The man hastily stepped back. "Sorry, sir. No offense meant."
Justin had almost reached the door when a skinny fellow jumped in front of him. "Are you in love with our Sunny, your dukeship, or are you only marrying her for the money?"
It had been a mistake to answer any questions at all, Justin realized; it only encouraged the creatures. "I realize that none of you are qualified to understand gentlemanly behavior," he said icily, "so you will have to take my word for it that a gentleman never discusses a lady, and particularly not in the public press. Kindly get out of my way."
The man said with a leer, "Just asking what the American public wants to know, Thorny."
"The American public can go hang," Justin snapped.
Before the reporters could commit any further impertinence, several members of the hotel staff belatedly came to Justin's rescue. They swept the journalists aside and escorted him outside with profuse apologies and promises that such persons would never be allowed in the hotel again.
In a voice clipped by fury, Justin told the manager, "I hope that is true, because if there is another episode like this I shall move to quieter quarters."
Temper simmering, he settled into the luxurious Vangelder carriage. The sooner this damned wedding was over and he could take his wife home, the better.
Sunny was waiting in the Vangelder drawing room. She came forward with her hands outstretched, and if her smile wasn't quite as radiant as he would have liked, at least it was genuine.
"It's good to see you, Sunny." He caught her hands and studied her face hungrily. "You were right about the publicity surrounding the wedding. I'm afraid that I was just rather abrupt with some members of the press. Has it been hard on you?"
She made a face. "Though it's been dreadful, I'm well protected here. But everyone in the household has been offered bribes to describe my trousseau."
"Gold-lace garters with diamond-studded clasps?"
"You saw that?" she said ruefully. "It's all so vulgar!"
She looked utterly charming. He was on the verge of kissing her when the door swung open. Justin looked up to see a tall, blond young man who had to be one of Sunny's older brothers.
"I'm Charlie Vangelder," the young man said cheerfully as he offered his hand. "Sorry not to meet you in Newport, Thornborough, but I was working on the railroad all summer. Have to learn how to ran it when my uncle retires, you know."
So much for being alone with his intended bride. Suppressing a sigh, Justin shook hands with his future brother-in-law. A moment later, Augusta Vangelder swooped in, followed by a dozen more people, and it became clear that the "quiet family dinner" was an occasion for numberless Vangelders to meet their new relation by marriage.
The only break was the half hour when Justin met with the Vangelder attorneys to sign the settlement papers. His solicitor had bargained well; the minute that Justin married Sunny, he would come into possession of five million dollars worth of railway stock with a guaranteed minimum income of two hundred thousand dollars a year.
There would also be a capital sum of another million dollars that Justin would receive outright, plus a separate income for Sunny's personal use so that she would never have to be dependent on her husband's goodwill for pin money. As an incentive for Justin to try to keep his wife happy, the stock would revert to the Vangelder family trust if the marriage ended in divorce.
Gavin would have been amused to know that the value of the Thornborough title had risen so quickly. May Russell would have brought only half as much to her marriage
Impassively Justin scrawled his name over and over, hating every minute of it. He wished that he could marry Sunny without taking a penny of her family money, but that was impossible; without her wealth and his title, there would be no marriage.
As he signed the last paper, he wondered if Sunny would ever believe that he would have wanted her for his wife even if she had been a flower seller in Covent Garden.
When her daughter entered the breakfast parlor, Augusta said, "Good morning, Sarah." She took a dainty bite of buttered eggs. "There's a letter here for you from England."
Sunny tried unsuccessfully to suppress a yawn as she selected two muffins from the sideboard. The dinner party for Thornborough had gone on very late, and she had smiled at so many cousins that her jaw ached this morning.
She wished that she had had a few minutes alone with her future husband; she would have liked to tell him how much she had enjoyed his letters. She didn't know if it had been a deliberate effort on his part, but his descriptions of life at Swindon Palace had made her future seem less alien. His dry wit had even managed to make her smile.
She slit open the envelope that lay by her plate and scanned the contents. "It's from Lady Alexandra Aubrey, Thornborough's youngest sister. A charming note welcoming me to the family."
Uncomfortably Sunny remembered that Katie had said the girl had been nicknamed the Gargoylette. Her lips compressed as she returned the note to the envelope. The girl might be small, shy and seventeen, but she was the only Aubrey to write her brother's bride, and Sunny looked forward to meeting her.
"Are you only going to have muffins for breakfast?" Augusta said with disapproval.
"After the dinner last night, it's all I have room for." Sunny broke and buttered one of the muffins, wondering why her mother had requested this private breakfast.
Expression determined, Augusta opened her mouth, then paused, as if changing her mind about what she meant to say. "Look at the morning paper. Thornborough was intemperate."
Obediently Sunny lifted the newspaper, then blinked at the screaming headline. Duke Tells American Public to Go Hang!
"Oh, my," she said weakly. The story beneath claimed that Thornborough had bodily threatened several journalists, then bullied the hotel manager in a blatant attempt to infringe on the American public's constitutional right to a free press. "He mentioned yesterday that he'd been abrupt with some reporters, but surely this story is exaggerated."
"No doubt, but someone should explain to Thornborough that it's a mistake to pick fights with men who buy ink by the barrel." Augusta neatly finished the last of her meal. "A good thing that he was in England until now. Heaven knows what trouble he would have gotten into if he had been here longer."
Feeling oddly protective, Sunny said, "He's a very private man. He must find this vulgar publicity deeply offensive."
"Unfortunately, wealth and power always attract the interest of the masses."
Sunny poured herself coffee without comment. Her mother might say that public attention was unfortunate, but she would not have liked to be ignored.
Augusta began pleating her linen napkin into narrow folds. "You must be wondering why I wanted to talk to you this morning," she said with uncharacteristic constraint. "This will be difficult for both of us, but it's a mother's duty to explain to her daughter what her… her conjugal duties will be."
The muffin turned to sawdust in Sunny's mouth. Though she didn't want to discuss such a horribly embarrassing subject, there was no denying that information would be useful. Like all well-bred young ladies, her ignorance about marital intimacy was almost total.
Briskly Augusta explained the basics of male and female anatomy. Then, rather more slowly, she went on to describe exactly what a husband did to his wife.
Sunny choked on her coffee. "That's disgusting!" she said after she stopped coughing. She had heard whispered hints and giggles about the mysterious something that happened between men and women in the marriage bed, but surely it couldn't be what her mother was describing.
"It is disgusting," Augusta agreed, "as low and animal as the mating of hogs. It's also uncomfortable and sometimes painful. Perhaps someday scientific progress will find a better, more dignified way to make babies, but until then, women must suffer for the sins of Eve."