by Shana Galen
“Brandy?” he asked.
“No, thank you.”
“Will you pour me one?”
“Of course.” Colin served his father then sat in the chair across from him as his father sipped the golden-brown liquid and stared into the low flames of the nearby hearth.
“I miss her too,” he said after a long silence.
“Miss who?” Colin asked, though he knew very well.
“Your mother.”
Colin shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the conversation. He knew his father missed the viscountess. They all did, but it was not something he wanted to discuss. Silence descended again as, clearly, his father was not comfortable with the topic either.
The viscount sipped his drink again. “I know you only married Warcliffe’s daughter because your mother asked you to.”
Colin stared at the flames, neither confirming nor denying.
“I didn’t like that she asked that of you. I didn’t think it was fair for her to ask you when she was ill, but then she was never a woman to play fair. She was an earl’s daughter, and she was used to having her way. She wanted Lady Daphne for you, and between your mother and the Duchess of Warcliffe, I fear neither you nor that girl had much say in the matter.”
“I didn’t mind.”
His father winced. “So stoic. Even as a child you were never one to throw a tantrum or cry when you fell down.”
Colin didn’t think that was quite true, but he’d learned young to hide his hurts. He’d been barely five when his grandfather had smacked him for some transgression. Colin had burst into tears and the man had snapped, “Stop sniveling and act like a man!” Colin had been swatted on the backside again for good measure.
“We’d wanted the clergy for you,” his father was saying, drawing him back to the present. “But by the time you were seven, we knew that was out of the question. You have the perfect constitution for the army. Level-headed, unemotional, rational.”
Colin nodded. There was no place for sniveling in the army and he’d done well there. He’d even liked it. He hadn’t liked the death and destruction, but he’d liked how everything was run. It was efficient, and for the most part, his commanders had been reasonable men. He had seen friends killed, of course. Eighteen of the men he’d served with in Draven’s troop had not come back with him. But they had known what they signed up for. They had been prepared to die. Colin tried not to think of them.
“But while those qualities may serve you well in a war, they are the qualities a soldier needs, not a husband.”
Colin shifted his gaze back to his father. “I don’t wish to speak of this.”
“Of course, you don’t. But I’m your father, and you must honor me.”
“I do.”
“Good. Then listen.” The viscount sipped his brandy. Colin gripped the arms of the chair and braced himself.
“I do not know Lady Daphne well, but I have observed that she is rather passionate. She cries at the end of a tragedy at the theater. She laughs loud and long at a comedy. She enjoys dancing and conversing. I do believe Lady Daphne is the sort of person who craves an emotional connection. As her husband, she will look to you for that connection.”
Her words from long ago flitted through Colin’s mind.
Tell me your deepest, darkest secret...
“You are a man who is uncomfortable with emotion. You have shied away from it your whole life.”
Stop sniveling and act like a man.
“When your mother died, I saw an even more profound change in you. You built a wall between the rest of the world and yourself, and now none of us can breach it.”
Colin practically squirmed in his seat. He might have done if he hadn’t been so well trained by the army. “Is this conversation because I have been spending more time away from the town house?” If that was the cause, he would come home more often. Anything to end this torture.
The viscount shook his head. “Colin, my boy, it is not a physical wall. It does not matter where you are. You shut all of us out. You always have to some extent, but the last few years it has been complete.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’m not hiding anything.”
Silly, little boy.
“Neither do you reveal anything.” The viscount set his glass on a table and studied his son. “I knew Lieutenant Draven before you. Did you know that?”
Colin shook his head.
“I see him sometimes and we speak.”
Colin wished he had opted to drink that brandy now.
“He told me about your actions during the war. How you were an invaluable member of the team. Your fellow soldiers called you the Pretender because you could disguise yourself as anyone or anything.” He paused and seemed to expect some response from Colin. Colin nodded to confirm it.
“You never told us any of that, and yet, none of it surprises me. Of course, you could become someone else. You were always good at blending into a crowd, making yourself invisible. But beyond that, you quite easily divorce yourself from yourself.”
Colin frowned. “That makes no sense.”
“But it does. You keep all your feelings and thoughts and emotions hidden, even from yourself, and so it makes it easy to become someone else.”
“If you think what I did was easy—”
His father waved a hand. “That’s not what I meant. I should say, it makes that sort of task possible for you. Other men would fail, or at the very least, be only half as successful because they cannot put who they are and what they feel aside. You can.”
“And?” Colin asked.
“And that was an admirable quality during the war, but it’s not needed any longer. In fact, it will not serve you in marriage. Your wife wants to know her husband—his feelings, his moods, his emotions. You won’t keep her if you cannot give her some of that.”
“And who says I want to keep her?”
His father snorted. “I may be old, but I’m not blind. The chit is beautiful. Any man would want to keep her.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m so shallow.”
“You are the last person I would call shallow. No, but I don’t think you’re blind either. Nor are you stupid. A divorce will ruin us all, if it were even granted, which I doubt. The duke has been more than lenient in allowing the two of you to behave unconventionally. But he will tire of the gossip and whispering and put his foot down. He will expect you to be a model husband to his daughter.”
Colin could feel his collar closing in on his throat already. “And if I don’t meet his expectations?”
“Then I imagine he will make your life miserable. He has the money and the power to do it.”
Colin shrugged, but his father held up a hand. “Before you say let him do his worst or some such thing, think about your sisters and your nephews and nieces. Do you want all of Society looking down their noses at them? Do you want to ruin your nieces’ chances of making good matches and of coming out? Louisa’s eldest will be out in three years. Warcliffe can make sure Eliza is not received anywhere.”
Colin blew out a breath and sat back. He detested this sort of thing—men throwing around their power, making others bow to their whims. But if the truth be told, he’d known this day was coming. He’d been waiting for it. “I will meet the duke’s expectations,” he said, jaw tight.
“And what about your wife’s?” his father asked.
Colin couldn’t meet his father’s eyes. He did not want to admit he would never be able to meet Daphne’s expectations.
Five
He had sent his acceptance for the dinner party. Daphne still could not believe it.
Her mother had told her just before they’d entered the carriage on the way to the opera. Her father had a box—he would be coming directly from his club with two of her brothers, and perhaps one of her sisters would be in attendance as well. The box was always full of her siblings and their spouses.
Only Daphne ever had to sit unaccompanied.
But perhaps t
hat would change. Colin had accepted the invitation to the dinner party. She’d expected him to decline. She’d expected her father to have to harangue him, but after one invitation he’d acquiesced.
It was too easy...
“I don’t know why I tell you anything,” her mother said sharply enough that Daphne turned from the window to look at her. “You don’t listen to me.”
“I’m sorry, Mama. I was looking out the window.”
Her mother frowned. “If you are to use that excuse, you might at least make certain the curtains are open first.” She brushed the closed curtains with her hand. “As I was saying, Lord Stockford has lost his entire fortune in some scheme or other. It’s quite the scandal.”
“I know already.”
Lady Isabella had told her all about it, breathless with excitement. There was nothing Lady Isabella and Lady Pavenley liked more than a scandal. Daphne was a little ashamed to realize she had once been the same, eager for any juicy morsel she could spread about. Now she felt sorry for Lord Stockford and his wife and children. “What will happen to them?”
Her mother all but reared back. “I should think they will decamp to the Continent, but I do not know. In any case, that is not the point I wanted to make. You are not to speak to Lady Stockford. Give her the cut direct, Daphne.”
Daphne imagined Lady Stockford, who was a pretty woman just two or three years younger than she. She could imagine her face when Daphne turned her back on her.
“You are thinking,” her mother observed. “Stop.”
“I can’t stop thinking, Mama. It’s something one does instinctually.”
“Yes, well you are thinking hard. I can see the way your forehead wrinkles. Those wrinkles will not smooth out so easily in a few years. Best not to create them.”
“I will try, Mama. In the meantime, I cannot help but wonder—”
“Wondering is too close to thinking, Daphne,” the duchess said tartly.
“—and yet I wonder if we should really be so quick to cut someone like Lady Stockford. After all, what if Mr. FitzRoy asks for an annulment—”
“An annulment? On what grounds?”
“Very well, a divorce.”
The duchess inhaled sharply. “He will not! Your father will run him out of Parliament if he dares step foot in chambers with that request.”
“Mother, my point is that we are none of us without some flaw, some secret, something worthy of gossip.”
“And that is precisely why your father has called for the dinner party with Mr. FitzRoy. We will settle this once and for all. Now, about Lord Cheeveton—”
She went on, relating information Daphne already knew. There was little about the goings on in the ton Daphne did not know. And it was only because she managed the two biggest gossips in Society—Lady Isabella and Lady Pavenley—that she was not more of a source of gossip than she was. A little talk was not a bad thing. It made one interesting and mysterious. But she feared the talk about her was growing, even more now that FitzRoy had so publicly sought her out.
She exited the carriage at Covent Garden and went through the motions of greeting people she knew, ignoring those trying to elevate themselves, and ingratiating herself to those above her. How she did grow tired of Prinny staring at her breasts. She shouldn’t have worn such a low-cut gown, but she hadn’t been thinking when she’d told her maid which dress to press. She’d forgotten Prinny would be here tonight. She’d just wanted something that would look good in the theater’s light, and the silver thread worked through the bodice, sleeves, and hem of the bright pink dress always looked very good in dim light. But the dress also had a large pink bow right between her breasts, and it drew the eye—especially the prince’s eye.
Using her fan to cover her décolletage, Daphne curtsied and took the first opportunity to go to the Warcliffe box. There she fanned herself and pretended to look out over the mostly still empty seats. Lady Pavenley and her husband had a box to her right, and Lady Isabella had a box almost directly across from them. Her brothers enjoyed that as Lady Isabella had a tendency to lean over to watch the performance and her dress often looked as though it might fail to contain her bosom at any moment. There were usually wagers as to whether a nipple would be visible or an entire breast would pop out.
Daphne’s own dress was low enough that she might have the same problem if she had been fond of sitting near the banister and looking over. She almost always sat in the second or third row of seats, though. And her posture was impeccable.
She heard the curtain swish as someone else entered, and she looked behind her, a smile ready. But it wasn’t one of her siblings or her parents.
“Lady Daphne, I was hoping you would attend tonight.”
Daphne took a deep breath and tried not to panic. “My lord.” She gave only a slight curtsey to show the Earl of Battersea she did not hold him in high regard. “You know I never miss the opening of an opera.”
He gave her a thin smile, his gaze sharp. “Everyone knows that, but I did think you might not attend tonight. You have been trying so hard to avoid me.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
He moved closer, and she thought, not for the first time, that he moved like a snake. He was tall and sinewy, with copper hair that seemed to signal he was poisonous. “I think you do. You and I both know you are running out of time to pay your debt to me.”
She gave him a look of disgust. “How can you be so vulgar as to mention such a thing to a lady?”
He smiled, and his thin lips stretched taut over his teeth. “You have no idea how vulgar I can be, Lady Daphne. But I do hope you will find out.” He hissed the last bit, moving closer to her, his eyes alight with what she could only assume was lust.
“I did pay my debt to you.” They’d had this conversation before, and she knew what he would reply.
“Not promptly, and you have yet to pay the interest, which grows day by day.” He licked his thin lips, and she shuddered. She’d heard rumors he’d played a part in the untimely death—some said murder—of a baroness years ago. The way he looked at her now, she could believe it was true. She looked down at his gloved hands and could imagine them wrapped around her own neck.
“A gentleman does not charge interest,” she said faintly, still looking at his hands.
“A lady does not gamble. But you made the wager, and I will be sure you pay.” He was close enough to kiss her now. “If not with blunt then with your person.” His hand snaked up her arm and caught her painfully where her long gloves ended. She tried to move away, but he was deceptively strong and pulled her closer. “I am done waiting. You have two days. If you do not pay me in full, you are mine.” He moved to kiss her, but thankfully, her father parted the curtain in the next moment and the earl was forced to release her.
“Battersea,” the duke said, and it was almost a bark. He looked at Daphne then back at the earl. “Good to see you, my lord.”
Battersea bowed. “Your Grace. Your daughter and I were just discussing our mutual love of the opera.”
The duke looked unconvinced. “You should go back to your seat, Battersea. The opera is about to begin.”
“Of course. We will speak more later, Lady Daphne.” He took her gloved hand and kissed it, his tongue sneaking out to lick the pink leather. Daphne swallowed her revulsion as the curtains swayed behind him.
“Why was he here?” the duke asked.
“I have no idea. He came in without an invitation and began to talk of the opera.”
“He’s a bad sort. I’ve told you to stay clear of him.”
“He had only been here a moment before you came in, Papa. I would have dismissed him.”
Her father nodded, and she knew he was thinking that she was quite capable of doing just as she’d said. But he also didn’t know her secret or that she owed Battersea money. She had wished on so many occasions she could go back in time and refuse his invitation to play a hand of cards. She wished she’d refused to go to the priva
te room with him, refused the high stakes, and walked away from the group of men she hadn’t known well. She hadn’t wanted to seem afraid. She had wanted to look brave and smart and rebellious.
Now she knew she’d been played for a fool. The earl had made certain she would never be able to repay her debt. She’d planned to ask him for more time, but she could see that would be pointless. He wanted her to default on her debt. He’d never give her more time.
“Good,” her father said, apparently mollified. “I am sure you have heard rumors about him, and I will not expound on those, but suffice it to say, he is not the sort of man you should involve yourself with.”
“Of course not, Papa. I am married.”
He blew out his breath, clearly not pleased by that response.
She didn’t blame him, but she’d rather speak of FitzRoy than Battersea. She could never tell her father what she had heard of Battersea. Ladies weren’t supposed to discuss what was rumored to happen at his country house parties—drinking, opium, prostitutes, and orgies. The rumors had made him seem dangerous, and it had been amusing to flirt with that danger. Until it had gone too far.
Now she would have to take drastic measures. The problem was that she would have to take them soon. Very soon. And that dratted dinner party with her husband was tomorrow night.
Her second to oldest brother and his wife entered, and she was happy to abandon the topic and speak of the business of a charitable organization with Lady William. Then two of her sisters and their husbands arrived with her mother and soon everyone was talking over everyone and no one quieted until halfway through the first act when the soprano sang so loudly they could not help but pay attention.
Daphne sat in the second row of seats, her mother, father, brother William and his wife in the first row. Her sisters and their husbands shared her row, and she was on the end closest to the stage and feeling a bit crowded. One row of chairs had been placed behind her in case her other sister or one of her other brothers made an appearance. She might have sat there except she would have had to sit alone. Daphne had quite forgotten it until she sensed someone sitting in the seat directly behind her.
