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Annan, Scotland

If Gabriel hadn’t seen the tragedy currently unfolding with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it was happening.

“Will you wear the blue superfine this evening, Your Grace?”

What difference did it make which coat he wore, when his peace of mind was under direct threat? And was that another carriage coming up his front drive?

A Christmas Eve ball, of all wretched things. If that wasn’t horrific enough, this ball came with a two-week house party attached to it and was meant to culminate with a betrothal.

His betrothal.

For the next fortnight, Hawthorne Castle would be overrun with ladies. A few gentlemen too, perhaps, but mostly ladies. Ladies, and their marriage-minded mammas.

Petite ladies, plump ladies, and tall, slender willowy ladies. Fair, dark, and redheaded ladies. Ladies who appeared to be scarcely out of pinafores, and ladies on the verge of toppling headlong into spinsterhood.

Every sort of lady one could imagine had appeared at his door step at some point today, and none of them were dreaming of sugar plums.

No, they’d come for only one reason.

To become the Duchess of Hawthorne.

“The blue, Your Grace?” Rowan held up two coats for his inspection. “Or do you prefer the bottle green?”

Gabriel turned from the window with a weary sigh. It hardly mattered what color coat he chose. It would still be him inside it, either way. “I shall defer to your superior fashion sense, Rowan.”

“The blue, then. It only just arrived from London yesterday.” Rowan set the green coat aside and selected a boar’s head brush from his array of tools. “I do hope you don’t catch a chill, lingering so long by the window, Your Grace. It’s quite raw this morning.”

A chill, indeed. “I can’t help but feel, Rowan, that your concern has less to do with my health, and more to do with our guests catching me gawking at them from above.”

“Not at all, Your Grace.” Rowan attacked the right sleeve of the blue coat with his brush. “I have never known you to observe anything less than the strictest propriety.”

Gabriel stifled a snort. Rowan was unfailingly loyal, but they both knew it was only a matter of time before he cocked this whole thing up.

Still, a retreat did seem like a wise course of action. He’d already wasted half the morning spying on his guests as their carriages stopped below his bedchamber window, and it had done nothing to quell the swarm of uneasy butterflies dancing a jig in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m not certain this house party was a good idea, Rowan.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d said so, but Rowan’s head jerked up, as if his clothes brush had just delivered a nasty static shock. “But the ladies have already arrived, Your Grace.”

They were still arriving, in fact. The first carriage had come just before nine this morning. It was nearly noon now, and the endless parade hadn’t yet concluded. Even as he spoke, a smart gray coach trundled up the drive and came to a stop at the castle’s front door, the bells fixed to the horses’ bridles ringing merrily as they stamped their hooves and tossed their heads, frosty air streaming from their noses.

One of the carriage doors flew open and disgorged its passengers onto the drive.

“Look, Rowan. More ladies. How wonderful.” There were three of them, their richly embroidered velvet cloaks fluttering in the wind. “I don’t suppose we can send them away again.”

“Of course we can, Your Grace.” Rowan set his brush aside and joined Gabriel at the window, peering over his shoulder. “You can do whatever you wish to do. You are the Duke of Hawthorne, and this is your castle.”

“Very reassuring, Rowan, but why do I feel as if there’s an unspoken ‘but’ coming?”

Rowan twitched the heavy silk draperies to hide their faces from any curious gazes. “We will send them away at once, if Your Grace commands it, but—”

“Ah, there it is.”

“But banishing the ladies will not solve your difficulties. Your castle will be your own again, but your problem will remain. If you don’t wed, Your Grace, you’ll be left at Hawthorne Castle alone.”

“Would that be so terrible?” His work would keep him busy enough, wouldn’t it?

But Rowan was shaking his head. “Annan is a tiny, remote place, as you know, Your Grace. You’re not accustomed to a solitary existence. I’m afraid it will be a lonely life for you to live here by yourself.”