What the Groom Wants by Jade Lee

have been advising the Duke of Bucklynde for generations. And now, they are here to help you.”
    Both men executed a deep bow, but Radley simply frowned at them. He didn’t dare speak. He was beginning to think that his mother’s delusion might not be a delusion. But that couldn’t be. This was a fantasy of hers. It had to be. All his life, his mother had cherished the dream that one day they would be pulled back into the ducal fold. She had made no secret of her hopes, of the distant connection between them and the Duke of Bucklynde, and she had made Radley’s life hell with the constant keeping up of appearances for something that would never happen.
    He was a sailor, soon to be captain of his own ship. The fantasy that he would someday take a place among the aristocracy was ridiculous at best. And yet, here stood Mr. Pelley and Pelley, and his disquiet grew.
    “Sirs, as you might imagine, this is all rather confusing.”
    The elder Pelley bowed deeply. “We’ve been anxious for your return, your grace.”
    Radley winced at “your grace” but allowed the man to continue without comment.
    “I only heard an hour ago that your ship had finally arrived. Assuming that you would come first to visit your mother, we decided to meet you here. I’m afraid the estate has been neglected in this time of crisis, and there are decisions that need to be made as soon as possible.”
    He looked at the man, gauging his sincerity and sanity. He judged them both adequate, but the idea was still too preposterous to accept. He knew he was rapidly losing the war against denial, but he clung tenaciously to it.
    His mother had always put on airs, and his sister had ended up suffering for it. He had tolerated her insistence on seeing him educated as a gentleman, and for a little while he had allowed his mother’s dreams to infect him. As a boy, he’d fantasized about some unlikely event that would confer the duke’s honors on him. When his sister had become a victim of a heinous crime, in part brought on by his mother’s fixation on their connection to the dukedom, it had taken Radley from boyhood to adulthood virtually overnight. He had chosen a profession and set aside his secret hope, a little regretfully, but with relief too. And now, here were two men and his mother telling him that all his boyhood wishes had come true.
    “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how this could be.”
    The elder Pelley bowed again—really, that was getting rather irritating—then gestured to his grandson. “If we might be permitted to explain.”
    At a pointed look at the younger Mr. Pelley, the boy—who looked barely into his twenties—gasped and grabbed a satchel. He pulled out a stack of papers, which appeared to have an elaborate family tree upon it. He spread it on the table in front of the settee, then both Pelleys looked at Radley.
    It took a minute for Radley to realize that they hadn’t yet sat down because they were waiting for him. His mother, of course, had discreetly withdrawn to the kitchen. That was, after all, what a dowager countess would do, right? Which left the three men standing, while the Duke of Bucklynde’s genealogy fairly screamed at Radley from the table.
    “Very well,” he said, giving in to the inevitable. He settled on the nearest chair, his knees feeling incredibly weak, and then waited in all appearance of calm. In truth, his heart was pounding and his thoughts whirled more than a storm at sea.
    The next few minutes passed in a numb fog. The younger Mr. Pelley ran through a long commentary about every male on the ducal tree. He pointed at the parchment as he went, indicating birth and death dates, dwelling in detail on how each man died. In truth, the tale was relatively simple. Smallpox wiped out everyone of significance. Apparently, it had begun as a couple of cases, but spread rapidly. The eldest duke had been one of the first to succumb, and sadly, the cause of everyone else’s infection. All the men had