God, but he had been a coward.
“Then say it, now.”
“My steward is a man of genius. He has been to Whitwell in my stead, and its prospects are still very good. I thought, and he believed, that it was possible my brother had been siphoning off its income. We are both most pleased to be wrong. What is more,” Lee said, clearing his throat before he finished, “Clyde—the steward—did his part in shielding Whitwell. I shall be fine. We shall be fine.”
“Truly?” said Teddie.
She sounded happy, but dazed.
Lee understood fully. “Truly, my love. But I wish for your help in making everything as it should be.”
His tenants would need reassuring, or perhaps they would not—if they had not realized how their duke was behaving, then that was a good thing. Either way, he wanted to facilitate a world in which he and Teddie saw to their collective affairs together, and he had little doubt that she would be an asset when it came to dealing with the people to whom he was responsible.
In addition, there was running the day-to-day household and any of the houses that they would visit. He had little knowledge of how to do any of it, and what he did remember was frightfully rusty. But he suspected that Teddie would find she was adept at all of it.
“If you trust me, then I shall gladly contribute in any way I can,” she murmured, her pleasure evident in the way her cheek dimpled into a half-smile.
“What good news!” said Emma. “Did this Mr. Clyde know how poorly matters had become?”
“He suspected,” Lee told her. “Thomas was devious, so the extent of his irresponsibility wasn’t plain until after his death.” He switched his attention to Teddie, again, who watched him mutely. “I felt horrible even as I asked you if you’d ever been to the theater. I knew what I was doing, but please do not think I wished to manipulate you for my own satisfaction.”
Even though that day was not so long ago, he felt like years had passed since then. She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it.
But she hadn’t relinquished his hand, which was encouraging.
“No, I understand you would not, and were not.”
“Even in light of that, I am incredibly ashamed of how I acted. What I withheld.”
“Thank you,” said Teddie. “I daresay you felt cornered.”
“I was overwhelmed,” he replied plainly, “and still, that is no reason for me to have been so spineless.”
“Why did you kiss me in the Sutherlands’ garden?”
He smiled out of affection and some surprise at her frankness. “Well.”
Emma concealed a laugh.
“When I heard those… that couple… speaking about you—for who else could it have been?—I looked at you. There was such dismay on your face that I wished to alleviate it. Kissing seemed most appropriate.”
The instinct to do it had been so unescapable. He thought of her in that dim, nighttime light and concluded that he’d, indeed, done the right thing. There’d been no pragmatic need, no true logical reason. All the same, it was not a deed he regretted, even if it was not the action of a gentleman.
“And expedient,” Teddie said.
“You allowed it,” interpolated Emma.
Teddie colored crimson and smiled. “Well, be that as it may…” she glanced at Lee. “You’d best not make a habit of kissing strange young women in gardens, or your future wife will have something to say about it. She may even resort to her fists. I cannot promise your safety in such a case.”
“Miss Driffield, if my wife is given cause to seek such recourse, I shall not hold it against her. I shall stand quietly and allow myself to be thrashed.”
I’m no gentleman, Lee thought. Not in the way Thomas and Father were.
But he was the happiest duke in London, and that meant the world.
Epilogue
August 1814
London, England
When Teddie saw the drawing room full of characters she might never have dreamed of meeting in her entire life, she thought, I don’t think any highborn lady would have been able to stomach this.
But she could.
Luckily, she was quite good with names, and these were only two of the people Paul had hunted down for her.
In the corner, studying a framed map of Oxford that had belonged to one of Emilian’s grandfathers, there was Wee Sue. The bird-boned woman who stood almost a head under Teddie and had hair that was—were it possible—more distracting. Though Teddie no longer wished to change her own appearance to avoid unwanted attention, one day, she was going to ask how Wee Sue managed the change. It was obvious from the inch of natural, dark growth near the crown of her head that she colored it.
However she managed, it was probably slightly dangerous.
Slim, the older man who had been the easiest to locate for this adventure, sat on a sofa that barely accommodated his frame. Teddie didn’t know his real name.
She was assured that very few people did, and if they did, it might not have been correct. Though affable and intelligent, Slim had an undertone of no-nonsense steel that made Teddie leery of offending him. He did not scare her, precisely, but he did not project the air of someone who brooked fools. Or anyone who might pry into his business.
“Right,” she said, “He should be returning any moment. I don’t think he can see anyone through these windows at this time of day, so we should be safe.”
“Paul—Lord Paul—won’t let the surprise come to naught,” Wee Sue said.
“I think you’re right,” Teddie replied.
Still, she glanced out of the window, seeing nothing but the empty road.
There was an interesting collision of high and low, decorous and informal, in the proceedings. Emilian’s friends from his days as Judd were not awkward, precisely. But they, along with Teddie, were trying to figure out the best manner of joining his identities.
Teddie assumed the whole of London knew that she was a little unconventional.
It certainly was aware that her come out had been fraught with little frictions between her and at least several men.
It also knew that her husband, the Duke of Welburn, kept company with Lord Paul Hareden, brother of the so-called Duke of Disgrace.
Really, he was the Duke of Bowland, but the nasty moniker—or was it the pitying moniker?—had grown pervasive.
And why, society seemed to wonder, had Lord Valencourt really been a soldier? He certainly did not seem to talk about it much, not that anyone could hear him well when he talked at all.
Because she seemed to be at the center of little dramas that everyone found fascinating, Teddie was not bothered by the muddle of worlds in her home. No, she thought it was invigorating. Still, there was a little learning period for everybody here. They’d all been taught such rigid things about the proper order of people.
That, she thought, won’t disappear overnight. But they were making progress, not that there had been many of these meetings. Just two, and this was the second one. It was hard to find swathes of time in which Emilian was occupied enough that he was not in the townhouse for a few hours.
Around a month before his birthday, she’d had an idea.
They’d been married for just under a year. And according to Mr. Clyde, things were gradually returning to normal levels of stability, or the way they’d been when Emilian’s father was the duke. Teddie vividly remembered when he’d told them—Emilian looked so calmed that she feared he might cry with relief. He didn’t, but he’d hugged her for a long time afterward when they were alone, and the lowering sun was casting the bedroom into shadows and gold.
What was more, Mr. Quinn, the man of business hired on by the duke with the steward’s advice, transpired to be stupendous. With his expertise, investments were actually turning a profit. Although, Teddie would not flatter herself into thinking she understood how much of that truly worked. She was clever, but humble enough to admit that whenever she overheard Mr. Quinn meeting with either Clyde or Emilian, she comprehended few of t
he minute particulars.
Regardless, she gathered that life was flourishing, bit by bit.
Teddie wanted to do something to mark the occasion of Emilian’s birth. He wasn’t a child, but she suspected that he’d had very few celebrations even when he was still a boy. So, she conspired with Paul to do something she believed her husband would truly appreciate. Between the two of them, it was decided that Teddie would become a patroness of the arts—specifically, Slim’s theater. She could always do more later when their finances were fully restored and, indeed, she wanted to.
But she reasoned that the first venture into being a patroness should be symbolically meaningful. There was no better way to do it.
True to his word that he did not want to draw from what she brought to the marriage, Teddie still had the oversight of many of her own resources. She knew how all of them were being used. Under the law, everything technically belonged to Emilian, as did she. But he was adamant that she should manage things as she saw fit. Of course, she had helped as much as he’d allowed, but he was a good man. An unusual one, as it transpired. He did not misuse her for her resources.
All anyone outside of them knew was that the new Duke of Welburn was a far different duke than his brother had been. Lively, genteel, and warmhearted. Just as likely to help someone as he was to smile, even if it was the slightly melancholy expression of someone who’d had very little reason to smile until recently. His wife was something of a firebrand, but she was kind and didn’t suffer pettiness, as the few ladies—and gentlemen—who tried to needle the duke immediately found out.
Well, his firebrand of a wife, with the help of his rakish friend, managed to invite a company manager and an actress for a birthday gathering.
Teddie couldn’t wait to explain to him what was going on.
Slim said, sizing her up the way one might evaluate a confusing equation, “You aren’t the usual society lady, are you?”
If Wee Sue was more deferential to her than Slim, it was probably only because she was a woman who was used to other women cutting her down.
Slim was not especially rude and he was most grateful for the funding, but she sensed that he was trying to figure things out. He had a direct way of speaking and maintained a fierce protectiveness toward his assets. It took Paul a lot of coaxing to get him to accept the proposition. Even though he indubitably trusted Emilian, his wife was another matter. A new, unknown entity. Teddie could appreciate that he was testing the new waters, even though he had already been furnished with partial funding.
She did not take it too personally that he was still a little skeptical. He was here, now, after all. If there really was a problem, he would not have agreed to be here when she delivered the news.
“I’m only really part of society by my father’s efforts and my own marriage,” she reminded him affably. “Even then, I think you would find many who might protest the idea that I am. To be frank, I do not think they wish to claim me, and I do not wish to claim any similarities with them.”
Lady Olivia certainly did not accept her even to this day. Why, to think of the look on her face when Teddie and Emilian were announced at a ball as the Duke and Duchess of Welburn—it looked as though she’d just ingested pure lemon juice. Teddie was not under any false hope that her new title won her the respect of all. If it did, she took it as purely nominal until proven otherwise. She would much rather be here in her husband’s townhouse with these individuals who were supposedly beneath her station, than at the biggest and most important society event of the season.
Wee Sue grinned, and Slim cracked a small smile.
A movement outside caught Teddie’s eyes. It was the carriage. She flapped a hand behind herself, motioning toward her guests.
“Oh, this will be them.”
Slim sat up straight. Wee Sue took a chair opposite the fireplace.
Mason must have been watching the approach, too, for he entered the room and informed Teddie, “Cook has seen to everything, Your Grace.”
“Thank you, Mason.”
She was thankful. Mason had supplied Teddie with the scheduling details she’d needed to successfully schedule these meetings. He’d been invaluable, for without him, she would not have known all the minutiae of Emilian’s comings and goings. She could have asked directly, but it might have aroused suspicion.
As she watched him walk off, she wondered if he had ever pondered taking the stage, himself. Perhaps as Othello. He had the bearing and the knack for memory that she supposed one would need to learn lines. But of course he had not—it wasn’t terribly proper, was it? Not generally the kind of thing that most parents encouraged their children to do and, therefore, not usually an occupation that many considered.
Nonsense, thought Teddie, as she looked at Emilian’s two old friends and peers.
The front door opened.
“Well, if you ask me,” Paul said, “I don’t think it’s worth it to expect Wenwood to budge on—”
“It’s just a preference on food. He can’t expect that everyone in the same room as him will abstain from all fish so long as he is present! At White’s?” Emilian laughed. “Simply because he does not like the smell? Come, it isn’t a life or death matter, the scent of fish. And fish is a large part of suppers. Meals in general.”
She had to strain to hear his words, but the mirth in them was palpable.
Teddie traded a look with Slim, who caught her eyes and seemed nonplussed. “Fish?” he mouthed. She shrugged.
They were all still for the time it took Clements to divest the men of their hats and coats. Wee Sue looked to be holding her breath.
“Yes, well,” said Paul. “But he did nearly vomit. How undignified. My family has known him for an age, and I’ve never seen him so overset.”
“Then I think he had too much to drink the night before.”
“At his age?”
“I don’t know his habits—possibly!”
“I hope that when I reach my middling years, I am not so careless. If he really had been drinking, that is,” said Paul.
Their voices were drawing closer, making Emilian’s easier to trace. Paul’s was lively, but Teddie would not have guessed from it alone that he was concealing a secret.
Emilian walked in and toward the decanters of various spirits.
“Speaking of, would you care for a drink? It’s nearly my birthday, after all.”
From behind him, Paul said, “As though you ever needed that excuse.”
“Says you.”
He was on such a usual, thoughtless path that he did not register any of them at first.
When he did, he stopped just at the tips of Teddie’s shoes. He looked first at her, then Slim, then finally Wee Sue, and his expression was one of complete incredulity.
*
You have finally gone mad, Lee thought.
His life had become too good and his mind finally rejected it. He’d expected Teddie to be at home, somewhere, but if anyone had told him that his drawing room would be populated with Slim—who seemed to be straining the sofa on which he sat—and Wee Sue, as well as his wife, he would have laughed at the suggestion.
He didn’t believe it was possible for the worlds he drifted in and out of to be joined and he had made his peace with their separation. It was for the best, he told himself. It would not do to be dreaming of his past with one boot in his future. The future was not grim and the past was through. If he always yearned for days that he’d left behind, he would do Teddie a disservice. Only a foolish man dwelled on the way things used to be.
“Dearest,” he said, finding the ability to speak, “what have you done?”
He was not disgusted, or affronted—these were, after all, two people who had almost always known of his status in the old days. It was not as though Teddie had somehow invited an entire troupe and a few fire-dancers to tea. He trusted her loyalty and discretion. The confusion came from not knowing why.
How was quite clear.
Paul, who’d arrived a
t his side, was smugger than a kitten who’d settled in a warm place near a midwinter fireside.
“Hello, all,” he said, cheerily.
Teddie said, “I thought it would be… they are here for… tea. On account of… your… birthday.”
He frowned with perplexity, trying to work this all out. She was not normally circumspect, and while it was clear that Paul had done some work in bringing these disparate individuals together, he could make no guess as to why they’d gathered. His birthday, nominally. But Slim was not the sort to socialize gratuitously, and if he did, it was with a bottle of something in hand.
The sight of him in a refined drawing room was transfixing due to its implausibility.
True, the drawing room had not looked this immaculate until last month, which was when he’d finally had the funds required to look after it. How that lack had incensed him—he wanted the best for his duchess, who was constantly the voice of reason when it came to expenditures. She did not even want to redecorate out of her own purse.
They’d replaced what Thomas had sold off or had had carted off. But other than that, Teddie had not been terribly interested in changing all to her liking.
All in good time, he supposed. Perhaps Teddie did not know what she preferred. The thought struck him as ludicrous, for she was always ready to tell him how she felt about everything else.
Anyway, he’d given up on enticing her to refurbish.
“I see.”
“You don’t,” was her smiling rejoinder. “But you will.”
“Oh?” Of all of them, he knew Wee Sue was most likely to break. He turned to her. She did look eager, and experience taught him how vociferous she was when she was taken by something. “Sue, what’s afoot?”
She looked at Teddie with glee, then shook her head. “Not for me to tell, is it? Not with your lady wife present.”
Slim smirked and resettled himself on the poor sofa. It was not new, and it was probably not up to the weight. It only looked the part. They’d had it reupholstered. He wagered it was being put to the test under Slim.
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