their way. 'You have your home and your estate to go to now that you have the title and your services in France are no longer required. And a marriage with someone you love to help you send down roots. I think you must love Free.' He grinned. 'I cannot imagine any other reason a man would want to marry her unless it was her fortune, and you obviously don't need her money.'
'I do not,' Joshua agreed. 'You probably are not lacking in funds yourself, though, or any of the other attributes necessary to attract a prospective bride, if that is what you want.'
'The trouble is,' Alleyne said, 'that I do not know what I want. If I were poor, I would have no choice but to take employment, would I? I suppose I would have found my niche long ago and been reasonably happy in it. And if I were poor, there would not be so many females setting their caps at me. Perhaps I would have pursued and won someone who loved me for myself, someone for whom I would happily give up my freedom. Rank and fortune are not without their problems.'
'Once upon a time,' Joshua said, 'I had neither, and on the whole I would have to admit you have a point.'
'Having said which,' Alleyne said ruefully, rising from his place to help himself to more food from the sideboard, 'I am not sure I would give up either even if I could. I have been thinking-with a little prodding from Wulf-of running for a seat in Parliament or taking some government appointment. As for marriage, I am in no hurry. Bedwyns are expected to be monogamous once they do marry. More than that, they are expected to love their spouses. I am not sure I am ready for that sort of commitment yet, if I ever will be. I hope you are. Freyja will demand it of you-with her fists if necessary.'
'Now that is a threat to put the fear of God into me,' Joshua said. 'I have been at the receiving end of one of those fists-at least my nose has-on two separate occasions.'
Alleyne threw back his head and laughed.
'Good old Free,' he said.
Morgan was young and beautiful and on the verge of making her come-out in society. She would be presented to the queen next spring and remain in London to participate in all the frenzied social activities of the Season. With all her advantages of birth and fortune and looks, she could not fail to take the ton by storm and to be courted by every gentleman in search of a wife and a good number who would think of matrimony only after setting eyes on her.
But she was not living for that day. She was not a giddy young girl with nothing in her head but beaux and parties.
'It is all remarkably foolish,' she said at dinner one evening, 'all this faradiddle of a come-out and a Season. And the whole idea of a marriage mart is distasteful and remarkably lowering.'
'You are not afraid no one will bid for you, are you, Morg?' Alleyne asked.
'I am afraid of no such thing,' she said disdainfully, 'so you may wipe that grin off your face, Alleyne. I am afraid of just the opposite. I expect to be mobbed by silly fops and ancient roues and earnest, dull men of all ages. All because of who I am. Not a one of them will know me or even wish to know me. All they will want is marriage with the wealthy younger sister of the Duke of Bewcastle.'
'Fortunately, Morgan,' Aidan said, 'you have the power to say no to any or all of them. Wulf is no tyrant and could not force you into a marriage against your will even if he were.'
'You will meet someone next spring,' Eve said, 'or the year after or the year after that, and there will be something about him that is different, Morgan. Something that stirs you here.' She touched her heart. 'And before you know it, even if you never intended to love or even to like him, you will know that there is no one else in the world for you but him.'
'Eve met Aidan,' Freyja said, sounding exasperated, though there was a certain fond gleam in her eye as she looked at her sister-in-law, 'and has become a hopeless romantic.'
'Yes, I have,' Eve agreed, and laughed and blushed.
'Well, I certainly do not expect to meet my future husband at the London marriage mart,' Morgan said with a contemptuous toss of her head. 'I will wait until I am five and twenty if I must, just like Freyja. She waited until she met just the right man.' She looked at Joshua, approval in her eyes.
'Even if there were a few hiccups along the way,' Alleyne added.
Joshua found that he did not dislike even Bewcastle. The man was cold, austere, distant. He took his meals with his family and joined them in the drawing room during the evenings. But apart from that he kept very much to himself. He did invite Joshua into his library after luncheon the day Rannulf and Judith left. Joshua guessed that such invitations were rare. He sank into the leather chair Bewcastle indicated before taking the one at the other side of the hearth himself.
'You have been presented to most of the members of our family,' he said, setting his elbows on the arms of the chair and steepling his fingers, 'and to almost all our neighbors while we were at Alvesley for the christening. It was my intention when I came home from Bath to host an evening party or even a ball here in honor of your betrothal. But you may consider such an event undesirable. The betrothal is still of a temporary nature, I assume?'
Joshua hesitated and found himself staring into the pale, inscrutable eyes of the duke. It seemed for a moment that he could almost read in those eyes a knowledge of what had happened during the evening at Alvesley.
'As you pointed out in Bath,' Joshua said, 'and as I explained to Freyja before that, my betrothal is very real to me. Only she can end it. She has not yet spoken the final word on that.'
He had noticed before that Bewcastle did not seem disconcerted by lengthy silences. There was one now.
'If you wish her to speak that final word,' Bewcastle said at last, 'then I trust you will make it desirable to her to do so. Freyja may be the last woman one would expect to be susceptible to a broken heart, but that fate is not unknown to her.'
'I know,' Joshua said.
'Ah.' The ducal eyebrows went up.
'I will see what Freyja thinks about a party or ball,' Joshua said, feeling that he had had a brief glimpse into a side of Bewcastle that he kept very carefully hidden even from his own family. He cared about Freyja-not just about
