Lane Day’s smile bloomed, for if there was one thing he had a weakness for, it was politics. “The legislation will be a great thing for the Midland shires. The price of coal is far too dear without a reliable means of transport.”
“Indeed, it is a scandal,” Constance said solemnly. “I intend to work tirelessly on behalf of the people of Cheshire and I hope we can be allies. In the meantime, if there is anything I can do to be of service in securing an advantage in the vote, I hope you will let me know. The hospitality of Westmead House is entirely at your disposal.”
Lane Day beamed at her. “I shall keep that in mind.”
Avondale smirked at her blatant political pandering. Apthorp was so proud of Constance he could have kissed her. He’d always suspected she’d make an admirable partner in politics, with her instincts for flattery and favors. He’d not suspected she had an ear for policy as well.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gillian Bastian and Lord Harlan Stoke rounding the corner toward them. The hair on his neck stood up.
Constance followed his gaze. “Excuse us, gentlemen. We must congratulate my dear friend Miss Bastian on her happy news.”
She turned and inclined her head at the approaching couple with a warm expression, raising her fan.
Lord Harlan whispered in Miss Bastian’s ear. Apthorp saw in Stoke’s eyes what was about to happen.
“Constance,” he hissed, touching her elbow. But she had already fluttered her fan in friendly greeting, drawing interest from the crowd.
For the briefest of moments, Gillian paused, training her eyes on Constance. And then she picked up her skirts, turned with a dramatic pivot, and walked in the opposite direction without a word.
Constance stopped abruptly, fan still held aloft.
“Did you see that?” she breathed.
He had. Everyone had.
She stared up at him. “She just cut me. Gillian Bastian just cut me.”
Her big, beautiful blue eyes went misty.
Christ. Was it possible that the indomitable hellion Constance Stonewell—moments before at her most confident and insouciant—was on the verge of weeping?
He stared at her, struck dumb.
It’s an act. It’s always been an act.
She was not entirely the haughty, saucy woman she presented herself to be. She just worked very, very hard at pretending that she was.
For some reason, this broke his heart.
He pressed his fingers lightly around her wrist until she looked up at him.
“Smile,” he said softly.
She obeyed in a dazed kind of way.
“Lean up like you’re saying something light and clever and above all cruel, then laugh.”
With empty eyes, she did as he instructed, though she whispered only nonsense words—swishes of air with no meaning that tickled his ear.
He shouted with laughter and gazed down on her like she’d said something so cutting he was shocked.
“Perfect,” he murmured under his breath. “Now take my arm and go directly to the box. If anyone approaches, smile and wave, but don’t stop until you regain your composure.”
For once, she did exactly as he said.
“Sit there,” he told her, pointing to the seat nearest the wall, which was partly hidden behind a curtain. He sat down beside her and shifted the bottom of the drape with his shoe, moving it so that she was shielded from the view of the crowd, but he was fully visible, lest there be any question of decency.
He felt her shaking.
“It’s all right,” he said softly. “No one can see you.”
She put her knuckle to her lips and leaned against the wall.
“Constance,” he whispered urgently. “Don’t let them hurt you. It’s me they wished to slight. Stoke despises me. He has for years.”
Lord Harlan summered in a property several miles from Apthorp Manor and had proved himself to be the very worst kind of neighbor. They hadn’t spoken in two years, but when they had, it had nearly erupted into violence.
Constance looked up at him with haunted eyes. “I doubt he could despise you more than he despises me.”
He wanted to ask her what he meant by that, for he had always wondered what had ended their brief friendship, but she shook her head in agitation. “I always expect the worst of Lord Harlan. But Gillian is my friend.”
He reached out and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry.”
He wanted to say he would be her friend.
That they would make other friends together. Better friends.
But of course, that would be a lie.
Because she was planning to leave in one month’s time. Because of him.
Had he known she was so vulnerable, he would never have agreed to this. But now that he had, it was too late. They’d already written out their futures. There was no comfort he could offer her.
“I just don’t understand,” she whispered to the wall.
He took her hand. “It’s very simple. Lord Harlan’s a rakehell. With a brief engagement, Gillian no doubt feels her own reputation is not strong enough to survive proximity to a scandal.”
“I suppose I thought I was above such treatment.” She laughed, a bitter sound that chilled him, for he knew what it felt like to be brought down to size.
“Foolish of me, I’m sure you’d say. Or well deserved.”
“No,” he said instantly. “I would never wish to see you hurt.”
He cleared his throat, looking away from her. “And it will pass. We have a plan.”
“Right,” she said shakily, taking his hand in both of hers. She jutted out her chin, yet squeezed him like she needed him for strength.
It made him want to gather her up and take her out of this place and withdraw somewhere safe and private where he could explain that she’d become entangled in something more complex than she fully understood.
But he couldn’t explain, and so he must be careful.
He couldn’t change what he’d already agreed to. But he would not let her suffer more on his behalf.
It was a marvel. Apthorp was quietly keeping her from falling apart.
Who knew he had such talents?
She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed hers back.
She needed to pull herself together. For his sake.
“Constance, Lord Apthorp,” her brother said, striding back into the box. “Look who I found.”
She looked over her shoulder and directly into the penetrating gaze of Lady Spence.
Collect yourself. This will be your only chance.
Apthorp leapt to his feet and made a deep bow. “My lady.”
Lady Spence’s narrow eyes did not move from Constance’s tear-lined ones.
Constance made a rapid calculation. Lady Spence had never been fond of her, and it was a risk to show vulnerability before a foe. But if there was one thing she knew about her godmother, it was that the woman enjoyed being right.
And so Constance craned her neck and blinked, allowing a single tear to roll out of her eye and trail tragically down her cheek.
She tilted her head away poetically, mopping up the tear like she’d been caught.
“Lady Spence!” she said, rising to curtsy. “What a relief to see a friendly face.”
Friendly was the last word she would use to describe her godmother’s penetrating gaze. But at the evidence of Constance’s discomposure, the old woman looked at her with greater interest.
“I saw what happened,” she said without preamble. “As did half the room. The cheek of that colonial. I told you not to consort with her type.”
“You were all too right. I regret I didn’t listen.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised, given your circumstances.” The old woman looked meaningfully at Apthorp, eyeing him like she might meat rotting on her parlor floor.
Constance ignored the insult and wrung her hands. “Oh, Lady Spence, I’m at a loss for what to do! You can’t imagine my distress. All around us I hear the vilest whispers, al
l because of slander printed in some dreadful paper. None of it is true, of course, but the timing is so unfortunate.” She paused, as though to stifle a sob. “I’m desperately afraid for our future.”
Lady Spence sniffed. “As you are right to be. I made clear to Westmead I don’t approve of this match at all. I can’t fathom why he hasn’t blocked it.”
Apthorp did a remarkable job of not reacting to this discussion of his own unsuitability.
Her brother only chuckled. “Lady Spence and I agree I am far too lax a guardian and you need taking in hand,” he said cheerfully. “I suggested she might find it in her heart to reform you.”
Constance sighed. “Normally I would contend I am not in need of reformation, but this week has been so difficult that I am chastened. I would be grateful for your advice, Lady Spence. It is a fretful thing to prepare oneself for marriage without a loving mother here to guide me. I so wish I weren’t an orphan.”
Lady Spence gave her a long, appraising look. “I shall do what I can for you. However, I might lament your choice of suitors.”
Constance pressed both hands over her heart. “Oh, I am so grateful.”
“If you’ll agree to surround yourself with respectable people,” Lady Spence added. “I’m hosting a small luncheon with several members of my congregation tomorrow. Join me and I will see what can be done for you. Perhaps it’s not too late to make a proper lady of you yet.”
“How kind. I would be delighted to attend.”
Lady Spence glared pointedly at Apthorp. “And bring him with you. I expect he would benefit greatly from the example of my minister.”
Apthorp produced that bland, gracious smile she’d watched him use on everyone from the vicar to the king for years. The one she’d dismissed as hopelessly boring. “I’d be honored, Lady Spence,” he said with touching humility. “Thank you.”
Lady Spence nodded at Westmead, who escorted her out of the box.
When they were alone, Apthorp turned to Constance.
He was silent. And then his face crinkled up into an absolutely charming smile. “Lady Constance. My word. Is it possible your wicked plan is working?”
She put her hands over her face and put her head on his shoulder and laughed in pure relief. He put an arm around her, laughing too, his chest rumbling beneath her shoulder.
The curtain opened, and the crowd went quiet, and they stopped laughing.
The soprano sang, and for the next three hours there was no one to perform for.
But she could not help but notice that for the duration of the opera, neither of them even tried to move away.
Chapter 7
The servant who greeted Apthorp at the door to Lady Spence’s town house the following afternoon was so hoary and gray that he looked like a ghost from the fire of 1666.
“The Earl of Apthorp,” the servant said, announcing him to an overwarm room furnished with tapestries that appeared to predate the Stuart line. Apthorp bowed to his hostess, who sat sternly in a chair next to the fire, and to Constance, who sat beside her with her hands folded demurely in her lap.
She smiled at him sweetly, in the exact way she had the night before when he’d awoken her at the end of the opera, after she’d fallen asleep nestled into the crook of his shoulder.
When no one had been watching.
“Allow me to present you to my friends,” Lady Spence said. “This is Mrs. Henry Mountebank, whom I’m sure you recall from her many noted essays on theology.”
“Of course,” he said, hoping he would not be struck down instantly for lying.
“And Reverend Keeper, the minister of our congregation. And of course Mr. Henry Evesham, whose name you will know from his most affecting reports on vice.”
Apthorp froze.
That name he did know. For Henry Evesham was the editor of Saints & Satyrs.
A curate-turned-journalist with evangelical leanings, Evesham was enjoying increasing renown for his crusading gazette calling out the city’s vices. His stories exposing procurers and serial bigamists had endeared him to the more pious members of the House of Lords, who’d recently invited him to testify on what could be done to protect the city’s innocents.
Lady Spence’s message in inviting Evesham was clear: it was a none-too-subtle threat to fall in line.
“A pleasure, Lord Apthorp,” Mr. Evesham said. He looked nothing like the spectral figure one imagined of a crusading man of letters. He was tall and wide-framed, with hands and feet like shovels and intelligent green eyes that held the kind of restful clarity that must come with the certainty one is ordained for heaven.
How nice for Mr. Evesham.
“It’s an honor to make your acquaintance,” Apthorp said, making it his personal mission to seem utterly unperturbed by having been invited to break bread with the man who’d slandered him.
“Lady Spence, thank you for inviting us here today,” Constance said. “Lord Apthorp and I have been so eager to become better acquainted with your congregation.”
“I’m glad to hear it. As Mr. Evesham’s writings can attest, there is a creeping wantonness in our society that those of us with the privilege of nobility possess a duty to expunge.”
She looked at Apthorp meaningfully, the way a long, black eel might regard you as it coiled itself around your ankle in a swamp. Christ, but he despised people of her ilk, with their penetrating judgments. He rewarded her with a smile that he knew from years on Charlotte Street set off his jawline to its best advantage and turned his eyes on Constance.
“I agree,” Constance said with a beatific smile that belied any awareness of the undercurrent of hostility in the room. “Mrs. Mountebank, Lady Spence recently sent me your essay on the sacrament of matrimony. There is much I’d like to learn from you. It is my dearest wish to be a loving wife in the spirit of Christian rectitude.”
“I am surprised to hear that,” Mrs. Mountebank said coolly. “One so often hears your name attached to frivolity and idle pleasure.”
Apthorp cleared his throat. “It is no surprise to me, Mrs. Mountebank. Lady Constance’s accomplishments may be unconventional, but everything she does is designed to bring joy to others. Surely there is virtue in a heart as large as hers. I have no doubt that she would be an asset to any cause your congregation put her to.”
Constance glanced up at him in surprise.
He met her gaze head-on, for he meant what he’d said. Few people displayed more determination to spread happiness and good fortune to those around them than Constance, and it annoyed him to hear her rudely maligned by a room of supposed Christians.
He considered himself a man of faith, but he believed above all in the morality of conscience. Enough time on Charlotte Street, where bishops sinned as freely as the laity, had convinced him that the performance of public virtue did not always bear on private scruples.
“I have no doubt Lady Constance’s talents would benefit our cause,” Evesham said pleasantly. “Her persuasive skills are as legendary as her evening balls. I’ve long been an admirer.”
“Have you?” Apthorp asked, taken aback that they were acquainted.
“Mr. Evesham and I have had the pleasure of debating several times at Mrs. Tremaine’s quarterly salon,” Constance said. “Though never, regrettably, on the same side of any argument.”
“Nevertheless, each time, I find myself musing on Lady Constance’s thoughts long after the debate has concluded,” Evesham said.
The two of them exchanged a smile from across the room.
Apthorp didn’t like it.
Why had Constance neglected to mention, in their discussion of her poem mysteriously finding its way to Saints & Satyrs, that she was acquainted with its editor?
“We weren’t discussing intellect,” Mrs. Mountebank said tersely, interrupting his thoughts. “We were discussing character. There is a difference, Mr. Evesham, wouldn’t you agree?”
Constance nodded before Evesham had a chance to answer. “You are quite right, Mrs. Mountebank,” sh
e said. “I have much to learn about fulfilling my Christian duty. And I intend to make a careful study of it.”
“I should hope so,” Lady Spence sniffed. “I have feared for your soul every since your brother sent you to those Papist nuns like a Jacobin. And I should hope Lord Apthorp will not stand in your way.”
Before he could react, Constance looked the woman directly in the eye and smiled so sweetly that the ice in her voice when she spoke came as a shock.
“Anything virtuous in my character I have learned from the example of my future husband. Lord Apthorp is the most solemn, earnest, and conscientious man I’ve ever had the honor to know. Devoted to his family and his tenants. Exceptionally committed to his duties in the Lords. And kind. Which is a quality many otherwise good souls lack, wouldn’t you agree?”
Lady Spence clamped her lips so tight they turned white at the corners.
“And,” Constance added, her tone resuming a mellifluous lightness, “you cannot deny he is handsome.”
Evesham leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “Lady Constance, you’ve made your poor intended blush. I see the rumor that yours is a love match must be true.”
Apthorp’s cheeks burned brighter at having been observed reacting to her compliment. He wished he could steel himself to the acute pleasure that gathered in his gut when she expressed appreciation for him. But the flare of pure emotion that rose when she came to his defense nearly obliterated his composure. He was, God help him, aflutter.
Reverend Keeper, seeming perturbed at the earthly turn to the conversation, attempted to reestablish a godly tone. “Lady Constance, I’m flattered to hear of your interest in our congregation. I imagine you will be able to do many good works as the Countess of Apthorp.”
Constance gave the man a blinding smile. “Oh, indeed. The people of Cheshire have suffered this last decade. We are fortunate that my dowry will assist in providing them some ease. Perhaps, if you are able, you might come to lead a service on the estate. For, beyond material comforts, it is my fervent wish to build a new church, where we can offer sustenance to our tenants’ souls.”
The Earl I Ruined Page 9