“You talk as if there will be so much for you to do,” Lord James put in good-naturedly. “Torquil will only make you help until the ship’s underway, Angie. After that, he won’t demand anything from you or any of the ladies but to sit on the deck chairs, put up your parasols, and sip champagne cups. It’s the gentlemen who tack and jibe and take the wheel.”
“But what if the ladies want to tack and jibe, too?” Irene couldn’t help asking. She looked at Torquil. “What if we want to steer the ship? What then?”
She was challenging him, she knew, but if he intended to take up the gauntlet she’d thrown down, he was given no chance.
“A woman at the helm?” Carlotta said in lively astonishment. “How absurd. Torquil would never allow it.”
Irene turned from Torquil to his sister-in-law. “I don’t see why not.”
“No,” the other woman said, the pity in her smile unmistakable. “I should imagine you don’t.”
“I daresay Irene would like to sail,” Clara put in, her voice a bit higher than usual. “So would I. What’s it like?” She turned to the man beside her. “Lord David? What is so appealing about the sport that it makes yours a sailing family?”
Irene stared, astonished that her quiet sister had come out with such a lengthy question around people she barely knew, but before she could recover from the shock of that, Torquil was speaking to her.
“I can see, Miss Deverill,” he murmured, leaning closer to her, “that Carlotta’s tail isn’t the only one you intend to twist this evening.”
She turned, pasting on an innocent expression. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do. As for steering my ship,” he added, leaning back and adopting a more conversational tone, “I doubt you’d want to.”
“And why is that?”
“It would mean you’d be part of my crew, and if that were the case, you’d be required to obey my orders.” He paused, his gaze lowering to her mouth. “Without question.”
Her heart gave a sudden, hard thud in her chest. She felt pinned by that look as if by an arrow, and she was unable to move even after he lifted his gaze again to hers. His words ought to have inspired any suffragist worth her salt with the desire to bash a candlestick over his head, and yet, Irene could not have summoned the proper outrage for such a course. Her lips tingled with heat and her heart raced, not with anger, but with . . . excitement. It was a sensation so unexpected that it took her several moments to recover her wits enough to reply. “A deck chair for me, then,” she said at last, “if having you order me about is the alternative.”
“Very wise of you, Miss Deverill,” Angela told her, laughing. “My brother is a hard taskmaster.”
“Very,” Torquil agreed, his gaze still fixed on Irene as he spoke, his grave expression and well-bred drawl a sharp contrast to the tumult inside of her. The strangest thing about it all was that she had no idea what had spurred this rush of feeling. She hated being dictated to under any circumstances, and she already knew that from him it was especially aggravating. But just now, aggravation was not at all what she felt. Instead, she felt exhilarated.
After a moment, he diverted his attention, enabling Irene to regain her composure. “And if Angela keeps complaining about what is required of her,” he said, leaning around Irene to look at his sister, “she won’t be having a deck chair and a champagne cup. Instead, I shall tell Andrew and Fitz and the rest of the crew to take a holiday, and she’ll find herself swabbing the decks.”
“Oh,” Clara breathed on an ecstatic sigh, “it all sounds so lovely. Not the swabbing decks, part,” she added at once, making everyone laugh. “But the rest would be heavenly.”
“Shall we take up Jamie’s plan tomorrow, then?” Angela asked as the footmen began clearing away the soup and serving the fish course.
“We can’t,” Lady David said. “Even though we cancelled all our social engagements for tomorrow, if we are seen gallivanting out on the water, it would create a most unfavorable impression.”
“Oh, but our plans tomorrow were so informal anyway,” Angela replied. “Only luncheon at the Savoy with Lady Billingsley and tea with Lady Stokesbury. Those two ladies are like family. Surely they would understand if we—”
“Carlotta is right,” Torquil cut in. “These things must be handled in the proper way, regardless of how close the tie. You agree, Mama, I trust?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I do. I wish our social rules were not so punctilious, but Henry and Carlotta have been right to remind us of our duty there. We shall make arrangements to go sailing another day. In the meantime, girls, you must honor your social commitments. I shall write to Lady Billingsley and Lady Stokesbury first thing tomorrow, explain that my illness was merely a headache, and make apologies for our cancelled plans.”
She paused as the footman presented her with a tray of sole in sauce. After she had taken a fillet from the tray, the footman moved on and she continued, “I believe I will also happen to mention that Lord Ellesmere’s granddaughters are our guests for the next two weeks, and enclose my card to indicate our intent to call on them in the afternoon. We shall then take the Miss Deverills out for luncheon and some shopping on Bond Street so they might be seen with us in public. Then we shall pay calls on any who might have been inconvenienced by my absence.”
Irene knew she had to make her own obligations clear before any further plans were made on her behalf. “It all sounds delightful, Duchess,” she said, feeling a hint of regret as she spoke, “but some of these arrangements won’t be possible for me, I’m afraid.”
Everyone stopped eating, and suddenly, Torquil wasn’t the only one subjecting her to full attention.
“I have my duties at the newspaper to attend to,” she explained, glancing around with an apologetic smile. “Duties which make me unavailable for any engagements before one o’clock in the afternoon.”
There was another silence, this one so lengthy that even Irene began to feel uncomfortable. It was, she was well aware, a most unconventional thing for a woman to have a career, but it couldn’t be helped. She did have a career, one that she couldn’t simply take up and put down whenever she felt like it.
Carlotta, of course, was the first to speak. “My dear Miss Deverill,” she said, setting down her knife and fork with a delicate clink, “you do understand the purpose of the plans the duchess has outlined is to introduce you and your sister into our circle of acquaintance?”
“Of course.” Irene smiled, blinking her eyes innocently at the woman across the table, pretending she was unaware of the sudden tension in the room. “But I must also think of my readers. I have a duty to them, and to my newspaper.”
“But what will our friends think?” Sarah asked. “They surely would not approve—” She broke off as she looked at her eldest brother, and he must have given her a warning glance, for she bit her lip and returned her attention to her plate.
Carlotta, however, was not so reticent. “Sarah is right. This won’t go over well. Heaven knows Ellesmere won’t like it.”
That was too much for Irene. “Lady David, I have had the same grandfather and the same profession for quite some time now, and I find it odd that despite his disapproval, Lord Ellesmere has never chosen to express to me or my family any concern about how we spend our time. Nor has he shown any concern about how we support ourselves, and he has certainly never offered us a viable alternative to working for our living. So forgive me if I do not deem his opinion of my profession to be of any great importance.”
Lady David stared at her, obviously at a loss what to say in the wake of this outburst. “Of course,” she murmured after a moment. “Quite.”
“Well, I think it very wrong of Ellesmere,” Angela said. “Perhaps when Torquil calls upon him, he can impress upon the viscount that he needs do his duty by his granddaughters.”
“Of course,” the duke said. “That was my intent.”
Irene stiffened in her chair, her pride stinging. “We don’t need his a
ssistance, nor—” She broke off when Clara’s toe nudged hers beneath the table, warning her that she was about to go too far. “That is,” she amended, “we don’t wish to be any trouble. The duke need not concern himself with our little family squabble.”
“It is not a matter of taking trouble, Miss Deverill,” Torquil said. “I assured your father that I would attempt to assist him in healing the breach with his father-in-law, and I am glad to do so. But if you think my direct assistance inappropriate, you need only say so.”
She might have done exactly that but for Clara, whose big brown eyes were pleading with her across the table. “I appreciate my father’s attempt to bring about a truce,” she said instead, “for that is probably best for all concerned. But if that truce means the viscount shall expect me to abandon my obligations to the readers and advertisers of my paper, I regret to say that I cannot accommodate him.”
“His granddaughter’s occupation may be a difficult thing for Ellesmere to accept,” the duchess put in, “but he is partly to blame for it. And if Ellesmere wants his granddaughter to give up her journalistic interests, all he has to do is help to bring his granddaughters into society.”
Irene wanted to say that she had no intention of giving up her paper, but she did not want to embarrass Clara, so she bit her tongue.
“I’m sure,” the duchess went on, “that once Torquil has made the viscount aware of his son-in-law’s sincere desire to hold out the olive branch, he’ll put things right. In the meantime, he can hardly object if Miss Deverill is unwilling to risk her family’s livelihood because his sensibilities are offended.”
“But what of society?” Sarah asked. “What will they make of it?”
“They’ll be shocked,” Carlotta said. “What else could they be?”
“Even if they are,” the duchess said, “it is the viscount’s intransigence which has forced Miss Deverill out into the world, given that her father is ill and unable to attend to business matters himself. Miss Deverill can hardly be condemned for carrying on in her father’s stead. I grow so weary of how unrealistic some in our set can be about the economic realities so many people face.” She paused, meeting her son’s gaze across the table. “How else but by work or by marriage is a man without inherited wealth to gain an income?”
Irene’s gaze slid to the man beside her, but he looked back at his mother impassively and did not answer.
“Oh, lovely,” muttered Lord David. “First, professions for women, then another family’s private squabbles, and now money. What delightful topics for dinner conversation.”
“Well, I don’t see why it matters anyway,” Angela said. “I think there should be a much wider variety of things for women to do. Well, why not?” she added as all her siblings groaned. “Gentlemen have so many more occupations and distractions available to them than women do.”
“Working for a living isn’t one of them, though,” Lord James replied. “Not in our set, not for either sex.”
“No, but, Jamie, surely you would agree that the gentlemen do have more activities available to them than we young ladies do. Paying calls and buying clothes and doing the season is all very well, but it can be so tedious, and sometimes, downright pointless. We can’t even vote.”
“Ugh,” groaned David.
“It would be lovely,” she went on, ignoring him, “to have something meaningful to do with one’s time.”
“Yes,” Lady David interjected with a tittering laugh, “because publishing a scandal sheet is so meaningful.”
Irene stilled, her hands tightening around her knife and fork, but when she looked at the woman across from her, she made sure there was a bright smile on her face. “Not nearly as meaningful as minute examinations of what people are wearing, though, I daresay.”
This time, the silence was not only awkward, but painful, and it seemed to go on forever as glances were exchanged around the table—some embarrassed, and some, like Clara’s, understandably bewildered.
As her sister stared at her, looking not only confused but also hurt, Irene’s conscience smote her, and any satisfaction she’d felt in standing up to Carlotta’s spite vanished.
“Well, of course,” Clara said after a moment, breaking the silence. “Fashion is a fascinating topic to all ladies.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Sarah jumped in at once. “Have you seen the new leg o’mutton sleeves? They’re enormous.”
With a relief that was palpable, the conversation shifted to a discussion of current fashion, with nearly everyone offering a comment, except Irene, who decided it might be best to pretend vast interest in her fish and say as little as possible.
Torquil seemed to share her disinterest in ladies’ sleeves. “Tell me, Miss Deverill,” he murmured after a moment, his voice low enough that only she could hear, “do you stir things up everywhere you go or merely within my family?”
“I—” She paused for a swallow of wine. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you?” He paused, waiting, and after a moment, she forced herself to look at him.
“I suppose you think I ought to have held my tongue,” she said.
“I find it’s usually wiser to adopt that course. Carlotta is exasperating, and can often be malicious, but you don’t make things easier on yourself by needling her.”
“Odd, but I thought she was needling me.”
“She was, and as I promised you before dinner, I will put a stop to it the first moment I am able to speak with her alone. My concern at the moment is not her, but you. You shall be moving in high society, Miss Deverill, a place that does not always accept controversial opinions with good grace. That may be a failing of it, I don’t know, but for your part, I should advise caution. As for your intention to continue your duties with your newspaper during the coming fortnight, there is no point in discussing it now, but we shall have to come to some understanding about it before the evening is over.”
His tone left no doubt what he thought that understanding should be. “I don’t see that there is much to discuss.”
“In the meantime,” he said, refusing to be drawn, “it might be best to have a heed for what you say. A woman born into this world can utter an outrageous opinion on occasion—hence Angela’s comment about the vote—but until Ellesmere comes up to the mark, you are vulnerable to criticism from every quarter. And so is your sister. If you become defensive, people will sense there is something that needs defending. On the other hand, if you do not rise to Carlotta’s baiting, she will be the one diminished in the eyes of others, not you.”
“The fact that you think the vote for women an outrageous thing does not surprise me, but why should you care how I appear in the eyes of others? It can’t possibly matter to you.”
“Can it not?”
The question was unexpectedly light, almost careless in its utterance, but his eyes, looking into hers, seemed to darken, turning from the clear, pale gray of a glacier to the murky, turbulent hue of thunderclouds. The transformation was so sudden and so intense that Irene’s heart gave another startled thump in her chest.
Everything she’d seen of this man indicated an uncompromising, even ruthless character. He was stiff-necked, old-fashioned, and fastidious beyond bearing. And yet, suddenly, she felt as if she’d just caught a glimpse of something else lurking beneath all that, something completely contrary to everything she knew of him.
He’d swept into her office and into her life two days ago like an arctic storm, seeming the most frigid man she’d ever met, but despite that, strange heat began spreading through her, making her skin prickle and her toes curl in her slippers. He was close enough to her that when she drew in her breath, she could smell the scents of castile soap and bay rum that clung to his skin. She could almost hear his breathing. Time seemed to hang suspended as he filled her senses with a new and different awareness. The awareness of him as a man.
Irene hadn’t much experience with that sort of thing, and it took her wholly by surprise. She’d neve
r been one to be caught up in violent emotions—not until she’d met him, anyway. And in regard to him, those emotions had hardly been pleasant ones, consisting mainly of outrage, frustration, and resentment. She certainly didn’t like him, so what was this strange new feeling that froze her in place and burned her like fire?
He spoke before she could get her bearings, his voice possessed of its usual cool, disinterested cadence, making her aggravated all over again. “It matters because you are in my house, and therefore, in my care. It would grieve me to see you or your sister discomfited or embarrassed, Miss Deverill.”
With that, he looked away, rejoining the conversation going on around them as if he’d been listening to it all along, when she hadn’t heard a single word.
“The boys must come with us, Jamie, or we’ll never hear the end of it. They love sailing.”
“Which is all very well, except that they’ve no nanny now. As I recall, a certain person at this table promised to call in at Merrick’s Employment Agency and find them a new one, one capable of managing them, yet two days have passed, and we have seen no sign of this august personage.”
Torquil made a sound of vexation. “Blast it, I utterly forgot about the nanny. I’ll go tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you go, Jamie?” Sarah said. “They are your boys, after all.”
“Yes, but my lack of success with choosing nannies speaks for itself.”
“That’s only because you always choose the pretty, wholly inefficient ones,” Angela said. “Mama and I shall go, for I should dearly love something satisfying to do, and finding Jamie a qualified nanny would satisfy me enormously. My nephews,” she added to Irene, “are absolute hellions.”
“No, Angela.” Torquil overrode her. “I will go, because I promised I would. If you truly yearn for satisfying things to do, however, there are dozens of charities I can recommend that are in dire need of assistance. Would starting your own charity for those less fortunate be satisfying enough for you?”
“It might do,” the girl agreed eagerly. “Could I really run my own charity instead of just help Mama with all of hers?”
The Truth About Love and Dukes Page 12
