“I can’t say I’ve noticed. Except perhaps when it comes to Melchett, the new footman with the lovely shoulders.”
“You shouldn’t be ogling a footman,” Georgiana said primly.
“He ogles me, not the other way around. I am merely observant. Why do you suppose we aren’t simply getting married now?” Olivia asked, tucking her feet beneath her. “I know that we had to wait until Rupert turned eighteen, though frankly, I thought we might as well do it when he was out of diapers. Or at least out of the nursery. It’s not as if he’s ever going to achieve maturity as most people think of the word. Why a betrothal, and not a wedding?”
“I expect the FF doesn’t wish to marry.”
“Why not? I’m not saying that I’m a matrimonial prize. But he can’t possibly hope to escape his father’s wishes. I don’t think he’d even want to. He doesn’t have a touch of rebellion in him.”
“No man wants to marry a woman his father picked out for him. Actually, no woman either—think about Juliet.”
“Juliet Fallesbury? Whom did her father choose? All I remember is that she ran away with a gardener she nicknamed Longfellow.”
“Romeo and Juliet, ninny!”
“Shakespeare never wrote anything relevant to my life,” Olivia stated, “at least until they discover a long-lost tragedy called Much Ado about Olivia and the Fool. Rupert is no Romeo. He’s never shown the least inclination to dissolve our betrothal.”
“In that case, I expect he feels too young to be married. He wants to sow some wild oats.”
They were both silent for a moment, trying to picture Rupert’s wild oats. “Hard to imagine, isn’t it?” Olivia said, after a bit. “I simply cannot envision the FF shaking the sheets.”
“You shouldn’t be able to envision anyone shaking the sheets,” Georgiana said weakly.
“Save your tedious virtue for when there’s someone in the room who might care,” Olivia advised her, not unkindly. “Do you suppose that Rupert has any idea of the mechanics involved?”
“Maybe he’s hoping that by the time he comes back from France, he will be an inch or two taller.”
“Oh, believe me,” Olivia said with a shudder, “I have recurring nightmares about the two of us walking down the aisle in St. Paul’s. Mother will force me into a wedding dress adorned with bunches of tulle so I’ll be twice as tall and twice as wide as my groom. Rupert will have that absurd little dog of his trotting at his side, which will only call attention to the fact that the dog has a better waistline than I do.”
“I shall take Mother in hand when it comes to your gown,” Georgiana promised. “But your wedding dress is irrelevant to this discussion as pertains to tomorrow’s seduction.”
“ ‘Pertains to?’ I really think you should be careful, Georgie. Your language is tainted by that pestilent Mirror even when we’re alone.”
“You’ll have to think of tomorrow as a trial, like Hercules cleaning out the Augean stables.”
“I’d rather muck out the stables than seduce a man who’s a head shorter and as light as thistledown.”
“Offer him a glass of spirits,” Georgiana suggested. “Do you remember how terrified Nurse Luddle was of men who drank spirits? She said they turned into raging satyrs.”
“Rupert, the Raging Satyr,” Olivia said thoughtfully. “I can just see him skipping through the forest on his frisky little hooves.”
“Hooves might give him a distinguished air. Especially if he had a goatee. Satyrs always have goatees.”
“Rupert would have trouble with that. I told him tonight that I thought his attempt to grow a mustache was interesting, but I was lying. Don’t satyrs have little horns as well?”
“Yes, and tails.”
“A tail might—just might—give Rupert a devilish air, like one of those rakes who are rumored to have slept with half the ton. Maybe I’ll try to imagine him with those embellishments tomorrow evening.”
“You’ll start giggling,” Georgiana warned. “You’re not supposed to laugh at your husband during intimate moments. It might put him off.”
“For one thing, he’s not my husband. For another, one either laughs at Rupert or bursts into tears. While we were dancing tonight I asked him what his father thought about his plan to win glory, and he stopped in the middle of the ballroom and announced, ‘The duck can dip an eagle’s wings but to no avail!’ And then he threw out his arm and struck Lady Tunstall so hard that her wig fell off.”
“I saw that,” Georgiana said. “From the side of the room it looked as if she was making a rather unnecessary fuss. It just drew more attention.”
“Rupert handed back her wig with the charming comment that she didn’t look in the least like someone who was bald, and he never would have guessed it.”
Georgiana nodded. “An exciting moment for her, no doubt. I don’t understand the bit about the duck, though.”
“No one could. Life with Rupert is going to be a series of exciting moments requiring interpretation.”
“The duck must be the duke,” Georgiana said, still puzzling over it. “Perhaps dipping the eagle’s wings should be clipping? What do you think? That implies Rupert thinks of himself as an eagle. Personally I consider him more akin to a duck.”
“Because he quacks? He would certainly be alone in visualizing himself as an eagle.” Olivia got to her feet and rang the bell. “I think it would behoove me—there’s a twopenny word for you, Georgie—it would behoove me to keep in mind that I’m being invited to have intimacies with a duck in my father’s library tomorrow night. And if that doesn’t sum up my relationship with our parents, I don’t know what could.”
Georgiana gave a snort.
Olivia waggled a finger at her. “Verrrrry vulgar noise you just made, my lady. Very vulgar.”
Four
That Which Is Engraved on the Heart of a Man (or Woman)
The following evening, Olivia was positioned on the sofa in the Yellow Drawing Room some two hours before the Duke of Canterwick and his son Rupert were due to arrive. Mrs. Lytton kept rushing through, squeaking this or that order to the servants. Mr. Lytton was more given to agitated pacing than to rushing. He fiddled with his cravat until it had utterly wilted, and he had to go off to change.
The truth was that her parents had prepared the whole of their married life for this moment, and even so they didn’t really believe their good fortune. She could see the incredulity in their eyes.
Would the duke truly go through with this marriage, based on a schoolboy promise years ago? Inside, they were not convinced.
“ ‘Dignity, virtue, affability, and bearing,’ ” her mother whispered to her, for the third time that evening.
Her father was more direct. “For goodness’ sake, keep your mouth shut.”
Olivia nodded. Again.
“Aren’t you the least bit nervous?” her mother hissed, sitting down beside her.
“No,” Olivia stated.
“That’s—that’s unnatural! One would almost think you didn’t want to be a duchess.” The very notion was clearly inconceivable to Mrs. Lytton.