She met the other woman’s gaze squarely. “He danced with me.” By the perplexity in the marchioness’ eyes, she did not or could not understand the very significant implications of those sets. “No other gentleman has wanted to brave the gossip or be bothered by dancing with a Tidemore lady, but he did. Not once, but twice.” Her tone grew increasingly passionate. “And when I spoke to him of the scandal—”
Emmaline’s gasp cut in. “You spoke to him of—”
“I did,” she said with an emphatic nod. “In the event he was unaware of my circumstances, I’d have him know who I truly am. When presented with those truths, do you know what he said?” She didn’t wait for the other woman to speak. “He said that it did not matter. He said a person should not be judged by the actions of another.” Her lips tingled in remembrance of his kiss. “That is the man I would marry,” she said quietly. Prudence brought her shoulders back and firmed her jaw. “You asked what brought me here and the truth is I would have you tell me and teach me how to bring the marquess up to scratch.”
In a wholly un-marchioness-like manner, Emmaline slapped her hands over her face and groaned. “Your brother would throttle me for even entertaining it.”
Prudence gave her a wide smile. “Oh, he would, of course, grouse and bluster, but you know Sin.”
“Yes.” Emmaline nodded. “Yes, I do know him, which is why I know he’d never tolerate his sister pursuing a gentleman. A notorious rogue, no less.”
Prudence held up a finger and waved it about. “Ah, yes. But he shan’t know.” Not allowing the marchioness to go over all the thousand and one reasons she herself had already identified in the wrongness in trying to gain the marquess’ affections, she said, “Furthermore, did Sin not help you with Lord Drake?” The other woman went stonily silent. By the long, slow sigh, capitulation was near. “Will you help me?”
Emmaline hesitated. “The scandal of your pursuing the gentleman, should it be discovered, would be ruinous.” The marchioness’ warning rang familiar with the same reason Prudence herself had battled since she’d concocted her plans for Christian.
“I will take care that no one discovers my intentions,” she pledged.
Emmaline sighed again, rubbing her fingers over her forehead as if Prudence had given her a horrid megrim, which was an altogether distinct possibility. Her own mother had and continued to make that same accusation against all of her troublesome children. “Very well,” the marchioness said, letting her hand fall back to her side. “I shall help you.”
Hope leapt in her breast. “You will?”
“Even as it feels like a betrayal of Sin and a dreadful idea for too many reasons to count, I will help you. For I consider you more than an extension of your brother. I consider you a friend.”
Emotion formed a ball in her throat and she forced words around it. “Thank you so much,” Prudence said quietly, aware of how wholly inadequate those words were for this woman who’d fashioned herself a friend to her lonely self. Oh, she had siblings who filled her home with laughter, but when one was out in Society, it had the same feeling of one being set adrift in the English Channel during a vicious storm.
The other woman claimed her hands and guided her over to the ivory sofa Prudence had occupied earlier. “Shall we begin?”
Since she’d concocted her scheme, she’d not truly allowed herself to entertain the possibility that the marchioness would truly aid in her efforts. A giddy sensation filled her chest. With a slow, widening smile Prudence sat, prepared for a lesson on how to bring a gentleman up to scratch.
“Now,” Emmaline said. “First there comes the matter of knowing where that gentleman will be and being sure you are always there.”
Her mind raced back to Christian’s rescue of Poppy.
Hyde Park…
Chapter 12
Lesson Twelve
Hyde Park can often serve as the ideal meeting place…
Seated in the breakfast room, Christian scanned his copy of The Times, attending the useless details upon the sheet. Name after name of ladies he did not care about and gentlemen he could not stand. Yet, he should be attending, and he should be caring a great deal more for the names of those ladies and their circumstances. Instead, he who’d known the pleasure of some of the most skilled French courtesans and lush, eager widows found himself wholly captivated and transfixed on the memory of a waltz and a stolen kiss under the fragile moonlight.
At the soft thread of footsteps outside the breakfast room, he glanced up.
His mother, plump and wearing a perpetual smile stood framed in the entrance. He made to rise but she motioned him back to sitting. “Christian.”
“Mother,” he greeted, and after snapping the newspaper closed, he set it aside. He removed his spectacles and set them atop the scandal sheet. He finished the remaining contents of his glass of coffee and then motioned a servant over to refill his glass with the black brew.
For the whole of his life, the only thing Mother favored more than the breakfast meal was the evening one. This time, however, she bypassed the sideboard and rushed to claim the seat beside him. A servant hurriedly pulled out the chair and she settled her rotund frame into the mahogany, shell-backed piece.
The four lines creasing her brow proved the only indication of her distress. She opened her mouth to speak and then her gaze quickly found the footmen. Immediately taking her cue, Christian dismissed the servants. They filed from the room in neat order and then pulled the door closed. His mother gave him a hopeful smile. “Have you found her?”
His gut clenched. He lived, breathed, and slept two nightmares—the one of his past and the one of his family’s precarious present. One lady flashed to mind, but he quickly thrust aside the endearing visage of Lady Prudence Tidemore. “I have not,” he said, not bothering to feign confusion. He’d nothing to offer a dreamer and optimist such as her.
Her smile dipped, but did not fade. “Oh, dear.” The greying Lady Villiers tapped her fingertip against her chin. “I’d so very much hoped that after last evening’s ball you would have a suitable lady to put your offer to.”
Christian set his glass down and then leaned back in his chair. “I assure you, I know what is expected of me.”
His mother ceased her distracted movement and patted his hand. “You always have done what is expected of you. You are a good boy.”
He winced. Ever the proud mama, she’d always had a false sense of her son’s true worth. But then, perhaps that was being a parent: being blind to the failings of your children. “You needn’t worry about our circumstances. I will see to you and Lucinda.” He’d failed too many people in the past. This latest task should be the easiest of his obligations to see to in the scheme of the life he’d lived. And yet, in being forced to wed to save these two dependent upon him, he would be stripped of the little honor he’d thought himself in possession of.
“I worry for you, too, Christian,” his mother said with an uncharacteristic solemnity.
A dreamer and a hoper, she’d been the perfect wife for his father—even with their dire financial straits, his mother and late father had moved through life with a remarkable good cheer.
Yet now she worried. The mantle of responsibility grew heavier upon his shoulders.
“You needn’t worry after me. I’m no longer a boy.” No, he’d not be so foolish as to give his heart over to another woman’s hands. As such, he’d maintain careful control over his life and the security of those he was responsible for. He picked up the paper, flipping it open once more and scanned the names of debutantes and ladies mentioned.
His mother laid a hand over his and he started. He looked around his paper. “I want you to wed a young woman who is deserving of you, Christian.”
A swell of bitterness choked off his words. What a warped sense of her son’s actual worth.
“I want you to know love the way your father and I did,” his mother pressed.
Christian feigned his practiced grin. “I daresay that is asking for
the earth and the sky,” he drawled. “Finding a wealthy young lady and love?” He may as well be chasing rainbows for the proverbial pot of gold mentioned in those tales his father loved to tell.
His mother pursed her lips. “Humph.” She folded her arms, her frown deepening. “I have heard there is a certain lady who’s captured your notice.”
He stared unblinkingly at his mother. “Have you?” He infused as much calm into those two words as possible.
“Or mayhap you’re just doing the gentlemanly thing and helping those in need,” his mother continued and she uncrossed her arms so she might give him another pat on the hand. “You were always heroic in that manner.”
Guilt swirled in his belly. What would she say if she knew the true coward he’d been? His mother reached past him, cutting into his silent shame. “What are you—?”
She rescued the newspaper and opened it. “I know it is in here, somewhere,” she muttered. “Must remember where I saw it.” She flipped page after page and then stopped. “Ah-ha! Here it is.” She turned the paper around and his stomach dipped.
There in black, bold print was mention of a certain Marquess of St. C and the scandalous Lady PT. He should be focused on the erroneous conclusion drawn by the gossips. There had been no two dances or formal visits or exchanges known by anyone other than Maxwell. “It was just a waltz,” he said tiredly. One and a half, and on two separate occasions, if one wanted to be truly precise, which, in this instance, he did.
A wide smile filled his mother’s fleshy cheeks. “A waltz and a half.” It appeared his mother also cared to be precise. She wrinkled her nose. “I daresay I’d rather you find a lady who is free of scandal, but if she makes you happy, and has the dowry to save you from ruin, then that is all I want for you.”
“She is free of scandal,” he bit out in annoyance at his mother’s words of inadvertent judgment. “She—”
At the expectant look in her brown eyes, he silently cursed. He’d already said too much. And… He glanced at the paper in his hands. And danced too much. Christian tossed it upon the table where it landed with a soft thump. “The gossips are looking closely at shadows upon a darkened wall,” he explained. “There is nothing there.” Beyond a woman whose bow-shaped lips he longed to explore.
“There isn’t?” His mother sounded as dejected as the men who’d first discovered the world was not, in fact, flat.
“No,” he said with a firm shake of his head.
“There isn’t what?”
They both glanced to the door where his sister stood framed in the entrance. He swallowed a groan. “Why are you awake?” In fact… “Why are you both awake?” Neither Mother nor Lucinda made it a habit of waking before the late morning sun.
“I could not sleep,” Lucinda said cheerily and made her way over to the sideboard. She helped herself to a heaping plate of eggs and sausage. After carrying her porcelain dish over to the table, she fell into the seat opposite Christian and just stared.
His neck heated and he resisted the urge to tug at his cravat. “Oh, just say whatever it is you’d say.”
“Is she truly scandalous?”
He opened and closed his mouth, knowing he must look like a trout plucked from a lake and tossed ashore. “Is who scandalous?” Perhaps he shouldn’t have invited questioning after all.
Wielding her silver fork, his sister brandished it about. “You know.” She gave him a pointed I-know-you’re-trying-to-divert-my-questioning look. “She certainly did not seem scandalous.” She widened her eyes. “Though she was sneak—” Lucinda promptly snapped her lips closed and devoted her attention to her plate.
Christian leveled a stare on his sister. “Who did not seem scandal—oh, bloody hell, I don’t want to know.”
His mother apparently didn’t care what he wished or didn’t wish this day. “I woke early to read the newspapers about…well…” Him. About him. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Regardless, I have been following,” him, “quite closely. And I was ever so eager to share in the wonderful news.”
“There is no wonderful news,” he put in. There hadn’t been wonderful news since before he’d gone off to fight Boney’s forces and lost his pride, honor, and innocence. He turned to his sister. “There is no wonderful news.”
His sister sank back in her chair, her shoulders deflated. “So, you did not dance twice with Lady P—the same young lady?”
“I did not,” he said tersely. It had been two single dances at two different affairs and, even so, only half of one set.
“He danced with the same lady twice but at different affairs,” his mother supplied, unhelpfully.
Lucinda wrinkled her nose. “Well, is that not the same thing?”
“It is not.” Christian put in before their mother could offer her own erroneous opinion on just what that dance mentioned by the gossip columns, in fact, meant. “At all the same,” he added so there could be not even a sliver of doubt as to his intentions, or in this case, lack of intentions for a bright-eyed innocent.
“So, you are not in love.” Her crestfallen expression matched the disappointment in her tone.
Ah, God love his sister and help him, for his sister would be the bane of his existence when she came out with her talks of love. With her words, she’d demonstrated the same remarkable lack of judgment Christian had years earlier with Lynette. He would allow Lucy her dream, not killing it with the truth of his own past. “I assure you, I am not in love.” That was a folly he’d not dare repeat. “I have attended less than five balls or soirees, danced with a handful of young women and courted no one,” he spoke over his sister who tried to get a word in.
“Humph,” Lucinda said. “But what of Lady P—,” she coughed into her hand, “rather, the lady mentioned by Mama?”
“Just a waltz,” he said curtly, and considering the topic of Lady Prudence Tidemore and his one and a half waltzes with that lady, he shoved back his chair. “Now, I bid you good day, as I am off for my morning ride.”
“Oh, you are merely trying to avoid the discussion of marriage,” his sister called after his retreating back.
“That is the first matter of which you’ve been correct on this morn,” he called without breaking his stride. His sister’s huff of annoyance followed him from the room. Christian lengthened his stride, knowing from too many similar past discussions that a Villiers woman could, and often would, pop her head out of the doorway with some forgotten question. He turned down the hall and, at a brisk clip, made his way to the foyer.
His butler, a coarse man missing his left ear, stood in wait with Christian’s cloak in his hands. “My lord,” he greeted too loudly, a product of his lost hearing.
“Dalrymple,” he said as the older soldier helped him into the thick, black garment.
“I’ve taken the liberty of having your mount readied, my lord.”
From down the hall, the determined tread of quick-moving footsteps carried to the foyer. Dalrymple limped over and pulled the door open.
With a quiet murmur of thanks, he stepped outside, grateful when the door closed behind him shielding him from further questions about a lady he’d danced nearly two waltzes with.
Prudence sat upon the drab, brown blanket alongside the riding path. Head bent over the sketchpad in her hands, she studied the partially completed sketch. He’d danced with her not once, but twice. Why had he done that if he’d not wanted to? “To be polite, to be gentlemanly. Out of pity.”
“What are you running on about?” Poppy’s perplexed tone cut into her musings.
She yanked her head up and looked to her sister, who patted Sir Faithful on his mangy back.
“Nothing,” she said, her cheeks warming at having been caught speaking aloud, and before Poppy, no less. With her tenacity, her sister could effortlessly replace Lady Jersey as the one to wheedle gossip out of the guests in her hallowed hall.
Poppy shoved up from her reclining position and Sir Faithful scrambled to his feet beside her. “Did it perhaps have anyt
hing to do with the hour-long lecture in Sin’s office two evenings ago, when you returned from the ball?”
She pursed her lips at the reminder of her brother’s highhanded treatment following that magical waltz. And her mother’s strident displeasure. “It was not an hour,” she muttered. “It merely felt like an hour.”
The sisters shared a smile. Abandoning her efforts upon the sketchbook, she snapped it closed and sat up. Prudence skimmed her gaze over the empty grounds of Hyde Park.
The lessons imparted by Lady Drake still fresh, she’d immediately set to work carrying out the lady’s advice. Place yourself wherever the gentleman will be. Force him to notice you.
Only, she and Poppy had been here the better part of an hour and there had still been no hint of thundering hooves or sight of a broad, warrior-like figure such as the marquess. The wind stirred the barren branches overhead; the periodic snap of a brittle, aged branch filled the morning quiet. Prudence drew her knees close to her chest. She dropped her chin atop them and rubbed it back and forth over the velvet-lined, sapphire cloak.
“Sin does not approve of your gentleman, therefore he must be scandalous,” Poppy put in.
She snorted. “Sin wouldn’t approve of a duke-turned-vicar for any of us.”
A giggle burst from Poppy. “Whyever would a duke want to become a vicar?”
Ah, she could always rely on her youngest sister for a distraction from the madness of her own thoughts. “He wouldn’t. I was merely stressing the point that Sin would hardly approve of any gentleman.” Which was the height of irony considering he’d been a rogue gossiped about in papers. Even if he was now married. That rogue had been, and always would be, part of who Jonathan Tidemore, the Earl of Sinclair, was.
“I take it that it was the gentleman in the park,” Poppy mused. “I certainly hope it was not the gentleman with an affinity for dogs. I daresay I would claim that one for my own.”
When Prudence failed to give so much as a laugh or smile, Poppy nudged her.
“He is a good man,” Prudence said quietly. She stared at the empty, graveled path where Christian had rescued her sister. Had the man been a fortune hunter with nefarious intentions as her brother suggested, then surely he could have and would have ruined her with that chance meeting in Hyde Park or in his gardens. No, a man such as Christian was incapable of that deceit. Nor, she was humbled to acknowledge even to herself, would he have to go about ruining her. She rather thought she’d put her own reputation at risk to know the pleasure of a third waltz. Prudence groaned and shook her head.
Lords of Honor-The Collection Page 31
