She held out her hand to him, but Theo, staring at her in stunned disbelief, made no move to take it. “You can’t think I asked to speak privately with you for such a reason as that!”
“Then—what—?”
He did not answer at once, but fumbled in the breast pocket of his elegant coat. Having found what he sought, he withdrew a small velvet box and opened its hinged lid. In one graceful movement, he sank to one knee and offered the box to her. “Daphne Drinkard, will you do me the honor of bestowing upon me your hand in marriage?”
She caught a glimpse of bright green peridots—two in his eyes, and one in the box he held, set in a ring of chased gold—before pressing her hands to her face. “No, Theo—your grace—you must not!”
“Oh? Why mustn’t I? And why, for that matter, am I suddenly ‘your grace’ when I was ‘Theo’ only a few moments ago? I expect a good reason, mind you, and no missish airs!”
He succeeded in persuading her to uncover her face, but although she choked back a reluctant laugh, she shook her head. “Surely you must see that it was different before—”
“Oh, I’ll not argue with you there. It was certainly different—and a deuced sight more uncomfortable! But I can’t regret it, for if Ethan hadn’t insisted on putting me to work in that curst mill of his, I would very likely never have met you.”
“But—but you might marry anyone!”
“Believe me, I’m well aware of that.” The bitterness in his voice robbed the words of any arrogance. “The Duke of Reddington can have his pick of females eager for him to drop the handkerchief in their direction. And if their matrimonial hopes should be dashed, well, there’s no heartbreak so severe that a sufficient outlay of cash won’t heal. But you”—he rose to his feet and drew her to him with one arm about her waist while his other hand tipped her chin up, forcing her to look him in the face—“you loved me when I was Mr. Tisdale, a poor gentleman fallen on hard times and forced to earn his bread by working in a cotton mill. At least, I thought you did.”
“I did,” she whispered, and although he still held her chin captive, her gaze slid away to stare with great intensity at the knot in his liberally starched cravat. “Even when I knew it must break Mama’s heart.”
“I can assure you that when I asked your mother for permission to pay my addresses to you, she appeared to be in no immediate danger of heartbreak.”
She gave a little gurgle of laughter, considering her mother’s reaction to “Mr. Tisdale’s” presence in the light of this new revelation. “I can just imagine! But Theo, much as I might want to—much as I do want to—I can’t marry you. I can’t go off and leave Mama to run the boardinghouse all alone!”
“She need not run the boardinghouse at all if she doesn’t choose to.”
She shook her head. “It is very kind of you, but she would never turn her boarders out. It is only that she doesn’t have enough staff as it is, and without me there to help—”
“I only meant that she could live in the dower house, if she wants to be close to you. Surely there’s no shortage of impoverished gentlewomen who would welcome a roof over their heads and a reasonably genteel position.”
Daphne dimpled at him. “In other words, another mushroom in need of a good wine sauce.”
“Just so,” he said, grinning back at her. “But if your mother prefers to remain in her own home, you can be sure that she will have all the staff she desires, and enough housekeeping money that she won’t have to ration the tea. And although I have no desire to encourage drunkenness, I think I can guarantee that she and her boarders will be able to have more than half a glass of wine a day. I might even be able to promise Mr. Nethercote a glass of port every evening. Although I’d best speak up when I tell him so, or he’ll think I’m offering to lance a wart.”
“Only Mr. Nethercote?” asked Daphne, confused by the deliberate omission of the boardinghouse’s only other male resident. “Not Mr. Nutley?”
“I think Mr. Nutley will be much happier as vicar of a rural parish. The Dukes of Reddington have several modest livings in their gift, one of which is vacant at the moment. I had thought to offer it to him.” In a more serious tone, he added, “No one should be punished forever for foolish mistakes they committed when they were young. Do you think, perhaps, that you could forgive me for mine? Daphne, I do love you so.”
“Oh, Theo!” Her voice choked on a sob as she flung her arms around him.
“Am I to take that as a ‘yes’?” he asked, emerging at last from a kiss that left them both panting and breathless.
“Yes,” she confessed shyly. “Only—Theo, I don’t know anything about being a duchess!”
“I don’t know anything about being a duke, either,” he admitted with a shrug. “What do you say we figure it out together?”
And so they did.
Epilogue
The gardener Adam and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, Lady Clara Vere de Vere
JULY 2018
Reddington Hall, Devon
“And here we have something of a mystery,” pronounced the tour guide (“Katherine,” according to the name tag pinned to her starched white blouse), her high-heeled shoes clicking against the marble-tiled floor as she crossed the room to indicate a framed piece of needlework hanging over the mantel. “If you look carefully, you can see faint brown flecks in the fabric. Family legend claims that the ninth duke wove the fabric himself, having fallen into financial difficulties and been forced to seek employment at a cotton mill, and that those specks are the places where his fingers bled,
