To marriage.
To a wife.
The instant he’d laid eyes on Edwina at that very first ball last year, he’d known who his wife would be. With typical single-mindedness, he’d set about securing her, the sometimes-haughty daughter of a ducal house; at twenty-two, having been out for three years, she’d already gained a reputation for being no man’s easy mark.
They’d struck sparks from the first touch of their fingers, from the first moment their gazes collided. Wooing Edwina had been blessedly easy. Several months later, he’d applied for her hand and been accepted.
In his mind, all had been progressing smoothly toward the comfortable, conventional marriage he had—in those few minutes he’d spent thinking of it—assumed their union would be.
Then, three months before the wedding, Lucasta and Edwina had braved the winter snows to visit his family at their manor house outside Banchory-Devenick. When he’d learned the purpose of that visit, he’d initially assumed it had been Lucasta’s idea. Later, he’d discovered it was Edwina who had insisted that the Frobishers needed to be informed before the wedding, rather than after, of the secret her family had been hiding for more than a decade.
Utterly intrigued, he, his parents, and his three brothers had sat in the comfort of the large family parlor and listened as Lucasta had explained. Learning that her elder son, the eighth duke, had taken his own life because of mountainous debts, and that her second son, Lord Julian Delbraith, wasn’t missing, presumed dead, as all of society assumed, but instead was masquerading in plain sight as Neville Roscoe, London’s gambling king, had definitely been a surprise.
Not, as Edwina had clearly anticipated, a shocking surprise, but an infinitely intriguing and attractive one.
The possibilities every one of the Frobishers had immediately seen in the prospect of being connected with a man of Roscoe’s caliber—his power, authority, and assets—had elevated their estimation of Declan’s marriage from very good to unbelievably excellent.
Later, in private, his father, Fergus, had clapped him on the shoulder and exclaimed, “Gads, boy—you couldn’t have done better! A personal link to Neville Roscoe… Well, no one knew such a thing was there to be had! Such a connection will only make this family all the stronger.”
Fergus, Declan’s mother, Elaine, and his brothers had welcomed the match from the first, but that wholly unanticipated ramification had been the crowning glory.
In the days following the wedding, a large event held at the local church on the ducal estate in Staffordshire—days he, Edwina, and his family had spent at Ridgware with her immediate family—he, his father, and his brothers had had a chance to meet with the elusive Lord Julian Delbraith, known to the world as Neville Roscoe. Apparently, Roscoe’s recent marriage to Miranda, now Lady Delbraith, had forced him to overturn his long-held intention never to reappear under his true name. Julian and Miranda had attended the wedding, although they’d remained carefully screened and out of sight of all the other guests.
Edwina had been thrilled over her brother’s presence, and Declan had been pleased on that account alone. The subsequent private meeting between the Frobishers, Roscoe, and his right-hand man, Jordan Draper, had all but literally been the icing on the wedding cake. As a group, they’d explored all manner of potential interactions; it had quickly become clear that Roscoe viewed the match every bit as favorably as the Frobishers. All in all, that meeting had been a coming together of like minds.
That had been the immediate outcome of learning the truth about the Delbraiths, but like a stone dropped into a pool, subsequent ripples continued to appear.
Later, Declan and Edwina had followed his family north to spend a few weeks in Banchory-Devenick; several days after their arrival, Fergus had asked Declan to accompany him on one of his walks.
Once they were away from the house, his eyes on the ground before him, Fergus had stated, “It occurs to me, boy-o, that there’s a great deal we could learn from your Edwina’s family. I’m not talking about Roscoe, but the others—especially the ladies.”
Unsure just what his father meant, Declan had remained silent.
After several paces, Fergus had continued, “It’s been a long time since any Frobisher moved among the ton. It was never our battlefield, so to speak. But I look at the old duchess—the dowager—and her daughters, and the daughter-in-law, too, and I think about what they’ve managed to achieve over the last decade. Given what they had to hide, being capable of…not exactly hoodwinking the ton, but veiling the truth, and all so subtly and elegantly done… That takes talent of a sort we, as a family, lack.”
Fergus’s sharp, agate-y gaze had shifted to pin Declan. “You said you intend taking Edwina to town—that you’ve hired a house there and that Edwina and the dowager think the pair of you need to appear in society to establish yourselves, whatever that means. I’m thinking that might provide a useful opportunity for you to watch and see what you can learn of how they manage things.”
“Manage things.” After a moment, he’d said, “You want me to learn how they manipulate the ton into seeing what they want the ton to see.”
“Exactly!” Fergus had faced forward. “The Delbraiths might be a family led by women, the duke being so young, but none of those females are fools. They all know how to operate in the ton, how to bend ton perceptions to their advantage. They have skills we could use, m’boy. We might eschew the ton, deeming it irrelevant to us, but you can’t duck the weight of a birthright, and who knows what the future will bring?”
That conversation rang in Declan’s mind as he smiled and complimented a young lady on her beautifully carved oriental fan. He’d long ago learned to trust his father’s insights; Fergus Frobisher was widely respected as a canny old Scot. So as they had planned, he and Edwina had come to London and taken up residence in a rented town house in Stanhope Street. Lucasta had joined them in town, but she was staying with her eldest daughter, Lady Millicent Catervale, in Mount Street. Declan appreciated his mother-in-law’s sensitivity in giving him and Edwina their privacy.
Subsequently, Edwina and Lucasta, aided by Millie and Cassie, had put their heads together and come up with a list of events Edwina had declared she had to attend. She’d excused him from all the daytime entertainments, but had requested his presence at the evening events, a request to which he’d readily agreed.
They’d attended several balls, dinners, soirées, and routs over the past week. And tonight, as at those previous events, he was there to observe, to watch and learn how his wife and the females of her family “managed” the ton.
He’d initially studied Lucasta, reasoning that she had to have been the principal instigator in promulgating the non-shocking, acceptable-to-the-ton versions of her older son’s demise and of her younger son’s disappearance; only because he’d been watching closely had he noticed the difference between Lucasta in private and Lucasta in society. It was like a screen, a veil of sorts, but not something anyone observing her could pierce; even knowing it was there, he couldn’t see past it, not while she had it deployed. Lucasta’s screen made her appear more rigid, definitely colder, and more arrogantly aloof. It was an emotional screen that held others at a distance and allowed only the reactions Lucasta wished to display to show through.
Edwina’s veil was even harder to discern. Only because he’d known it had to be there had he managed to even glimpse it. Because her true nature was so very bright and glittery, her shield was almost like a mirror—something that reflected what others assumed they would see, not necessarily what truly lay behind the screen.
He’d studied Millie and Cassie, too; their veils were effective, yet less definite, softer and more amorphous—again, a reflection of their characters. While Lucasta undoubtedly possessed an iron will and a spine