He laughed, then sobered. “I don’t want a wife at all at the moment, but when I do, I want one who isn’t perfect. Who has a few flaws. And a mind as well. I can’t imagine anything more deadly than spending the rest of my days with a woman who does nothing but agree with me.” He paused for a moment, then raised his head and grinned. “No. Let me amend that. I can’t imagine anything more deadly than spending the rest of my days with one woman and one woman alone.”
“And yet many men do,” Maddy said in a dry tone.
“Saints, Maddy.” He sat upright in his chair. “Each and every one. Most especially your husband.” He shook his head. “I’ve lived with you. I know how difficult you can be.”
“However, I am not the problem, am I?” She smiled in an overly pleasant manner.
“No.” He sighed. “I am. It’s bloody awkward to be the problem and know it.”
He fell silent for a long moment. Maddy was right, of course; his father was not a fool. He wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the family’s future. If his father thought Nigel could take on this challenge, no doubt Nigel could. Regardless, for the first time in his life he found himself questioning his father’s judgment. Admittedly that was perhaps more an indication of his own lack of confidence than a lack of faith in his father’s competency. Still, acknowledging the problem did nothing to solve it.
It was time, he supposed. Maddy was right about that too. Better now when he had his father’s guidance than upon his death. Besides, just as Maddy had had no real choice as to her ultimate lot in life, neither did he.
He blew a resigned breath. “I’d best get on with it then, hadn’t I?”
Maddy studied him with obvious suspicion. “Get on with what?”
“All of it.” He shrugged. “Taking over for Father. Fulfilling my destiny, my fate as it were.”
“Ah yes, your fate,” Maddy said brightly. “One cannot fight fate. And I should think fate would include a wife.”
“No. Eventually but not yet.” He shook his head. “I am not about to take on yet another responsibility. I shall spend the time before our birthday familiarizing myself with the family interests as Father requested. But I fully intend as well to live these next six weeks as if they were my last. Which in many respects”—he grimaced—“they are.”
“And no doubt you shall have a grand time.” She leaned forward and patted his arm. “And speaking of grand times, you haven’t forgotten that my party is the week after next, have you?”
“The party you used to give in celebration of our birthday until you decided you no longer wished to mark another year publicly?”
She ignored the sarcasm in his tone. “The very one.”
He bit back a grin. “I would never forget about one of your parties. Especially the one which does not recognize that another year has passed.”
“I can count on your presence then? You will be here?”
“I wouldn’t miss it. Will it be as small and intimate as usual?” It was difficult to ask the question with a straight face. Maddy didn’t know the meaning of small and intimate when it came to parties. In that she took after their mother.
“Smaller. Only fifty or sixty of our closest friends.” She wrinkled her nose. “When one is firmly ensconced in one’s fortieth decade one tends to trim one’s entertaining.”
“Fortieth?” He laughed. “That would make us four hundred years old. You meant fourth.”
“Fourth, fortieth, it scarcely matters.” She waved away the comment. “When one approaches a birthday, any birthday, one becomes conscious of how very quickly time passes. How fleeting life truly is.”
He stared at his sister. “That’s remarkably philosophical of you. What has brought this on?”
“I suppose Father’s decision, his figurative passing of the torch, has made me realize he will not be with us forever. Nor will Mother.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Nigel said quietly and grimaced to himself. He’d been so occupied with his own concerns, he hadn’t for a moment stopped to realize that even as healthy as his parents appeared, there would come a day when they were no longer here. A day that grew inevitably nearer with every passing year.
“I should think Father’s dearest wish would be to see you settled.”
He nodded. “As head of the family.”
“With a wife and children of your own,” she said firmly.
“And it’s a wish I shall fulfill.” He grinned. “Someday.”
Maddy huffed with exasperation. “You are so annoying.”
“One does what one can.” He smiled in a pleasant manner and changed the topic. “Now then, are your plans for the party in order? Do you need my assistance in any way?”
“Your assistance.” She scoffed. “What assistance could you lend?”
“None whatsoever.” He shrugged. “I just thought I’d offer. I do like to be of help, you know.”
“In that, brother dear”—she smiled slowly—“we remain very much alike.”
Five
What a woman really wants is a husband.
Preferably one who is easily trained.
Eugenia, Lady Kilbourne
Lady Felicity strolled along the garden path looking not unlike a blossom herself, a virtual flower of femininity in a color Nigel suspected was peach although he wasn’t entirely sure and didn’t particularly care. A ripe peach. The thought popped into his head and he immediately banished it. If he started thinking of her as a ripe peach, who knew what would happen next. He’d always been fond of peaches.
Nigel smoothly stepped to her side. “I have begun to suspect in recent days”—he peered under her fringed parasol—“that you are following me,” he said with all the charm he could muster although he was, in truth, somewhat annoyed.
He’d noticed Lady Felicity at every social event he’d been to in the past two weeks. Indeed, it seemed he couldn’t turn around lately without seeing the blasted woman. It could be simple coincidence but he doubted it. He’d been so very aware of her. She’d been at Lady Fenwick’s ball and Lord Pemberton’s musicale. He’d spotted her at the theater and at a charity event for homeless orphans—where he had wondered, as he did every year, if there were indeed orphans who weren’t homeless—and at a masked ball at Vauxhall although he couldn’t be entirely sure it was she. But while he saw her everywhere, she hadn’t seemed to have noticed him at all. That too was most annoying. He wasn’t sure why he had sought her out now although he suspected he was simply tired of being ignored.
“What a remarkable coincidence, Mr. Cavendish.” She smiled pleasantly. “As I have begun to suspect you of following me. And here you are again.”
“Everyone worth his salt attends Mr. Burnfield-White’s garden party,” he said in a manner far more defensive than he wished. As if he had something to defend. “Yet I have never seen you here.”
“Perhaps you have never noticed as I have attended this particular event every year since I have been old enough to do so.” She paused. “With the exception, of course, of last year.”
“What happened last year?”
“I was out of the country, a grand tour, as it were, of the continent.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“I did indeed. The Alps, the Greek isles, and most especially Italy. There is something about travel that puts one’s own life in a different perspective. It seems to me, we are very narrow-minded in En gland about what is the proper and improper way to live. What is civilized and what is not. If one is open to new ways of thinking, travel expands one’s mind.” She glanced at him. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Cavendish?”
“Most definitely,” he murmured although he’d really never given it much thought.
She raised a brow. “You seem uncertain. Have you traveled to any extent, Mr. Cavendish?”
“Of course.” He scoffed. “I went on a grand tour after university. It was most…extensive.” The details of which were somewhat hazy as much of the tour had been spent in a constant state of dr
unken revelry. He did remember having a bang-up good time though.
“Where did you enjoy most?”
“Italy,” he said without thinking. “Venice in particular.”
“Why?”
Now that was an awkward question. His stay in Venice had been especially scandalous and a great deal of fun. From what he could remember. “The history of the place, obviously. The art and architecture. It’s a unique city and culturally most enlightening.”
“Indeed.” An amused twinkle gleamed in her dark eyes. “And I thought you’d say the people of Venice. The vaguely sensual air of the city itself. The hint of high-spirited decadence, as if life itself was all in fun.”
He stared. Lady Felicity was certainly full of surprises. “Yes, well, that too.”
She laughed, a forthright, honest laugh. As if she had nothing to hide and truly enjoyed a good laugh.
He glanced around and realized the walkway they were on had curved to parallel the river. They were out of earshot of the throng of other guests but well within sight. Nothing at all improper about this, and his opportunity to determine if she was deliberately crossing his path, and if so, why. “Might I accompany you?”
“I believe you already are,” she said coolly.
“So it appears.” He paused. “Do you mind?”
She stopped and studied him, her gaze entirely too assessing, as if she were determining if he was worthy of accompanying her. At least she doesn’t find me dull. Not that it mattered. “I should quite enjoy your company, Mr. Cavendish.”
He chuckled. “I feared for a moment you were going to say no.”
“For a moment, I was,” she said lightly and resumed walking. He stared after her and she glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Are you coming then?”
“Yes, of course,” he murmured and quickly returned to her side. “Why?”
“Why did I consider not allowing you to walk with me?”
He nodded.
“You have a scandalous reputation, and I don’t know that it’s beneficial to be seen in your company. Furthermore, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to encourage your attentions,” she said in a lofty manner.
“My attentions?” His brow rose. “I’m not giving you my attentions.”
She scoffed. “Of course you are. You sought me out today—”
“Just to talk.”
“And you have been following me—”
Indignation swept through him. “I most certainly have not!”
“Then how do you explain the fact that everywhere I seem to go, you are there as well?”
“Coincidence,” he said firmly, ignoring that he had dismissed coincidence when it came to the question of her following him. “Nothing more than that. It is the beginning of the season after all, and it’s not uncommon to run into the same people over and over again.”
“Possibly,” she said in a manner that indicated she didn’t believe him at all.
“Lady Felicity, I assure you I am not following you!”
She ignored him. “You could simply ask to call on me, you know, and eliminate this nonsense altogether.”
“I have no intention—”
“Of course that wouldn’t be as much fun, would it?” she said more to herself than to him. “This way, all this ‘you’re here, I’m here but we’re pretending not to see one another’ does give it a slightly forbidden aspect, does it not?”
“No,” he snapped. “I mean yes. I mean—” He blew a frustrated breath. “I have no desire to call on you.”
She pulled up short and stared at him. “You don’t? Not at all?”
Her brown eyes were wide and completely enchanting, and once again that drowning sensation struck him. He swallowed hard. “I have no wish to offend you.”
“And yet.” She raised her chin. Dear Lord, was the woman going to cry? He wasn’t at all sure he could bear up under an onslaught of tears from those eyes.
“See here, Lady Felicity, you are quite lovely and very bright and altogether charming.”
“And yet,” she said again.
“To call on you would indicate an interest on my part beyond a mere conversation or dance at a ball or stroll in a garden.”
“An interest?” She raised a brow.
“Yes. In something, well, of a permanent nature.” He shook his head. “I am not at all ready for something of a permanent nature.”
“Are you speaking of marriage?”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
She stared. “You cannot even say the word?”
“Of course I can say the word.” He scoffed. “Marriage. See, there I’ve said it. I can say it again if you like.”
“No, once was quite enough.” She thought for a moment. “Why would calling on me necessarily mean your intention was marriage?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “You are a young woman of marriageable age, of good family and equally good reputation. You are everything a man would want in a wife if a man was looking for a wife, which, at the moment, I am not.”
“I see.” She narrowed her eyes. “I am not the type of woman you would typically call on.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Come now, Mr. Cavendish, we are both aware of your reputation. I daresay you wouldn’t hesitate to call on me if I were a widow with a proclivity toward adventures of an amorous nature.”
“Well, I—”
“Or a bored matron with a penchant toward illicit affairs.”
“See here, I—”
“Or not a virgin.”
“Lady Felicity!” Shock stole his breath and he gasped. “That’s entirely improper!”
“What? The comment or the word?”
“Both!”
“It’s simply a word, Mr. Cavendish. Much as marriage is simply a word.”
“They are not simply words, they are states of…of existence.” Good God, he sounded like a pompous idiot.
She shrugged. “And easily changed.”
“Lady Felicity!”
“Have I shocked you? I would not think a man like you would be easily shocked.”
“I am not easily shocked, and yes, you have,” he said in a manner far loftier than he had ever used before. But then he had never had a conversation quite like this before.
“I was not offering myself to you if that’s what you were thinking.” Her expression was composed, but there was a definite hint of amusement in her eyes.
“Good Lord.” He closed his eyes to pray for strength, but an image of an indecently clad Lady Felicity offering herself to him in the midst of a bed covered with peaches popped into his head. He snapped his eyes open. “By no means was I thinking that.”
“Oh.” Was it his imagination, or was there the slightest touch of disappointment in her voice. “Good, because that would indeed be improper. And unlike you, I am most interested in marriage.” She smiled and resumed walking.
He trailed after her. “I knew you were.”
“Why?”
“It’s not as if you have a real choice.” His sister’s words rang in his head. “The only position open to a young woman of your station in life is marriage.”
She cast him a curious glance. “You sound almost sympathetic.”
“I am, I think. I am in precisely the same position. I am the heir of a viscount and my future is laid out for me.” He shrugged. “My younger brother, however, has choices in life. He is of a scholarly nature and is pursuing his passion for ancient civilizations. On the other hand, one of my sisters is already well married and my younger sister will be expected to do the same when she is old enough.” He adopted a casual tone. “I have recently learned my sister, my twin sister, that is, has an interest in astronomy. You have an interest in astronomy, do you not?”
“Indeed I do. Yet another coincidence, do you think?”
He studied her for a moment. It had been exceptionally odd that his sister had mentioned astronomy, but then it could be that he was seeing things that di
d not exist because he was so very aware of one particular astronomer. “Probably.”
“I should pay a call on her,” Lady Felicity said brightly. “It appears we have much in common, although there are any number of women who have a serious interest in the heavens. Today and in the past. Did you know that more than two thousand years ago a lady, Hypatia of Alexandria, studied the stars?”
“I had no idea,” he murmured.
“And Caroline Herschel, who lived in Bath, was the first woman to discover a comet, oh, seventy-some years ago. She discovered eight, all in all, and three nebulae. Why, her star catalogues were published by the Royal Society.”
“You don’t say.” Not that he particularly cared, but Lady Felicity’s passion for her subject was mesmerizing. He wondered what else she might have a passion for.
“Miss Herschel was even made an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society.” She wrinkled her nose. “Honorary because they don’t accept female members.”
“How antiquarian of them.” It did seem somewhat unfair that someone with the accomplishments of a Miss Herschel would be denied membership simply because of her gender.
“And an American, Maria Mitchell, discovered a new comet just seven years ago.”
“And?”
“And”—she drew her brows together—“and what?”
“Are there more? Women astronomers, that is?”
“Most certainly. There is—” She winced. “Oh dear. I’ve been going on and on, haven’t I?”
“A bit, but it was most enlightening. Your passion is admirable.”
“My passion tends to carry me away,” she said in an apologetic manner.
“Does it?” Once again the image of a peach-covered Lady Felicity popped into his head. He cleared his throat. “You are exceptionally well versed on the subject.”
“Not at all.” She shook her head. “I am simply a dabbler. I can identify a fair number of the various stars and planets but I am not a serious scientist.”
“Still, your knowledge—”
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