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But he ought not to have promised you something he was prepared to withdraw at a moment's notice if he succeeded. Will you feel free to visit my wife and me at Woodbine? And to bring Car – Mrs. Pe
He wondered as he did so if Caroline had ever told Norman any part of the truth of what had happened five years ago – any significant part, that was. He somehow doubted it. And that meant, of course, that Norman's righteous indignation was justified. He had every right to his anger and his fervent desire to put a period to Duncan's existence.
Caroline certainly knew the truth – the /whole/ of it. He had told her himself, and it had not come as a surprise to her. If only Laura would show more wifely loyalty to Randolph and his family, she had said plaintively, blows and bruises would be quite u
Just as Margaret Huxtable did in marrying him.
Duncan did /not/ call upon Randolph Turner or hold out any sort of olive branch to him. Caroline had been right about one thing. Certain actions /were/ unforgivable. Or if that was not strictly true, then it /was/ true of a man who had never shown any remorse for his unspeakably wicked and cruel actions.
Apart from that one visit, Duncan spent the nine days before his wedding simply avoiding the madness associated with it as much as he was able. A grand wedding was necessary, his mother explained to him at great length the day she arrived home from Merton House with the news that Margaret Huxtable was sending out more than two hundred invitations – or perhaps not quite as many as that since some people were in couples and only one invitation was necessary, it being a foolish waste of paper and ink and time and energy to send two.
He did not argue the point with her in the hope that she would not feel the necessity to share any more of the details with him.
Vain hope! "A grand wedding is very necessary, my love," she went on to explain with her own particular form of logic. "Anyone who attends it can hardly give you the cut direct afterward, as you will realize very clearly for yourself if you stop to think about it. You may still not be society's favorite son, but you will be firmly back in the fold, and that is what really matters." "Society," he said, "can go hang for all I care, Mama." "Oh, men can be so foolish," she said. "But even if you do not care for its regard on your own account, Duncan, you must remember that you are going to be a married man. You are going to have a /wife/ to consider, and if society snubs you, it will snub her too. You owe it to Margaret to do all in your power to ingratiate yourself with the /ton/ again." He sighed audibly. She was quite right, of course.
Dash it all! "Anyway" he said, "I daresay no one will accept the invitation – except a few of the uncles and cousins, perhaps." Another vain hope – as he had explained to Maggie a few days before.
His mother clucked her tongue. /"Men!"/ she said with the utmost scorn and a glance tossed at the ceiling. "They have /no idea/ how people think. /Of course/ everyone will accept the invitation. /Everyone/! No one would miss it for any consideration." It was an opinion that was corroborated on the gossip page in the next morning's paper. The upcoming event was heralded there as the wedding of the Season – /if/, that was, the Earl of Sheringford did not run off on the day and leave Miss Huxtable standing at the altar alone.
He was in for a grand wedding, then, Duncan realized, as surely as a condemned man was in for an appointment with the gallows.
He dressed on the fateful morning with the full awareness that he was going to be on display more than he had yet been since his return to London.
Which was saying something! "Not so tight," he half growled at Smith as his valet tied his neckcloth in a knot that was not too simple, not too elaborate. It was perfect in all ways but one, in fact. "Are you trying to throttle me?" "I think it is the occasion that is doing that, m'lord," Smith said without tampering further with the neckcloth. "You don't want it swinging about from one shoulder to the other, now, do you? And even if you do, I will not have it. I would never be able to hold up my head again among my fellow valets. Stand up and let me give that coat a final brush. You have a positive gift for picking up bits of lint, though for the life of me I don't know where you find them." Duncan finally escaped the clutches of tyra