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Carlington recollected, in the nick of time, the
company he was keeping. Instead, he shot out of his chair, threw
the letters onto his desk, before slamming several drawers in a
search for fresh parchment, which was exactly where he always kept
it. His quill was not sharp enough, the inkwell seemed on the verge
of going dry. While his blasted daughter, who he had thought would
never serve him such a back-handed turn, watched him in wide-eyed
wonder, the duke scribbled a note to his betrothed advising her
that he must attend to a family emergency. He would, of course,
return in time for their wedding.
    “ Sims,” he bawled, waving the note as
the butler materialized in the bookroom doorway. “See this is
delivered immediately. And tell Benton to start packing
immediately. I shall be journeying into the country for a sennight
or so.”
    “ But, Your Grace—” Sims’s customary
aplomb gave way to a mix of shock and disapproval.
    “ I have not forgotten the wedding,” the
duke growled, “but go I must. Lady Caroline will accompany me.
Move!” he shouted as the butler continued to hover.
    “ Your Grace,” Sims announced bravely,
“you have a visitor just arrived. Lord Frayne.”
    “ Tell him to go away.” One glance at
the thin line of his butler’s mouth, the speaking suggestion in his
long-familiar eyes, and the duke’s lips curled in derision. At
himself. There was nothing quite like a reprimand from a servant
who had known him since he was in short coats. “If you think I
should use Frayne as a messenger,” he told his butler, “you are
fair and far out. See that the note is delivered as
instructed.”
    “ Yes, Your Grace.” Shoulders not quite
as straight as they had been, Sims retreated toward the door. Just
a moment too late.
    “ Longville!” Anthony Norville, Viscount
Frayne, came striding through the door, looking as impeccably
dressed and full of life as if he had had more than four hours
sleep. “I came to congratulate you on surviving an evening with my
stultifying and occasionally shocking family connections. Or is
that a retraction of the betrothal you are sending off to the
newspapers?” he added, eyeing the missive in Sims’s
hand.
    “ I’m off on a journey, Frayne. Haven’t
time to talk—” The duke broke off, following Norville’s inquiring
gaze to the young lady who had risen from her chair and
was— blushing ? Good God, had
she reached that age? Blushing over Frayne, that care-for-nothing
fribble? Surely not. The duke gave his daughter a sharp look before
performing the necessary introductions. By God, she was blushing. The child had gone from
porcelain to rose red. He was missing something, and Marcus, Duke
of Longville, did not care for secrets. Not in the
least.
    Particularly not today.
    “ Run along, Frayne,” he ordered. “We
must pack. I have sent your sister a note. Never fear, I will be
back in time for the wedding.”
    “ You are going to go through with—”
Caroline gasped.
    “ We will leave within the hour,” the
duke interrupted, deliberately misinterpreting her
protest.
    “ You can’t,” his daughter countered.
Flatly.
    “ Tony, be off. You will have time
enough to become acquainted with Lady Caroline in the
future.”
    Since Tony knew the only packing the Duke of
Longville would be required to perform for himself was the removal
of funds for the journey from his safe, the viscount easily sniffed
a mystery in the air. Such abject haste, such determination to turn
a well-known visitor from the door, had more behind it than the
necessity of preparing for a journey.
    And if there were a mystery, Tony speculated,
his enigmatic young acquaintance from the night before was surely
in it up to her magnificently regal neck. “I trust you will be
returning to London, Lady Caroline,” the viscount pronounced,
showing no signs of obeying the duke’s irritable commands to take
his leave.
    “ As to that, I truly doubt I shall be
doing so,” Caroline murmured,