“Don’t keep me in suspense, Foster.”
“I’ve been looking at houses. We can afford to move, Edie. I’ve found a place I’d like to show you—now, this instant. It’s not far, and it’s on a little private square. We’ll have real grass off the back terrace, nearly three square yards of it, so you can take some irises to plant there if you’re of a mind to. Say you’ll look at it with me, please?”
Edith didn’t want to go anywhere. She wanted to crawl back to bed and contemplate the great folly of having shared that bed with His Grace of Emory. He’d been a tender, considerate, passionate lover, both sweetly affectionate and diabolically skilled.
The moments of drifting off to sleep in his arms had been a greater gift even than the erotic glories. For a short while, Edith had felt cherished and sheltered, all the cares and worries held at bay by a lover’s embrace.
She’d woken to find a distracted duke rather than an indulgent lover in her bedroom. Emory had dressed quickly, apparently intent on stealing away without bidding her farewell, and that had been a blow to her heart. No coin had changed hands—Edith would have flung it in his handsome face—but his haste had turned a stolen pleasure into something less. His manner, so brisk and casual, had confirmed that tawdry needn’t always involve malicious gossip or monetary arrangements.
She’d lied to him, of course, for when she’d seen him consult his watch in her very bedroom, she did regret yielding to temptation with him. She’d liked him better when she’d known him less intimately, but then, he’d given her exactly what she’d asked for, hadn’t he? A stolen moment, a time apart, no expectations on either side.
Foster set his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve sprung my good news on you all of a sudden, and I haven’t once asked about your book. How comes the new project?”
“I made a good start, and I have the sense progress will be swift. I know what story I want to tell.”
“Always a plus, when the tale reveals itself at the outset. Will you come see this house with me? It’s a lovely day for a walk, and I can’t wait to get you away from this dreary little street.”
A notion worth supporting. “We must not trade on your expectations, Foster. The theater committee can change their minds.”
He took her by the wrist and led her to the front door. “Indeed, they can, in which case, they have to buy out the balance of my contract. I haven’t watched you haggle with everybody from the coal man to the fishmonger for no purpose, Edie. They are stuck with me, and I have so many ideas for new productions that tossing three at the Maloney each year will be the work of a few afternoons.”
Edith donned her pink cloak, though the garment was on the heavy side for the day’s weather.
“You need a new bonnet. Let’s start there, shall we?” Foster plunked her hat onto her head. “Let me buy you a new bonnet, at least, to celebrate the great day.”
“How about a new cloak instead?” Edith said. “We can stop by the milliners and find some new flowers for this bonnet, but a new cloak would be much appreciated.”
“You wear blue quite well, though lavender is also quite pretty on you.” He opened the door and bowed her through, the gesture automatic with him.
Edith stopped on the threshold and wrapped him in a hug, and bedamned to any neighbor shocked by such a display of sibling affection. “I do love you, Foster. You are the best of brothers, and I am so proud of you I could take out a notice in the Times.”
“That tears it,” he said, giving her a squeeze. “We look at this new house, buy you a new cloak, and then we stop for ices at Gunter’s.”
Inspired by his great good spirits, Edith found a smile. “Never let it be said I declined an invitation to Gunter’s, much less a new cloak.”
They moved down the steps arm in arm, though even the afternoon sunshine was an affront to Edith’s mood. Why had Emory turned up so distant on her, and if he ever did come around again—bearing sandwiches and professing to want her opinion on his troubles—would she even open the door to him?
“What color cloak would you like?” Foster asked. “Perhaps we should buy you two, or better still, two cloaks and a new shawl or three.”
What a dear, darling brother he was. “One cloak, and any color so long as it isn’t pink.”
“What the hell is wrong with me, that I can miss a woman who’d betray my trust and the trust of my family to such an execrable degree?” Thaddeus asked, while in the square around him, children threw sticks for gamboling puppies and couples flirted on benches.
Why must London in springtime be so dreadfully jolly?
Thaddeus had parted from Lady Edith a week ago, and with each passing day, he told himself to have a blunt discussion with his mother, and then an even more direct conversation with her ladyship. And yet, day followed day, and Thaddeus’s mood grew only more bleak as he did exactly nothing about a most bothersome situation.
“Maybe nothing’s wrong with you,” Elsmore said, tipping his hat to a nursery maid pushing a perambulator. “Maybe your conclusions are what’s in error.”
Thaddeus had kept to himself the intimate details of his last encounter with Lady Edith, but he’d told Elsmore the rest of the tale: Her ladyship was writing the sequel to How to Ruin a Duke, which all but proved she’d written the first volume.
Or did it?
“I know what I saw, Elsmore. I saw yet another manuscript bruiting about the follies and foibles of the Duke of Amorous, and written in her hand. She wrote enough letters and invitations for Mama that I recognized her penmanship.”
And heaven help him, that was another fact that weighed in favor of the lady’s guilt: Every jot and tittle of gossip that Mama had been privy to by virtue of correspondence had doubtless passed before Lady Edith’s eyes.
“You don’t want her to be the guilty party,” Elsmore said, touching his hat brim to a pair of giggling shop girls. “You are an eminently logical man. Some evidence must be contradicting your own conclusion.”
“Must you flirt with every female and infant you pass, Elsmore?”
“I enjoy the company of females and infants. Right now, I don’t much enjoy your company, old man. Here’s a suggestion: Knock on Lady Edith’s door. Rap, rap.” He gestured in the air with a gloved fist. “Put the question to her: Are you writing the next installment of my ruin, or did I misconstrue the situation when I ever-so-rudely read your work without your permission?”
“She left it in plain sight.”
“And….?”
“And that is not the behavior of a guilty woman.” That conclusion bothered Thaddeus, because it gave him hope. He did not want to have hope, he wanted to have the whole situation behind him.
Mostly. “She also said she wanted to discuss the project with me. She was doubtless dissembling.”
“You saw evidence of three other projects in progress? Some poetry scribbled in draft? An epistolary adventure featuring a plucky governess, a leering viscount, and a runaway carriage or two? Maybe she’s working on a biography of King George?”
“I saw only the one work, but I didn’t exactly rifle her drawers.”
Elsmore twirled his walking stick. “Because I am your friend, and because the current arrangement of my features has become dear to my mother and sisters, I will not comment on that statement.”
“Lady Edith didn’t act guilty, and she didn’t display the sort of means that a popular book should have generated.”
“Oh dear.” Elsmore kicked a ball back to a knot of little boys across the square. “Facts in contradiction to your assumption. Whatever shall you do, Your Grace? Shall you fume and fret for another week? I think so. I think you don’t know what to do for once. Somebody should write a book about that. The Duke of Emory has been felled by Cupid’s arrow. His legendary sense has deserted him, and I, for one, am delighted.”
“You, for one, are obnoxious. What the hell am I do to? I can’t trust the woman and I can’t seem to find the resolve to threaten her with ruin.” Unless Thadd
eus wanted to risk writing to her ladyship, threatening her with ruin would mean seeing her again, and that…
He wanted to see her again, wanted her to protest her innocence, and he wanted to dunk his head in the nearest horse trough until his common sense returned. He also wanted to know that Edith was well, that she hadn’t been evicted from the drab little house on the tired little street.
“Emory, I have known you since you were a prosy little prig taking firsts in Latin without trying. What are you always telling me when I face a difficult choice?”
Thaddeus answered without thinking. “Good decisions are made based on good information.” Which pronouncement was no damned perishing help whatsoever.
“So consult with your Mama, chat up your uncles and aunties, have a word with your cousin Antigone, and a blunt talk with Lord Jeremiah. I find the elders and infantry are often more observant than I am, and they all know Lady Edith. They’ve all read the book, they all know you. Ask for their perspective, and you might learn something useful.”
Elsmore was awash in family, and he seemed to delight in the role of benevolent patriarch. He could kick a ball straight across the square because at family picnics, he doubtless played with his nephews. He made shop girls smile because his legion of lady cousins all relied on him to partner them on their expeditions to the milliner’s, and he had perfected the roles of favorite nephew and devoted cousin.
The varlet. “I suppose even your perspective might occasionally bear a passing resemblance to useful.”
“Talk to your mother, Emory. Don’t lecture her, humor her, or interrupt her. Talk to her.”
Must I? But yes, he must. A woman in a pink cloak hurried down the street at the side of the square, and Thaddeus nearly sprinted after her. The shade wasn’t quite ugly enough to be Lady Edith’s cloak, but London held a plethora of pink cloaks when a man never wanted to see one again.
Or when he dreamed about them every night.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Thaddeus said, “on the off chance that your suggestion has a scintilla of merit, I must consult with my mother.”
He would have parted from Elsmore on that note, but Elsmore’s hand on his arm stopped him. “If it’s any consolation, my mother and sisters adored Lady Edith. She’s either the best confidence trickster in Mayfair, or the instincts that prod you to exonerate her are to be trusted. I liked her, and while I am uniformly pleasant to all in my ambit, I don’t permit myself to actually like too many of the unattached ladies.”
Because a duke’s liking was easily misconstrued, and yet, Thaddeus liked Lady Edith too—or had liked her, and then much more than liked her.
“My thanks for your sage advice,” Thaddeus said. “Regards to your family.”
“Likewise.” Elsmore strode off in the direction of the squabbling boys, whom he would all doubtless treat to an ice. The damned man was a curious sort of duke, but he was a more than dear friend.
Thaddeus quit the square at a fast march, before another pink cloak or outlandish bonnet could distract him from his next challenge.
Chapter Seven
“A titled fool is Cupid’s favorite target.”
From How to Ruin a Duke, by Anonymous
“Mama, might I have a few minutes of your time?”
The duchess slowly put down her book as if a distant strain of music had caught her ear. “A moment, please.” She rose from her chaise and went to the window. “I see neither a falling sky nor winged swine, and yet, a miracle has occurred. His Grace of Emory is asking me for a moment of my time rather than the converse.”
She crossed the room to take Thaddeus’s hand and place it on her brow. “Am I feverish? Perhaps dementia is to strike me down at a tragically young age. Or maybe my hearing is failing. Tell me the truth, Emory. Did you or did you not just ask for a few minutes of my time?”
“I did, and the matter is of some import.”
She returned to her chaise and took up her book. “All of your matters are of some import—to you. If you’re thinking of offering for that hopeless Blessington girl, please spare me the discussion. She’ll make you miserable, and the only person in this household permitted to dabble in misery is myself.”
Thaddeus sat on the end of her couch. “Are you miserable?” He’d recently realized that one could be miserable amid abundance or one could be content with little. A few irises in a jar brought just as much joy as the two dozen roses purchased to bloom on Mama’s writing desk. The trick was to notice both, to appreciate them.
“No, I am not miserable,” Mama replied, smiling faintly. “Emory, are you well? This business with that dreadful book has affected your humors.”
“I am in good health, but troubled. Did you write How to Ruin a Duke, Mama?”
She turned a page. “I am in good health as well, thank you very much.” She kept up the pretense of reading for another half a minute. “No, I did not write that book. As far as I can tell, none of your uncles or aunts did either. Antigone hasn’t the self-discipline to write a whole volume, and Cousin Anstruther hasn’t the wit.”
“You’ve been trying to discover the author?”
A basilisk stare greeted the inquiry. “No, Thaddeus. I’ve been trying on bonnets all day while rumors abound that a sequel is to be published. When I tire of admiring my reflection, I ring for confits and tea to restore my strength. Self-absorption can be so taxing, don’t you think? You would know, after all.”
“I thought perhaps you wrote How to Ruin a Duke.” She had the self-discipline, the free time, and the acerbic wit.
She set her book aside again. “You think that I…? I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. The person who should have written that book is your late father. He meant well, but his notions of how to bring up his son and heir were sadly lacking. Do you know, I wish at least some of the incidents in that blasted book were true.”
“They were all true, up to a point, and then the author took liberties with the facts.”
“Doom to any who take liberties with the facts, of course, which suggests the author knew you well enough to know how intolerable you find even everyday falsehoods. Whom do you suspect, Thaddeus?”
She almost never used his given name, but then, they almost never talked. They chatted, they quarreled, they exchanged a few comments over breakfast, and yet clearly, Mama was—in her way—an ally.
Good to know.
“I suspect everybody and nobody in particular, but I have wondered if Lady Edith Charbonneau would have a reason to wish me ill.”
Mama drew her feet up and wrapped her arms about her knees. “Lady Edith? I cannot think her capable of such malice. She is a truly kind woman. I should know for I tried her patience to the utmost. If she were to write a book excoriating any member of this family, she would go after Jeremiah.”
To Thaddeus’s consternation, Mama was in complete earnest. “Jeremiah? He’s the only member of the family to claim a surfeit of charm.” Thaddeus tried to dredge up any mentions made of Jeremiah in his discussions with Lady Edith, and… nothing of any substance came to mind. They’d talked of Mama, Antigone, Cousin Anstruther, but—significantly—not about Jeremiah except in passing.
“Jeremiah exerts himself to be charming when he wants something, Emory. Have you ever noticed that he offers to take me driving toward the end of the fortnight even when it’s not his turn? He uses the public outing to press me for advances on his allowance. He knows I will not quarrel with him in the middle of the carriage parade, just as I know he will never pay me back.”
Thaddeus got up to pace. “He could not have borrowed money from Lady Edith. She hasn’t any, and her wages weren’t that generous.” Though if Jeremiah had borrowed money from her and not paid the loan back, would that justify a grudge serious enough to result in a slanderous book?
Mama watched him, her expression putting Thaddeus in mind of a cat about to swipe a paw across the nose of an annoying kitten. “Do you truly believe I have employed three different companio
ns in the past five years because my sour nature alone defeats them?”
Thaddeus had thought that very thing. “Lady Edith, at least, left without having another post to go to. Something or somebody made the situation here intolerable, and thus I’ve speculated that she has a motive to write a nasty book.”
Mama swung her legs over the side of the chaise and slipped her feet into a pair of embroidered house mules. “I wasn’t aware that Lady Edith hadn’t located another post.”
“Not as of last week. She’s attempting to make a living writing domestic advice, but I gather she hasn’t found a publisher yet.”
Mama stared at her slippers. “I have wondered whether you were aware of the problem Jeremiah poses. I am finally ready to let you send him to India, Emory. He should have known better than to bother Edith. She is a true lady, and if she’d condemned him publicly, she would have been believed.”
Thaddeus felt again the queasy, disoriented dread he’d experienced in Lady Edith’s parlor. “You are saying that Jeremiah—my brother—bothered a woman in the family’s employ? He pressed his attentions upon her ladyship uninvited?”
“He’s not you, Thaddeus, to observe all the courtesies and protocols. I fear the boy takes after me rather too much.”
“You would never inveigle a footman into improprieties, Mama. You are sure Jeremiah forgot himself with Lady Edith?” Thaddeus wanted this flight to be one of Mama’s attempts at humor, a mistake, anything but the truth. And yet… the facts, the damnable, inescapable facts, supported Mama’s conclusion.
“Edith left to avoid Jeremiah’s advances.” Mama rose. “She did not come right out and say that. She hinted, I ignored her hints. The previous two companions had come to me with similar tales. I thought one or two women misconstruing Jeremiah’s friendliness was possible, but when Edith… She didn’t want more money, she didn’t want to become the object of unkind talk, she didn’t want anything but the wages due her and a decent character. I gave her both.”
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