The Duchess of Haverford’s ball was the usual crush. Hugh managed one set with Becky, then the Earl of Chirbury asked her to dance, so Hugh retaliated by sweeping Lady Chirbury into the set. They had a number of friends here tonight, and Hugh did his duty by the wives, as Becky danced with the husbands. Aldridge had still not returned to town, so his mother said, though she’d hoped to see him tonight.
Hugh was resting between sets, halfway through the evening, when he caught a glimpse of Aldridge, half-hidden in an alcove, watching the dancers. Hugh grinned. He shouldn’t tell Aldridge about Becky’s bright idea from that very afternoon. Becky would be furious. He couldn’t resist, though. The joke was too funny not to share with its butt.
He made his way unobtrusively around the edge of the floor.
“Overton.” Aldridge greeted him with a nod, without looking. Hugh followed the direction of his gaze. A group of debutantes, all in white, none much older than Sophie and Sarah. The thought made him shudder, which drew Aldridge’s attention.
“They’re not that bad, surely?” Aldridge asked. “Unless you’re expected to marry one, of course.” He grimaced, a quick twist of the lips.
“Sophie and Sarah will be out there in three or four years,” Hugh said baldly. “Antonia, too, I would remind you. All these men looking them over like horses at Tattersall’s…” He shuddered again, more artistically this time.
“Three or four years?” Aldridge sounded startled. “I suppose you are right. Good God!” He turned back to his perusal. “No wonder they all look far too young for me. I could easily have been a father at seventeen or eighteen. Some of them really are young enough to be my daughters.
“I’ll have to choose someone, you know. Not yet, but soon.” From his tone, he might have been asked to organise his own execution.
“A duke must have a son,” Hugh acknowledged.
“Yes. And a duchess, preferably.” Aldridge’s eyes shifted, and Hugh’s widened as he picked up the new target.
“One of the Winderfield twins? Really?”
“No chance. You know my father tried to have their uncle’s marriage declared invalid and his children bastards?”
The sensation of 1812 would have been the sudden reappearance and ascension to the ducal title of the long-lost second son of Charles Winderfield, sixth Duke of Winshire. Except the news was greatly overshadowed by his reputation as a robber king in the mountains of Central Asia and the large family of sons and daughters—half-Asian sons and daughters—he brought home to England with him. All seasoned warriors, men and women alike.
“He will not consider anyone from my family now. Besides, with my reputation? My well-deserved reputation? Her many cousins will separate me from my bollocks, if I so much as breathe in her direction.”
“They could do it, too,” Hugh acknowledged.
Aldridge’s huff of laughter was not much amused. “I will need to choose a bride without male relatives.” He had not taken his eyes from the woman on the far side of the room.
“None of which would stop me, if Lady Charlotte didn’t despise the ground I walk upon.” Aldridge said this last to himself, so quietly that Hugh had to strain to hear it.
“Good God. You’re serious about her.”
Aldridge shook his head. “No point in thinking it, Overton. They call her Saint Charlotte, did you know? Charity work… sworn off marriage… thinks men are oafs, and I’m the worst of them.” Hugh’s friend resumed a devil-may-care mask, settling it over himself like armour. “And she is not wrong, of course.
