Page 46 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

“Of course. It affects what… three generations of settlement?”

“Four.”

“Mm.” Wrenshaw nodded gravely. “Well, then. Thursday it is, Your Grace. I must find my wife.”

“Thursday,” Frederick agreed with a tight nod and something resembling a smile.

He moved on then. The champagne was warm now. Across the room, the woman in primrose laughed again, and a man’s voice followed. His eyes followed the sound.

Surely it cannot be…

It was distinctive, even though Frederick had only heard him speak a few times. It was a particular brightness that was slightly too loud, too easy. As slippery as a snake.

Frederick turned slowly to see that Birchall was across the room, near the doors to the garden terrace. He was in conversation with two other men Frederick recognized peripherally—Lord Steffon’s younger brother, and some baron whose name he could not place.

Birchall was animated, holding court with the small group, admired and aware of it. He had a glass in one hand and an easy smile that concealed a great deal. Frederick looked away. He moved to the next position along the wall, which gave him a different angle, and stood there and listened.

“… Not in London at all, as far as I understand it,” Birchall was saying. The tone was pleasant, easy, the voice of a man doing damage in the mode of light conversation. “She finds the city disagreeable, I’m afraid. Some women are simply better suited to the country.” A brief pause. “It may be that she is already with child. One hopes, naturally. God willing!”

One of the other men murmured something Frederick did not catch. Birchall made a sound of easy agreement.

“One does what one can,” he said, and laughed again, and the other men laughed with him in the way men laughed when someone above them in the social order had made a joke.

Frederick stood very still. The rage was cold, which it always was, and it sat somewhere below his sternum and did not move from there. He looked at his champagne glass, which he had not drunk from, and set it on the nearest tray.

He moved along the wall.

He was aware, as he moved, of Birchall’s gaze finding him. He did not acknowledge it. He did not look back. He found a position between two sets of French doors and occupied it and spoke to a man about drainage and thought about absolutely nothing while his eyes took in the entire room.

“Your Grace,” an acquaintance said as he passed by. “How lovely to see you!”

“Indeed,” he said, harsher than he meant, as he walked on to keep an eye on Birchall. “If you will excuse me.”

Birchall looked at him three more times in the next half hour. Each time, Frederick was looking somewhere else, which was the only response he intended to give.

He saw Birchall also looked at Rachel. Twice. Steadily.

It was at the turn of the second hour that he saw Lily Beaumont, the Duchess of Thornwaite, and his godmother’s niece.

He recognized her before he had consciously done so, his preoccupation with Birchall’s presence an albatross across his neck. She was laughing at something, which was generally the easiest way to identify.

Hugo Beaumont, the Duke of Thornwaite, noticed him first and waved him over. Lilly turned then, and a large smile crossed her face. Frederick crossed the room to meet them, and found himself smiling back.

“Rathbourne,” Hugo said, shaking his hand. “I thought it was you. I didn’t know you were in London.”

“Only recently,” Frederick said. “I had estate business that demanded me back to Rathbourne. Among other things.”

“Other things,” Lily said, her green eyes searching his in question.

“Duchess. A pleasure to see you,” Frederick gave her a small bow, because they had known each other long enough that it was more a joke than a form and she received it as such.

“Likewise,” she said. “How is Rachel? Is she here?”

“She is.” He tilted his head toward the far end of the room, where Rachel was now in conversation with a tall woman in green he thought might be someone’s aunt. “She looks very well, I think.”

“She always looks well,” Lily said. She had a quality of directness that Frederick had always found refreshing, which was not precisely common. She also had a quality of noticing things, which was less convenient. She was looking at him now with the look of someone who had filed several observations and was deciding whether to produce them. “Are you all right?”

“Perfectly,” he said. “How are the children?”