Tony hesitated and then reluctantly shook his head. "No, I suppose you're exactly right."

"Of course I am," she said with force. "Will you also agree Alexandra's current situation is placing her reputation and her entire future in serious jeopardy and, moreover, that the situation seems destined to worsen?"

Faced with his grandmother's piercing stare and her astute assessment of all the facts, Anthony shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed. "I agree."

"Excellent," she said, looking surprisingly satisfied. "Then I know you will understand when I say I do not wish to live out the rest of my days in a London house that is under siege from Alexandra's suitors, waiting on tenterhooks for another one of them to succeed at what Marbly tried to do, or to do something even more unspeakable to her—to us as a family. I wish to spend what years I have left at Rosemeade. But I cannot do that because Alexandra would have to accompany me there, which would make her future nearly as bleak as it is here, but for the opposite reasons. The only remaining solution would be to leave her here with you, which is beyond the bounds of consideration. It would cause a scandal that is not to be thought of." She paused, watching him very closely, waiting for his answer as if it were of momentous importance.

"Neither solution is feasible," Tony agreed.

The duchess pounced on that with ill-suppressed glee. "I knew you would see the situation exactly as I do. You are a man of superior understanding and compassion, Anthony."

"Er—thank you, Grandmama," Anthony said, visibly taken aback by such effusive compliments from his normally taciturn grandmother.

"And now that we've discovered we are in complete accord," she continued, "I have a favor to ask of you."

"Anything."

"Marry Alexandra."

"Anything but that," Anthony swiftly corrected, frowning darkly at her.

In response, she pointedly lifted her brows and disdainfully gazed at him as if he had just shrunk drastically in her estimation. It was a look which she had effectively employed for fifty years—and with singular success—to intimidate her peers, awe servants, silence children, and depress the pretensions of anyone who dared oppose her, including her husband and sons. Only Jordan had been immune to its effect. Jordan and his mother.

Anthony, however, was no more immune to it now than he had been at twelve, when that same look had silenced his outcry at having to learn Latin and sent him upstairs to ashamedly devote himself to his studies. Now he sighed, looking desperately around the room as if searching for some means of escape. Which he was.

The dowager duchess waited in silence.

Silence was the next weapon in her arsenal, Tony knew. At moments like this she always waited in silence. It was so much nicer—so much more dignified and refined—to wait in polite silence for one's prey to stop struggling, rather than to swoop in for the kill with a barrage of unnecessary verbal fire.

"You don't seem to realize what you're asking of me," he said angrily.

His refusal to yield gracefully and at once made her brows lift a fraction higher, as if she were not only disappointed in him, but annoyed because she was now compelled to fire a warning shot. But she fired it without hesitation, striking home, exactly as Anthony expected she would. In verbal combat, his grandmother's aim was faultless. "I sincerely hope," she drawled with just the right touch of disdain, "that you don't intend to say you aren't attracted to Alexandra?"

"And if I did say that?"

Her white eyebrows shot straight into her hairline, warning him she was prepared to open fire if he continued to be obstinate.

"There's no need to bring out the heavy guns," Anthony warned cryptically, holding up his hand in the gesture of a weary truce. Although he resented the fact that in any clash of wills she could still reduce him to the level of a child, he was also adult enough and wise enough to know that it was truly childish to argue with her when she was right. "I don't deny it. Moreover, the idea has occurred to me on more than one occasion."

Her eyebrows dropped to their normal position and she favored him with a slight, regal inclination of her white head—a gesture meant to convey that perhaps he stood a slight chance of regaining her favor. "You're being very sensible." She was always gracious to those she subdued.

"I'm not agreeing to what you suggest, but I'll agree to discuss it with Alex and leave the decision up to her."

"Alexandra has no more choice in the matter than you have, my dear," she said, so carried away with pleasure that she had inadvertently used an endearment without waiting the usual interval of weeks or even months to forgive him for his tardy capitulation to her will. "And there's no need to fret about when and where to discuss the matter with her, because I took the liberty of instructing Higgins to have her join us here"—she stopped at the sound of the knock upon the door—"now."

"Now!" he exploded. "I can't do it now. There are three men downstairs who've come to ask me for her hand."

She dismissed that problem with a regal flick of her fingers. "I'll tell Higgins to send them away." Before Anthony could utter a protest, she pulled open the door to admit Alexandra, and he watched in amazement as his grandmother's personality underwent another distinct change. "Alexandra," she said sternly, but not without a hint of affection, "your conduct has been giving us a deal of worry. I know you do not wish to worry me because I am no longer a young woman—"

"Worry you, ma'am?" Alexandra repeated, alarmed. "My conduct? What have I done?"

"I'll tell you," she said, and then she ruthlessly launched into a dissertation deliberately intended to alarm, intimidate, and coerce Alexandra into falling into Anthony's arms the minute the duchess closed the door "This dreadful coil we are all in is not entirely your fault," she began, her words coming in quick, rapid-fire succession. "But the fact remains that had Anthony not learned of your proposed jaunt to Cadbury with Sir Marbly in time to waylay you, you'd have found yourself in Wilton, compromised beyond recall, and forced to wed that blackguard. This willy-nilly jaunting about, flitting from suitor to suitor, must cease at once. Everyone thinks you are having a wonderful time, but I know you better! You are behaving in this wild, indiscriminate manner solely to spite Jordan—to show him you can match him, deed for deed. Well, you can't, my dear! Your little peccadilloes are nothing compared to the sorts of things gentlemen do, particularly gentlemen like Jordan. Furthermore," she announced in a rising tone that indicated she was about to reveal news of tremendous import, "Jordan is dead."