Evening Star (Star Quartet 1)

Aurora thought of Drew and Thomas. She had told even them that Giana was on a well-deserved holiday. She had not been sure if they believed her. But if Mr. Saxton had approached even the duke, it was likely he had talked with both of them, though they had said nothing of it to her.

Aurora rose and shook out her silk skirts. “He is gone now, Damien. I hope our lives can be as they were again.”

“Do you really, my dear? It wounds me that you have forgotten our marriage.”

“That,” Aurora said, laughing, “I did not mean.”

“Write to your daughter and bring her home, my love.”

“Indeed I shall.” Even Dolly had asked her that morning if Giana would be returning for her wedding.

“I trust so, Dolly,” she had said carefully, looking up from her dressing table into Dolly’s placid face.

“Well, now, hold still, my pet, and let me finish arranging your hair. The duke is likely pacing downstairs.” Dolly chuckled as she deftly twisted her thick hair into a high chignon. “Your duke is as spanking anxious as a young bridegroom. And his brood of children have behaved very nicely, the lot of them. No trouble there. Just imagine you, my pet, a grace.”

Even the London weather, usually perverse in October, was blessedly warm and bright when the Duke and Duchess of Graffton emerged from St. Andrew’s Church in Brussels Square. Their five hundred guests, peers of the realm and members of the business class, mingling tolerably well, this day at least, pressed them toward the duke’s festively decorated open broughman, like a huge flock of brightly plumed peacocks, shouting their best wishes. Giana rode in a carriage with the duke’s three daughters, all exquisitely gowned in peach silk, and kept her laughter bright on the day of her mother’s wedding.

She gasped in surprise when they arrived at the duke’s mansion on Grosvenor Square. The huge dining room was packed with white-linen-covered tables, groaning under the weight of more food than even she had ever seen. The duke had filled the mammoth ballroom, where the afternoon reception would blend into an evening ball, with pots of roses, carnations, violets, and jasmine from his hothouse at Graffton Manor. At least forty white-gloved footmen stood at attention, awaiting the onslaught of guests, under the watchful eye of Gordon, the duke’s butler.

Giana smiled at her position in the reception line, greeting the endless stream of guests in a loud voice above the laughter and deafening conversation. She had no opportunity to speak to her mother and her new husband for nearly two hours.

She heard her mother say gaily to the duke, “I have been kissed by more gentlemen and patted on the hand by more ladies than I dreamed lived in all London.”

“The ladies only shake my hand,” the duke said, smiling down at his wife.

Giana inched toward her mother, and stood a moment in front of her, a crooked smile on her lips. “The deed is done, Mother. You are still certain you want to stay with this impossible gentleman?”

Aurora hugged Giana, laughing joyfully. “It would quite ruin his reputation and standing were I to leave him now, my love.”

“My feet feel like they’re a hundred years old,” the duke said.

“Just wait for the dancing, sir.” Giana turned to hug her new papa. He smelled of tart shaving lotion and a hint of sweet tobacco. She felt tears spring to her eyes.

“I am the one to be teary-eyed, puss,” the duke chided her. “After all, I have made my proverbial bed. At least,” he continued, winking over Giana’s head to Aurora, “my proverbial bed will no longer be empty.”

“For shame, your grace,” Aurora whispered.

“You are both so happy, and I am happy for you.”

“Thank you, my love,” Aurora said.

“Ah, my dear boy, a hug for your old auntie.”

Giana stepped aside as the turbaned purple-gowned dowager Countess of Shrewsbury sailed like a ship under full speed into the duke’s arms. She turned away, her destination the ladies’ withdrawing room, when she heard the Countess of Elderbridge proclaim in a loud nasal voice to her bosom friend, the Viscountess Charlberry, “The dear duke will not have to blush for the behavior of his new stepdaughter. A modest, well-behaved girl.”

“But it is my understanding, my dear Aurelia, that the daughter is involved in business, along with her mother.”

The countess snorted. “Likely Damien will do nothing about it, dear. I’ve never seen him so besotted. He is more vague than ever.”

And he is sublimely happy, Giana thought, looking back from the two elderly ladies toward the duke. She thought she looked a pale copy of her mother, who had never looked more radiant in her soft ivory silk gown. Indeed, her mother seemed a happy continent away from her.

She mingled dutifully with the chattering guests who stood about the banquet tables, doing justice to the silver plates heaped with Russian caviar. She raised her glass of champagne for the toast to the bride and groom, made by the duke’s

cousin, Lord Elgin Brayton, a dapper little man dressed all in pearl-gray silk.

It seemed forever before the orchestra, alerted by Gordon, the duke’s butler, tuned their instruments and opened with a waltz. Giana watched her mother and the duke, smiling at each other, glide gracefully around the dance floor before other couples joined them.

She saw the duke’s youngest son, George, striding toward her. She was not up to his eager, youthful flirtation and slipped out of the ballroom down a long portrait-lined corridor that gave onto the gardens.