“So you intend to purchase it only to shut it down?”
“Just so.”
“But you can’t! Society Snippets is the only remaining trace of my family’s newspaper business, a business started by my great-grandfather. The Deverill family has been publishing newspapers for over fifty years.”
“Unlike you, your father does not seem dismayed by the prospect of selling the last piece of his family legacy. On the contrary, he jumped at the chance to remove his daughters from a life of drudgery, and he was happy for the opportunity to once again be able to adequately take care of them and provide them with dowries as a responsible father should. He had only one additional request to my proposal.”
“Which was?”
“He asked that you and your sister be given some introductions into society. I agreed.”
He’d said a moment ago that arranging this had been easy, and she saw now just how easy it must have been. Everything Papa wanted for his daughters held out to him on a silver platter, and all he’d had to give up in exchange was something that had never been of interest to him in the first place.
“Aren’t the daughters of a middle-class newspaper hawker a bit too lowbrow for your class of people?”
“Some might say so, yes,” he acknowledged, seeming to miss or choosing to ignore the resentment in her voice. “But the granddaughters of a viscount are not.”
She gave a humorless laugh, not surprised that he had learned of her mother’s family. “Even if the viscount’s daughter married beneath her?”
“Since my own mother may soon do the same, I’m hardly in a position to turn up my nose at what your mother did, am I?”
She frowned. “You seem to know a great deal about my family.”
“Private detectives can find out many things.”
“Ah, I see. Before a man can exploit another man’s vulnerabilities he has to find out what they are.”
If her words evoked any feeling in him, he didn’t show it. Not a shred of guilt crossed the face Clara had declared so handsome. No apology or regret. He didn’t even blink.
“My God,” she choked, “does your heart pump blood, or ice water? Or perhaps you don’t have a heart at all.”
Another flicker of emotion crossed that implacable face, but it was gone in an instant, wiped away by his cold reply. “My heart, Miss Deverill, is not your concern.”
“Thank God for that,” she muttered, but if her shot hit home she didn’t know it, for she looked away, swamped by a feeling of desolation. If this man got his way, everything would be as it had been before her grandfather died, prosperous, comfortable, and mind-numbingly dull. Society Snippets was her creation, her vision. She’d poured countless hours into it, working hard to make it solvent. She’d hoped to make it successful. She hadn’t expected to love it.
And now it would be snuffed out, and she would be relegated back to managing household accounts and doing embroidery for the rest of her days, or—worse—marrying into the sort of world her father wanted for her, the one her mother had lived in and run away from. All she’d accomplished here would be forgotten, thanks to a privileged man who only had to write a bank draft and make a few introductions in order to get what he wanted. She could not let it happen, but how could she stop it?
Irene looked at him again, and as she met those eyes, eyes as cool and unfathomable as the North Sea, she felt so angry and so helpless, she didn’t know whether to burst into tears or jump over the desk and go for his throat.
“There might be,” he said, watching her, “an alternative.”
The very gentleness of his voice sent any impulse to cry straight to the wall. She opened her mouth, but even as the words go to hell hovered on her lips, she knew she could not say them.
“I’m listening,” she said instead.
He reached out, fingering one corner of the documents he’d placed on her desk. “As I said, I have not yet tendered the money. The contract stipulates that I have fourteen days to do so. If I do not, the agreement is voided, and I would be required to pay your father ten percent of the purchase price for reneging.”
“Under what circumstances would you renege?”
“Your advice has wreaked havoc upon my family, and in my view, it is your responsibility to repair the damage done. My mother intends to wed Mr. Foscarelli a fortnight from now, once he has secured the marriage license. That gives you fourteen days.”
“To do what?”
“To persuade my mother to change her mind and call off the wedding.”
Irene’s mind struggled mightily for a way to refuse, but she could see no way that wouldn’t lose her all that she had worked for.
“If you succeed,” he went on, “I will tear up this document, pay your father the required fee, and all will be forgot. You can continue to advise the lovelorn of London to follow their hearts until the end of your days. But if you fail, if my mother weds that man, you had best give up your journalistic aspirations and your desire to meddle in other people’s lives. I will follow through on this purchase of your publication and shut it down, and you will have to begin looking for a suitable spouse to whom to offer your fat new dowry.”
“But the paper is my life! I have no desire to be introduced into your set, and certainly not to marry into it!”
“Frankly, Miss Deverill, what you desire is of little consequence to me at this moment.”
Frustrated, trapped, Irene tried a different tack. “This is absurd! How can I possibly persuade your mother to go against the very advice I gave her?”
“That, I leave to your ingenuity. My mother has agreed to return home until her wedding, and I have arranged for you and your sister to come to stay with us during that time. With my mother and sister-in-law there, you and your sister will be suitably chaperoned, and I have two unmarried sisters as well, so you will not lack for company and amusements.”
“You expect me to stay in your house?” Irene stared at him, appalled by the very idea. “For a fortnight?”
“Yes. That will provide you with many opportunities to use your powers of persuasion on my mother. No one will be told of our little bargain.”
“Including my father? If I succeed, his hopes for me and Clara, hopes you put into his head, shall be crushed, for I doubt any reconciliation with my mother’s family would continue if I were to remain editor of a scandal sheet.”
“You and Viscount Ellesmere shall have to work that out between you. As for your father, he will be adequately compensated. The ten percent fee is already in trust for him should you succeed and keep your paper.”
“Compensation or no, you are offering him false hope for a reconciliation with my mother’s family. He does not deserve that.”
“Does he not?” Torquil leaned forward in his chair, folding his hands over the document on her desk. “Miss Deverill, let us speak plainly. Your father drinks.”
Irene’s hands curled into fists beneath her desk, her cheeks afire. Not only was this man making her appreciate that she possessed a temper, he was also teaching her just how deeply she could resent another human soul. “My, my,” she managed. “Your private detectives have been busy, haven’t they?”
“I didn’t need detectives to provide that information, merely my own eyes. During the hour I spent discussing this business with him this afternoon, your father consumed an entire bottle of brandy and opened a second one.”
Anger and shame roiled inside her in equal measure. “My father’s . . . fondness for brandy is hardly the point—”
“It is also public knowledge that your grandfather’s newspaper business, once highly successful, was forced into bankruptcy due to your father’s mismanagement.”
“There are reasons for that—”
“Of course. As I said, he drinks. My point is that he has failed in his primary duty as a man, which is to protect and care for his family. In consequence, I cannot feel much compassion for him, and I shall certainly feel no guilt over crushing his hopes, as you put it.”
“You are also deceiving your own relations, including your mother. Have you no guilt there?”
“It is a deceit, I grant you, a deceit of omission.”
“A lie of omission is still a lie!”
He moved in his chair and looked away, indicating that perhaps that shot had gone home. But when he looked at her again, any notion that she’d pricked his conscience might just as well have been a figment of her imagination. “It is regrettable, but I do not see any other way. If my mother knew I had tendered an offer to buy your father’s newspaper, she would never believe it was simply for investment purposes. She would instantly become suspicious, and any efforts you made to change her mind about Foscarelli would ultimately be futile. I cannot afford the scruple of forthright truth.”
“Quite a moral dilemma for you.”
If he perceived the sarcasm, he ignored it. “Only you, your father, and I—and your sister, if you choose to make her aware—shall know about this purchase offer. If you tell anyone else what we have discussed, or reveal anything about the situation of my mother and the Italian, I will execute the terms of this agreement at once, and your editorship of this newspaper will end immediately. I hope that is clear?”
“Perfectly.” Irene’s jaw was clenched so tight, she could barely utter words. “What will you tell your relations?”
He shrugged. “I went to see your father in high dungeon over this Lady Truelove column, and came away appalled by Ellesmere’s shameful neglect of his granddaughters and aware of your father’s attempts at reconciliation. I was happy to offer my assistance in brokering a peace.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Your father loathes owning a scandal sheet and would happily shut it down if he knew his daughters would be well-regarded by their relations. Ridding London of a scandal sheet that prints gossip about my family is an endeavor in which I am quite happy to assist, and a circumstance most of my family would not lament.”
That was probably the unvarnished truth. She swallowed hard. “It seems you have it all planned out.”
“Yes. But the choice of whether or not to carry out this plan rests with you.”
That contention provoked her beyond bearing. “Choice?” she echoed, jumping to her feet. “It’s a Hobson’s choice, which means no choice at all. And how is my newspaper to function for the next two weeks while I am gallivanting around London, being introduced to your acquaintances?”
“That is another thing I shall leave to your ingenuity. If Society Snippets ceases to function during your absence, I will not bemoan the fact.” He took up that horrid purchase agreement and rose to his feet. “Two weeks is not much time,” he added as he replaced the papers in his portfolio. “So I suggest you and your sister come to us as soon as you have made your arrangements here. Around teatime, shall we say?”
“Today?” Irene gave a laugh of disbelief. “You can’t possibly expect us to come today?”
“I can, and I do. If you arrive at teatime, you can take refreshment if you choose and still be settled into your rooms before dinner. I do not know if my mother will have returned home by teatime, or what prior engagements the other members of my family have fixed for this afternoon, but I will ensure that my sister-in-law is at home to greet you properly, and I shall also be there to perform the necessary introduction.”
“Oh, goody,” Irene muttered. “What a treat.”
“If you do not arrive,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “I will present your father with a bank draft tomorrow morning and you shall not be required to come at all. As I said, the choice is yours. My home is located on Park Lane, at 16 Upper Brook Street. Good day, Miss Deverill.”
With that, he gave her a bow and turned away, leaving Irene to glare daggers at his back as he departed. Fourteen days under his roof might not seem like much time to him, but to her, it loomed ahead like an eternity of hell.
Chapter 6
The duke had barely departed her offices before Irene was also out the door. She strode past Clara’s desk, and something in her face must have reflected the emotions roiling inside her, for her sister followed, calling after her as she crossed the foyer.
“Irene, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Not now, Clara,” she called back as she started up the stairs. “Not now, I beg you.”
She found her father in the drawing room sipping his brandy and reading a book, his gouty foot propped up on cushions. He looked up as she came in, and the full force of her fury must have been reflected in her expression, because in the face of it, even her father shrank back a little.
“Is it true?” she demanded, halting beside his wheeled chair. “Is it?”
He frowned, but he did not quite meet her gaze. “Moderate your tone, child, and remember to whom you are speaking.”
“Is it true?”
“If you are asking if I’ve agreed to sell the newspaper to the Duke of Torquil, the answer is yes. He has even agreed to assist in the reconciliation of our family. He knows Ellesmere and has pledged to do what he can to assist. Wasn’t that thoughtful of him?”
“Oh, very thoughtful,” she shot back. “How could you do this, Papa? How?”
He reached for his glass and downed the contents in one swallow. Only then did he meet her gaze. “Really, Irene, you needn’t look as if I’ve just sold you into servitude, when the reality is the exact opposite. Now, there will be no need for you to labor like a common shop girl.”
She ignored his attempt to make his action seem noble. “I enjoy my work. Why can’t you understand that?” She watched him shake his head, making it clear he still refused to believe that fact, and she hastened on before the conversation could be diverted from the material point to a debate about women’s rights. “I’ve revived our family business and made it successful again. I created Society Snippets, and I’ve made it a success. And now, after all I’ve accomplished, you’ve sold it right out from under me without so much as a by your leave.”
“I am your father. I don’t require your leave to do anything if I feel it is for your good.” Beneath the testiness of his voice, she perceived an underlying guilt, but he gave her no chance to jump on it. “As for the rest, what I have done is what every father has an obligation to do.”
“What obligation is that?”
“To secure his children’s future, of course. I’ve secured yours, and Clara’s, and I can only hope that makes up for what a dismal mess I’ve made of things in the past.”
Her anger faded with those words, for she knew he believed with all his heart that what he’d done was for her benefit. “Oh, Papa, how many times do we have to discuss this? What you’ve secured is your vision of my future, but it isn’t the sort of future I envision for myself.”
“Only because you’ve never had a taste of it.” He nodded, donning a wise and complacent air. “Just you wait. When you are out and about, enjoying the events of the season, dining in a duke’s house, going to balls, making friends, you’ll be having such an agreeable time, you won’t want to come home at all, much less go back to that newspaper of yours. You’ll see.”
As always when they had this conversation, Irene felt as if she was pounding her head into a brick wall, but she persisted. “I don’t want balls and parties. I have no interest in doing the season, and I don’t want to go hunting for a husband. I want to publish newspapers.”
“And your sister? Is being your secretary and living as a spinster what she wants for her future?”
For the second time today, Irene felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. She parted her lips to reply, but no answer came out.
“You enjoy slaving away in that office downstairs, but does she?” he asked. “Is she happy, knowing her life is to be spent taking down correspondence, and typing, and making your appointments?”
He gave her no chance to reply. “She wants to enjoy her life, now, while she’s young. She yearns for the amusements of the season as much as any girl.�
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She shifted her weight, guilt nudging at her. “Clara knows she is free to attend all the parties she wants. Cousin Martha would happily make arrangements among our acquaintances and act as chaperone.”
“Clara would have a difficult time in society without you to help her along. We both know how shy and reserved she is. And my cousin, though a worthy woman, would make Clara even more so.”
“I’m happy to go with Clara anywhere we are invited,” she assured him at once. “But neither of us is in any rush to wed.”
“Well, you’re not, anyway,” her father countered tartly. “Turtles are in more of a rush than you are. And why, pray? Because you prefer running a newspaper to finding a husband.”
“Only because society forces me to make that choice.”
“Not only society. My dear child, no husband would allow his wife to have a career.”
“Either way, we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about Clara.”
“So we are. How is your sister to meet anyone when she spends most of her time working for you? She’s twenty-two, Irene, so there’s not much time before she’s on the shelf. I’ve arranged things with the duke so that she can have a bit of enjoyment. She can go to balls and the theater, she can dance, and flirt, and enjoy the season as a young woman should, before it’s too late.”
“Two weeks isn’t much of a season.”
“But with the duke’s help, the viscount might see his way to giving Clara—and you, not that you’d want it—a full season next year. He might forgive, and the breach in our family could be healed.”
“And we’ll all live happily ever after.”
Her father didn’t seem to hear that dry rejoinder. “Clara will have the chance to meet worthy young men, and fall in love. She might then be able to marry, and have children and a home of her own. Would you deny her all these opportunities simply because you don’t want them yourself? Would you truly sacrifice her youth on the altar of your ambition?”
The Truth About Love and Dukes Page 8
