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"I'll also add," Hurst continued, "he was always a gentleman about saving my life and never mentioned it again."

"Until now," Rick responded. "No matter how veiled it was, it's presumptuous of him to ask you to marry his sister."

"Presumptuous or desperate?" Wyatt asked. "And really, what has the man to lose by asking? He's not the first person to want you to marry his sister, or daughter, or cousin. Nor will he be the last. With you being the only eligible duke in all of England, when the Season starts you will be sought by families of all the belles in London. You can be sure that right now every young lady and her parents are plotting to take you off the marriage mart and straight to the altar to say, I do."

It was true. Hurst grunted. Ever since he became a duke, fathers, brothers, uncles, and strangers had been approaching him with promises of lucrative dowries in exchange for offering their daughters' hand in marriage. At parties, dinners, and balls, mothers unashamedly praised their daughters' admirable qualities. He'd always listened to what they had to say but had no interest in any of them. Whenever he met the lady he was to spend the rest of his life with, he'd know it. He was sure. It wasn't any kind of mental powers he had, but a feeling inside him.

He couldn't say with 100 percent certainty but felt sure he could live with any of the bevy of young ladies looking for a husband. They were all beautiful in their own way. The issue had always been that he didn't just want a lady he could live with. He wanted the one lady he couldn't live without, and he had to believe he would know her when he saw her.

However, Hurst couldn't forget the concerning fact that he was getting older and had no heir for the title.

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and pushed aside that thought. The blaze from the fire and the potency of the brandy heated him. "I suppose what concerns me most is that he says he's ill and the urgency of having his messenger wait for an answer."

"With fever probably," Rick replied. "Perhaps the same type of intermittent fever that comes over me time and again without warning."

 

"Whatever the case..."

Wyatt leaned forward again and gave first Rick and then Hurst a questioning expression. Hurst had a feeling he knew what his friend was going to ask, and he didn't have an answer.

"What do you suppose he meant by she has a good heart and an even better soul?" Wyatt's unwavering gaze stared straight into Hurst's green eyes.

That comment had lingered on Hurst's mind too.

When he remained quiet, Wyatt offered, "Perhaps she's not as comely and fashionable as most young ladies of the ton, so he's touting her other attributes."

"Possibly frail?" Rick's thick, golden-brown brows rose before he added, "Though maybe he only meant she wasn't willful or easy to provoke, and to assure you of her calm nature and unblemished virtue."

"Or could it be that his words meant nothing other than she has few options?"

Hurst's jaw tightened, but he remained quiet and took another gulp of brandy while he listened to the suggestions about what Winston's words had meant. Every idea was possible and reasonable, but true? He had no way of knowing.

"Her lineage?" Wyatt asked.

A disgruntled laugh rose from Hurst's chest. "Solid. Stowe's grandfather was a younger son of the former Earl of Canterfield. Stowe's father was a vicar, and I'm quite sure he is too."

Suddenly it was so quiet among the three of them that Hurst heard every spit and crackle of the fire. His friends looked uncertainly at each other before Wyatt stuttered a cough. Rick shifted from one side of his chair to the other and then back again.

"What's with you two? It's a common occurrence for younger sons of titles to become a vicar," he argued, if only to pacify himself. "You both know I seriously thought about becoming one myself when the duke suggested I should be a clergyman to plump my allowance." If the title of the family didn't buy the sons a commission in the military or set them up to become rectors or vicars like Stowe's, they usually disintegrated into lonely, old, and woefully indebted wastrels as Hurst's father had. When only a young boy, and often with no money to see there was enough food in the house, Hurst promised himself he'd never allow that to happen to him as he grew older. He would have gladly been a vicar or captain in the army if the title hadn't unexpectedly become his when his uncle and cousin perished.

However, Hurst wasn't going down that memory path tonight either.

Brushing unwanted thoughts of the past away, he considered what Winston asked. It was a shock. It would be madness to agree to marry someone he'd never met. More than that, it felt wrong.