“She is very young,” Delphine replied, “about seventeen, I think, and I am afraid that she will feel very out of place at one of your sophisticated house parties.”
“I am sure you will be able to look after her.”
Delphine, who had been intending to coax him into agreeing it was a mistake to include Nerissa in the party, knew that, whatever objections she made, they would all be overruled because he had made up his mind.
She had already had experience of the Duke’s iron will and had thought it equal to her own. Yet, while she had every intention of getting her own way and marrying him, she suspected that it was the last thing he was contemplating.
She, however, made one last effort.
“Perhaps it would be better,” she said, “if you had Papa to stay at another time when you don’t have the
