguished protest. Everyone had believed the worst of her, after all. The people she had known since babyhood were willing to make her an outcast, without ever hearing her side of the story. Only Mary Ellen and her family believed in her enough to wait for explanations.

Sinking down on the gold coverlet, Alexandra raised her stricken eyes to her only friend. "I'll tell you what happened…"

For several long minutes after Alexandra finished explaining everything, Mary Ellen could only stare at her in amazed silence. Slowly though, Mary Ellen's blank expression faded and became more thoughtful, then it became positively luminous. "Alex!" Mary Ellen breathed, breaking into a broad smile as her mind conjured up a fresh vision of the tall man Alexandra was about to marry. "Your betrothed husband is not only a duke, he's positively gorgeous! He is—don't deny it. I thought so the moment I clapped eyes on him downstairs, only I was very distressed over you, and so I didn't really think about it."

Well aware of Mary Ellen's fascination with and for the opposite sex, Alexandra said a little self-consciously, "His appearance is—not entirely displeasing."

"Not displeasing?" Mary Ellen hooted in disbelief and plunked her hands on her hips, her eyes turning dreamy. "Why, I vow he's even better-looking than Henry Beechley, and Henry is the handsomest boy I know. Why, Henry quite takes away my breath!"

"Six months ago, you thought George Larson was the handsomest boy you knew," Alexandra pointed out, smiling. "And George took away your breath."

"Only because I hadn't really looked at Henry," replied Mary Ellen defensively.

"And six months before that, you thought Jack Sanders was the handsomest boy in the world and he took your breath away," Alexandra continued, her brows raised in amusement.

"But only because I hadn't really looked at George and Henry," replied Mary Ellen, genuinely bewildered by Alexandra's obvious amusement.

"I think," Alexandra teased, "your difficulty with breathing is the result of spending too much time sitting in one place, bent over romantic novels. I think they're ruining your eyesight and making every young man you see seem like a handsome, romantic hero."

Mary Ellen opened her mouth to vehemently protest this slur against her abiding love for dear Henry Beechley, then she changed her mind and smiled mischievously at Alexandra. "No doubt you are quite right," she said, sauntering over to the opposite side of the bed and sitting down. Sadly, she admitted, "Your duke is a man of barely passable looks."

"Barely passable!" Alexandra exclaimed defensively. "Why, his features are noble and manly and—and very nice!"

"Really?" Mary Ellen asked, hiding her laughter and pretending to study the tips of her short fingernails. "You don't find his hair too dark, or his face too tanned, or his eyes a very odd color?"

"They're grey! A beautiful, rare shade of grey!"

Looking directly into Alexandra's irate eyes, Mary Ellen said with sham innocence, "But surely, neither of us would go so far as to pretend he looks in any way like a Greek god?"

"Greek god, indeed," scoffed Alexandra. "I should say not."

"Then how would you describe him?" Mary Ellen said pointedly, unable to hide her amusement at her friend's obvious state of high infatuation any longer.

Alexandra's shoulders drooped as she admitted the truth: "Oh, Mary Ellen," she breathed in an awed, unhappy whisper, "he looks exactly like Michelangelo's David!"

Mary Ellen nodded sagely. "You're in love with him. Don't deny it. It's written all over your face when you speak of him. Now tell me," she said eagerly, scooting forward and peering at Alexandra closely, "what does it feel like to you—loving a man, I mean?"

"Well," Alexandra said, warming to her subject despite her strongest wish to be sensible, "it's the queerest sort of feeling, but exciting too. When I see him in the hall, I feel rather like I used to feel when I saw my papa's carriage draw up in the drive—you know, happy, but worried that I look a fright, and sad too, because I'm afraid he'll leave if I'm not amusing and just right, and then I'll lose him."

So eager was she to hear more about being in love that Mary Ellen spoke without thinking. "Don't be silly. How can he possible leave you if you are married to him?"

"Exactly like my papa left my mama."

Sympathy flickered in Mary Ellen's green eyes, but she brightened almost immediately. "Never mind about that. It is all in the past after all, and besides, in four more days you'll be eighteen and that definitely makes you a woman—"