I Proposed to London's Wickedest Duke, and He Said Yes novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Cavendish Square

At midnight Mina and the Duke walk into her uncle's house and walk out with Kitty past footmen who fear his name; the Dowager waits in the hall in a purple turban, and the wedding is at ten, ending in a kiss that is not for show. On the stairs the Dowager says, be kind to him tonight.

My uncle was still at the ball, drinking to my engagement, when we reached his house at midnight.

The butler opened the door of Brayne House in Cavendish Square and saw the Duke of Tarrant on the step.

He went the colour of tallow.

"Tell Montague Stroud's household," said Gervase, "that I have come for my sister-in-law."

"His lordship left orders, your Grace."

"I'm sure he did."

Gervase stepped into the hall and took off his hat.

Behind the butler, three footmen had stopped pretending to be furniture.

"I'm told I've destroyed larger houses than this," said Gervase mildly. "I have never enjoyed it."

I watched the footmen consider what they had heard about him.

They looked at each other.

The tallest of them took a very interesting step backward.

"Wait," said a voice from the stairs.

Kitty stood on the landing in her nightgown with a candle in one hand and a carpetbag in the other.

Her strawberry braids were coming loose, and her freckles stood out.

"I've had this packed since Tuesday," she said. "Is that the Duke? He's much prettier than the papers said."

"Kitty."

"Mina, you're in a ball gown. Did you do something?"

"I got married," I said. "Nearly."

"Brilliant," said Kitty, and came down the stairs two at a time.

The butler did not move to stop her.

In the carriage she sat between us with the bag on her knees.

She looked at the Duke.

"Are you really as wicked as they say?"

"I'm told I'm wickeder."

"Do you mind it?"

"I find I'm beginning to," said Gervase, and glanced at me, and looked away.

Tarrant House in Brook Street was lit from the cellars to the attic.

In the hall at one in the morning stood the smallest old woman I had ever seen.

She wore a purple turban and carried a cane and a candelabrum.

"So you're the girl who proposed," she said. "Gervase's note said so, and nothing else."

I opened my mouth.

"On a terrace, like a man," said the Dowager Duchess of Tarrant. "I approve.

"I am Ottoline, and I am too old for anything but the truth.

"Who is the child?"

"Kitty," said Kitty, and curtsied so badly the candle swung.

"Do you play piquet?"

"No, your Grace."

"Good. I need someone to beat."

By two o'clock Kitty was asleep in a bed with four posts.

I lay in the Duchess's chamber, which smelled of lavender and had a door in the wall.

It was closed.

I looked at it for a long time.

We were married at ten the next morning in the drawing room, by a rector the Dowager had fetched from his breakfast.

I wore the grey silk from the ball.

The Dowager pinned a pearl comb into my cropped curls.

Kitty sat on a sofa with a notebook.

Gervase wore a plain black coat, no rings, and a waistcoat the colour of rain.

It was the first time I had seen him look like a man who had dressed himself.

"Do you, Wilhelmina," said the rector.

"I do."

"Do you, Gervase Lisle."

"I do," said Gervase, and his voice shook on the second word.

I looked up.

He was white about the mouth.

I had expected a rake to be bored at his own wedding.

The rector said the last of it, and cleared his throat, and said, "You may kiss the bride."

Gervase did not move.

He looked at me, and I understood that he was waiting for me.

So I took him by both lapels and pulled him down.

His mouth was warm and soft and a little unsteady, and then it opened under mine.

He made a low sound in his throat, and one hand came up and cupped my jaw.

It was shaking.

I kissed him harder, because I wanted to, and the shaking stopped.

His other hand found the small of my back and pulled me in.

I felt the length of him against me, hot through the wool.

My knees did a thing I had read about and not believed.

Somebody coughed.

"Ahem," said the rector. "That's quite sufficient."

"Is it?" said the Dowager. "I thought it was promising."

Kitty wrote something down.

I drew back an inch.

My husband stared at me with his blue eyes gone dark and wide.

I told myself it was practice.

That night, after supper, Kitty went up to bed with a candle and a promise to beat the Dowager at piquet by Saturday.

I stayed at the foot of the stairs and watched Gervase cross the hall to the library without looking back.

"Child," said the Dowager, beside me.

She had come down the stairs without a sound.

"Be kind to him tonight."

"He's the one with the name," I said.

"Yes," said Ottoline. "Be kind anyway."

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