She took his hand and rose. “I cannot accept that offer, Your Grace. As it happens, I was calling on Mr. Ventnor precisely because I hope to become established as an authority on domestic matters in homes with some means. Signing away my ability to earn a living would not be prudent.”
The duke left a pile of coins on the table—a generous sum—and collected a sack from the beaming serving maid.
“You are a shrewd negotiator,” he said as he held the door for Edith. “Perhaps you called upon Ventnor because you seek more lucrative terms upon which to write a sequel to the first volume.”
“A sequel?” Edith blinked at the bright sunshine and still—still—she had the impulse to open a parasol out of habit. “Somebody is at work on a sequel?”
“You needn’t sound so pleased. Why haven’t you a parasol?”
The meal had fortified Edith, put her back on her mettle. “I pawned all of my parasols months ago.”
“And your good cloak as well, apparently, and yet you disdain to take my coin.” The insult to her cloak was half-hearted, and His Grace’s pace down the walkway more leisurely.
“Honesty rather than pride prevents me from taking your money, sir. I did not write How to Ruin a Duke. You could buy the rights to ten books from me, and I’d still not be able to prevent that sequel from being published.”
His Grace fell silent, which was a mercy. The day was too beautiful and the meal had been too lovely to resume bickering. Edith made no further attempts to send Emory on his way, because the truth was, she liked having him at her side.
Even on this pretty day in this mostly decent neighborhood, Emory’s escort made her feel safer and a little bit more the respected lady she’d been raised to be.
“Never was a correspondent more conscientious than you, Mama.” Jeremiah kissed the duchess’s cheek, which affection she pretended to ignore, though he knew she enjoyed the little touches.
The woman should remarry. She had taken good care of her appearance and held a lavish dower portion, though what mature man of sense would willingly take on a widowed duchess prone to managing and carping?
“A lady does not neglect her letters,” the duchess replied, dipping her pen into the ink. “You would do well to stay in touch with some of your university friends, my boy. Life is long and the associations we form in our youth can be some of the dearest we ever enjoy.”
What associations had Mama formed in her youth? She longed to become one of the patronesses at Almack’s, but Emory had scotched such a notion the few times it had come up. Emory had a positive genius for finding the flaws in other people’s plans, though in his defense, becoming further entangled with the pit of vipers at the assembly rooms would have made Mama miserable.
And when Mama was miserable, both of her sons were miserable.
Jeremiah flipped out his tails and took the chair opposite Mama’s escritoire. “Most of the fellows I went to university with are either married or have bought their colors. The ranks here in London are thinner by the year.”
She put down her pen and sat back. “And does marriage or an officer’s uniform turn a man illiterate? Particularly when a fellow is posted far from home, society news can bring great comfort. This business with that nasty book, for example, is just the sort of incident most of your set would find hilarious be they in London, Lower Canada, or India.”
Jeremiah found it hilarious, though the book was refusing to die. Five printings already, and Emory looking delectably frustrated for a change.
“His Grace is trying to find the author,” Jeremiah said. “I can’t tell if he means to sue the fellow or pay him off.”
Mama capped her ink and sanded the letter, her movements unhurried and graceful. “What makes you so sure the author is a man?”
“Because the incidents recounted are true, and they mostly happened in male company.”
She wrinkled her nose, not as splendid a proboscis as Emory boasted, but a nose that could charitably be called aristocratic. “Even that bit about the gin? I cannot imagine my firstborn consuming gin, much less wagering on such a feat.”
“It’s true, all of it,” Jeremiah said, “though the author omitted some extenuating circumstances. I don’t believe Emory has touched a drop of gin since.”
“Then a suit for defamation cannot be brought.” Mama seemed relieved about that.
Jeremiah was relieved as well, because litigation could only pour fuel on the flames of gossip. Poking fun at a titled man who enjoyed a reputation for unrelenting seriousness was one thing, miring a family in scandal was quite another.
“Emory is not one to change his mind once he’s come to a decision,” Jeremiah said. “Why do you say he won’t sue?”
“Because truth is a defense to any claim of defamation, young man. To tell lies about a person is to slander him, to share the truth is entertaining. Publishers know that, and while they might push the boundaries of decency, they avoid lawyers at all costs. I see you are dressed for riding. Are you accompanying me to the park today?”
He’d come to beg off actually. A few hands of cards or a visit to Madam Bellassai’s establishment always made for a pleasant afternoon.
“Emory pled the press of business. He did not inquire as to whether my own business might also obligate me elsewhere.”
“On such a lovely day? Jeremiah, what business could you possibly have to attend to?” Mama smiled at him as if he’d made a jest. “Your cousin Antigone has accepted an invitation to ride with me, and she’s bringing that lovely Miss Faraday.”
Mama was nothing, if not relentless. “Miss Faraday and I would not suit.”
“She’s rich, agreeable, pretty, and pragmatic, Jeremiah. You’d suit.”
“How will she like a remove to India, Mama? I’m told the heat alone can kill a woman of delicate constitution. They have snakes there longer than the train of the monarch’s coronation cloak, and diseases that can debilitate a woman for the rest of her days if they don’t steal her life outright.”
Mama patted his arm. “Such a flair for drama you have. Until Emory has his heir and spare, you won’t be posting to anywhere half so exciting as India, even assuming His Grace does buy you a commission, which we both know he’s refused to do.”
“He has other heirs,” Jeremiah said, not for the first time. “Cousin Eldridge and Cousin Harry.”
“They are eight and eleven years old respectively, and a pair of reckless little scamps.” Mama poured the sand from her letter into the dust bin beside the escritoire. “Until I can find a match for Emory, he will not be swayed. Trust me on that. Perhaps you might use the time with Miss Faraday to extol your brother’s virtues if you can’t see fit to impress her with your own.”
Emory underestimated Mama, and Jeremiah had the sense she preferred it that way. She had a gift for strategy, and Jeremiah had six married female cousins to show for it.
“I’m to sing Emory’s praises? That will be a short chorus, Mama. I love him without limit, but from the perspective of a lady, he’s not exactly brilliant company.”
Mama folded her letter and dripped claret-colored wax onto the flap. A rosy fragrance filled the air, the sealing wax being scented with her signature perfume.
“Emory is a duke, he need not be charming.” She pressed a signet ring into the hot wax and set the letter on a stack of four others. “I suspect he envies you your social skills. You could give him a few pointers.”
“One has tried, Mama. As you say, he’s a duke. I will sing his praises up one carriageway and down another, but the poor fellow is as dull as last year’s bonnet trimmings when in the company of females.” And that, very likely, was precisely as Emory intended.
Mama rose on a rustle of velvet. “So it’s only in the company of you fellows that he ever cuts loose. A mother does wonder. I don’t begrudge either of my boys the occasional lark, but if half of what’s in the dratted book is true, then there’s a side to Emory I would never have guessed at. I’ll meet you out front in twenty m
inutes.”
She patted Jeremiah’s cheek and glided away.
He waited until she’d quit the room before he rifled her outgoing correspondence. Every letter was to a male relative or acquaintance of longstanding—three of Jeremiah’s uncles, a cousin of Mama’s, the bereaved spouse of one of Mama’s late friends. Each letter was a single sheet and folded such that no writing was visible on the outside.
Her Grace was up to something. Had Jeremiah more time, he would have broken the seal on one of the letters, read the contents, then resealed the epistle using his own ring. He loved his mother dearly, but he knew better than to trust her.
Time to share a meal tête-à-tête with an uncle or two. Jeremiah replaced the letters in the same order Mama had organized them and went down to the front door to await his penance. He used the time to ponder what he could say to Miss Faraday about his brother that would be honest and cast the duke in a positive light.
“Emory takes the welfare of family seriously,” Jeremiah murmured, tapping his top hat onto his head. “He takes everything seriously, including silly little books intended only to entertain and poke fun.”
But then, when a book went into five printings, perhaps the book, and its author, should be taken seriously.
Chapter Three
“The only good duke is a married duke, and even that kind is prone to wandering.”
From How to Ruin a Duke by Anonymous
Thaddeus strolled along at Lady Edith’s side, while he mentally wrestled with facts in contradiction.
She had quit a lucrative post of her own volition and had done so without first securing another position. Why behave so rashly? Why, with a character from Her Grace of Emory in hand, hadn’t Lady Edith found another post of comparable status?
Why reside in this frankly shabby neighborhood if she was the author of the most popular novel since Waverly? On the stoops and porches, Thaddeus saw only an occasional pot of struggling heartsease, most of which looked as if a cat had slept curled atop the flowers and weeds. A single crossing sweeper shuffled along the street, doing a desultory job of collecting horse droppings, and a small grubby boy sat cross-legged beneath a street lamp.
Why hadn’t Lady Edith applied for support to the present holder of her late father’s title? Every man who came into a lofty station did so knowing that dependents and responsibilities went hand-in-glove with his privileges.
Why should Lady Edith have to ask for support from the head of her own family?
“Who holds your father’s earldom now?” Thaddeus asked as Lady Edith stopped at a side lane.
“A second cousin,” she said. “We’d never met prior to Papa’s death. You want to know why I’m not kept in a rural hovel like any other poor relation. The answer to that is none of your concern but simple enough: Papa left his heir an enormous pile of debt, a barely habitable country estate, and the bad will of all our neighbors. His lordship had nothing to offer me but the post of housekeeper without pay, and for my brother, perhaps a similarly uncompensated post as undergardener. Working for your mother, I was able to at least save back most of my wages.”
“You have a brother?” Had she kept that a secret? Thaddeus took an interest in his employees and should have known this about his mother’s companion.
“I do, and I live on this lane, so we’ve reached our destination.”
Lady Edith wasn’t looking anywhere in particular. Not at any one of the humble doorways on the narrow lane, not at Thaddeus’s face, and certainly not at the sack of food he held in his left hand.
“I’ll walk you to your door. Where is your brother now?”
“This isn’t necessary, Your Grace. I know how to find my own dwelling.”
“What you do not know is how to set aside your pride. If I wanted to find out where you live, I’d simply ask the crossing sweeper and then verify his information with that filthy boy trying to look idle and harmless beneath the street lamp while he doubtless dreams of ill-gotten coin. Tell me more about your brother.”
Thaddeus refrained from adding, I might have work for him. In the first place, a brother who allowed his sister to come to such a pass as this might be unemployable, and in the second, facts not in contradiction still weighed against Lady Edith’s protestations of innocence.
She knew the ducal family’s dirty linen. She used language effectively. She grasped how polite society loved to gossip. She desperately needed funds. Very few people fit all of those descriptors. An army of servants might also know family lore, but those servants were either illiterate or not literary. Half of polite society had a gift for tattle, but not a one of them would willingly engage in labor for coin.
Lady Edith led Thaddeus to the fourth door on the left side of the lane. The street ended in a cul-de-sac, with a crumbling, lichen-encrusted fountain in the center of the circle. Once upon a time, this would have been a quaint, tidy address, a place prosperous shopkeepers moved to when their children grew old enough to take over the family business.
Now, these houses were teetering on the edge of neglect. A few had boarded up windows, a sure sign somebody was trying to reduce taxes at the cost of their eyesight. Brick walkways had heaved and buckled under decades of English weather, and a large brindle dog of indeterminant pedigree napped on the sunny side of the decrepit fountain.
“You are not to feed this steak to that wretched canine,” Thaddeus said, passing over the sack. “This food is not charity, but rather, a token of appreciation for your insights regarding the mystery before me. I would never have thought to consider Antigone or Mama, or a co-author. You were about to tell me of your brother.”
“I was about to wish you good day, and good luck finding the author of your misfortune. My thanks for the food.” She tried to hold the sack and open her reticule at the same time.
“Is this brother a wastrel like your father was?”
“No, he is not. Foster is a wastrel of a completely different stripe. He does not drink to excess, he’s not prone to wagers, but he had only a gentleman’s education.” She produced a key, which only made balancing the reticule and the sack of food more complicated.
“Allow me,” Thaddeus said, taking both items and leaving her with the key. “If you set that food down, yonder hound will abscond with the lot.”
“Galahad is fast asleep.”
“Galahad is doubtless fast as a bolting rabbit when it comes to snatching a meal.”
The lock squeaked and with some effort, Lady Edith pushed the door open. “I’ll take those,” she said, holding out her hands.
“This reticule weighs more than some cannonballs. Whatever do you have in here?” Thaddeus grasped the middle of the reticule, a quilted affair slightly worn at the bottom. “Is this a book?”
“Glenarvon,” she said, “for weight, and to keep the papers I brought with me from being crushed or wrinkled.”
“You have a bound copy of Glenarvon?” Another fact that weighed against her innocence.
“Half of London has a copy of Lady Caroline’s tale and this was a gift from a friend who enjoys a good yarn. My brother was considering turning it into a play at one point. I’ll wish you good day, Your Grace.” She stood in the doorway, her faded millinery and pink cloak adding a poignant note to the dignity of her bearing.
“Might I come in?”
“That would be most improper.”
“No, it would not. I am your former employer, we are well acquainted, I won’t tarry long, and if you prefer, we can remain before your front window for all the world to gawk at. That said, I would rather not conclude this conversation where all the world can also hear our every word.” All the world being, at the moment, one somnolent dog.
“Then will you go away?”
“Do you know how rarely people tell me to go away?” They might wish him to the Shetland Islands, but they would never say that to his face.
“Not often enough, for you don’t appear to grasp the meaning of the words.” Lady Edith stepped back and held
the door open.
Thaddeus’s first impulse was to peer about at the interior, to sniff the air, to generally behave with ill-bred curiosity. Lady Edith would pitch him through the window if he offered her that insult, so he stood just inside the door, where—indeed—he was visible from the street through the window.
“Why would this brother of yours be turning Glenarvon into a stage play?”
“Because nobody has yet, and the book was wildly popular.” She set her packages on a rickety table with a cracked marble top. “Foster considers himself an amateur thespian and has a gentleman’s ability with letters. He abandoned the project because the work is quite long for a staged production. If that’s all you needed to—”
“He fancies himself a writer?”
“He’s eighteen years old, Your Grace. He fancies himself a writer one day, an explorer the next, a documenter of England’s vanishing folklore the day after that.”
“Be glad he’s not keen to buy an officer’s commission and ship out for the jungles of India.” Mama had emphatically forbidden Thaddeus to approve that course for Jeremiah, though his lordship longed to buy his colors—or have them purchased for him.
“We cannot afford to buy Foster new boots, much less a commission. When I left my post with your mother, Foster was homeless. He held a job as tutor to a stationer’s sons, but the boys accused him of teaching them naughty Latin verses. Foster was turned off without a character and not even given the wages he was owed.”
Most boys were born knowing a few naughty Latin verses. Jeremiah had them memorized by the score. “How long ago was this?”
“Six months.”
So why would she then also render herself unemployed? “Where is Foster now?”
Her chin came up. “Looking for work.”
Perhaps he was, or perhaps he was slumped over a bottle outside the nearest gin shop. A man prone to inebriation could run up all sorts of debts in no time at all, and even an author enjoying lucrative earnings could soon see her wealth dwindle to nothing.
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