“Having younger siblings forces one to develop skills,” Iris replied, steering the mare in the direction of the park. “By themselves, most men are fairly biddable and pleasant, but put them together, and common sense flees the scene. The big fellow was ready to start knocking heads.” A big, well-dressed gentleman who’d hopped off his steed as nimbly as a panther.

Iris might have dismissed him as just another gawker but for two things. First, his proportions made him tall enough to see over the crowd and muscular enough that even street rabble gave way for him. He could have been in hostler’s attire, and they would have shown him the same respect.

But he hadn’t been wearing hostler’s attire. He’d been exquisitely turned out for riding, boots gleaming, cravat pinned in elegant folds, gloves tight across big hands.

And he filled out his breeches with the sort of muscle that didn’t come from standing up for a few waltzes. His thighs had shifted and strained the doeskin, announcing to any audacious enough to look that he rode often and well.

And probably not only horses.

Iris turned the mare onto Park Lane. I ought not to think such things.

Though why shouldn’t a spinster notice a fine specimen of manhood when he was also willing to leave a situation that required a woman’s touch in a woman’s hands?

The second aspect of the gentleman Iris had noticed was the sound of his walk. His bootheels had struck the cobbles loudly enough to warn of his approach, and to reinforce the perception of his sheer size. Had the fidgety blacks calmed because Iris had pet one of them, or because a presence of such clear authority waited not three yards from the arguing parties?

“Do you expect to be home before your sisters?” Hattie asked. “On such a fine day, the park will be thronged.”

“Exactly, we’ll creep along, and if Clonmere is among the mob, I’ll have a chance to take his measure. One can tell a great deal by the company a man keeps and the cattle in his mews.”

“You sound like Peter.”

“Peter sounds like me. The earl says our heir is not doing well at university.”

“Peter misses his siblings, or perhaps he got wind that his lordship has hatched a mad scheme to marry one of you to a duke.”

Iris pretended to focus on cutting across the intersection to enter the park, but in truth, Hattie’s words hurt. The pain was small, but times a thousand, such pains tempted Iris to self-pity.

“Not one of us, Hattie. One of his other daughters, one of the girls, though they ceased to be girls years ago. I am to help my sisters drag Clonmore to the altar if I have to pop out of a linen closet at an inopportune moment to do it.”

The Fashionable Hour had not yet begun, and yet there was traffic aplenty beneath the maples. Rosie knew her way, and the outing should have been pleasant.

“You might consider dragging Clonmere into that linen closet,” Hattie muttered. Over the clatter of wheels and hooves, the groom on the back perch wouldn’t hear her, not that he’d peach. Falmouth’s staff took his coin, but their loyalty had been to the late countess. Because she had championed Iris’s situation, the staff was now loyal to Iris.

“I barely fit into some linen closets myself,” Iris replied. “I’ve heard the duke is not petite.”

Hattie’s silence reproved, and she was not by nature reserved with her opinions.

“I’m not spying on him,” Iris said. “I’ve never laid eyes on the man, but Papa has said that coaxing the duke into marriage with one of my sisters is my responsibility. He’ll banish me to Devonshire if I fail.”

“And you, daft creature, will be happy to go. I’d go with you, but then, who will be chaperone and companion to the featherbrains?”

Iris drew the mare to a halt to allow another carriage to pull forward from the verge. “They are not featherbrains, Cousin. My sisters are exactly what they’ve been trained to be—pleasant, pretty, and marriageable. If they’d been taught some math, some logic, some literature…”

Iris had a pair of maternal uncles who’d shamed the earl into providing her a decent education. The uncles were gone, and they too had left her a tidy sum. The more valuable legacy was the ability to read a ledger, manage a budget, discuss a poem, and comprehend political issues.

“Your sisters will do well enough,” Hattie said. “The twins will likely marry into the same family, and Lily will make a fine hostess for some younger son.”

Rosie could move no faster than a walk, because somewhere up the line, somebody had decided that the park could be enjoyed at only a placid pace. Iris was anxious to return home before her sisters, but she was also anxious to catch a glimpse of the duke.

“You think Clonmere will disregard his father’s promise?” That would simplify matters, though it would leave all three sisters devastated and the earl furious.

“He’s said he will honor the letter, and a man’s word is his bond, if he’s a gentleman.”

A title was no guarantee of gentlemanly deportment, witness Falmouth’s indifferent parenting of Iris herself.

“Holly is my choice for the duke,” Iris said. “She’s overshadowed by the other two, smarter than she lets on, and she’d be kind to her siblings if she became a duchess.”

Iris nodded to a pair of dandies on horseback. The one on the right—Horatius Threadneedle—looked like he was interested in a chat, which would not do. Mr. Threadneedle was an agreeable fellow of modest tastes but Iris had a duke to inspect.

“Clonmere might not be here,” Hattie said. “Or if he is on parade, we won’t be able to find him in this crush because—”

She fell silent while a blond young lady driving a phaeton came up on Iris’s shoulder. The way was narrow, the young woman was flirting madly with the man laughing beside her on the bench. Rosie switched her tail at the matched chestnuts pulling the phaeton, and then…

Both vehicles lurched to a stop.

“Oh, dear,” the blond said. “You seem to have locked wheels with us.”

“Give me the reins, darling,” the gentleman drawled, though his on-side leader had started to prop in the traces.

A pang of sympathy for Mr. Amherst tempted Iris to shout, “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” but a lady did not shout.

“Perhaps if I back up?” Iris suggested, asking the same of Rosie.

“No dratted luck,” the gentleman said. “Best get down ladies. Lightning and Thunder aren’t the steadiest pair.”

Except getting down was impossible. To Iris’s left, the phaeton, jiggling and jouncing as the horses grew increasingly nervous, prevented her escape. On Hattie’s side of the carriage, a closed coach had stopped to watch the goings on.

“I’m not giving up the reins just because she couldn’t steer her nag,” the blond said, tossing her curls.

“God spare me,” Hattie muttered, as Rosie whisked her tail twice.

The blond left off batting her eyelashes at her companion and smiled over the back of her vehicle.

“Your Grace, a pleasure to see you.”

“Today is the day for carriage mishaps, apparently,” said a tall gentleman… the same tall gentleman. He was off his horse and surveying the entangled wheels from behind. “Berringer, this is your fault. Never let a novice drive in traffic, and certainly don’t give her the ribbons when you’ve a half-wild team put to.”

My sentiments exactly. “Sir, if you could…” Except the blond had called him Your Grace. “I beg your pardon. Your Grace, if you could assist my companion down, I’d appreciate it.”

The duke was still scowling at the wheels, one sturdy, one delicate. He paused with one glove stuffed in his pocket, the other in hand and turned a pair of cerulean blue eyes on Iris.

“You have a habit of turning up in the most interesting locations, Miss.”

“That’s Lady Iris,” Hattie said. “Your Grace.”

“Lady Iris.” The duke bowed. “John Coachman!” he called to the closed conveyance on Iris’s right, “Walk on or I’ll call out the gawking nitwit who employs you. Berringer, take the damned reins. You there,”—this was directed at Iris’s groom—“get hold of Berringer’s cattle and explain the rules of gentlemanly deportment to them or prepare to be trampled.”

The groom went grinning to his task, Berringer appropriated the reins from the now pouting blond, and the chestnuts ceased hopping about.

“Sit tight, ladies,” the duke said, stuffing the second glove into a pocket. “This will only take a moment.”

Iris was used to men giving orders. Young Peter had come early to the habit, though she ensured his puerile commands were never directed at his sisters. Falmouth, however, was forever barking at the servants and ordering Iris about.

She was not used to men solving problems. Not used to them sorting out cause and effect, studying a situation, and literally getting their hands dirty to provide aid.

The duke grasped the back of Iris’s gig, bent at the knees, and hoisted the entire vehicle several inches.

“If you’ll have your mare step forward,” he said, as if he was holding a wine glass instead of half a carriage.

“Rosie.” The mare assayed two steps, enough to free the wheels from each other. She stood like a saint thereafter, while Iris’s groom led the chestnuts onto the verge.

“Our thanks, Clonmere!” Berringer called, trotting off. The blond clung to his arm, tittering about the stupid beasts, and why was it always a duke who got to play the hero.

“Not a duke,” Hattie said. “A gentleman.”

“A gentleman would not presume to introduce himself,” the duke said… the Duke of Clonmere. “But fate seems determined that we further our acquaintance. Clonmere, at your service.”

His smile was everything a gentleman’s smile should be and too often wasn’t. Friendly, intelligent, genuine without hinting at anything impolite. A touch of mischief in his eyes, a hint of merriment about his mouth, all bounded with good manners and tied up with adult self-possession.