The Inconvenient Duchess

relations. Cici’s lectures had been informative, if unorthodox, and had given her an unladylike command of the details. ‘Thank you for your concern, Mrs Winslow.’
    ‘Are you aware…there are differences in the male and the female…?’
    ‘Yes,’ she answered a little too quickly. ‘I helped…nursing…charity work.’ Much could be explained by charity work, she hoped.
    ‘Then you have seen…’Mrs Winslow took a nervous sip of tea.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Good. Well, not good, precisely. But at least you will not be surprised.’ She rushed on, ‘And the two genders fit together where there are differences, and the man plants a seed and that is where babies come from. Do you understand?’
    Cici had made it clear enough, but she doubted that Mrs Winslow’s description was of much use to the uninitiated. ‘I…’
    ‘Never mind,’ the woman continued. ‘I dare say the duke knows well enough how to proceed. You must trust him inall things. However, the duke…is a very—’words failed her again ‘— vigorous man.’
    ‘Vigorous?’
    ‘In his prime. Robust. And the men in his family are reported to have healthy appetites. Too healthy, some might say.’ She sniffed in disapproval.
    Miranda looked at the vicar’s wife with what she hoped was an appropriately confused expression, and did not have to feign the blush colouring her cheeks.
    ‘And the baby that his first wife was delivering when she died was said to be exceptionally large. A difficult birth. He will, of course, insist on an heir. But if his demands seem excessive after the birth of the first child…many women find…a megrim, perhaps. A small lie is not a major sin when it gains a tired woman an occasional night of peace.’

    Miranda stood at the back of the chapel, waiting for the man who was to seal her destiny. When the knock had sounded at her door, she’d expected the duke, but had been surprised to see St John, holding a small bouquet out to her and offering to accompany her to the chapel. The gown she’d finally chosen for the wedding was not the silk, but her best day dress, and, if he thought to make a comment on the state of it, it didn’t show. It had looked much better in the firelight as she’d altered it. Here in Devon, in the light of day, the sorriness of it was plainly apparent to anyone that cared to look. The hem of Cici’s green cotton gown had been let down several inches to accommodate her long legs, and the crease of the old hem was clearly visible behind the unusually placed strip of lace meant to conceal it. The ruffles, cut from the excess fabric of the bodice when she’d taken it in, and added to the ends of the sleeves, did not quite match, andthe scrap of wilted lace at their ends made the whole affair look not so much cheerful as pathetic.
    ‘There now, mouse. Don’t look so glum, although I could see where a long talk with the vicar’s wife might not put you in the mood to smile. Did she explain to you your wifely duties?’
    She blushed at St John’s boldness. ‘After a fashion. And then she quizzed me about my parents, and about the last twenty-four hours. And she assured me that whatever you might have done to me, if I felt the need to flee, they would take me in, and ask no questions.’
    His laugh rang against the vaulted ceiling and the vicar and his wife looked back in disapproval. ‘And God does not strike them down for their lies when they say they wouldn’t question you. At least my brother and I make no bones about our wicked ways. They cloak their desire to hear the salacious story of your seduction in an offer of shelter.’
    ‘My what?’
    ‘They hope for the worst, my dear. If you were to burst into tears at the altar and plead for rescue, you will fulfil all of their wildest dreams and surmises.’
    ‘St John.’ She frowned her disapproval.
    ‘Or better yet, you could fall weeping to my arms and let me carry you away from this place, as my brother rages. I would be delighted to oblige.’
    ‘As if that would not make my reputation.’
    ‘Ah, but what a reputation. To be seduced away from your wedding by the duke’s roguishly handsome younger brother and carried off somewhere. Oh, but I see I’m upsetting you.’ He pointed up to the window above the altar, where the bleeding head of St John the Baptist rested in stained glass. ‘I don’t know what my mother was thinkingof, naming me for a saint. If it was to imbue me with piousness and virtue, it didn’t