I Proposed to London's Wickedest Duke, and He Said Yes novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Almack's

I took Kitty's face in both my hands and wiped her cheek with my thumb.

"He didn't choose the roof over you," I said. "He chose his father."

"I know that," said Kitty. "That's what's so stupid.

"I can't even be properly angry at him."

The Dowager held out a handkerchief the size of a flag.

Gervase had gone to the hamper and was standing beside it with his back to us, writing on the lid of a cheese box.

When he came back he handed Kitty the cheese box.

"A living at Tarrant Court fell vacant in March," he said. "A parish in Kent, a good roof, a stipend of three hundred pounds.

"I have the gift of it, and I have never given it to anyone.

"Brayne can't buy a man who's already been paid better."

Kitty read the cheese lid twice.

"You wrote a presentation," she said. "On a cheese box."

"It will be copied fair tonight," said Gervase. "I'd like the curate to read it before he decides what sort of coward he is."

Kitty burst into tears again, and this time she put her arms round my husband's waist.

He stood with his hands in the air.

Then he patted her.

On Wednesday the patronesses of Almack's refused to send me a voucher.

The Dowager had asked for it with her own hand.

The answer came back on thick cream paper, very polite, regretting that Lady Tarrant could not be received while the matter in Chancery remained unsettled.

"Of course," said Ottoline, reading it. "They'd rather wait to see who wins."

"I'd like to go," I said.

"I'd like you to," said Gervase.

He had been standing at the window with his hands behind him.

"The ton must see us walk in together."

"A duke needs no voucher," said the Dowager.

"No," he said, and held out his arm. "I am the voucher."

Almack's, in King Street, is a long plain room with bad lemonade and stale cake.

It is the most terrifying place in London.

The doorkeeper saw us coming and began to open his mouth.

Gervase looked at him.

He shut it again, and stood aside.

We walked into the ballroom on my husband's arm.

Two hundred heads turned, and the music wobbled in the middle of a bar.

The patronesses sat in a row on their little gilt chairs, like a bench of magistrates.

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