He was bowing and scraping before her parents, which gave Olivia an excellent view of his potato-shaped nose and pendulous lower lip. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that she was set to marry the sort of man whom people wished were invisible. Or if not invisible, at least silent. She swallowed hard.
“Now,” His Grace announced, “I would never be clear in my conscience if I wasn’t absolutely certain that Miss Lytton wished this union with my son as dearly as we do. A promise between schoolboys should not force a young person into holy matrimony.”
“Told him that myself,” Rupert said, with palpable satisfaction. “No one could force me into marriage. My own decision. Clippings don’t answer.”
“No one is trying to clip your wings,” his father snapped.
Mr. and Mrs. Lytton looked at their prospective son-in-law with identical expressions of alarm and confusion.
“My son means to say that he is deeply enthusiastic about marrying Miss Lytton once he has returned from his military service,” the duke clarified.
Mrs. Lytton’s eyelashes fluttered madly.
“First I’m going to do our name proud,” Rupert put in. “Glory, and all that.”
The duke cleared his throat, glowering at his son. “The question of the moment is not your intent to prove your military prowess, Son, but whether Miss Lytton cares to wait for you until you have returned. The poor lady has been betrothed to you for some time.”
Rupert’s face twisted into an almost comical expression of anxiety. “Must win glory for the sake of the family name,” he said to Olivia. “What I mean to say is, I’m the last of the line. The rest all killed in the Culleron Door.”
“Culloden Moor,” his father said. “The Jacobite rising. Fools, every one of them.”
“I completely understand,” Olivia said to Rupert, resisting the impulse to draw her hand away from his.
He hung on with a tight grip. “I’ll marry you as soon as I come back. Trailing glory, you understand.”
“Of course,” Olivia managed. “Glory.”
“There is no need to worry in the slightest about my daughter,” Mrs. Lytton told Rupert. “She will wait for you without a second’s thought. For months, nay, for years.”
Olivia thought this was a bit much, but obviously she was not in charge of the timetable. If her parents had their way, she would indeed wait another five years for Rupert to wander back to England, wreathed in glory—or, more likely, ignominy. The idea of Rupert in a war was distinctly frightening: men of his type should not be handed a penknife, let alone anything as lethal as a sword.
“Now, now, my dear lady,” the duke said to Mrs. Lytton. “One can hardly trust a mother to plumb the depths of her daughter’s heart.”
Mrs. Lytton opened her mouth to dispute this statement; without question, she considered herself to have plumbed the depths of Olivia’s heart and found there nothing but an engraved plaque that read Future Duchess of Canterwick.
But the duke raised a hand, politely but firmly. Then he turned to Olivia. She dropped another perfectly calibrated curtsy.
“I shall speak to Miss Lytton in your library,” His Grace announced. “Meanwhile, Rupert”—he all but snapped his fingers—“do inform Mr. Lytton about the situation in France. My dear sir, the marquess has been studying the situation with some fervor, and I’m sure he can enlighten you as to the grave dangers posed by the debacle on the other side of the Channel.”
They left the room on a stream of Rupert’s babble. Olivia allowed herself to be seated when they reached the library; the duke stayed in his favorite posture, feet spread, hands behind his back, as if he were standing on the prow of a ship.
He’d have made a good ship’s captain, now Olivia thought on it. That nose would have come in handy when it came to smelling the storm winds, or sniffing out rotten goods in the hold.
“Just in case you’re worried, my dear, Rupert will be going nowhere near the French shore,” His Grace announced.
Olivia nodded. “I am very happy to hear it.”
“He’ll be landing in Portugal.”
“Portugal?” Olivia echoed, thinking that she had been right: Rupert was indeed being kept a whole country away from the battle.
“The French are fighting in Spain at no great distance,” the duke said. “But Rupert is landing in Portugal, and there he will stay. He wishes to be at Wellington’s side, but I simply cannot allow that.”
Olivia inclined her head again.
The duke shifted from foot to foot, the first time that Olivia had ever seen him show the faintest hint of uncertainty. Then: “He’s a biddable lad, as you’ll discover. Generally does what he’s told, without much fuss. He learned to . . . He can even dance now. Not the quadrille, of course, but most of the rest. But when he does get an idea in his head, he simply won’t let go of it. And here’s the problem: he’s convinced himself that he will not marry until he achieves military glory.”
Olivia didn’t twitch an eyebrow. But the duke read something more subtle in her face.
“Astonishing, isn’t it? I blame his tutors for spending altogether too much time beating the history of our family into his head. The first duke led five hundred men into battle—and the best way to describe that engagement would be a glorious and epic defeat. But of course we put a different gloss on it amongst ourselves. Or at least those fools of tutors did. Rupert wants to lead a troop of men and come home covered in glory.”
Olivia was suddenly aware of a feeling of pity for the duke, something he would undoubtedly resent.
“Perhaps he might lead a small skirmish?” she suggested.
“Precisely my thought,” the duke said, sighing. “It’s taken a bit of maneuvering, but he’ll be heading up a company of one hundred men.”
“And what will he do with them?”
“Lead them into battle,” the duke said. “In Portugal, a nice distance from any soldiers who might be inclined to fight back.”
“Ah.”
“Of course, anytime I let him out of my sight, I worry.”
Olivia would worry too, if she had the faintest affection for Rupert. He was just the type to commit suicide. Oh, he wouldn’t have it in mind as such. But he would wander into the Whitefriars with a jeweled snuffbox in his hand and a diamond set in his cravat. Suicide.
The duke thumped his walking stick on the flagstones before the fireplace, rather as if he were trying to even out the stone. “The truth of it is that I’m concerned about the possibility that Rupert won’t go through with the marriage if I force him to the altar.”
Olivia nodded again.
The duke looked at her fleetingly and then gave the flagstone at his foot another good prod. “I could deliver him to a church, obviously, but I would be unsurprised if he said no at the crucial moment, even if I filled St. Paul’s with witnesses. He’d cheerfully explain exactly why he didn’t want to say his vows, and he would certainly be happy to tell everyone that he planned to marry you after he achieved—” His voice broke off.
“Military glory,” Olivia finished his sentence for him. She was feeling very sorry indeed for the duke. No one deserved to be humiliated like this.