First Comes Marriage Read Free Page A

country,” his friend reminded him, “and far from the influence of all things ton nish. I’ll wager on his being here.”

    “If you think that possibility will persuade me to attend,” Elliott said, “you are much mistaken, George. I am not talking business with him tonight beneath the interested gaze of a villageful of gossips, for the love of God.”

    “But you can scout him out,” George said. “We both can. And his sisters too. Besides, old chap, would it be quite the thing to absent yourself when Sir Humphrey Dew made such a point of waiting on you as soon as word reached him that you were here? And when he came in person specifically to invite us to the assembly and to offer to escort us upstairs and present us to everyone worthy of the honor? My guess is that that will be everyone without exception. He will not be able to resist.”

    “Do I pay you to be my conscience, George?” Elliott asked.

    But George Bowen, far from looking cowed, only chuckled.

    “How the devil did he discover that we were here, anyway?” Elliott asked, having worked himself into a thorough bad temper. “We arrived in this village and at this inn less than two hours ago, and no one knew we were coming.”

    George rubbed his hands together close to the heat of the fire and then turned resolutely away in the direction of his room.

    “We are in the country, Elliott,” he said again, “where news travels on the wind and on every blade of grass and every dust mote and every human tongue. Doubtless the lowliest scullery maid knows by now that you are in Throckbridge and is trying desperately—and in vain—to find another mortal who does not know. And everyone will have heard that you have been invited to the assembly as Sir Humphrey Dew’s particular guest. Are you going to disappoint them all by keeping to your room?”

    “Wrong pronoun again,” Elliott said, pointing a finger. “I am not the only one everyone will have heard of. There is you too. You go and entertain them if you feel you must.”

    George clucked his tongue before opening the door to his room.

    “I am a mere mister,” he said. “Of mild interest as a stranger, perhaps, especially if I had arrived alone. But you are a viscount, Elliott, several rungs higher on the social ladder even than Dew. It will seem as if God himself had condescended to step into their midst.” He paused a moment and then chuckled. “The Welsh word for God is Duw —my grandmother was always saying it—D-U-W, but pronounced the same way as our dear baronet’s name. And yet you outrank him, Elliott. That is heady stuff, old boy, for a sleepy village. They have probably never set eyes upon a viscount before or ever expected to. Would it be sporting of you to deny them a glimpse of you? I am off to don my evening togs.”

    He was still chuckling merrily as he closed his door behind him.

    Elliott scowled at its blank surface.

    They had traveled here, the two of them, on business. Elliott deeply resented the whole thing. After a long, frustrating year during which his life had been turned upside down and inside out, he had expected soon to be free of the most irksome of the obligations his father’s sudden death had landed on his shoulders. But that obligation, George’s search and discovery had recently revealed, was actually far from over. It was not a discovery that had done anything to improve Elliott’s almost perpetually sour mood.

    He had not expected his father to die so young. His father’s father, after all, was still alive and in vigorous good health, and the male line had been renowned for longevity for generations past. Elliott had expected many more years in which to be free to kick his heels and enjoy the carefree life of a young buck about town without any of the burdens of sober responsibility.

    But suddenly he had had them, ready or not—just like the childhood game of hide-and-seek.

    Coming, ready or not.

    His father had died ignominiously in the