A Baron for Becky

Chapter fourteen

Aldridge was delighted. He suggested a special licence, and an encounter as soon as possible with the woman from Astley's.

"Have you spoken with your cousin and your other relatives about supporting Becky while we run the charade?" Hugh asked.

"Your mother might," Becky offered.

"The Duchess of Haverford?" Hugh asked, cautiously, as if Aldridge had a choice of mothers.

"She said she would support me to a new life when my contract with Aldridge was over."

Aldridge's eyebrows shot up. "Mama said that?"

"She..." Becky blushed. "She might not approve of me marrying a baron. She certainly warned me not to attempt to marry you. But she did say she would help me and Sarah when we were ready."

"If she accepts you as Baroness Overton, the rest of Society will follow her lead." Aldridge had shaken off the surprise and was considering the agreement between his mother and his mistress with his usual equanimity. Hugh was still wondering how the two had met.

"I think we should call on her," Aldridge continued. "And Rede is in town, too. We can ask Anne. She liked you, Becky. I'm sure she'll help. And my half-brother's wife, Prue. Rede's cousin, Susan. My own cousins. Yes, we'll do very nicely."

Hugh shook his head. "That's a lot of people to share our secret."

"I don't intend to tell them our secret, Overton. Mama knows, and Anne. And Prue, probably, because it's the sort of thing she knows. But they can all be trusted. All I need to tell the others is that my friend Hugh is marrying a widow who has not been much in society, and I'd appreciate their support."

Becky insisted they talk to the key players before the planned encounter on Rotten Row between the Merry Marquis, the baron, and their respective ladies. Hugh could see the point.

"It won't take long, will it?" he said.

His lands and his daughters needed him. And he needed his new bride. Love was no more part of this second marriage than in his first—but at least he liked Becky, and she seemed to like him. And desire... he had plenty of that! They would deal well together, and he was keen to get started.

*****

While Aldridge visited his Mama to explain what they wanted, Hugh went cap, and purse, in hand to Doctor's Commons to arrange a special licence.

It took longer than he'd hoped, and a lucky encounter with a friend from university, to be admitted to the Archbishop's presence, but two days later, he had his licence. It was in his pocket, and Becky at his side, when they waited on Her Grace, summoned by a scented note delivered by the hand of a liveried footman.

Hugh had been in the heir's wing many times, and at Haverford, the family seat, when he was a boy. He had never entered Haverford House by the main door. Designed to impress, the approach sat back from the road, admittance through a gatekeeper. They were paraded through the paved courtyard by another liveried servant to the stairs between pillars that stretched three stories to the pediment above.

Inside, the ducal glory continued; a marbled entrance chamber the height of the house that would make a ballroom in any lesser mansion, with majestic flights of stairs rising on either side and curving to meet, only to split again in a symphony of wood and stone. Grenford ancestors were everywhere, twice as large as life, painted on canvas and moulded from stone, cold eyes examining petitioners and finding them all unworthy.

Aldridge met them in the entrance chamber, and led them up the first flight of stairs and down a sumptuously carpeted hall that was elegantly papered above richly carved panels. Four men could have walked arm-in-arm down the middle, never touching the furniture and art lining both walls, between highly-polished doors.