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enjoying the scene. “Do you want me to go and fetch her, Papa?” he asked.
    “Eh? What’s that?” his father asked, crumpling the note in his hand.
    “I could be there before midnight if I left at once,” Bartholomew said.
    “Break your neck more like,” his grandfather said.
    The viscount was tapping a knuckle against his teeth. “No,” he said. “I must go—with the carriage and with some respectable clothes for Jo to wear. If I leave now, I can get most of the way there before nightfall. I can complete the journey at dawn and be on the way back with Jo before the middle of the morning.”
    “Scold her gently,” the earl said. “You don’t want her getting back here all upset.”
    “I’ll set her ears to ringing with what I have to say,” the viscount said, looking unusually fierce. “The dratted girl. It is likely his grace will be here before our return. You will all have to hold him off with the story of how Jo insisted on accompanying me visiting the sick.”
    Bartholomew chuckled and watched his foot swinging.
    “Perhaps I’ll be able to reach the main road to London tonight,” the viscount said. “That’s only ten miles from Winnie’s. There is a fairly decent inn there. What’s it called? The Crown?”
    “Crown and Anchor,” Bartholomew said.
    The viscount nodded. “Sukey,” he said, “find a maid who can pick out a decent dress for Jo and all the trappings, there’s a good girl. A dress fit for meeting her bridegroom in. Bart, send to the stables and have the traveling carriage ready and before the doors here within the half hour. Drat the girl. I’ll lift my hand to her yet.”
    “Do you think Jo forgot that the duke is expected tomorrow?” Augusta asked her older sister.
    Penelope looked at her in some scorn. “I think Jo decided to visit Aunt Winifred just because the duke is expected,” she said. “I don’t know what she wants unless it is to be an old maid. She cannot do much better than a duke, now, can she?”
    “But if it were my choice,” Augusta said, “I would prefer to marry someone like Mr. Porterhouse, even if he is just a mister. He is so very handsome, Penny. I do wish he had not gone away already. It will be dull visiting the Winthrops now that he has gone.”
    “I am sure he would not know you if he passed you on an empty street, Gussie,” Penelope said. “You are only fourteen years old, after all. Gentlemen like Mr. Porterhouse have an eye for older ladies, and prettier ones.”
    “Yes, like Jo,” her sister said with a sigh. “But perhaps his grace will be handsome too, Penny.”
    They waved the traveling carriage and their father on the way half an hour later. Poor Papa would miss his dinner, Augusta remarked to Susanna.
    ***
    “Well,” the Duke of Mitford said to the dull, demure country mouse his grandfather had chosen as his bride, “it would never do to be forced into an unwelcome marriage. You have any objection to the Duke of Mitford?”
    “More than one,” she said, looking up at him with flushed cheeks and large gray eyes. “He is too handsome for his own good; he has all the arrogance one would expect of a man of his position and wealth and looks; and he is a libertine,” She counted the points off on her fingers. “I hate him.”
    The duke pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. “I take it you have met the gentleman?” he asked.
    “No,” she said, “and I have no wish to. But I have heard quite enough about him. You should just know the aristocracy as I know them, sir—always more concerned for their own consequence than anything else. Being the daughter of a viscount and the granddaughter of an earl has taught me a great deal. I can just imagine what being the wife of a duke would be like, especially the wife of the Duke of Mitford.” She spoke the name with great scorn.
    “Ah,” the Duke of Mitford said.
    “My Uncle Ermingford is worth every bit as much as any titled gentleman I have ever met,” she said, “even