Lady Felicity Trammerley, eldest daughter of the Earl of Braecourt, had been taught from her cradle by her devoted mama what was due to her. Certainly a lot was due to her, she reasoned, from her betrothed, the Duke of Portmaine. After all, she had consented to marry him. Certainly it was an achievement for him to have won her consent. She knew he believed her docile and malleable, very probably like a sheep, and those qualities were what he desired. She did her best to convince him she possessed them. Diligence and hard work. Her mama had patted her beautiful black hair and told her diligence would always get her what she wanted. Ah, but sometimes it was trying, particularly now, after the duke had told her why he'd come to visit her. She held her tongue. She let him talk. She knew she still had to tread lightly, even though their engagement had been formally announced in the Gazette the previous week. Yes, she had to be careful not to scream at him when he told her in that clipped, arrogant way of his why he'd come, the selfish clod.

The charm came swimming through her voice as she said, "My dear Ian, you know I'm pleased about the inheritance, even though it's just a Scottish title and estate. But I fail to understand the urgency of your traveling now, in the middle of the Season, to inspect some moldering old castle that has probably been close to ruin for the past hundred years. Surely, the turrets won't crumble if you postpone your trip until the summer. Oh, dear, it doesn't still have a moat, does it? They're dreadfully unhealthy. Now, no one could expect you to give up all the pleasures of the Season just for this."

She didn't add that her own pleasures were very much intertwined with his, for the umbrella of his consequence as a wealthy and powerful peer made everyone treat her just as they ought now that they were affianced and she was recognized as the future Duchess of Portmaine. There were still a couple of old biddies who still hadn't accepted the fact, but when she finally married him, she'd fix them but good.

Ian Charles Curlew Carmichael, fifth Duke of Portmaine, regarded the dainty, altogether delicious specimen of womanhood seated before him with an indulgent look in his dark eyes. He smiled at her, for it was impossible not to, for it pleased him simply to look at her. She was very beautiful. She spoke softly, as a duchess should. She moved gracefully as a duchess should. Yes, he'd done the right thing.

"No," he said finally, "you're right about that, Felicity. No one would expect such an excess of landlordly zeal -- no one save myself and, of course, my late uncle Richard. He taught me to care for what was mine because if I didn't, someone else would, and that would leave me nothing more than a fool. I must go. If I leave within the week, I should be back within the month. I know you'll understand, my dear. I can't simply turn my back on my obligations, no matter if they must intrude upon other, more interesting pursuits." Actually, he thought, it was more to the point that he would seize on any possible excuse to save him from all the flash and dash of the Season. The endless parties and balls bored him to his eyebrows and completely deadened his mind.

Ah, but he knew that ladies enjoyed that sort of thing, and he was, after all, a gentleman. But now he could remain a gentleman and escape as well. He was enjoying exquisite relief with virtually no guilt.

Lady Felicity went stiff as a board at his despotic dismissal of her objections. He preferred going to the backwater of the world rather than remain in London with her, damn him. She carefully swallowed an acid reply and managed to say with reasonable good humor, "But, Ian, you have told me yourself that you don't even know these people. And you know the Scots -- nasty barbarians, all of them. I can't believe they'd welcome an Englishman. Why don't you just send your solicitor, Jerkin, to see to things?"

The duke gazed into the soft leaf green eyes, slightly slanted at the corners, eyes that reminded him so much of his first wife's. No, he wouldn't think about Marianne, not now. It wasn't right. He had to forget Marianne. Surely once Felicity was his duchess, she would take Marianne's place. She would make him release his hold on his long dead wife.

He said, "You just might be right, my dear, but nonetheless, it is my duty to at least visit Penderleigh Castle and determine what I'm going to do with the place. After all, these offensive barbarians, as you call them, are related to me, though somewhat removed in bloodlines."

"I said they were nasty, not offensive."

"Forgive me, the two words seem remarkably akin to me. Now, the title comes to me through my great aunt, whom, I understand, still lives at Penderleigh through some sort of bizarre Scottish legal ruling made some years ago. I regret to leave you alone during the height of the social whirl" -- at least he had the grace to avoid looking at her directly as he spoke -- "but you know you can always depend on Giles to take you wherever you want to go. You like him, he's witty and lighthearted. He dances well. He knows every scrap of gossip in London. I have no idea how he does it."

The duke looked perplexed, then shook his head and grinned. "Can you bear that he wraps himself in a yellow-striped waistcoat with a row of huge silver buttons and plants a hunter green coat over all of it?"

He pictured Giles preening in that ensemble. He'd called him a peacock with his tail feathers all plumed out, but his cousin had only punched his arm and told him he was too stolid in his dress, an absolute bore, as a matter of fact.

It would have come as a drop-dead shock to the duke to learn that Lady Felicity held Giles in fashionable esteem and believed his mode of dress far more elegant than the overly simple styles the duke wore. And he would have laughed in denial had he known that she considered Giles, with his slender, far slighter frame, less intimidating than the duke. He didn't know that right at this moment Lady Felicity felt a cramp in her belly, remembering her brother, Lord Sayer, coarsely teasing her about the duke when he'd been told by their ecstatic father about her betrothal. He had tweaked her chin in that hearty, loathsome way of his, all the while allowing his laughing gaze to flit over her petite body.

"Well, little puss, the duke is a man mountain. I bravely took him on in the ring the other day, saw him stripped to his hide, you know. All hard muscle, my dear, not a patch of fat on him. Most noble proportions even in rest, if you glean my meaning, which I hope you don't, since you're a virgin and a ninny. I vow you'll have a lusty wedding night with him. You'll probably not walk straight for days."

Felicity quickly looked away from the duke, realizing that she'd been eyeing him with something akin to horror. She repeated to herself that Ian was, after all, a duke. One didn't look at dukes with horror. One admired dukes. When she became his duchess, she would be compensated for what she would have to endure in his bedchamber. She would give him an heir -- she knew that was expected by everyone, including her fond mama, who profoundly regretted that her little treasure would have to be violated by a husband -- but then, surely, he would leave her alone and be content to dally with his mistresses.

Lady Felicity managed to smile up at him. She knew it wouldn't be wise to protest his decision further. She had seen often enough how he would withdraw from her at any hint of opposition. She drew herself up confidently. When she became the Duchess of Portmaine, ah, then things would change.

Copyright © 1995 by Catherine Coulter