Only a Promise Read Online Free PDF Page A

want to finish it too soon. She would have to return to her chair or else sit here idle, staring at the sideboard cupboards. Either way she would risk drawing attention to herself. She wished now she had made some excuse and left the room with the duke.
    “It is time you married, Ralph,” the duchess said bluntly into the silence.
    “Yes, I know.”
    “You
knew
at Christmastime when we spoke on the same subject,” she said. “Yet I have not heard that you are courting any particular lady, Ralph, despite the fact that I have my sources of information. Tell me that you
do
have someone in mind—someone young and eligible, someone both ready and willing to do her duty.”
    “I do not, I must confess,” he said. “I have met no one with whom I can imagine spending the rest of my life. I know I must marry, but I do not
want
to marry, you see. I have nothing to offer. I am fully aware, however, that
must
will have to take precedence over
want
. I shall start looking, Grandmama, as soon as I return to London. Ishall start looking in earnest. I shall make my choice before the end of the Season—well before. There. It is a promise. Are you reassured?”
    “You have
nothing to offer
?” the duchess said, her tone incredulous. “
Nothing to offer,
Ralph? I doubt there is a more eligible bachelor in England.”
    “Nothing of myself to offer, I meant,” he told her, his voice quieter than it had been so that Chloe had to still her hands again in order to concentrate upon hearing him. “There is nothing, Grandmama. Nothing in here.”
    Presumably he was tapping his chest.
    “Nonsense,” she said briskly. “You had a nasty time of it during the wars, Ralph, as did thousands of other men who fought that monster Bonaparte. You were one of the fortunate ones, however. You lived. You have all your limbs as well as the use of them, and you have both eyes and a sound mind. Why you had to spend all of three years in Cornwall I do not understand, but your prolonged stay there seems to have done you more harm than good. It prevented you from returning to your rightful place in society and to yourself as you were. It made you despondent and self-pitying, an attitude that does not become you. It is time you shook it off. You have everything in the world to offer some very fortunate young lady. Choose someone fresh from the schoolroom, someone who can be molded to the role she must play. But someone of impeccably good birth and breeding. Enlist your mother’s help. The countess has a good head upon her shoulders despite our differences.”
    The Earl of Berwick chuckled, a sound so devoid of amusement that it could hardly be categorized as a chuckle at all.
    “You are right, Grandmama,” he said. “I am not likely to be rejected by anyone upon whom I fix my interest, am I? Poor girl, whoever she turns out to be. I shall
not
consult Mama. She will have a list longer than both my arms within a day, and all of the candidates will be trotted out for my inspection within a week. It will come to a matter of closing my eyes and sticking a pin in the list. I would prefer to choose for myself. And I
will
choose. I have promised. Shall I go back to town tomorrow?”
    “His Grace will be disappointed,” she said. “He was disappointed tonight when you chose to stay with me rather than go down to drink port with him in the book room.”
    “Shall I go down now?” he asked.
    “He will be snoring in his chair by now,” she told him. “Leave it until tomorrow. But return to town within the week, Ralph. It is already May and soon all the very brightest matrimonial prospects will have been laid claim to by men who have far less to offer than you do.”
    “It will be done,” he said. “And the sooner the better. Life in town becomes tedious. When I have a wife, I will go home to Elmwood with her and stay there. Perhaps life in the country will suit me better. Perhaps I will settle down at last.”
    He sounded almost wistful.
    “That would