Free Simply Perfect by Mary Balogh Page A

Attingsborough would be in attendance this evening. She had not seen him since her arrival in town and consequently she had been her usual placid, nearly contented self again.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    When Joseph wandered into White’s Club the morning after his return from Bath, he found Neville, Earl of Kilbourne, already there, reading one of the morning papers. He set it aside as Joseph took a chair close to his.
    â€œYou are back, Joe?” he asked rhetorically. “How did you find Uncle Webster?”
    â€œThriving and irritated by the insipidity of Bath society,” Joseph said. “And imagining that his heart has been weakened by his illness.”
    â€œAnd has it?” Neville asked.
    Joseph shrugged. “All he would say was that the physician he consulted there did not deny it. He would not let me talk to the man myself. How is Lily?”
    â€œVery well,” Neville said.
    â€œAnd the children?”
    â€œBusy as ever.” Neville grinned and then sobered again. “And so your father believed that his health was deteriorating and summoned you to Bath. It sounds ominous. Am I guessing his reason correctly?”
    â€œProbably,” Joseph said. “It would not take a genius, would it? I
am
thirty-five years old, after all, and heir to a dukedom. Sometimes I wish I had been born a peasant.”
    â€œNo, you don’t, Joe,” Neville said, grinning again. “And I suppose even peasants desire descendants. So it is to be parson’s mousetrap for you, is it? Does Uncle Webster have any particular bride in mind?”
    â€œMiss Hunt,” Joseph said, raising a hand in greeting to a couple of acquaintances who had entered the reading room together and were about to join another group. “Her father and mine have already agreed in principle on a match—Balderston was called to Bath before I was.”
    â€œPortia Hunt.” Neville whistled but made no other comment. He merely looked at his cousin with deep sympathy.
    â€œYou disapprove?”
    But Neville threw up his hands in a defensive gesture.
    â€œNot my business,” he said. “She is dashed lovely—even a happily married man cannot fail to notice
that
. And she never puts a foot wrong, does she?”
    But Nev did not like her. Joseph frowned.
    â€œAnd so you have been sent back to make your offer, have you?” Neville asked.
    â€œI have,” Joseph said. “I don’t dislike her, you know. And I have to marry
someone
. I have been more and more aware lately that I cannot delay much longer. It might as well be Miss Hunt.”
    â€œNot a very ringing endorsement, Joe,” Neville said.
    â€œWe cannot all be as fortunate as you,” Joseph told him.
    â€œWhy not?” Neville raised his eyebrows. “And what will happen with Lizzie when you marry?”
    â€œNothing will change,” Joseph said firmly. “I spent last evening with her and stayed the night, and I have promised to go back this afternoon before going to the theater this evening with Brody’s party. I’ll be escorting Miss Hunt there—the campaign begins without delay. But I am not going to neglect Lizzie, Nev. Not if I marry and have a dozen children.”
    â€œNo,” Neville said, “I cannot imagine you will. But I do wonder if Miss Hunt will object to spending most of her life in London while Willowgreen sits empty for much of the year.”
    â€œI may make other plans,” Joseph said.
    But before he could elaborate on them, they were interrupted by the approach of Ralph Milne, Viscount Sterne, another cousin, who was eager to talk about a pair of matched bays that were going up for auction at Tattersall’s.
    Joseph had accepted his invitation to attend the concert on Grosvenor Square by the time he escorted Miss Hunt to the theater that evening. He was related to neither Whitleaf nor his wife, but he had long ago accepted them as