She did not want the Duke’s men-friends in their joking manner, laughing and talking about them.
But most of all, she did not want women like the Viscountess Storr and perhaps her aunt treating marriage as if it was something light and unimportant and not a Sacrament of Love, which her father had said it should always be.
The Duke was watching the expression in her eyes and then he assured her,
“Leave everything to me, my lovely one. I know what you are thinking and I feel the same. We will be married with only your uncle to give you away. Then I will take you for our honeymoon to a house I own by the sea, where we will be completely alone and can think only of ourselves.”
Lorena gave a little cry of sheer delight.
Then she said,
“How can you be so wonderful? How can you understand a
