The Earl of Downe slumped into his own seat.
Seymour
sat too, fidgeting with an empty wineglass while his boot tapped an aggravating tune on the table leg. He muttered something about fate and destiny and Alec, not necessarily in that order.
Alec signaled the servant to fill
Seymour
's wineglass. "Here, drink some wine so you'll stop that infernal mumbling."
"What's wrong, Belmore?" Downe asked, innocently staring into his glass. "Worried about the future?"
He looked up at Alec, his real concern for his friend tinged with a bit of amusement.
Alec slowly sipped his wine.
"He should be worried,"
Seymour
said. "I am."
"You worry enough for all of us," Alec replied nonchalantly. "I'm not worried, because there is no reason to be. Our solicitors met this morning to agree on the marriage settlement. The newspaper will carry the announcement tomorrow morning, and in a month I'll be leg-shackled."
"The arrangements, then, are clean, precise, executed without a hitch. Exactly the way you prefer things done." Downe lowered his glass and shook his blond head. "I don't know how you manage it. Lady Juliet Spencer is the perfect future Duchess of Belmore. You come to town, attend one ball, and in two minutes you find the ideal woman. I'd say you had fine luck, but then, you generally do have all the luck."
Alec shrugged. "Luck had nothing to do with it."
"What did? Divine intervention?" Downe gave a sarcastic laugh. "Did God talk to you, Belmore, as he does to
Seymour
?"
Seymour
took immediate offense. "I never said God talked to me."
"Then I was right. It was the pickled eel."
"I hired someone," Alec admitted, deftly putting an end to another of Downe and Seymour's petty arguments.
Downe sipped his wine and set it down. "Hired someone to do what?"
"To find the perfect woman."
Both men stared at Alec in disbelief.
He set his glass down and leaned back against the tufted chair. "I contacted the firm that handles most of my
London
business. They did some investigating and then sent me Juliet's name. It made perfect sense."
There was a long pause before either of the other men spoke. Then Downe said quietly, "I wondered how you found her so quickly that first night. For months now I've been telling myself it was just the Belmore luck. Now I understand. You paid someone to find you a wife." The earl stared into his glass for a quiet moment. "Efficient, Belmore, but cold."
"One should think with one’s mind, not one’s gut." Alec calmly sipped his wine. "Cold or not, I couldn't care less. I need a wife, and this seemed like the simplest way to acquire one. It was good business."
"Good thing she's easy on the eye,"
Seymour
commented. "You could have ended up with Letitia Hornsby."
As if uttering the chit's name would conjure her up, Richard suddenly looked ill.
"I'll leave her for Downe," Alec said, knowing that Richard was not comfortable discussing Letitia Hornsby, a girl who was so enamored with Downe that she was forever following in his shadow. Taunting his friend about the Hornsby girl was a bit of gentle revenge for the episode with the old woman outside.
Taking Alec's lead,
Seymour
smiled broadly and added, "That's right. Seems everywhere you go, that Hornsby brat is hovering nearby."
" 'Hovering' is not the word I'd use." Downe rubbed his injured arm and scowled.
Seymour
burst into laughter and Alec's eyes glittered with amusement, for they both had been at the Seftons' Christmas ball when Letitia Hornsby fell out of a tree in the garden and landed on Downe and his mistress, Lady Caroline Wentworth, who were in the process of doing that which they did best. The silly chit had dislocated the earl's shoulder.
"Actually, Letitia Hornsby ain't a bit hard on the eyes,"
Seymour
said with a laugh. "She's just hard on your body, Downe."
After a more of
Seymour
’s teasing, Downe pointedly changed the subject back to Lady Juliet's fine looks.
Alec set his wineglass down. "Beauty was one of the requirements on my list."
"Just what else was on that list?" Downe asked.
"Excellent bloodlines, good health, gentle ways but also a bit of spirit—the usual things a man wants in a wife."
"Sounds like you're buying a horse." Downe poured himself another glass of wine.
"I've always thought English courtship ritual wasn't much different from horse trading—just longer and more tedious," Alec replied, remembering the rides in the park, the balls and fetes he'd had to attend while courting Juliet. In his opinion it was just a nuisance, a way of announcing to the nosy world of the ton exactly what one had planned. "Is Almack's or some chit's presentation ball any different from the
Newmarket
auction? Each season's new batch of females is paraded in front of prospective buyers, and you check the bloodlines, the gait, the color, and you look for enough spirit to keep you from getting bored—just as you'd do before buying a horse. Once you've found a suitable one, you buy it and ride it."
Seymour
choked on his wine and Downe laughed out loud then asked, "Did you check her teeth?"
"Yes, and her withers and hocks," Alec added, never cracking a smile as he picked up a deck of cards. Downe and Seymour were still chuckling when he deftly dealt the cards.
An hour later the note came.
A footman stood at Alec's left holding a silver tray with a vellum note in its center. As Downe dealt, Alec casually opened the note, noticing that Juliet's initials were pressed into the wax seal. He unfolded the paper and began to read:
Dear Alec,
I thought I could do it, but I cannot. I had thought I could live without love, for you are basically a good man. I thought I could trade joy for a title. I thought I could be practical and pick fortune over happiness.
I cannot.
I realize I could not bear the boredom of life as the d\Duchess of Belmore. For while you are, as I have said, a good man, with all to offer, there is no life in you, Alec.
You are predictable. You do that which is expected of you because of your own consequence as the Duke of Belmore. The precious Belmore name is first and foremost in your life. I want more, Alec.
I want love. I've found it. Although he is only a second son and a soldier, he loves me. As you read this I will be marrying the man who has given me those things.
Regretfully,
Juliet
Slowly, with quiet precision, Alec tore the note to pieces and dropped the scraps onto the silver tray. He stared at his friends for a moment, absently rubbing his coat pocket, then stopped abruptly, as if he'd suddenly realized what he was doing, and let his hand slowly slide up and down the stem of the wineglass. He told the servant, "No reply."
Raising the glass, he sipped his wine, as if the message held nothing of importance, then picked up his cards and stared at his hand, his blue eyes darker and a bit narrower than usual, his jaw a little tighter than before.
He played through that hand and three more in stony silence. When the deal passed to
Seymour
, Alec requested pen and paper. When it arrived, he scribbled a quick note, sealed it with wax and stamped it with his ring. Then he quietly instructed the footman to send the note to the newspaper.
His friends watched him curiously.
Alec leaned back in his chair, his hands steepled in speculation near the hard line of his mouth. After a minute his hands moved beneath his jaw. "It seems the filly has more spirit than I thought. She's bolted. I am no longer betrothed."
"I knew it!"
Seymour
slammed his fist on the table. "I knew this would happen. The old woman was right."
"Why?" All evidence of cynicism had disappeared from Downe's face, replaced by a flash of surprise.
"Nothing important. Whims of a woman." He said no more, yet both of his companions waited and watched. The Duke of Belmore showed no emotion. "Deal the cards."
For the next hour Alec methodically and ruthlessly played his hands, winning every game with the calm and composed determination of a Belmore Duke.
"I've had enough." Downe threw his worthless cards on the table, and
Seymour
followed, eyeing with envy the fifteen stacks of chips in front of Alec.
"Where to now?" Downe said.
Seymour
stood, bracing his hands on the table and leaning closer to Alec as if in warning. "Remember what the old woman said? She said you will marry the next girl you meet."
"That's right. Why not pay a call on Letitia Hornsby, Belmore? Would save me further serious injury."
"It is nothing to jest about,"
Seymour
said with indignation.
"Of course not, he's the Duke of Belmore. He never jests about anything."
Alec stood up abruptly. "I'm leaving. Are you two coming?"
"Where?" they asked in unison, then followed him downstairs where they donned their coats.
"To my hunting lodge." Alec pulled on his gloves. "I need to shoot something."
Following his long strides across the foyer, Downe turned to the viscount. "I don't know why he intends to go to Glossop. There aren't any women within fifty miles of his lodge."
"Remember what the old crone told him?"
Seymour
said, rushing to keep up. "I'll wager he's going there
because
there aren't any women within fifty miles. Doesn't he know he can't change destiny?"
And they followed Belmore out the door.
***
Joy stomped on the burning paper with a vengeance. "Beezle…. Look what I've done!"
She bent down and picked up the charred piece of paper, then straightened up, dangling it between two fingers. It was still smoking, and the lower right corner was completely burned off.
"Oh, my goodness . . . ” Her words tapered off and her voice cracked a bit as she stared at the burned paper.
Beezle lifted his head up from his black paws and peered at Joy. His eyes darted back and forth between the paper and her sad face.