“Three women, Mama? He’s behaved abominably with three women and I’m only learning of it now? Are the maids safe?”
“The housekeeper knows to assign them in pairs. They are safe. It’s as if Jeremiah is jealous of my companions because I have a playmate and he does not. He also thought strutting around in your shoes with those damned charities would be a great lark, but he’s learned otherwise. No organization is more inefficient or pompous than an eleemosynary guild devoted to flowers, unless it’s the Charitable Committee for the—”
Thaddeus held up a hand. “Please do not attempt to change the subject. I can barely credit that my brother has betrayed the one ironclad rule of gentlemanly deportment and imposed his attentions on women drawing wages under this very roof.”
Mama set her book on the mantel. “He’s a spoiled brat, Emory. I know because I am too. You have escaped our fate, which makes me wroth that you have been the butt of that awful book. You have given no one cause to treat you thus—and certainly Lady Edith would not have done so—but then, London is full of spoiled brats, isn’t it?”
Thaddeus was torn between the compulsion to find Lady Edith and apologize to her on bended knee—on his damned hands and knees if necessary—and the urgent need to beat Jeremiah senseless.
“You’re truly willing to let me buy Jeremiah a commission?” Thaddeus asked.
“I had hoped to keep him safe, but when it comes down to it, my companions aren’t safe when he’s underfoot. He runs with a naughty crowd, his gambling debts have to be considerable, and he’s not maturing as he should.”
Jeremiah had gambling debts—substantial gambling debts—and proceeds from the sales of a popular book would help pay them off.
Jeremiah ran with a crowd of inebriated idlers who challenged each other with the most ridiculous and dangerous wagers.
“Jeremiah was involved in every embarrassing, inane incident portrayed in How to Ruin a Duke, Mama. Most of them I undertook to spare him a lost wager, a dangerous prank, or a stupid duel. I suspect my own brother is literally the author of my present difficulties.”
“Don’t kill him,” Mama said. “If anybody is to wring his wretched neck it should be me, but Thaddeus?”
He stopped halfway to the door. “I’ll do better, Mama. I will take you driving when you don’t ask it of me, I will inquire after your health. I will find you another companion who—”
She patted his chest. “Stop. If you turn up doting on me now, I will disown you. About Lady Edith?”
The Lady Edith who was entirely innocent of wrongdoing? “Yes?”
“She fancied you. She was discreet about it, she never said a word, but she knew when you’d come home at night from the way the front door closed. She learned how you take your tea. She knows you cannot be trusted around Italian cream cake.”
“Neither can she.”
“Well there you have it. You’d never want for something to bicker over if you married her.”
“Married her?”
“She’s an earl’s daughter, you fancied her too, and Jeremiah will have to remain in the army for at least several years before he can sell his commission. Now go pummel your brother.”
She kissed his cheek and shoved him on the arm.
“Mama, I can for once promise that your wish will be my command.” He stalked from the room, though—drat the damned luck—the butler reported that Jeremiah was out, and had not said when to expect him home.
“Edie, why didn’t you tell me you’d gone to the agencies again?” Foster’s question was more hurt than chiding, though he’d waited until the maid of all work had withdrawn from the breakfast parlor to pose it.
“Because I’ve been to the agencies many times. I did not expect a post to become available.” Except that this time, Edith had told the sniffy little clerk that she was willing to accept a position anywhere in Britain except London. She’d had three choices within a matter of days.
“You’ll come back to see my opening night won’t you?” Foster asked, setting the teapot near her elbow.
“I made that a condition of accepting the offer. Manchester isn’t so very far away.”
“Manchester is more than 200 miles on bad roads, Edie. You couldn’t find anything closer?”
Both of the other positions had been closer. “The household in Manchester will suit me. I won’t have to face polite society again, and you can’t know what a relief that will be.”
Every tall man striding along the walk in a top hat and morning attire gave Edith a start, and she’d bid Emory farewell nearly ten days ago.
Foster poured her a third cup of tea—luxury upon luxury—and sat back. “You don’t have to face polite society here either. I only mentioned working at the theater because I love being there, and I thought you liked having your own money. You could do more writing, which you seem to delight in, and I wouldn’t have to fret that you’re perishing of cold and overwork in the north.”
“I won’t perish.” If watching Emory march away, and not hearing from him at all, not even the obligatory anonymous bouquet, hadn’t felled her, nothing would.
“You won’t flourish either. Anybody who can sit at that writing desk for more than a week straight, scribbling away hour after hour, has a vocation not to be ignored. Your book is quite witty and deserves to be published.”
How many times in recent months had Edith longed for even a second cup of tea? She was on her third of the morning, and it did nothing to comfort the hollow ache she’d carried for days.
“If the book has promise, that’s because I had months to study my subject.” And she’d have the rest of her life to wonder what had sent him out the door in such an odd mood. “Emory is the soul of decency, of that I have no doubt.” Perhaps he’d had bad experiences with women before, women who clung and tried to extort promises from him.
No matter. He was gone and he wasn’t coming back.
“But you aren’t even attempting to find a publisher,” Foster said. “The past six months have taken a toll on you. The Edie who all but raised me would be waving that manuscript under the noses of every publisher in Town, and why you won’t allow me to make inquiries on your behalf utterly defeats my—”
“Please, Foster. You’ll be late for rehearsal.” She’d written that manuscript out of a need to exorcise a broken heart, or perhaps to justify her decision to become intimate with Emory. He was a good man, a bit stern, a bit imposing, but good. The way he’d left her, nary a word of explanation, wasn’t in keeping with his character.
The other duke, the How to Ruin a Duke fellow, he would have availed himself of a lady’s favors and then dodged off to his clubs to brag of his exploits.
“I’m away then,” Foster said, rising. “I wish you’d reconsider leaving London—and me. I will miss you desperately.” He kissed her cheek and bustled off to a job that was making him happier by the day.
“You will miss me for about twenty minutes,” Edith said to the empty room.
This house was in a much nicer neighborhood than the last, and while it was tiny, it was also sturdy, spotless, and situated on a quiet street. The back garden was half in sun and half in shade, but nobody had thought to plant flowers there.
Edith finished her tea and retrieved her new cloak—dark blue—then went around to the mews in the alley and borrowed a bucket and trowel. As she traveled the several streets to her previous abode, she realized that walking unaccompanied no longer bothered her. To go back to the polite fiction that a lady needed an escort at all times would be like donning a corset that laced too snugly, and she wasn’t looking forward to it.
Perhaps Manchester would be different. For a certainty, it was rumored to be dirtier than London, which simply did not seem possible. Edith turned onto her former street and fished in her pocket for a coin. James, the lad who aspired to become a crossing sweeper, was idling as usual beneath a lamp post.
“How fare you today, young James?”
“Miss Edith! I thought you�
��d piked off.”
She dropped the coin into his grimy little mitt. “My brother and I have moved. I’m back to dig up some of the irises so he’ll have a few flowers at the new house. When I’m through, you should pick a bouquet to sell to passersby.”
The coin disappeared into a pocket. “I can sell your flowers?”
“You’ll likely have more luck if you offer them at a spot with plenty of foot traffic. Oxford Road, for example. Pick a bunch and sell them, then pick another bunch tomorrow. Offer them to people dressed well enough to spare a coin for a flower.” To devise that scheme would have been beyond her six months ago.
“I like flowers,” James said, falling in step beside her. “They smell pretty, like you.”
“Flatterer. Bring a few to your mother too. The flowers should not go to waste, and they only bloom for a short time. The new tenant won’t move in until the end of the month, and by then the irises will be fading.”
James skipped along at her side and chattered about everything from the Mad King to his friend Cora the mudlark. In no time, Edith had a bucketful of muddy roots and green foliage.
“If I sell all of these, I’ll be rich!” James said, burying his nose amid his bouquet.
“You will have a few coppers,” Edith replied. “Save them for when your mama has nothing to spend at market, and she will thank you for it.”
He accompanied her halfway back to her new abode, choosing a busy intersection for his commercial venture.
“Thanks, Miss Edith. Mama will thank you too.”
Miss Edith. Being Miss Edith as opposed to Lady Edith wasn’t so bad. Lady Edith could not have set this boy on the path to earning money. She would not have carried a muddy bucket down a London street just to ensure her brother had something to remember her by.
And—this thought pounced, like an unseen cat springing from the undergrowth—Miss Edith would not have surrendered her post because a philandering numbskull of a courtesy lord had caught her on the backstairs.
James separated a half dozen stems from the armful he’d been carrying. “You should have these, Miss.”
“That is very kind of you, James.” Edith took two flowers and added them to her bucket. “Good luck with your venture.”
“That fancy cove came back around, you know. The tall gent with the fancy walking stick.” James had the grace to say this quietly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The man with the expensive coat.” James took a half dozen steps along the walkway at a purposeful march, shoulders angled slightly forward. “All business, that one. He paid a call or two on you before you moved. He came around yesterday and the day before and fair pounded the door down. I told him you’d moved. He gave me tuppence and told me to take a bath. Be he daft?”
“My caller came by again?”
“Twice. He’s not friendly. I still have the tuppence and I don’t have to take a bath until Saturday.”
All manner of emotions welled at James’s news. Pleasure, consternation, curiosity, and not a little anger. What sort of lover waits more than a week to stroll by again? Why not send a note? A letter, a bouquet? A little farewell message? Anything?
“Thank you for telling me this, James. It matters.” Though just how it mattered, Edith did not know.
“If he comes around again, do I give him your direction?”
A young fellow walking a large dog hovered nearby, apparently intent on purchasing flowers.
“No need for that, James. I’m off to Manchester in a few days. I believe your first customer awaits.”
She left James transacting business with all the aplomb of London’s premier flower nabob, and was soon in her new back yard, tucking iris roots into rich, warm soil. She watered the plants sparingly—irises could rot if overcome with damp—and considered the rest of her day.
She knew now how Emory had felt about discovering the author of How to Ruin a Duke. He’d been beyond curious, he’d had to know exactly who and what had brought him low. Finding that answer had become a quest for him.
Edith had spent more than a week focusing on memories of her time with the ducal family. She’d gone through the nasty book page by page—thank heavens a friend had been able to borrow the bound version for her from the lending library—she’d considered each incident in detail. She had a very good idea exactly who had penned those lies, and before she left London, she would share her suspicions with Emory.
And then—after conveying to His Perishing Grace a few other sentiments—she would get an explanation from him as to why he’d come back to call on her, and why he’d been least-in-sight for more than a week before he’d done so.
Jeremiah, with suspiciously convenient timing, had chosen to drop out of sight for a few days just when Thaddeus urgently needed to pummel him. His lordship occasionally did this, sometimes to indulge in a marathon card game, sometimes to make a madcap dash to Brighton with friends.
Thaddeus suspected Jeremiah also disappeared periodically to provoke Mama to worrying and to avoid creditors.
Thaddeus’s temper had not cooled in the slightest during Jeremiah’s absence, but he had put the time to good use nonetheless.
“You will excuse us,” Thaddeus said to Jeremiah’s valet, as his lordship snored away the morning, naked to the knees amid snowy sheets and satin pillows.
“Of course, Your Grace. Found Himself on the stairs at cockcrow. He’s likely to wake with a devil of a head.”
And that will be the least of his worries. “Splendid. As of next week, his lordship will no longer need your services. Your wages will continue until we can find you a new post. You will have a glowing character and some severance as well.”
The man wrinkled his nose. “You needn’t pay me severance, Your Grace. I was preparing to give notice. I know the young gents are full of high spirits, but that one…” The valet shook his head. “I’ll not speak ill of my betters. You need not worry on that score.” He picked up the muddy boots at the foot of Jeremiah’s bed and departed.
Thaddeus’s gaze landed on a razor strop hanging on a paneled privacy screen in the corner of the room. He opened the bedroom curtains wide, took up the strop and delivered a glancing blow to his lordship’s backside.
“A valet has more honor than my heir.”
Jeremiah stirred. “Go away, darling. I’m not in the mood to play anymore.”
Thaddeus brought the razor strop down again, not as gently. “Get out of that bed. Now.”
Jeremiah rolled over and propped himself on his elbows. “What the devil? Emory, what on earth are you about?”
“Why did you do it, Jeremiah?”
Jeremiah eyed the strop. He sat up and scratched his chest, his hair a greasy mess, his eyes rimmed with shadows. “Had a bit of an orgy as best I recall. If you’ll send my valet—”
Thaddeus flung a dressing gown at him. “I asked you a question, and unless you want a private reading of How to Beat the Hell Out of a Courtesy Lord, you will answer honestly.”
Jeremiah shrugged into the dressing gown and rose to belt it around his middle. “Why’d I dash off that bit of tattle everybody finds so amusing?” His air was defiant, though he was keeping an eye on the length of leather in Thaddeus’s hands.
“Why did you try to disgrace a brother who’s never been anything but decent to you?”
He yawned and stretched, not a care in the world. “One of the fellows said it couldn’t be done. Said nobody could tarnish the reputation of His Grace of Emory, and I took the bet.”
“Why?”
“Because I am bloody bored waiting for you to find a duchess? Because I could? Because I didn’t want to beg you for more coin or scarper on my debts of honor?”
Thaddeus hung the strop back on its hook, lest he lay into his brother for the sin of sheer stupidity. “Instead you pester Mama for coin, just as you pestered her companions for favors. Not the done thing, Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah poured himself a glass of brandy from a decanter on his clo
thes press. “A little harmless flirtation never hurt anybody. You might know that if you’d ever given it a try.”
Thaddeus threw a heeled dancing slipper at him, which caused the brandy to slosh over Jeremiah’s chest.
“I well know,” Thaddeus said, “the difference between private dealings undertaken by consenting adults, and the unwelcome advances you visited upon those women.”
Jeremiah tossed back half of his drink—on an empty stomach at mid-day. “If it’s any consolation, the average companion apparently knows how to use her knee to excellent advantage. Lady Edith damned near gave me a shiner to go with my bruised jewels. With respect to the book, you needn’t cut up so. I hadn’t planned on writing more than the one volume, but needs must when a fellow likes the occasional wager. The second book—”
“Was tossed on the fire in the library two days ago because your arrogant lordship left the manuscript sitting in plain sight on your desk. You face a choice. Slink out the back door of this house with the clothes on your back after you’ve apologized to Mama, or report to Horse Guards three days from now, which three days you will spend selling your worldly goods to pay any debts you still owe.
“If you choose the military,” Thaddeus went on, “you will have a commission as a lieutenant in the infantry, and you will take ship for India or Canada, I care not which. You are unwelcome in this house until you prove you deserve the honor of association with your own family.”
Jeremiah set down his drink and scrubbed a hand through this hair. “A lieutenancy? I should be at least a major.”
“Keep talking, and you will be a vagrant. What’s it to be? The dubious charity of your drinking companions or that life of adventure you always claimed you wanted, no protections, no social consequence, nothing between you and misfortune but blind luck and the kindness of strangers. Surely that will make an exciting tale—assuming you survive the living of it.”
Jeremiah had gone even paler than he’d been upon climbing from the bed. “Mama won’t like this, Emory. You don’t want her misery on your conscience. Allow me to spare you that fate. I’ll spend the rest of the year at the family seat, no bother to anybody. I can even pen a retraction of the more creative incidents conveyed in How to Ruin a Duke. Every peer will commiserate with you, and all will come right. I’ll get to work on it straightaway, and you can print my letter of apology in the Times.”
How to Ruin a Duke: A Novella Duet Page 24
