Free A Season for Love by Blair Bancroft Page B

escorted his sister and niece to Longville House
for tea. It had taken a bit of maneuvering to convince the irate
Lord and Lady Worley that their daughter’s meeting with young
Laurence was best done in as much privacy as possible. When told
the full story of the duke’s journey to the Lake District, Quinton,
Lord Worley, had raged at length. Mostly for show, Viscount Frayne
later told his sister. “He’s so pleased Longville isn’t crying off,
he’d swallow a dozen lost brats.”
    Nonetheless, Lady Worley’s anger and pride
were not so easily assuaged. She demanded to see the boy for
herself. But Tony had finally talked her out of it. “Give Jen a
chance,” he’d told his mother. “She has to do this by herself.” He
offered his mama his best smile, and Malvinia Norville had sighed
and given in. Her daughter and granddaughter would get a first look
at London’s newest phenomenon without her guidance and support.
    As their carriage traveled the short
distance to Grosvenor Square, Tony kept telling himself he was
doing his family duty, supporting his sister and, of course,
satisfying a natural curiosity about this child being thrust upon
the ton as heir to one of
England’s premier dukedoms. But, truth to tell, his thoughts kept
straying to a pair of wide-set amber eyes, hair the color of honey,
and a face and figure God made to entice young men who had sworn
they had no interest in marriage. Oh, yes, Anthony, Viscount
Frayne, had leaped at the opportunity to escort his sister to
Longville House.
    Lady Caroline and her father awaited them in
the drawing room, that young lady wearing what was probably her
best gown, though a far cry from London’s latest fashion. The duke
was his usual urbane self, although Tony thought he caught a hint
of defensiveness lurking beneath the surface.
    “ I have sent for Laurence,” Longville
announced. Then, making a sincere, though awkward, effort not to
ignore little Susan, he turned to the child as soon as she was
seated on a chair so much too large for her that her little legs
stuck straight out in front of her. “You will like that, will you
not, Susan?” he said. “Laurence is only three years older than you
are. And on Saturday he will become your brother.”
    “ Susan . . .,” Lady Eugenia
prodded.
    “ Yes, sir,” the little girl piped up,
after darting a glance at her mother from the sky blue eyes which
seemed to take up most of her piquant face. Another hiss from her
mother. “Yes, Your Grace,” Susan Wharton corrected, peeking up at
the duke in a look guaranteed to have young men falling at her feet
in dozen years or so.
    The duke beamed at her, and Lady Caroline was
reminded strongly of the father she had once known. She was
beginning to realize that, as fathers went, Longville—Marcus—was
superior to most.
    “ The Marquess of Huntley and Miss Sarah
Tompkins,” the butler intoned, and every eye pivoted toward the
door.
    Miss Tompkins looked every inch the image of
a superior governess. The streaks of gray in her once-dark hair
matched the gray of her gown. She was of medium height, with the
slightly thickened figure brought on by age. Although there was
nothing pretentious about her, she nonetheless gave off an air of
command. Miss Sarah Tompkins was a long-time employee, intelligent,
aware of her own worth, certain of her place in the household.
This, then, was the woman who had raised Lady Caroline. Tony felt
an odd rush of relief. If the children of Amy, Duchess of
Longville, had enjoyed any stability in their lives, Miss Tompkins
had provided it. Perhaps it would not be as impossible to soften
Lady Caroline’s dire opinion of society . . . and of marriage.
    Lost in his personal thoughts, Tony was the
last to look at the child Miss Tompkins had escorted to the drawing
room. He became aware there was a great silence as everyone stared,
unabashedly tongue-tied as they looked at Kenrick Laurence
Carlington, Marquess of Huntley, a very large name for a