Harriet, accepting what he said, was content to forget Belinda. She sat cosily beside the Duke, her hand in his, while the chaise covered the little distance between Furze Farm and Cheyney. He was tired, and she was happy; they exchanged few remarks, and those, for his part, in lazy murmurs. Once the Duke said: “Let us be married very soon, Harriet.”
“If you wish it, Gilly!” she said shyly.
He turned his head against the squabs that lined the chaise, and looked at her mischievously. “Of course I do. I see that you mean to be a very good wife, you are so conformable! Do you wish it?”
She nodded, blushing, and he laughed, beginning to tease her about the hats she must buy in Paris when it was discovered that those she had already ordered from Mrs. Pilling made her look like a dowd. She was still protesting when the chaise drew up before the doors of his house.
“I have no extraordinary liking for this house of mine,” the Duke said gaily, handing her down from the chaise, “but still I shall say Welcome to your home, dear Harriet! How strange it seems to be rid of all my embarrassments! I shall not know how to go on, I daresay!”
He led her up the few shallow steps to the doors. These were flung open to them by an embarrassment he had forgotten. The Duke paused, a rueful look in his eye, and exclaimed: “The devil! I must do something about you, I suppose!”
Mr. Liversedge had, naturally, no livery with which his office might be dignified, but the lack of it was scarcely noticeable. His carriage was majestic, and his manner to perfection that of a trusted steward of long standing. He bowed very low, and ushered the young couple into the house, saying: “I trust your Grace will permit me to say how very happy we are to receive you, and her ladyship! I venture to think that you will find everything in readiness, though, to be sure, as your Grace well knows, the staff at present residing here is of a scanty, not to say inadequate nature. I should add that Master Mamble—a good lad, but addlepated!—forgot to inform us that her ladyship would be accompanying your Grace. But I will instantly apprise the housekeeper of this circumstance. If your Grace should care to take her ladyship into the library while I perform this office, you will, I fancy, find the Captain there, and such refreshments as I ventured to think might be acceptable to you after the drive. Lord Lionel, I regret to say, stepped out a little while since with Mr. Mamble, not being in the expectation of receiving her ladyship. He will be excessively sorry, I assure your ladyship.”
He led the way, as he spoke, across the wide hall to the library door, and set this open, smiling benignly upon the Duke and informing him in a confidential undervoice that he need entertain no fear that the dinner being prepared would disgrace him in the eyes of his future Duchess. “For,” he said, “I deemed it proper at the outset to give the matter my personal supervision.”
The Duke found himself saying thank-you in what he knew to be a weak way.
His cousin was lounging in a chair beside the fire. He looked up lazily, and, when he saw Harriet, got to his feet, his brows lifting. “Your very obedient servant, ma’am!” he said, laughing, and shaking hands with her. “How very like Adolphus not to tell us that he meant to bring you with him! You may blame him for it that you find me very unsuitably dressed to receive you. How do you go on, Harry? You look very becomingly!” He drew forward a chair for her. “I have been laughing this hour past, Adolphus, at your protégé’s crowning devilry! Oh, yes, I was dragged out into the shrubbery to be regaled with it! I will own that he is a youth of parts. What have you done with the fair Belinda?”