“Your parents’ marriage has always been . . . difficult, I grant you, but at least they fulfilled their primary duty. And,” she added before he could reply, “their situation does not provide you with any excuse to ignore yours. Nor, I might add, is their unhappiness a reasonable basis on which to condemn the entire married state.”
“I’m not sure our general acquaintance would agree with you there.” He turned, gesturing with his glass to the crowd in the ballroom behind them. “Thanks to Mama and Papa’s deep mutual loathing and complete lack of discretion, the gutter press was able to keep all of society au courant regarding the miserable state of their marriage, from Mama’s first affair, through every scandal and every retaliation, all the way to the final legal separation. Given the misery they managed to inflict upon each other during their fourteen years of cohabitation, I think our friends fully appreciate my contempt for matrimony.”
“That all ended a decade ago when they separated. Everyone’s quite forgotten about it.”
He turned his head, meeting his great-aunt’s exasperated gaze with a hard one of his own. “I haven’t.”
Her expression softened at once. “Oh, my dear,” she said with a compassion in her voice that impelled him to look away and divert the conversation from himself.
“It’s not as if Mama and Papa have forgotten either,” he said. “They have not, I assure you.”
The moment those words were out of his mouth, he regretted them, for Petunia pounced at once. “And how would you know that?” she asked.
Now embroiled in a volatile discussion he always took great pains to avoid, Rex knew he had to tread with care. “I called upon Papa when he arrived in town, whereupon he immediately began to expound on his favorite topic: my mother’s faithless character. My call, therefore, was brief.”
“I’m surprised you bothered to call upon him at all. He’s none too fond of you these days, you know, and in no mind to reinstate your income from the estate until you marry.”
“And yet I remain a dutiful son,” Rex countered lightly.
The irony of that wasn’t lost on Petunia. “Only in some ways,” she said, her voice dry. “Your father desires you to marry as much as I do.”
“Ah, but there’s a difference. Your greatest care is my happiness. Papa’s is the succession.”
“Either way, I wasn’t curious about your father’s opinion,” Auntie replied, wisely not bothering to assure him of his father’s questionable affections. “It’s your mother I’m thinking of. How do you know her present feelings on the subject?”
So much for treading with care. He grimaced and took another swallow of punch.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been in correspondence with her again?” Petunia made a sound of exasperation before he could decide how to reply. “His discovery of your communications with your mother—and the fact that you were giving her money—are the entire reason he cut off your income in the first place. It is fortunate for you that I have been able to replace it.”
“Very fortunate,” he agreed. “You’re a brick, Auntie Pet.”
“Why? For spiking your father’s guns, or for providing you a source of funds to spend on a bachelor’s shallow pursuits?”
He grinned at her. “That’s a no-win question if ever I heard one. I think I’ll refrain from answering.”
“Unlike your father, I recognize that attempting to force your hand only makes you more determined. Still, if he finds out you have been writing to your mother again, I can’t think what he’ll do. Disinherit you completely, I expect.”
“He’s bitter enough for such a course, I grant you, but I did not write to Mama. And if she chooses to write to me, what would you suggest I do about it?”
“Inform Mr. Bainbridge. Give him her letters.”
“Tattle on my own mother to the family solicitor?”
“By communicating with you, she is in direct violation of the terms of the separation decree.”
“Bainbridge would tell Papa, who would then take away what little income Mama receives from the estate. I am her son, Auntie Pet. Her only son. It was very wrong of Papa to forbid her to see me or write to me.”
“She’s fortunate Leyland granted her an income at all!” Petunia’s voice held some heat, reminding him there was no reasoning with her on the subject of Mama. “She shamed him and the entire family with her wanton behavior. And,” Petunia added before Rex could remind her there had been grievous wrongs on both sides, “nothing’s changed since, from what I hear. Her affair with the Marquis of Auvignon is over, and since he’s not supporting her, money must be what she’s after, though why she’d apply to you escapes me. It’s not as if you can afford to give her any, for you spend every cent I’m giving you as it is—Gaiety Girls, drink, cards, and heaven-only-knows what.”
“Quite so,” he agreed, managing to utter the lie without a blush, even though he hadn’t had a woman or a round of cards in over a year. His reputation as a wild-living bachelor had been well-earned, but nowadays, it was nothing more than a convenient way to explain his perpetual lack of funds. If Auntie Pet found out where the money she gave him was truly going, the fat would be in the fire. “And yet, my irresponsible spending habits don’t seem to be as great a sin as Mama’s.”
“If you married,” she went on, ignoring his point completely, “all this frivolous living would stop, of course—”
“And no frivolity at all would be better?” The question was incisive, his voice razor-sharp as his restraint began to crack. “I look at Papa, and I am inclined to doubt it.”
She sighed, studying him with a sadness that cut him to the heart. “You are made of stronger stuff than your parents.”
To his mind, that wasn’t much of a testament to his character, but he hated quarreling with Auntie, so he decided to change the subject.
“You’ve chosen my first dance partner this evening, have you?” He paused, drawing a breath and bracing himself for whichever young lovely was about to be thrust upon him. “Am I entitled to know who she is?”
“I wish you to open the ball with Miss Clara Deverill.”
The name was unfamiliar, and he gave his aunt a teasing grin. “Ah, trying new tactics this season, I see.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’ve never met this Clara Deverill in my life, and I can only conclude that having exhausted all possibilities amongst the young ladies of our own set, you are now attempting to cast your nets a little wider.”
“Miss Deverill is part of ‘our own set’, I’ll have you know. She is the granddaughter of Viscount Ellesmere. And she has other connections as well, for her sister married the Duke of Torquil earlier this year.”
Rex was not the least bit fooled by this mention of the girl’s connection to Torquil. “Ellesmere? Isn’t he the chap you almost married back in ’28, or whenever it was?”
“Heavens, dear, I’m not that old. It was 1835. More to the point, this is the girl’s first season, always a nerve-wracking time for a young lady. So, you see? This isn’t about you at all.”
He grinned. “Then it’s clearly about you doing Ellesmere a favor. Still carrying a torch for your childhood love, are you?”
“Don’t be absurd,” she remonstrated with a sniff. “Viscountess Ellesmere is alive and well, as you already know, and she asked my help in bringing her granddaughter out.”
“Why should a girl with such valuable connections need help—oh, God,” he added at once, dismayed as another possibility occurred to him. “She’s ghastly, isn’t she?”
“Miss Deverill is a nice, sweet girl.”
That description only reinforced his suspicions. “I knew I should have stayed away,” he muttered. “I knew it.”
“Miss Deverill,” Auntie went on, ignoring his self-recriminations, “has not had much opportunity for society. Her father’s family is in trade—newspapers, I believe. Naturally, Ellesmere was opposed to his daughter marrying the fellow—”
“Naturally
,” he echoed, thinking of the mud the gutter press had slung at his parents years ago. “A newspaper hawker in the family? What an awful prospect.”
“But she was determined to have him,” Petunia went on, “and because of that, she became estranged from her parents and turned her back on good society. She’s gone now, poor dear, but Ellesmere wishes to mend the fences with his granddaughters.”
“Well, there is a duke in the family now.”
This rather cynical contention did not sit well with his great-aunt, who gave him a look of reproof. “That’s hardly in the girl’s favor at present. Torquil’s widowed mother married that notorious Italian painter last summer. It caused quite a stir, let me tell you. Harriet’s a fool. The fellow’s nearly twenty years her junior.”
“A younger man,” he murmured. “Oh, the horror.”
“My point is that Miss Deverill hasn’t been out for very long, and between her unfortunate background, the scandal in the duke’s family, and the fact that her father’s ill and she’s required to manage that newspaper business while her sister’s away on honeymoon and her brother’s in America—well, she’s in a most awkward social position through no fault of her own. So, I am determined that she have a successful launch into the season tonight and enjoy herself. As for you, do not think one dance with Miss Deverill fulfills your obligations this evening. Not only do I expect you to be amiable and entertaining company for Miss Deverill, but I also expect you to dance with at least six other unpartnered ladies as well. No dashing off when my back is turned to play cards at your club or to meet some Gaiety Girl.”
Resigned to his fate, he downed the rest of his punch, then set down the mug, straightened his cuffs, and nodded toward the ballroom. “So where is this Miss Deverill? Can I at least see what I’m in for?”
“Her physical appearance is hardly relevant.”
“On the contrary,” he answered with cheer, “I think it’s quite relevant, since she is about to be hurled into my arms. And the more you prevaricate about pointing her out to me,” he added as she gave a huff, “the more I imagine an Amazon of twenty stone with bad breath and warts on her nose.”
“Don’t be absurd. The odds of pairing you up with someone are bad enough as it is. I wouldn’t dream of making them worse.” Auntie moved through the doorway, and as he followed her inside, she took a glance around the ballroom. “To the right of the refreshment table, by that big vase of lilacs,” she informed him as he paused beside her again. “Brown hair, white gown.”
Rex’s gaze traveled to the appropriate spot, where a tall, willowy figure in filmy layers of white illusion stood against the wall. In that first cursory glance, he knew just why her grandmother had deemed her in need of some social help. The girl was, quite obviously, shy.
Her back was pressed flat against the wall, as if she wished the room behind her would open up and swallow her. She had fine eyes, large and dark, but they stared out at the crowd with the combination of dismay and anxiety shy people so often displayed at social gatherings.
Her hair, fashioned in an austere braided crown atop her head, was that indeterminate brown shade halfway between blond and brunette. Her figure was slender, but her face was round as a currant bun, with a pale-pink mouth that was too wide, dark brows that were too straight, and a nose so small it was barely there at all.
Many, he knew, would have deemed her plain. Rex wasn’t prepared to go that far, but in this room of glittering, bejeweled beauties, she did seem easy to overlook, rather like a bit of shortbread on a tray of French pastries.
As he studied her face, it struck him suddenly that she seemed familiar somehow, and yet, he was positive they’d never been introduced. He’d probably encountered her over the punch bowl at some previous affair, or sat next to her at a concert, but he found it a bit odd he should recall even that much about her, given that she was the sort who tried hard not to be noticed.
That thought had barely crossed his mind before someone in the crowd caught her attention, and it must have been someone she knew and liked, for she gave a little wave, and then she smiled.
In that instant, alchemy happened. Rex sucked in a surprised breath, for with one simple curve of her lips, the girl’s entire face was transformed. Her tension vanished, her face lit up like a candle, and those who might have dismissed her as plain would surely have had to eat their words. Whoever she was smiling at must have been a woman, for had she directed that smile at any man in the room, he’d have responded like a puppet pulled by a string. Even Rex, usually immune to the charms of young ladies, felt a bit dazzled by it.
“There, now,” Petunia said beside him. “Are you satisfied that I have not saddled you with a wart-faced Amazon?”
He didn’t reply, for he knew if he expressed an opinion of the girl that was even the slightest bit favorable, Auntie would be finagling invitations for her to every possible occasion, and his entire season would become a game of duck-and-hide.
“Oh, very well,” he said instead, and heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Let’s have this over with.”
Those words were scarce out of his mouth before Auntie was tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow and pulling him toward the girl.
Miss Deverill looked up as they approached, and the moment she laid eyes on him, any trace of a smile vanished from her face and all her previous tension returned. Somehow, her appalled reaction to the sight of him made her seem even more familiar than before, and it was a good thing he’d already realized she was shy, for if he hadn’t perceived that, he’d be racking his brains now, trying to figure out where and how and under what unfavorable circumstances they had met before and what he’d done wrong.
“Miss Deverill,” Auntie said as they halted in front of her, “I should like to present my great-nephew, Viscount Galbraith, to you. Galbraith, this is Miss Clara Deverill.”
“Miss Deverill.” He bowed. “A pleasure to meet you.”
She clearly didn’t share this sentiment, for her face was as pale as milk. She didn’t smile a greeting or move to curtsy, but remained utterly still, so still, in fact, that he wondered in some alarm if she might have stopped breathing. She looked as if she might faint, and though there were men who would find that a most gratifying feminine response to an introduction, Rex did not. If she fainted, it would be terribly embarrassing and make him the butt of the most tiresome jokes amongst his friends. Worse, it would subject him and this poor girl to the wildest speculations, and that sort of talk was something they could both well do without. He was obliged to prompt her. “Miss Deverill?”
At the sound of his voice, she inhaled sharply and color flamed in those pale cheeks like spots of rouge. “L . . . likewise, I’m sh . . . sh . . . sure.”
Her eyes were now round as saucers, reminding him of nothing so much as a lamb about to be dispatched, and any momentary flicker of interest her previous smile might have evoked was snuffed out at once. He was, perhaps, something of a wolf, but defenseless little lambs had never held much appeal for him.
In desperation, he turned to Aunt Petunia, but he discovered at once that he would be receiving no assistance from that quarter.
Instead of jumping into the breach, Auntie murmured something about the orchestra, excused herself and walked away, leaving Rex on his own.
Cursing Auntie’s devilish matchmaking, he returned his attention to the girl, and the sight of her staring at him in mute agony was all the reminder Rex needed of just why he avoided high society parties.
Chapter 4
It was him. The god of the tea shop, the good-looking rake who charmed women as easily as he dispensed advice on how to deceive them, was standing right in front of her. And he now had a name other than the one she’d given him in her mind. Not Adonis, but Lord Galbraith.
In itself, the discovery of his true identity wasn’t particularly shocking. One didn’t have to be in the newspaper trade to know that Rex Pierpont, Viscount Galbraith, only son of the Earl of Leyland, was one of the ton’s most not
orious bachelors, well-known not only for his wild ways but also for his disdainful view of marriage. The fact that he would do all he could to assist another man in evading wedlock was not a surprise to Clara at all.
Nonetheless, it had never occurred to her that she might see the Adonis of the tea shop again. Only now, in hindsight, did she appreciate that his fine clothes and conversation should have warned her that an encounter such as this was possible. She could only guess that her own desperation and anger the other day had blinded her to other considerations.
Now, with their introduction hanging in the air, she felt transfixed, as if she’d been turned to a pillar of salt, or transformed into a tree stump, or debilitated by some other equally horrifying impediment. But though her body seemed frozen into immobility, her mind was racing.
Did he know who she was? Did he recognize her as the girl peeking at him between the palm fronds at Mrs. Mott’s Tea Emporium a few short days ago? She had been sure at the time that he hadn’t noticed her—because, after all, men almost never did—but what if she’d been mistaken?
She scanned his face, looking for any sign of recognition in his countenance. There was none, but that didn’t do much to alleviate her alarm, for she’d seen firsthand this man’s talent for duplicity. If he did recognize her, the fact would only matter if he also read Lady Truelove and if he’d read this afternoon’s edition. In that case, he would surely put two and two together. And that would be disastrous.
The fact that Lady Truelove’s identity was unknown provided a mystique that was a great part of her appeal. People were forever speculating about just which matron of high society was the real Lady Truelove. If Galbraith realized the truth and determined what she’d done, spite could motivate him to reveal her as the famous columnist. If that happened, the Weekly Gazette’s most successful feature would be compromised, perhaps ruined, and it would be her fault. Irene would be devastated by the loss of her most successful creation. She might even be disappointed in Clara for allowing it to happen.
The Trouble with True Love (Dear Lady Truelove #2) Page 4
