The Unintended Bride (3 page)

There was no way to tell when she answered her sister mildly enough, "That is a splendid idea, Juliet. We should make an event of it. Perhaps your Lord Wyndham would enjoy being invited, too?"

Juliet sent her an answering glance that was none too pleased. He wondered if there was some secret prod in the simple enough seeming question, but he could not tell from Juliet's ambiguous aside to Digby when she said, "We shall have to ask the duchess, of course, you understand?"

"Perfectly, I would not wish to impose myself on your family against the duchess' wishes. But — " He smiled again at Hero, and Arthur noted for the first time that the man had a womanish dimple in his left cheek, although, sadly, there was nothing womanish about his broad shoulders or strong jaw and brow. "Please tell the duchess that I could think of no better way to spend an evening than to see young minds at play."

Arthur suppressed his urge to scowl. Young minds at play, indeed. With effort, he got his temper under control. He had no business finding fault with Gabriel Digby. The man was perfect for such a paragon as Hero. He was not only handsome but temperate, witty, and a scholar. Drat him. Arthur had always liked the man. Until he saw him so close to Hero. At least he had not yet brought himself to propose.

"I will put a word in your favor with the duchess myself, Digby, since you are so eager to prove yourself a good audience." But only if he was assured that he himself would also be present. If Digby were the one to win her, he would not do so with help from Arthur.

Digby, as if sensing Arthur's challenge, said heartily, "Thank you, Watterly. I am fortunate you chose to visit just now." His brows lifted together as if he had just been struck by a new idea. "Come to think of it, I suppose you are here for the special meeting of The Round Table Society two days from now. Have you spoken to any members since you arrived?"

There was an energy behind his words that Arthur could not fathom.

"Only yourself." Arthur could not help himself from adding, "I hope to have some new information to present, myself." New information indeed. He intended to turn the staid society on its ear by presenting the original manuscript of Malory's
Morte d'Arthur
. But that he was wise enough not say aloud, despite his desire to impress Hero.

"Splendid." Digby's gaze grew sharp with curiosity, but he was too much the gentleman to ask any impertinent questions. "I, too, shall have some marvelous news of my own to impart."

"Indeed?" Arthur grew wary for a moment, and then he relaxed. The note was safely in his pocket. Digby could not have knowledge of the meeting at the bookshop, could not be about to usurp the find of the centuries.

"Oh," Hero said brightly, her gaze focused intensely upon Digby. "So that is your good news, then? Well, I shall hear it at the meeting of the Round Table Society. I will attend as well — they have just accepted me as a member, thanks to your sponsorship."

Digby gave Hero a warm glance. "It will be my greatest pleasure to have you in attendance when I report my news to the society."

Arthur glanced between them, trying to assess their relationship. Apparently, though they had not yet become engaged, she and Digby had reached a more intimate relationship than he had realized. He could not tell her of the note. He could not jeopardize his find by having Hero blurt it out to her suitor. Especially not if that suitor was Gabriel Digby.

Digby looked to Arthur. "Did you know, Watterly, that the society is seeking a replacement for Phineas Wright?"

"No, I had not heard." The news rattled him. He was not ready yet. He had not found the manuscript. And if he did, there would be no time to authenticate it by the meeting.

"Is he ill?"

Digby shook his head, and with an apologetic glance toward the ladies, said, "I believe his wife is a bit younger than he, and she wishes him home more."

"It will be hard to fill his shoes."

"Indeed, whoever takes his place will need to have proved a scholarly ability beyond all others."

Arthur decided to ignore the challenge implicit in the man's words. "I'm certain the society will be up to the challenge of choosing the best man."

"Beyond question," Digby agreed.

Suddenly impatient for the man to take his leave, Arthur cleared his throat and said ungraciously, "Don't let me keep you, Digby. I'm sure you have other calls to make." He ignored Juliet's quirked brow and Hero's gasp of dismay.

Reluctantly, the handsome scholar who had apparently captured Hero's interest bade the room farewell — a little more warmly than necessary to Hero, in Arthur's estimation. After all, she had not yet accepted a proposal from him — and departed.

Arthur nodded in satisfaction. No more Digby.

"You needn't have been rude," Hero chided him. Her cheeks were quite pink and her eyes were narrow with displeasure. He had rarely seen her so put out with him. He had the most absurd desire to stand close to her, as Digby had, and look directly into her eyes until she forgave him.

"I'm sorry, Miss Fenster." Arthur tried to strain the churlish tone out of his reply. "I know Mr. Digby to be a busy man. I did not want to keep him from his business, chatting about the inconsequential."

Perceptively, Hero retorted, "I could almost think you considered him unfit company for us."

Could she see how he felt? "Not at all," he protested, trying to assemble his features into a convincingly sincere expression. "I simply did not want to bore you and your sister with the dull details of the society. Digby might think it an interesting subject for ladies, but I do not."

Juliet laughed softly, "I would agree, for myself. I would rather hear the latest gossip on the square. But do you forget Hero herself has asked for such torture by joining the society."

"I believe the society is fortunate to have such a scholar as you join us." He bowed formally to Hero, who was still frowning at him.

She blushed. "I have been working on a particularly interesting variation on the engaging tale of "The Lady in the Lake." I may travel to France to search out more information, if the duke allows me." He would swear her color was deeper and higher than when she had blushed for Digby. But no, that was his wicked imagination at work. Which did not lessen his desire to tell her, nevertheless, that Gabriel Digby was not good enough for her.

"Perhaps the duke will permit Arthur to join you on the journey?" offered Juliet, mischief in her gaze. "As a protector. After all, he is named after that vaunted King Arthur you two admire so much, is he not?" Her gaze strayed toward the door, as if waiting for a very particular caller…. Ah. Lord Wyndham. Juliet had set her cap at him, and he was late. No wonder she was unhappy.

"I'm afraid I am more adept with the pen than the sword, and would do your sister no good. I am more the frog to the fabled Arthur's prince I fear." He smiled at Juliet, hoping to regain her goodwill, tense as she might be for some reason. He could see that he would need her help to restore Hero to her usual even temper.

Juliet smiled prettily and he could see that she had not done with playing with him. "Like in Miranda's "Frog Prince" fairytale? Then would you not simply need a kiss from a princess to turn you into a prince?" Her glance fell meaningfully on her sister, who looked at her with horror.

"Juliet. You go too far with your silly jest. Tell Arthur you do not think him a frog at all." Raising her voice, she added sternly, "At once. Or I shall tell Miranda that you are tormenting the duke's sole surviving heir."

Arthur stifled his urge to protest he would have preferred to hear that Hero did not think him a frog. He had been unwise enough today, no need to give Juliet more reason to torment him.

Unfortunately, just as Juliet turned to him, fixing a contrite expression on her face that her dancing eyes belied, the footman entered to present another card, and Juliet's playful air disappeared. In an instant, she began to flirt as only she could. She laughed up at him, her gaze full of admiration, as if he had just said something witty and wonderful. She touched his arm and looked into his eyes adoringly. "You are no frog. And if you were to exchange your pen for a sword like Excalibur, I have no doubt you would wield it well in your lady's defense."

If he had not know her so well, Arthur would have believed her. Even knowing that she was setting the scene for the tardy Lord Wyndham to be overcome by jealousy, he felt a keen wish that her words were true. That buried in his scholar's heart, there was a warrior who might fight for his lady. For Hero.

He remembered with a rush how interesting it was to have the Misses Fenster in residence. One never knew what to expect from most of them — except Hero, of course, who was always steady, sensible, and sweet. Except when she was frowning at him, as she was now.

"I see, Miss Fenster, that you have found a new suitor in the time I kept you waiting," Wyndham said from the doorway.

Arthur turned, and bowed slightly to the handsome young blood scowling at him. Would Juliet ever learn, he wondered with exasperated amusement. "You have it wrong, Wyndham. The lady was simply using me as a pair of ears to hear of her great admiration for you. She tells me she thinks of you with Excalibur in your hand."

He heard Hero choke back a laugh, disguising it badly as a cough, and he was certain without looking that Juliet's gaze upon his back would be sharp enough to cut glass. Still, he felt the most heartless flirt of all the Fenster sisters deserved a little of her own medicine back. "She has been waiting for you with bated breath, Wyndham. I hope you have a good excuse for making her suffer so?"

Wyndham, being the young peacock he looked, beamed at the idea that Juliet had been extolling his virtues while she paced the floor awaiting his entrance, and swallowed the improbable fiction whole.

His eyes softened as he turned to Juliet and took her hand. "I do apologize for my tardiness, Miss Fenster. My carriage awaits, if you will forgive me and still consent to go for a drive with me?"

Juliet tilted her head coyly, as if she were contemplating her answer. With a wicked glance at Hero, however, she nodded, and said softly, "I'm certain my sister and Mr. Watterly have as great a desire as I do to finish our most recent conversation about Excalibur. And frogs that need kissing by princesses." Juliet did not meet Hero's glare, instead staring meltingly into Wyndham's besotted eyes. "But I must allow you to make amends to me for your tardiness, mustn't I?" She glanced at Arthur with a wicked gleam. "So I will gladly leave them to it. Alone."

Arthur watched numbly, feeling trapped as she called for her maid and her cloak, all the while merrily chatting and throwing pleased glances between her sister and Arthur. The girl knew. She knew how he felt about Hero. No. She couldn't. She was simply being Juliet. A tease. A flirt. A mischievous sprite. Wasn't she?

As she danced out the door, chatting excitedly to Wyndham, he was too cowardly to turn toward Hero and examine the expression on her face. If she knew how he felt, he could not bear it. It was one thing to love her quietly, from a distance. To have her know this would be like tearing open a barely healed wound.

But she was not the coward he was, it seemed. Her voice was soft but her question sharp as she asked, "I'm sorry about Juliet's teasing, but you must admit you deserved it. Why were you so rude to Mr. Digby? He has never been anything but a good friend to me. Has he done something to you in the past that you should hold him in so little esteem?"

Nothing but win her heart. He pressed his lips together firmly and turned around. He should take his cue from her courage and face her. Tell her Digby was a good man. Would make a fine husband. And yet his thoughts were jumbled by visions of Hero kissing a frog. Kissing Digby. Kissing Arthur himself.

To his great relief, Miranda, the duchess, appeared like a whirlwind in the room, holding out her arms to him as if he were her brother, not her husband's cousin. "So good to see you. Why didn't you let me know you were coming? I could have had Cook get in some of those mushrooms you like so well."

He laughed at her little joke, perhaps a bit too loudly, as he banished all thought of kissing Hero Fenster into the deepest part of his mind. He was not at all fond of mushrooms since he had nearly been poisoned to death by them four years earlier. In his relief at being rescued from his fate, he embraced her more warmly than usual, for him, so that she pulled back and examined his expression carefully. "You have not come for some terrible reason, have you? Your grandmother is not ill, is she? You look healthy enough yourself."

He shook his head quickly. "No, no. All is well. Grandmama is here in London, bringing out the daughter of a friend, and I have no reason to believe she is suffering any ill health at all. I have come on business. It was unexpected, or I would certainly have given you more notice."

"No matter, you are welcome anytime, as I hope you know. You are, after all, Simon's heir." She said it confidently, as if the fact did not give her any pain.

Arthur's stomach twisted. He did not want to be duke. Miranda knew that. But she also knew that he was next in line for as long as she and Simon failed to produce a son, and she was determined not to let him forget it.

At first, after his cousin's marriage, he had been vocal about his hope that the two of them would soon have many children — and many sons. But as the years had passed with not a hint of a coming child, he had no longer dared speak of it directly.

She hid her sadness well, but it was still there for him to see, even now. Such things must prick a woman's pride awfully. "No doubt ten years from now, we shall both laugh to think of me as duke."

"Perhaps we will." She smiled at him, and then glanced at Hero. He watched her expression shift as she realized that the two of them were the only ones in the room. "Where is Juliet?"

"She went driving with Lord Wyndham. Just now." Hero answered the questions nervously, her palms flattening her skirts at the hip. "She was barely out of the room before you arrived, Miranda. Though I confess I did not think she would go with him, considering how late he was. What a dandy that man is."