Barely a Bride (Free Fellows League 1)

His fingers brushed hers, and a spark of electricity shot through them.

Lord Weymouth walked over and cleared his throat. “Plenty of time for that once we get you home and completely recovered. No need to provide a spectacle for the crowd.”

Lady Weymouth joined her husband, then reached up and embraced her son.

“Let’s go home,” Lord Weymouth said. “You need your rest, son.” He frowned. “For you’ve received a royal summons to appear at Carlton House for dinner.”

Heaving a heavy sigh, Lady Weymouth linked one of her arms through Griffin’s and linked her other arm through Alyssa’s, drawing them close to her. “I was hoping for a quiet evening spent with our immediate family,” Lady Weymouth said, making eye contact with Jarrod and Colin, automatically including them as immediate family. “But it appears that we’re going to be joined by two or three hundred of our closest friends and enemies. Come, children, we’ll all need time to prepare for the evening ahead.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

“I worry that I shall never see a crowd of people without recalling the hours I lay helpless on a battlefield in a small village on the Spanish and Portuguese border.”

—Griffin, Lord Abernathy, journal entry, 04 July 1811

Carlton House was ablaze with lights, the mansion and the grounds packed with people, by the time Alyssa and Griffin and the other members of their little party arrived.

They stepped from their carriage onto a red carpet and made their way into the house accompanied by a great fanfare of trumpets. Red-liveried servants led them to the long gilt dining room.

Griffin flinched. The sound of the trumpets reminded him too vividly of things he would rather forget. “I hate this,” he murmured.

Alyssa reached over and took his hand. It was the first time she’d touched Griffin in over a year except for the merest brush of their fingers they had shared that morning.

Griffin had retired to his rooms as soon as they had returned to the Weymouth’s town house.

Alyssa hadn’t seen him again until they had met downstairs moments before they climbed into the carriage that brought them to Carlton House. “I know. I hate that you have to do this. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Griffin was surprised. “Why? You didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sorry because you have to do something you’d rather not do.”

Like leave you the morning after our honeymoon. He looked at Alyssa, and the heat between them was palpable. Griffin shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry, too. I know you don’t care any more for these types of gatherings than I do.”

Alyssa looked up at him and smiled a knowing smile. “Not like having dinner at Carlton House with the Prince Regent and England’s newest hero? What woman wouldn’t like that?”

“Lady and Lord Tressingham’s youngest daughter.” Griffin paused in the doorway of the Prince Regent’s fancy dining hall. “You married me to keep from becoming the Duchess of Sussex because duchesses are always made to bear such close scrutiny from the public and from members of the ton. And now, I’ve gone and made you the center of attention.” Griffin lifted Alyssa’s hand to his lips. “And that is why I’m going to do the best thing for both of us.”

Alyssa frowned. “Which is?”

“Let you go.”

Alyssa opened her mouth in shocked protest, but the Prince Regent’s majordomo interrupted by announcing their arrival. “Ladies and gentleman, His Royal Highness the Prince Regent invites all of you to join him in welcoming his guests, the Duke and Duchess of Avon.”

Griff and Alyssa glanced around for the duke and duchess, but all eyes were upon them.

The Prince Regent approached them, wineglass in hand. Signaling for a waiter, he stepped up on the dais and handed a glass of wine to Alyssa and then to Griffin.

“My lords and ladies,” the Prince Regent announced. “Let us toast Our Right Trusty and Right Entirely Beloved Cousin Griffin Abernathy, first Duke of Avon and Marquess of Abbingdon, and Her Grace, Alyssa, Duchess of Avon and Marchioness of Abbingdon.”

Griffin forced a smile as everyone present lifted a glass in his honor. Hell and damnation! He’d just become a duke. And Alyssa had just become the thing she had never wanted to be—a duchess.

The awarding of a ducal title was the sort of surprise the Prince Regent loved and at which he excelled. It was also a political coup. The Second Resolution of the Regency Bill of 1811 had restricted the Prince Regent’s right to create peers except as a reward for some outstanding naval or military achievement. The prince used Griffin’s heroic act that turned the tide of the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro to create his first peer and to annoy the prime minister and his Tory supporters.

There was no doubt that Viscount Abernathy had acted heroically and in Lord Wellington’s own words, “turned the tide of battle, enabling us to win the day and that most important village,” but elevating him to the rank of duke was unprecedented in recent history. Wellington himself had only been awarded his viscountcy following his victory at Talavera.

The Prince Regent was, perhaps, the most delighted person at Carlton House. Delighted with himself for finding a way to thumb his nose at the Tory leaders of his government and delighted with Griffin for providing him with the means to do it. He clapped Griffin on the shoulder and offered Alyssa his arm as he led them into the gilt dining hall on the upper floor, where he seated Griffin on his right and Alyssa on his left.

The dinner dragged on interminably before the final course was brought in at half-past one in the morning.