Page 10 of When a Duke Desires a Lass

In preparation to leave the conveyance, Tobias uncrossed his legs and straightened his top hat. He’d simply have to charm Mrs. Grenville. Persuade her to use her talents on Avery’s behalf as she had for her niece, Justina, now the Duchess of San Sebastian.

Tempering his fascination for the widow wouldn’t be as easy, but for Avery, Tobias would put aside his own desires.

For now.

Mouth pressed into a mutinous line and arms folded, Avery hadn’t spoken two words to him since clambering into the coach without assistance. She hadn’t forgiven him for dragging her to London a mere eight months after she’d returned from finishing school. She’d far rather trundle about in boy’s garb at Ballyleigh Court, his estate where she’d been raised.

Though Ballyleigh was Tobias’s by way of ducal inheritance, his sister, Wynda, and her husband, Seumas, had stewarded the holdings for nigh on a decade before they died five years ago in a freak accident. During a windstorm, a tree had fallen on their curricle, robbing him and Avery of their closest kin.

Tobias supposed he ought to have insisted Avery remain in Scotland and arranged to have a governess or companion or whatever was appropriate for a young girl’s chaperone live at Ballyleigh Court.

At the time, consumed with his own grief and having no notion of what a twelve-year-old—almost thirteen—needed, he’d wrongly assumed school would keep Avery busy and her mind off her horrendous loss. He’d mistakenly believed living at Ballyleigh Court, her childhood home, would be too painful. The memories too vivid and poignant.

He’d been wrong in that regard as well.

Avery had told him her explicit sentiments on both accounts in no uncertain terms many times. As recently as yesterday, when they’d arrived in London to take up residence at his Mayfair house, as a matter of fact.

The truth of it was, Avery hated him. Resented and despised that he’d been named her guardian. She went out of her way to challenge his authority and defy him at every turn.

Tobias had seized Mrs. Grenville’s magnanimous offer to help with the Come Out like a starving man would a moldy piece of bread. Extending a benevolence neither he nor Avery deserved, Emily Grenville offered him a way out of the convoluted tangle he’d created.

A way to honor his dead sister’s wishes that her only child enjoy a London Season.

From beneath his lashes, he observed his recalcitrant niece.

That Avery had conceded to wear a simple but outdated jonquil calico morning gown with a fern-green spencer proved monumental.

Avis, the kitchen-maid-turned-Abigail, had plaited Avery’s long chestnut hair with its glossy accents of cinnamon and nutmeg into two braids and wound them into a simple knot. A straw bonnet trimmed in green ribbon and adorned with two yellow silk roses perched pertly upon Avery’s head.

If perhaps not the first tulip of fashion, his niece was presentable.

Avery fiddled with the ribbons of her reticule, more nervous than she’d ever readily admit.

“Just how do you know Mrs. Grenville, anyway, Uncle? She mentioned a house party?”

The coach bounced to a halt, saving Tobias from answering. Not that it was a secret.

The truth of it was, his pride had been rather badly bruised at Emily’s icy and unflinching rejection of his regard last December.

Without waiting for the coachman, Tobias opened the door and stepped out. He held the door for Avery but didn’t extend his hand. She’d refuse his aid in any event, and he wasn’t allowing her to flaunt her rebellion.

For an instant, she appeared slightly nonplussed when he kept his hand at his side. Skewing her mouth into a mocking smirk, she hopped from the carriage like a six-year-old rather than a debutante about to embark upon her first Le Beau Monde Season.

Three matrons farther along the pavement frowned their disapproval at her unladylike display. Their expressions transformed to sycophant miens when they recognized him and realized whose house Tobias stood in front of.

The estimable Duke of San Sebastian—also a Scot.

However, from their keen gazes and swiftly exchanged whispers, they couldn’t contain their avid curiosity about who Avery was.

They’d learn soon enough.

Forcing his lips upward into a friendly smile, Tobias doffed his hat as they passed. “Good afternoon, ladies. Enjoying a bit of air?”

Ladies Roswell-Whistle, Clutterbuck, and Cricklebottom, if he recalled correctly. They preened under his attention, and bobbed their bonneted heads in affirmation.

Excellent.

Tobias needed every ally he could muster to launch Avery into Society. Extending his arm, he gave his niece a pointed look.