Page 27 of A Baby for the Duke

Leonora looked up.

He turned toward her and raised his hand, but it did not go where she had expected. It slid under her jaw and around into the hair at the nape of her neck, warm and unhurried, and tilted her face up toward him. He leaned in, and she stopped breathing.

He leaned in so slowly that she had time to see the scar peeking out from beneath the black silk and the color of his eye, and to feel his breath on her lips. Her hands curled at her sides, and somewhere far away, her mother caught her breath. But then he turned his head at the last second and pressed his lips to her cheek.

It lasted perhaps two seconds.

It was entirely proper. Sixty people saw it, and nobody could have objected to a single part of it.

Leonora Belmont, now Leonora Walford, the Duchess of Thorton, stood at the altar with her heart pounding and understood that she had just been very deliberately not kissed in front of her entire family.

“Duchess,” Colin murmured, before taking her hand and turning them both toward the door.

The wedding breakfast lasted four hours.

She thanked him for the gowns somewhere in the middle of it, when the noise was at its worst and nobody could possibly hear. She was proud of herself for getting it out in one piece.

“It was very generous, Your Grace.”

“It was as much for me as it was for you, wife.”

Leonora put down her glass and picked it up again.

After that, they talked about ordinary matters, because there were sixty people in the gallery and ordinary matters were what one spoke about in front of sixty people.

“They have brought a cake,” he said.

“Who have?”

“The tenants. Four of them carried it in on a board. It is on the sideboard at the end of the room; it weighs as much as a small dog. I have also been informed that a second one is coming from the Hartley farm this afternoon.”

“You’ll have to eat both.”

“I’ll have to be seen to eat both.”

“Then you had better begin, Your Grace. Mrs. Hartley has been looking at the back of your head for twenty minutes, with the expression of a woman keeping accounts.”

He turned and looked down the gallery. Caught staring, Mrs. Hartley dropped into a curtsy so low that she nearly fell over.

“You’ve been watching the room,” he remarked.

“I’ve been standing in the corners of rooms for four Seasons. It’s the only accomplishment I have that Mama has never once boasted of.” Leonora turned her glass by the stem, exactly as he was doing, and discovered she was enjoying herself, which seemed an outrageous thing to be doing at her own wedding. “My brothers have a wager on you, since we are speaking of accounts.”

“On me.”

“Alexander has bet Evan five pounds that you would not speak to more than nine people today. Evan accepted it because Evan accepts everything. Alexander is going to lose.”

“How many people have I spoken to?”

“Twenty-six,” Leonora replied. “I have been counting since eleven.”

He looked at her. “Why?”

“Because it was that or thinking about the rest of it,” she said, before she could stop herself.

Colin did not comment on that.

Mrs. Pike came up on his other side at that moment and spoke close to his ear. He nodded, and she went away again.