Simply Unforgettable

Lucius needed a bride.

It had been as plain as the noses on all their faces, it seemed, except his. Though even that was questionable. He knew all about duty even if he had spent a large part of his life ignoring and even running from it. But up until now he had been free to do as he pleased. No one had even objected too loudly to his way of life. Normal young men were expected to sow wild oats, provided they did not descend too deeply into vice, and he had done what was expected of him.

But now everything was to change. And if one was to be philosophical about it, one would have to admit that duty caught up with most young men sooner or later—it was the nature of life. It had caught up with him now.

His relatives had all separately expostulated on the theme throughout the holiday whenever one, or sometimes two, of them could maneuver him into what they were all pleased to describe as a comfortable coze.

He had enjoyed more comfortable cozes over Christmas than ever in his life before—or in his life to come, he sincerely hoped.

The consensus was, of course, that he needed a bride without delay.

A perfect bride, if there were such a paragon available—and apparently there was.

Portia Hunt was far and away the most favored candidate, since it was next to impossible to find any imperfection in her.

She had remained single to the advanced age of twenty-three, his mother explained, because she fully expected to be his viscountess one day—and his countess eventually, of course. And the mother of a future earl.

She would make him an admirable wife, Margaret, Lady Tait, Lucius’s older sister, assured him, because she was mature and steady and had all the accomplishments a future countess would need.

She was still a diamond of the first water, Caroline and Emily, his younger sisters, pointed out—quite correctly, as it happened, even if they did choose to express themselves in cliches. There was no one more beautiful, more elegant, more refined, more accomplished, than Portia.

Miss Portia Hunt was the daughter of Baron and Lady Balderston and the granddaughter of the Marquess of Godsworthy, his grandfather reminded him—Godsworthy was one of his oldest and closest friends. It would be an eligible and highly desirable alliance—not that he was trying to put undue pressure on his grandson.

“Your choice of bride must be yours alone, Lucius,” he had said. “But if there is no one else you fancy, you might seriously consider Miss Hunt. It would do my heart good to see you wed to her before I die.”

No undue pressure, indeed!

Only Amy, his youngest sister, had spoken up with a dissenting voice, though only on the question of the candidate for perfect bride, not on the necessity of his finding such a creature somewhere within the next few months.

“Don’t do it, Luce,” she had said when they were out riding alone together one day. “Miss Hunt is so very tedious. She advised Mama just last summer not to bring me out this year even though I will be eighteen in June, just because Emily’s broken arm prevented her from coming out last year and so her turn was delayed. Miss Hunt might have spoken up for me since she intends to marry you and become my sister-in-law, but she did not, and then she smiled that very patronizing smile of hers and assured me that I would be glad next year when the focus of family attention will be on me alone.”

The trouble was that he had known Portia forever—her family had frequently come to stay at

Barclay Court

, and sometimes, when his grandparents had gone to visit the Marquess of Godsworthy, they had taken Lucius with them, and as like as not the Balderstons would be there too with their daughter. The desire of both families that they would eventually make a match of it had always been quite evident. And while he had never actively encouraged Portia after her come-out to sacrifice all other offers in favor of waiting for him to come to the point, he had never actively discouraged her, either. Since he was not of a romantical turn of mind and had always known that he was going to have to marry one day, he had assumed that probably he would end up married to her. But knowing that as a vague sort of future probability was altogether different from being confronted now with the expectation that it was actually to happen—and soon.

Indeed, a vague sort of panic had assailed him at frequent intervals all over the holiday. It happened particularly when he tried to picture himself in bed with Portia. Good Lord! She would doubtless expect him to watch his manners.

And yet another small fact that had darkened his mood even further was that he had distinctly heard himself promise his grandfather—it had happened when they were sitting together in the library on Christmas evening after everyone else had retired for the night, and a few glasses from the wassail bowl had mellowed his senses and made him really quite maudlin—that he would look seriously about him this coming spring during the Season and choose a bride and marry her before the summer was out.

He had not exactly promised to marry Portia Hunt, but her name had inevitably come up.

“Miss Hunt will be happy to see you in town this year,” his grandfather had said—which was a strange thing really as Lucius was always in town. But what the old man had meant, of course, was that Portia would be happy to see him dancing attendance on her at all the balls and routs and other faradiddle of social events that he normally avoided as he would the plague.

He was a doomed man. There was no point in even trying to deny it. His days as a free—as a carefree—man about town were numbered. Ever since just before Christmas he had felt the noose tightening ever more firmly about his neck.

“That coachman of yours deserves to be led in front of a firing squad,” Miss Frances Allard, that charmingly gentle lady, said suddenly and sharply, and at the same moment her hand clamped like a vise about Lucius’s sleeve. “He is going too fast again.”

The carriage was indeed slithering and sliding as it plowed its way through the heavy snow. Peters, Lucius thought, was probably enjoying himself more than he had in many a long day.

“I daresay you would say that,” he said, “since you have your own coachman trained