The Incredible Honeymoon (Bantam Series No. 46) Read Online Free PDF

extremely unconventional, not to say reprehensible, for a lady to call at a bachelor establishment.
    He was also irritated to think that she would make him late for his ride.
    Already the stallion that he had ordered from the stables would be waiting for him outside the front door, and undoubtedly any delay on the part of his master would make it hard for the stable-boys to hold the animal.
    The Duke therefore walked purposefully and without a welcoming expression on his face into the Library.
    As he entered the room a small figure turned from the window and at his first glance he realised that the girl who had come to see him was not in the least what he had expected.
    He was quite sure that the Marchioness had described her as having fair hair and blue eyes.
    Had she not said that was the right colouring for a Duchess and would become the Doncaster diamonds?
    Then as he recalled the conversation he remembered that in fact the Marchioness had said that the girl she had chosen for his wife was called Felicity.
    The Duke looked at Antonia and was not impressed.
    For one thing she was badly dressed in an extremely ill-fitting gown of faded blue gabardine and her bonnet, which was small and inexpensively trimmed, seemed to obscure most of her hair.
    The eyes she raised to him however were very large in her pointed face and he saw that she was nervous.
    “I hope Your Grace will ... pardon me for calling at such an ... early hour.”
    “It is certainly an original way of our becoming acquainted,” the Duke replied. “Am I correct in thinking it is your sister I am to meet this afternoon?”
    “Yes,” Antonia replied, “my sister, Felicity.”
    “I thought I had not been mistaken in the name.”
    Then with a gesture of his hand the Duke said:
    “Will you sit down, Lady Antonia, and tell me to what I owe this unexpected visit?”
    Antonia sat down on the edge of a comfortable sofa and regarded her host with wide eyes.
    He was far better looking, she thought, than he had appeared when she had seen him riding on The Chase, and now they were at close quarters she realised what it was the artists had not included in their portraits of him.
    It was a raffish, perhaps cynical, but certainly mocking look which they had omitted whilst striving to portray his clear-cut features, broad brow and deep-set eyes.
    “He is much more attractive than they portrayed him!” Antonia told herself.
    The Duke had seated himself opposite her in a wing-back arm-chair.
    He crossed his legs and she saw that his riding-boots were exquisitely polished and wondered if it would be impertinent to ask him what was used on them.
    Then she remembered that Ives could find this out for her and she determined she would ask him to do so when she next went to Doncaster Park.
    “I am waiting, Lady Antonia,” the Duke said with just a note of impatience in his voice.
    “I ... I think,” Antonia said a little hesitatingly, “and I ... hope you will not think it an impertinent guess, that when you call on my father this afternoon you will ask for my sister’s hand in ... marriage.”
    There was a noticeable silence before the Duke replied: “That was my intention.”
    “Then would you ... mind very much asking for ... me instead?”
    The Duke sat bolt upright in surprise. Then as he realised after a perceptible pause that he had not been mistaken in what she had said, he replied:
    “I think you should explain yourself a little more clearly. I must admit I am wholly at a loss to understand what is happening or why you have come here with such a suggestion.”
    “It is quite easy to understand, Your Grace,” Antonia replied. “My sister, Felicity, is in love with someone else!”
    The Duke was aware of a sensation of relief.
    “In which case it is quite obvious that she will refuse my proposal and there is in fact no point in my calling on your father this afternoon.”
    He thought to himself as he spoke that this set him free from carrying out the