“Oh yes, that he was an unrepentant frequenter of the tables.” That alone was not enough to earn censure. She knew it as well as Valencourt did. She waited, expecting he would ask for more.
Lacking the self-control and the decorum expected of a duke was easily grounds for some social criticism. It was little wonder that Valencourt’s older brother sought his games in the least genteel arenas. He wanted them to remain clandestine.
And that was, of course, how she knew about them.
“Please… tell me… more of what you have heard.” Valencourt was trying to keep his own self-control, to seem like he wasn’t vexed by all of this.
“Doesn’t your shadow know?” Belle wasn’t sure if she wanted to be the one to tell Valencourt some of the unpalatable truth. She did not believe that traits always ran in families and was of the opinion that the man before her was one of the very few who weren’t duplicitous or conniving.
“Paul? If he does, he’s only promised to tell me on an as-needed basis.”
That made sense; the two were thick as thieves. One would protect the other.
Reluctantly, she said, “Your brother chased after opportunities at the tables, but…”
“What else?”
“He was also…” Belle paused. She did not wish to cause Valencourt more pain. “He was perverse.” She shook her head. “I know he paid those he visited, but I would not say that they consented to what he did.” She tried to explain as gently as she could.
Valencourt went so motionless that she could have rested a cup of tea on his head and it would not spill a drop into its saucer. Neither of them was unaware of what men were capable of doing in the name of cruelty, but that was quite a different thing from hearing one’s late brother was a brute. Valencourt didn’t have a cruel streak.
“Then what you know doesn’t just consist of rumors.”
“No, my dear. Not all of it.”
She knew Valencourt wouldn’t want comfort, so she let him work through his feelings silently, and several moments later, he said, “He has left me with a pig’s ear.” His voice, so quiet compared to how she had first come to know it, fell even softer. “I fear I have made a dreadful mistake, and if you’re willing, I would love to hear if you agree. Precisely because you will tell me if you think I have.”
“What is it?” Belle settled herself on the chaise, knowing she looked flawless. “Surely it cannot be so terrible as you are making it sound.”
“I do hope it isn’t. I met a woman.”
“An odious circumstance, indeed.”
“Overnight, literally, I went from being Judd to being the Duke of Welburn and realizing my prospects would have been better if I’d just kept crafting for the stage,” said Valencourt, flashing the barest smile at her droll remark. “I might have been rather poor for the rest of my life, but I was never in debt.”
Belle nodded. It did not happen terribly often to such important men in the ton, but she guessed that because a duke was so elevated, he had far to fall. And the fall could be disastrous. She would never ask it outright but wondered if the now-dead Lord Valencourt had died by his own hand.
“I imagine you’ve tried to keep your brother’s dubious legacy out of the public eye?”
“Well, I think it’s been difficult for others of his station to tell exactly what state he left things in.”
She had only ever seen oblique mentions of the duke’s suspected habits in respectable outlets and had to agree. “You’re probably right. For now.” She thought of what she would do if she were a man in need of quick, or reasonably quick, security. “Did you go on the hunt?”
“Thank you for not saying it like it’s a heinous choice,” said Valencourt. “I did, because I was so bewildered that I couldn’t think what else to do.”
“But you met somebody you actually liked.”
“I did. You’re always clever.”
“I have to be,” she said.
In her experience, women always had to be.
Chapter Eleven
Lee told Belle all, from his first glimpse of Teddie arguing with her mother, to the Sans Pareil, to the way she’d come to him in the night. Belle listened attentively, belying very few of her internal reactions. She was not a terribly demonstrative person and often remained impossibly calm. He found it easy to speak to her of things he wanted to forget because she did not judge him.
If she did, she waited until he was finished to deliver it.
Of course, the hardest thing to admit was that he’d deceived Teddie.
But he did explain that, too.
“I am,” he concluded, “at a complete and utter loss.”
“First of all, she would have been mad not to sleep with you,” said Belle. “And that’s both a professional and personal opinion.” Lee pretended to preen and she smiled. He didn’t deny that he was attractive.
Before anyone knew how he could embody the thorniest and silliest of roles, his looks were how he’d been able to persuade a stage manager to let him fill in for a leading man who had fallen ill that evening. His first job. Something about him must have appealed to Teddie, or she would not have taken the chance to share his bed. It was not a customary thing for young ladies to do what she’d done.
He was merely trying to figure out if she’d taken the chance for him, or she was chafing under the yoke her parents—largely Mrs. Driffield, had her wear—and he was a convenient source of rebellion.
He hoped he was not just an outlet for a rebellious streak.
Then, Belle continued, “But you should have told her the truth as soon as you felt things getting…” she stopped, considering. “Muckier than they were when you started. Do you not see how she might feel betrayed?”
He did see, and that was the problem. It was that mistake which haunted him. “But I want to know how to mend it.”
“You’re off to a decent start.”
“How do you mean?”
“You gave her a choice. You didn’t try to force her hand in front of her mother and father.”
“I felt certain that I would’ve lost her forever, if I did.”
“The engagement wasn’t announced? I’ve not seen anything about it, if it was.”
“No… this has all happened… remarkably fast.” Lee leaned back in his chair. “Do you think I should call on her?”
Teddie had been adamant, but he also had not given up hope that, despite his abominable shortcomings, she wanted him. It was true that they had not known each other for very long, but that was how many marriages began. Unlike a fair share of those unions, though, he believed they had the brightest chance of being a blissful match. While he did have their time in bed to bolster the thought, he was not unsophisticated enough to think that would be everything. It was all that he’d experienced of Teddie that led him to believe they were destined for more than a convenient marriage.
With a pitying expression, Belle said, “If you make it about groveling, more or less, and not about proving you were in the right. That is neither here nor there. I cannot blame you for doing what you thought you needed to do. But I can also see why she drew away from you.”
Knowing she was right, Lee said, more as a reflex than with nerves, “Are you quite certain I am not wasting your time?”
“Valencourt, you know I would say if you were,” she said, unbothered, but frank.
He did, too. She knew the worth of her hours and had built a life for herself to prove it. Looking around, he almost felt as though he were in some secret, well-loved and luxuriant pensione near Florence. These were not the possessions of a poor woman or one who was not secure in her tastes.
“I do.”
“One thing I would not do, if I were you, is waste time. I don’t know if this Teddie loves you. But even if she does, she sounds like she wants to move forward in whatever way she can.”
“Whatever way she can?”
“Society expects her to marry,” said Belle, with a shrug, “and if that is her way to any kin
d of independence… but you have hurt her, so I should think she’s been made rather more reckless.”
The summation did not seem at all incorrect. He sat up, looking at Belle with fresh horror. Teddie was already adventurous. He did not think reckless would bode well for him, or her. This was not about money, or means, and he was not thinking at all of Welburn and what he could do for his tenants in Whitwell. When he thought of Teddie making choices that might amount to cutting her nose off to spite her face, he was overtaken with fear.
He was willing to do whatever was necessary to win her over again. Fully, this time, and not just because she’d been seen stepping out with him, first in the park, then late at night on one of London’s busiest and arguably most scandalous roads. Of course, he had wanted to make sure she was above reproach, or at least above the pernicious and full evisceration of her character.
But with an almost preternatural force, it finally made sense to him why that had disappointed her. He’d made no declarations of love, no promises to get to know her. He’d offered companionship and a little taste of life on the edge of what was seemly, which was attractive to her. But when it came right down to it… it seemed his Teddie was a romantic, and more than that, she valued herself.
Then, considering what she’d inferred on her own about his estate, there was another reason to mistrust this charismatic, strange duke she’d met in a garden over a rosebush. He was too much of an enigma, a man who kept too much of himself segmented and secret, and it did not lead her to believe he was very loyal or true.
The combination of traits he presented probably wouldn’t appeal to many women, if he were being unflinchingly honest.
Belle, he knew, was watching his face as these pieces came together like little pawns on a battlefield schematic. She liked Valencourt and Judd. Between the two of them, he supposed that Lee or Emilian was somewhere, and so too was the Duke of Welburn. He’d never held a sense of self that encompassed all of them.
It was time to try for one.
*
Sir Gregory was unappealing.
But it was not necessarily his fault.
Teddie knew she was simply beyond caring about any man who was not a certain duke. His card had arrived yesterday morning and Teddie was glad that they were at merely the preemptive stage of acquaintanceship.
He would only be staying for another ten minutes at the most, but that would feel like an eternity.
Emma, acting as a chaperone and sitting across from them, looked as unimpressed as Teddie felt. They’d smoothed things between them by refusing to speak of the night Teddie had spent in the duke’s company.
She would rather Emma as a chaperone than Mother, at any rate.
Her sister’s lack of warm and cultivated interest was a mark of how fully uninspiring Sir Gregory was, for Emma endeavored never to react to people in a way that might hurt their finer feelings.
And he was not rude or callous. He’d graciously expressed his sympathies to Emma, who, since she was still in mourning, could not participate in most social gatherings.
Neither had he made any mention of the rather telling, little stories about Teddie in the papers. There had not been many, or so she was told. None disclosed her midnight visit to the Duke of Welburn’s townhouse. But what small mentions there were, combined with the reputation Teddie had made for herself within the last year collectively, might lead another man to polite, wee jabs in conversation.
Sir Gregory was, simply, the embodiment of cotton muslin. Unoffensive, uncreative, and unremarkable in every manner, yet serviceable and likely dependable. His height was average, his build slim, and his coloring seemed designed to provoke no reaction at all. He could have had black hair. It was muted coal, yet not quite brown. Behind thick spectacles, his eyes were probably a shade of green.
In the last five minutes alone, Teddie had drawn on the remembered sight of Lord Valencourt’s nude, athletic body—he was no longer Emilian in her mind—in low light to see her through the monotony of speaking to Sir Gregory.
They’d met this week at a musicale. That was all she could really remember. But he had not ruffled her, either, so there was a point in his favor. To give herself something to do, she refreshed their teacups.
Why am I pouring him more tea when I only want him to go? she asked herself.
She could not go through life with a man like this, could she?
It was recognizable that Sir Gregory was interested in courtship, otherwise he would not have called this way. He had his own money. Through what enterprise or family connection she could not say, because she had not been attentive enough to his words.
He’d indicated that an alliance between him and the Driffield family would not go amiss.
He did not seem concerned about whether or not he was attracted to her, or she to him, which was good. He had as much charisma as a doornail, so she did not think that attraction would ever actually be fostered.
“I shall take mine with two sugars,” said Sir Gregory, as she finished pouring.
Two?
She took none at all and could not understand it when anybody took more than one. Sugar made her teeth hurt.
“As Sir Gregory was saying, Theodora,” said Emma, obviously trying to draw her into the conversation that had been ongoing but that she’d missed during her daydream about Lord Valencourt’s muscled arms and prodigious unmentionables, “his family owned a textile mill in Paisley.”
Teddie had no notion that they’d gotten on that topic. She grasped at a sensible response, putting down the teapot and putting the requisite two sugars in Sir Gregory’s cup.
“Like Father does in Norwich.”
“Yes,” said Sir Gregory, peering at her oddly. “You’d said, Miss Driffield.”
“I know it is not terribly fashionable of me to say,” Teddie babbled valiantly, “but I quite miss it, there, when we are away, here.”
Emma looked at her about as oddly as Sir Gregory was. In fact, Teddie did not miss Norwich or Norfolk, and preferred London in almost every way to the location of their larger home.
Emma knew it. “It is a beautiful place,” she said, at last, after a long and taut silence that was punctuated only by Sir Gregory’s hurried gulping of sugary, black tea.
“I have only been there on business,” he said.
Teddie said, “It is beautiful.”
They sat in more silence, this time marked by the tick of the clock on the mantelpiece and Sir Gregory’s continued sipping. She wondered if he felt as awkward as she did. It was a probability. Even as a child, she had never been so socially inept, always able to interact with panache even when she was purely unlike the person to whom she spoke.
Disinterested was a better word than awkward.
No other men had come to call on her at home. She admitted that was probably a good thing, because if they had, the tenor of talk about her would surely change to remark on her ineptitude as a hostess.
She hadn’t had the heart to keep up with it all, and if there were any remarks speculating as to the nature of her and the Duke of Welburn’s relationship, she did not know. Likewise, she would not know if anyone were to write about Sir Gregory coming to the Driffield residence—she wouldn’t look. The man was not of much consequence, but he was a baronet and, therefore, was probably worthy of a bit of notice.
What he was didn’t matter. It had become alarmingly clear to Teddie that her heart was still with Lord Valencourt. What that meant, exactly, remained to be seen. She had the grave suspicion that she might have fallen in love, and if she had, she was the silliest chit in all of England. It seemed only days ago that she was weeping to Bess about the unfairness of being pushed into a marriage she did not want, then weeping even more loudly when Bess said children might be worth even a loveless marriage. Bess meant well, but to Teddie, the mention of children only summoned the idea of birthing them.
Just when she thought she couldn’t stand Sir Gregory’s intermittent sipping, rather loud breathing, and
the slow, automated tick of time dragging itself forward, Sir Gregory said, “Well, I believe I must take my leave—I thank you for your hospitality, indeed.”
Almost too quickly, Teddie rose, which required that he did, too.
He was not a terribly graceful creature and wobbled a little to his feet.
Emma followed with far more alacrity.
“Thank you for calling, Sir Gregory,” Teddie said. She hoped that her relief did not show on her face.
When he was shown out by Roderick, who was now more settled into his footman’s role, Teddie barely heard his assurances that he would call again. She knew that he would, because he’d said plainly that he would value being part of the Driffield enterprises. Father would allow these visits so long as she vouched for him, Teddie already knew.
None of that mattered, this instant.
She was looking past Sir Gregory’s carriage to the road, where a very familiar one was waiting, hovering like a hallucination in the mild sunshine.
It was Lord Valencourt’s.
Gracious, was she so lost that she was imagining him everywhere?
*
He’d been itching to go inside until he saw another carriage.
He knew that Mr. Driffield was a businessman, and it could belong to all manner of people related to that business, but his gut told him otherwise. Jealousy was hot in his stomach as he thought of Belle’s warning that he not waste time.
Sure enough, as he waited, he saw a middle-aged man exit the front door with Teddie and a woman who must have been her elder sister lingering behind them.
From here, he could gauge that this had been a genteel morning call. She’s moving on from you.
It didn’t matter that he was a duke, that they had done things that might unfairly brand her as a wanton for the rest of her life. It was obvious to him, at least, that she was not willing to marry him. He set his jaw and tried to be rational.
You don’t know for certain what she is thinking.
He had come to leave his card again, presuming perhaps that the ladies would be out, and he still would even though they weren’t.
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