“Your opponent has a powerful patron with deep pockets,” continued Lord Grey, ignoring the interruption. “Sir Valerian Wadsworth’s mother is the sister of the Earl of Mountlake. The earl is willing to shell out considerably to establish his nephew.”
“I should’ve thought ’e was ‘established’ already,” objected Sir Ethan. “ ’im ’aving a title and all.”
“Unfortunately, Sir Valerian’s estate was depleted long before he came into his inheritance. Since he left Oxford, he appears to have done little enough to restore it. In fact, it appears the fellow hasn’t done much with himself at all, beyond leading a fashionably extravagant life in London, mostly at his uncle’s expense.”
“If ’e’s as worthless as you say, ’e sounds as if ’e’d be an easy man to beat,” Sir Ethan pointed out. “Almost anyone could stand against ’im and win.”
“One might think so,” conceded Lord Grey, “but then, one would be reckoning without the influence of his uncle. Mountlake appears determined to put an end to his nephew’s continued feeding at the family trough, so to speak. He’s investing a great deal in Sir Valerian’s campaign, in terms of both money and influence.”
“I understand your position, and I’m sorry for it,” said Sir Ethan apologetically. “Per’aps next time—”
“If Sir Valerian is allowed to win the seat at this juncture, there’ll be no booting him out of it later,” Sir Lawrence predicted grimly.
“Alas, too true,” seconded Lord Grey. “He may appear to be a worthless fribble, but Sir Valerian is not without a ruthless streak. If we’re ever to have a trustworthy man in that position, Sir Valerian’s political career must be nipped now, while it is still in the bud.”
“Then, too, your withdrawal at this point would be perceived as unsteadiness of character,” Sir Lawrence continued. “It would be held against you, should you decide to stand in some future election.”
Sir Ethan put forward every argument he could muster—and these were many—but Lord Grey, or Sir Lawrence, or both had an answer for them all. Had he really done his best to wriggle out of it, he wondered, or had he allowed himself to be persuaded because it was what he wanted all along?
He was still wrestling with this home question when he returned to Grosvenor Square. The house was dark; apparently his wife had not lied when she’d said she intended to seek her bed early. He let himself into the house with his own key, and glanced idly at the little pile of letters lying on a silver tray on a table beside the door. Lady Helen had evidently retired even before the late post had been delivered. He picked up the letters and carried them into his study, where a fire had been lit in anticipation of his return. He shuffled through the stack of correspondence: three or four invitations, most of which must be declined due to his wife’s bereaved state; one letter to his wife from Emily, Lady Cutliffe, which could wait until morning; a couple of bills, forwarded from Lancashire, from suppliers for raw materials for the mill, and—
He recognized the handwriting on the outside of the single sheet, and muttered under his breath something that would certainly have got Willie’s mouth washed out with soap. Sir Ethan sighed. At the moment, he had a sick child and a wife worn out with nursing, a deceased father-in-law who had saddled him with the responsibility of serving as his executor, a Parliamentary bid that might well be over even before it began, and a young brother-in-law who showed every sign of repeating the wastrel proclivities of generations of Dukes of Reddington before him. The last thing he needed at the moment was a message from that same brother-in-law bemoaning his present condition and begging for a reprieve.
“You young fool,” Sir Ethan grumbled, albeit not without affection, for he was genuinely fond of Theo. “Don’t you see I’m giving you your last, best chance?”
Hardening his heart, he tossed the letter, unopened, into the fire.
11
All’s fair in love and war.
FRANCIS EDWARD SMEDLEY, Frank Fairlegh
DAPHNE STOOD IN THE middle of the footbridge spanning the river that flowed some little distance behind the house, idly plucking petals from the last of the late-blooming wildflowers and dropping them one by one into the swirling waters beneath her feet. She should, she knew, be in the kitchen helping Cook with the dinner preparations, but the prospect of a few moments of privacy (an unaccustomed luxury when one’s home was turned into a boardinghouse) had proven impossible to resist. Then, too, there was the fact that Mr. Tisdale would soon be returning from the mill. In the fortnight since he had taken up residence in the house, Daphne had become all too aware that her ear was now attuned to the sound of his footsteps in the hall, his weary tread as he climbed the stairs to his room.
Her brow furrowed at the thought of this last. It was obvious that he was not accustomed to the work. She wished she might do something to relieve his burden—something beyond the bandaging of his poor blistered hands. But when she cast about in her mind for some new form of relief, the only ideas that presented themselves were sufficient to bring the blood rushing to her face. It would not do, this undue concern for Mr. Tisdale’s well-being. He seemed to think that his financial difficulties were temporary; she must hope, against her own inclinations, that he was correct, for it would be a very poor friend who would rejoice in the hardships of another merely so that she might continue to enjoy his company. And yet, there was no denying the fact that with his departure, her days would be all the bleaker for having been given that brief glimpse of sunshine.
Heaving a sigh, she tossed the denuded stem into the water. The days were growing shorter with the retreat of summer, and the light was now fading. Her mother would be wondering what had become of her. It would not do for Mama to suspect that her daughter was given to daydreaming about a mill worker, no matter how genteel his manners.
“Miss Drinkard?”
Upon hearing herself hailed by a masculine voice, her heart gave a great leap, only to settle, upon discovering that the speaker was in fact not Mr. Tisdale, but Sir Valerian Wadsworth, somewhere in the region usually occupied by her stomach.
“Sir Valerian!” she exclaimed, trying to sound pleased. “How you startled me!”
“Did I? In that case, I must beg your pardon.”
“I’m sure there is no need for you to apologize,” Daphne protested. “If I was startled, I have no one but myself to blame, for I fear I was woolgathering. It is not often that I find time alone to think. Not, of course, that it isn’t always a pleasure to see you,” she added lamely, realizing that this last observation was hardly flattering to her present company. To be sure, Mama expected her to do all she could to attach Sir Valerian’s interest, but she could not be easy in his presence or, if the truth be known, even like him very much. This was, perhaps, a little unfair, as he had given her no reason to hold him in dislike. No reason, at least, beyond the fact that he was not Mr. Tisdale.
But Sir Valerian proved impervious to insult. In fact, far from being offended, he seemed to find her preoccupation amusing. “Were you woolgathering indeed? Now, what might a young lady find to occupy her thoughts to such a degree, but a young man? Dare I hope to be the one? Aha! The flags flying in her cheeks give me hope!”
Daphne was indeed blushing crimson, but Sir Valerian was quite mistaken as to the source of her embarrassment. It was not that she had been dreaming of Sir Valerian, but the fact that she should have been, and yet was not, that caused her such distress. She could hardly point out his error, however, so she made as if to return to the house.
“If you will excuse me, sir, I must go. Mama will be expecting me to help her and Cook with the dinner preparations.”
Far from stepping aside to let her pass, he took a step closer and caught one of her hands in his. “Very well, Miss Drinkard, I shan’t tease you. Only allow me to say that I consider it a great pity that these small hands should bear so heavy a burden.”
“By all means you may say so, Sir Valerian,” she said crisply, snatching her hand away, “if you will a
llow me to say that I consider it a great pity that a man of your exalted stature should choose to express himself in terms better suited to an actor in a Christmas pantomime.”
With this home thrust, she brushed past him and hurried up the path to the house.
“There you are!” exclaimed Mrs. Drinkard as Daphne entered the house through the back door that opened onto the kitchen. “Here’s Cook needing someone to shell peas, and you nowhere in sight!”
“I beg your pardon, Mama. I had not meant to neglect my chores. It is only that I was down by the river, talking to Sir Valerian.”
At this revelation, Mrs. Drinkard’s ill humor evaporated, as Daphne had known it would. “Oh, my dear! If only you might attach his interest, all our difficulties would be at an end! What a good thing you had not yet put on your old gown! But you must do so now, for Cook has need of you.”
“Yes, Mama, I shall do so at once. Only—tell me, what brought Sir Valerian here?”
“He said he wanted to speak to me regarding my permission—well, you may guess what I thought of that!”
“Your—your permission?”
Mrs. Drinkard gave a huff of annoyance. “My permission to hold another of his abominable meetings! Only fancy—here I was, thinking he was about to request my permission to pay his addresses to you, my love, and all he wanted was to fill my dining room with those odious mill workers again!”
“Oh,” Daphne said, secretly relieved. “I suppose the first meeting must have gone very well, then.”
“Apparently,” her mother agreed without enthusiasm. “Still, I suppose it keeps him in the neighborhood, so . . .” She dismissed the thought with a shrug, which Daphne took as her signal.
“If you will excuse me, Mama, I’ll change into an old gown and be down to help Cook in a trice.”
Suiting the word to the deed, she left the kitchen for the more public part of the house. She hurried up the stairs (noting once more the signs of wear on the carpet that covered the treads) and started down the corridor toward her own room. Before she reached it, however, the door to Mr. Potts’s bedchamber flew open and the aspiring lawyer stepped into the corridor.
“Miss Drinkard,” he addressed her somewhat stiffly, “I have been awaiting your return.”
“Have you?” she asked in some confusion. She glanced toward the open door behind him. “Is something amiss with your lodgings? Do you require fresh towels, perhaps?”
He made an impatient gesture of dismissal. “Towels be hanged! My window overlooks the back of the house, you know. I saw you with Sir Valerian.”
She sighed, having a very fair idea of the direction the conversation was about to take. “Yes? What of it?”
“Miss Drinkard, I must caution you against encouraging that man’s advances. I fear his intentions toward you cannot be honorable.”
“I was not aware that you were so well acquainted with Sir Valerian,” she said coolly, wondering why every gentleman of her acquaintance suddenly seemed determined to address her in terms usually heard only on the stage.
“I’m not.” Mr. Potts made this declaration as if it were a source of considerable pride.
“Then what, pray, can you know of his intentions?”
“Permit me to observe, Miss Drinkard, that I know rather more of the world than you have had occasion to learn. I have attended Oxford, you know, and before taking up my present position, I was accustomed to spending the summers with my aunt in Yorkshire, where I attended both the cathedral and the assemblies.”
“Yorkshire,” echoed Daphne. “How very cosmopolitan!”
“Don’t laugh at me!” Mr. Potts ground out through clenched teeth. “You must know how I feel about you!”
“Indeed, I could not fail to do so, Mr. Potts, although I am sure I have never given you the least encouragement! I fear I can give you no hope, and can only urge you to fix your interests on some other, more receptive object.”
“Never!” declared Mr. Potts. Before she realized what he was about, he had seized her in his arms. “I shall never love anyone but you!”
“Stop it! Mr. Potts, you must not! Release me this minute, before I box your ears!”
In fact, this was an empty threat, as her arms were pinned to her sides. In any case, he paid her not the slightest heed, but attempted to capture her mouth with his own—an assault which Daphne could only resist (and that with only mixed success) by twisting her head from side to side. Above their labored breathing, she was vaguely aware of muffled footsteps on the stairs—a familiar tread that increased rapidly once it reached the uncarpeted corridor. In the next instant, Mr. Potts let out a strangled cry as his cravat tightened about his neck like a noose and he was hauled backwards by his collar. He perforce released Daphne, who, although flushed and breathing heavily, nevertheless looked beyond his shoulder to regard her deliverer with glowing eyes.
“You will make your apologies to Miss Drinkard at once,” commanded Theo, giving his captive a shake as a terrier might a rat.
Mr. Potts glared at Theo over his shoulder as much as the viselike grip on his collar would allow. “And why should I take orders from a common laborer?”
“Because if you don’t, this common laborer is going to take you outside and give you the thrashing you deserve.”
Although a stranger to Yorkshire, Theo stood fully half a head taller than his vanquished foe and had more than once boxed with Gentleman Jackson in the former champion’s Bond Street saloon. Although Mr. Potts had no way of knowing of the latter circumstance, he was all too aware of the former. Whatever his shortcomings as a lover, he had not progressed so far in his chosen profession by being stupid, and he quickly reached the conclusion that here was one of those instances where discretion was indeed the better part of valor.
“Very well,” the fledgling lawyer said stiffly. With these words, he found himself released so abruptly that he was hard-pressed not to stumble into the wall. Straightening himself to his full (albeit unimpressive) height, he tugged his disarranged clothing back into some semblance of order, and addressed Daphne with what dignity he could muster. “I am sorry if the ardor I have so long felt for you has betrayed me into giving offense. Believe me when I say I never would have insulted you with my attentions, had I the slightest notion that you preferred the lecherous advances of a London park-saunterer to the love of an honest man.”
“Mr. Potts, you do both Sir Valerian and me an injustice—”
Ignoring her half-formed protest, the offended lawyer turned his disdain upon Theo. “As for you, I regret that the difference in our respective stations prohibits me from demanding satisfaction from you on the field of honor. Nevertheless, I will not spend one more night beneath the same roof as one I can only consider a ruffian and a bully-boy. Miss Drinkard, I shall settle my account with your mother, and then this house shall see me no more.”
“Really, Mr. Potts, there is not the slightest need for you to—”
He paid her no heed, but ducked back into his room and slammed the door. Daphne and Theo regarded one another in silence for a long moment.
“Oh, dear,” Daphne said at last, letting out a long breath.
“Are you all right?” Theo asked, regarding her keenly.
“Yes. That is, I’m not looking forward to breaking the news to Mama that she is losing one of her boarders, but other than that—” she broke off, shrugging.
“Surely your mother cannot expect you to tolerate such treatment, no matter how much income he brings!”
“No, indeed! And as much as I regret the manner of his leaving, I cannot deny it will make my life a great deal more comfortable. He seems to regard me as his personal property, and although I don’t wish to hurt him, none of my attempts to hint him away have had the slightest effect!”
“Any man who can ignore ‘release me before I box your ears’ is incapable of being moved by hints,” Theo assured her. “But—at the risk of seeming impertinent, I must ask: what do you really know of Sir Valerian?”
/> “I know that he is standing for Parliament, of course, and that he has been painstakingly honest in his dealings with Mama, for he has paid her in advance for the use of the dining room for his meetings. Oh, are you thinking of what Mr. Potts said about ‘lecherous advances? It was nothing of the kind! He merely took my hand and—and tried to flirt with me. The merest nothing, really.” All the same, Daphne felt her face grow warm at the memory.
“But you said ‘meetings,’ in the plural. Is he holding another one, then?”
“Yes,” she said, fighting back a wholly irrational annoyance that he should find this information more compelling than the possibility that Sir Valerian might have been making unseemly advances to her. “Tomorrow night. Why? Do you want to attend?”
“I—I don’t know. Perhaps I should.”
Her fine dark eyes widened. “There’s nothing wrong with them, is there?”
“I don’t know,” he said again. “I only know that there seems to be some sort of—I suppose you could call it unrest—at the mill. I should hate for you and your mother to find yourselves in the middle of some unpleasantness.”
“Should I warn Mama, do you think? Perhaps she ought not to let him hold his meetings here.”
“Say nothing to your mother, at least for the nonce. It may prove to be a storm in a teacup. I can hear something of the proceedings through the chimney flue. Perhaps after tomorrow night I shall have a better idea of what’s going on.”
“Or you could just attend the meeting yourself,” she pointed out reasonably. “After all, they are for the mill workers—and you’re a mill worker.”
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “but until I have a better idea of their purpose, I’m reluctant to align myself with them.”
At that moment, a door opened at Theo’s end of the corridor, and a moment later old Mr. Nethercote emerged from his bedchamber, dressed for dinner in all the finery of a quarter-century earlier.
The Desperate Duke Page 11
