Free Only Beloved by Mary Balogh

longer than an hour after his arrival in town, however, he was back on Grosvenor Square, knocking on the door of Arnott House, which was on the opposite side of it from Stanbrook House. He was informed by Viscount Ponsonby’s butler that my lord and my lady had returned from an afternoon outing not ten minutes before, and he was escorted up to the drawing room, where they joined him a few minutes later.
    And no, George thought with a keener than usual glance at the viscountess, Miss Debbins did not much resemble her sister, who was taller, fairer haired, and more youthfully pretty.
    â€œGeorge.” Flavian beamed at him and shook his hand before crossing to the sideboard to pour them each a drink. “We have not set eyes on you since Imogen’s wedding. We were beginning to think you must have f-fled back to Penderris to recover from all the excitement.”
    â€œDo have a seat, George,” Agnes said, indicating a chair and smiling her welcome. “You have probably been enjoying a well-deserved rest.”
    â€œI
have
been out of town,” George admitted as he sat. “But not to Penderris. I have been at Middlebury Park.”
    They both looked at him in some surprise.
    â€œYou went with Sophia and Vince?” Flavian asked.
    â€œNot with them, no,” George said, taking the glass his friend offered him. “I went a few days after them. I had to wait until after my cousins left, though actually I had no intention of going anywhere myself until they had set out for Cumberland. Vince and Sophia were taken rather by surprise when I descended upon them without any warning.”
    â€œI am quite sure it was a happy surprise,” Agnes said. “Did you by any chance see Dora while you were there?”
    â€œI did indeed,” he said. “Miss Debbins was, in fact, my reason for going.”
    They turned identical frowns of incomprehension upon him.
    â€œI went,” George explained, “to ask Miss Debbins if she would be obliging enough to marry me. And she was—obliging enough, that is.”
    â€œ
What?
” Agnes laughed, but there was puzzlement in the sound. She was not sure if he was serious or making some sort of bizarre joke.
    â€œI proposed marriage to Miss Debbins,” George said, “and she accepted me. We are to marry at St. George’s in one month’s time. She will be following me up to town within the week. She has shopping to do, it seems, though she flatly refuses to allow me to foot any of the bills before she is married to me. Your sister is an independent, strong-minded lady, Agnes. Although she has never before been to London and is clearly somewhat awed, if not terrified, at the prospect of coming now in the middle of the social Season as the betrothed of a duke and of marrying him in grand style with all the fashionableworld looking on, she still insists upon doing it at her own expense. She has agreed, though, that it is the sensible thing to do to come early so that she may meet the
ton
and allow the
ton
to meet her before the fateful day. She will not attend any formal entertainments, she assures me, but she has agreed to a betrothal party close to our wedding date. I am all admiration for her courage.”
    Agnes’s hands had crept up to cover her cheeks. “It is really true, then?” she asked, doubtless rhetorically. “You are going to marry Dora?’ Her eyes suddenly brightened with unshed tears.
    â€œWhy you sly dog, George.” Flavian set down his glass, jumped to his feet, and crossed the distance between them in order to pump George’s hand up and down in a hearty shake and then thump him on the back. “And to think that all of us in the club have been busy p-putting our heads together to think of a worthy lady who might t-tempt your fancy and take you off our hands. It is very lowering, let me tell you, for a man to be reduced to m-matchmaking, but you showed no sign of doing it for