I’ve just been warned. Intentionally and formally warned. If I don’t want a strong, intelligent lady, I can take myself off immediately and not look back.

He should have expected it. He knew how protective the family was. Still, it was interesting that they all seemed to have come to the conclusion that he wanted someone less. It was either take the whole package or none of it. Fortunately for him, he had decided her intellect was what he wanted in a wife.

“What did Kenilworth say to you?” Exeter asked.

“Something along the lines of what you, Turley, and I had been discussing earlier.” Just put in another way and with a far different meaning. John glanced around and saw the dukes beginning to sit. “I think we should take our seats.”

The ceremony was very formal and rather dull, but the suppressed excitement from the gallery seemed to enliven the proceedings. Shortly after Stanwood was seated, his family left. John hoped he’d see Eleanor later at Stanwood House.

* * *

“Did you see him staring at you?” Mary had just settled into the large family town coach.

“I did.” Rather, Eleanor had felt him staring at her. It was unnerving how her whole body had tingled in reaction.

“I think he is very handsome,” Theo said.

Everyone thought he was handsome. “Handsome is as handsome does.”

Madeline, Alice, Phillip, and Walter joined them.

“That is true,” Mary said.

“What is true?” Phillip asked.

Mary turned to Phillip and related the short conversation.

He nodded somberly. “That’s what Grace says.”

Madeline and Alice exchanged glances with Eleanor. She loved the redundant conversations when someone, or more than one person, was explaining to someone who had not been there what had occurred. It had started after she and Alice, and then Madeline, had complained at length that no one told them anything.

Walter looked at Eleanor. “Grace said we will have a small celebration with Charlie at Worthington House before he goes to the larger one at Stanwood House. That will allow the children to join us.”

“That is a good idea.” Eleanor had wondered if the reception at Stanwood House would be mostly peers. “We will most likely go on morning visits after that.”

“We are staying home this evening. Tomorrow Lady Brownly is hosting a musical evening,” Madeline said.

Good. That would give Eleanor time to work on her plans for the mine.

* * *

It was raining again the next morning. Eleanor pulled her covers up and rolled over. If she was in the country, she would dress warmly and take a walk, but this was not the country.

“Someone needs to ask William Coachman if this is going to continue all day,” she muttered into her pillows. He was never wrong when it came to the weather. Eleanor turned over onto her back. “I wonder where Posy has got to this morning.”