"I don't feel like a woman!" Alexandra said miserably, finally putting into words all that had been worrying her since she first met the man who had stolen her heart within an hour after he first looked at her. "Mary Ellen, I don't know what to say to him. I was never the least bit interested in boys and now, when he's near, I haven't a clue what to say or do. Either I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind—and make a complete cake of myself—or else I lose my wits entirely and stand there like a piece of mutton. What should I do?" she implored.

Mary Ellen's eyes shone with pride. Alexandra was the acknowledged scholar of the village, but no one thought she was pretty. Mary Ellen, on the other hand, was the acknowledged village beauty, but no one thought she housed a brain between her ears. In fact, her own dear papa consistently called her his "lovely little corkbrain."

"What do you discuss with the boys who come calling on you at home?" Alexandra begged earnestly.

Mary Ellen furrowed her brow, valiantly trying to use the fine mind Alexandra was finally giving her credit for having. "Well," she said slowly, "I observed long ago that boys love to talk about themselves and the things that interest them." She brightened as the matter resolved itself completely. "All you have to do is ask a boy the right question and he'll talk you into distraction. There, it's as simple as that."

Alexandra threw up her hands in frustrated panic. "How could I possibly know what interests him and, besides, he isn't a boy at all, he's a man of twenty-seven."

"True," Mary Ellen admitted, "but my mama has often remarked that men, even my papa, are all just boys at heart. Therefore, my scheme will still work. To engage him in conversation, merely ask him about something that interests him."

"But I don't know what interests him!" Alexandra sighed.

Mary Ellen lapsed into silence, thinking heavily on the problem. "I have it! He will be interested in much the same manly things as my papa speaks of. Ask him about—"

"About what?" Alexandra prodded, leaning forward in her eagerness when Mary Ellen seemed lost in thought.

Suddenly Mary Ellen snapped her fingers and beamed. "About bugs! Ask him how the crops on his estate are faring and if he's had problems with bugs! Bugs," she added informatively, "are an all-consuming interest of men who raise crops!"

Doubt wrinkled Alexandra's forehead into a thoughtful knot. "Insects don't seem a very pleasant topic."

"Oh, males don't enjoy pleasant or truly interesting topics at all. I mean if you try to tell them about a beautiful bonnet you saw in a shop window they positively wilt. And if you dare to discuss, at any length, the sort of gown you are longing to make someday, they are perfectly likely to doze off in the middle of your description of it!"

Alexandra stored this vital piece of information away, along with the advice about bugs.

"And do not, under any conditions," Mary Ellen warned severely, "discuss your fusty old Socrates and dull old Plato with him. Men despise a woman who is too smart. And another thing, Alex," Mary Ellen said, warming more and more to her subject. "You'll have to learn how to flirt."

Alexandra winced, but she knew better than to argue. Boys of all ages hung about Mary Ellen's skirts and cluttered up the family parlor, hoping for a moment with her, therefore, Mary Ellen's advice on the subject was definitely not to be taken lightly. "Very well," she said reluctantly, "how do I go about flirting?"

"Well, use your eyes, for one thing. You have excellent eyes."

"Use them to do what?"

"To look steadily into the eyes of the duke. And flutter your lashes a little to show how long they are—"

Alexandra experimentally "fluttered" her lashes, then collapsed onto the pillows, laughing. "I would look a perfect fool."

"Not to a man. They like that sort of thing."

Alexandra sobered and turned her head on the pillow to gaze thoughtfully at Mary Ellen. "You're quite certain?"

"Absolutely positive. And another thing—men like to know you like them. I mean, when you tell them they're oh so strong or brave or clever, they like that. It makes them feel special. Have you told the duke you love him?"

Silence.

"Have you?"

"Certainly not!"

"You should. Then he'll tell you he loves you!"

"Are you certain?"

"Of course."

Chapter Seven

I won't do it, I tell you," Alexandra burst out, her cheeks flushed with angry color. She glowered at the seamstresses who for three days and nights had been measuring, pinning, sighing, and cutting on the rainbow of fabrics which were now strewn about the room in various stages of becoming day dresses, riding habits, walking costumes, and dressing gowns. She felt like a stuffed mannikin who was permitted no feelings and no rest, whose only purpose was to stand still and be pinned, prodded, and poked, while the duchess looked on, criticizing Alexandra's every mannerism and movement.

For three entire days she had repeatedly asked to speak with her future husband, but the duke had been "otherwise occupied" or so Ramsey, the stony-faced butler, had continually informed her. Occasionally she had glimpsed him in the library talking with gentlemen until late in the afternoon. She and Mary Ellen were served their meals in Alexandra's room, while he apparently preferred the more interesting company of his grandmother. "Otherwise occupied," she had now concluded, obviously meant that he didn't wish to be bothered with her.

After three days of this, Alexandra was tense, irritable, and—much to her horror—very frightened. Her mother and Uncle Monty were as good as lost to her. Even though they were supposedly staying at an inn a few miles away, they were not permitted to call at Rosemeade. Life yawned before her, a lonely, gaping hole where she would be denied the companionship of her family and Mary Ellen and even the old servants who had been her friends since babyhood.

"This is a complete farce!" Alexandra said to Mary Ellen, stamping her foot in frustrated outrage and glaring at the seamstress who had just finished pinning the hem of the lemon-yellow muslin gown Alexandra was wearing.

"Stand still, young lady, and cease your theatrics," her grace snapped frigidly, walking into the room.

For three days the duchess hadn't spoken a single personal word to her, except to criticize, lecture, instruct, or command. "Theatrics—" Alexandra burst out, as rage swept through her, hot and satisfying. "If you think that was a theatric, wait until you hear the rest of what I have to say!" The duchess turned as if she intended to leave and, for Alexandra, that was the last straw. "I suggest you wait a moment and let me finish, ma'am."