She was not proud of Jonathan, as his father had not been proud of him.
Not that a half-sister’s regard was a very great matter. “Of what dishes shall you partake?”
Della picked up a second plate. “I’d like a small serving of social interaction, perhaps a morning call with a short drive in the park. An accepted dinner invitation would make a nice side dish, and for dessert, you could sit with me at this evening’s entertainment. Failing that, an occasional dance—I see you dancing nearly every set, Jonathan—or a pleasant exchange during the carriage parade.”
Don’t call me Jonathan. Any familiarity would be remarked by the gossips.
Lady Della was troubling over her food choices, picking up the spoon from a savory curry, then setting it back into the bowl without taking a portion. At the side of the room, the oldest of her enormous brothers—her Haddonfield brothers—made polite conversation with Lord Westhaven.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Lady Della asked.
Jonathan put a pastry of some sort on his plate. “I am in search of a bride.” He spoke very quietly, praying that this confession would meet with some sororal tact.
“More to the point, the brides are in search of you. I could help with that, you know.” She chose a spoonful of some mushroom-laden sauce.
“Please don’t help. Please, I beg you, don’t help. They accost me in libraries. They run me down in the park. They press their… persons upon me on the dance floor. If you laugh, I will cut you right here.”
This threat pleased her. “Now you sound like a brother. Avoid the soufflé, unless you don’t mind having a bad case of wind tomorrow.”
He suspected that was a sisterly thing to say, and he put the serving spoon back into the pan. “I choose my entertainments carefully, so if our paths aren’t crossing, it’s because I’m avoiding the great majority of eligible young women.”
She speared several slices of cold roast beef. “I am eligible. Do you know Mr. Ash Dorning?”
“I know a number of Dornings, though I consider only Lord Casriel a close associate.”
Three slices of roast beef were added to Jonathan’s plate. “Do you call anybody a friend, Jonathan? Anybody at all?”
Theodosia Haviland was his friend, though that wasn’t all he’d like to call her. “What sort of question is that?”
“A concerned question. I have a list of theories regarding you. The simplest hypothesis that explains the facts is that you are a boor who tramples over my feelings out of overweening conceit.”
She’d wandered to the dessert table and, to all appearances, was absorbed in a choice of sweet.
Jonathan added concocting theories to his list of her transgressions, though heeding rumors about him was bad enough.
“Is there a second theory?” He hoped so, because she made him sound very much like his father.
Their father.
“And a third and a fourth. The most likely alternative, which Nicholas espouses whenever I raise the topic of Jonathan Tresham, is that you have never had siblings, have never had a loving family. You are like a feral cat. You have a vague sense that sustenance can be had from some humans, but figuring out which ones and at what cost overtaxes your abilities. You look very pretty napping on a garden wall, and you might steal a few laps of milk from the bowl set out for you, but you are fundamentally ignorant of and unsuited to a domestic life.”
Her words, delivered with the dispassion of a senior lecturer on the topic of feckless felines, carried an impact.
“So you will leave me in peace on my sunny garden wall?”
“Of course not,” she said, cutting a fat slice of some orange-glazed torte. “I will set out as many bowls of milk as it takes, because you are my brother.”
Don’t say that. Don’t say that.
The Earl of Bellefonte was watching this interaction, despite being in conversation with the gathering’s host. Westhaven could blather about his parliamentary bills through the night, and thus he made a good decoy for an overprotective brother.
Lady Della was determined to forge a connection based on an accident of birth, for Jonathan’s father had been that feral cat.
“I never read the letters.” He’d given Della her mother’s letters, and Della had offered to lend him his father’s letters.
“You should. My parents were very much in love, very troubled. He let her go because he loved her.”
Very likely, Papa had let the lady go because he’d moved on to another affair, and another and another, and the lady had seen what sort of bargain Papa offered any who cared for him.
“Perhaps family matters should be discussed at another time. Shall I escort you to Bellefonte’s side, my lady?”
“Would you like to wear this delicious torte on your cravat?”
Bellefonte smiled and lifted his drink in Jonathan’s direction, a great golden lion of an earl promising his prey a lively chase before the kill, because that was only sporting.
Jonathan smiled right back.
“Stop it,” Lady Della murmured. “You only get to act like a brother if you intend to be a brother. Call on me.”
Half of polite society had already seen Jonathan in conversation with the lady. The other half would note him calling upon her.
“If I’m to call on you, I want to call on you. I will not subject myself to the interminable inspection that will result if I show up at one of Lady Bellefonte’s at homes.”
“I’m an early riser. A hack in the park—”
Where all and sundry noted which lady rode with which gentleman. “I’ll make a morning call in the next week or so.”
Lady Della studied him. “A sweet plastered all over your evening attire would be such an improvement. I might call on you. Did you ever think of that? Would you be home to me?”
He wanted to say no, that the press of business seldom allowed him to idle under his own roof while waiting for callers, and that would even be the truth. He was scheduled to meet with a different directors’ committee every day for the next week, and each meeting required preparation of meticulous financial reports.
And yet Lady Della… was his sister, and to treat her as extraneous, a nuisance, a presuming intruder in his life would be to walk too many steps along Papa’s path.
“I will be home to you,” he said, “should you and the earl grace me with a call.”
Her smile was radiant, as if the dullest scholar had reasoned—not guessed, reasoned—his way to the correct answer when the headmaster had come to observe the class.
“I will be home to you as well, Jonathan.” She sailed off to join her brother and Lord Westhaven, leaving Jonathan amid sweets he didn’t care for. He’d made some concession in a game he didn’t understand, played with a deck of cards whose markings he couldn’t decipher.
Perhaps Theo might be of some help. She stood by the door of the library with Lady Bellefonte, a tall blond woman in conversation with them. Jonathan’s intended made no indication that she’d taken notice of him, but to him, she appeared very much like an ace and a queen in the hand of a man who’d been losing at vingt-et-un since he’d taken his place at the table.
He set aside his plate and got all of two yards closer to Theo when Miss Pamela Threadlebaum stepped directly into his path, her smile promising him a full plate of inanities about the weather.
Chapter Ten
* * *
The evening should have been pleasant, not an interminable procession of smiles and arias, while Theo tried to both remain vigilant for Jonathan’s sake and ignore him for her own. Bea’s coach rolled five yards closer, among the last in the line on the street before Lord Westhaven’s town house.
“I do fancy a talented violinist,” Bea said, covering a yawn with a gloved hand. “But the ones on offer tonight were more enthusiastic than skilled.”
“It’s a difficult instrument,” Theo replied.
The footman let down the steps and held the door open. Bea gathered her skirts and ascended, and The
o was preparing to do likewise when Jonathan Tresham appeared at her side.
“Perhaps you’d allow me to escort you home, Mrs. Haviland?”
“Do go on, Theo,” Bea so-helpfully murmured from the depths of the coach. “Mr. Tresham will doubtless get you home faster than my sorry pair will.”
Theo could argue, which would draw the attention of the guests chatting on the steps, or she could do as she’d been longing to do all evening and spend some time in Jonathan’s exclusive company.
“I’ll wish you good night, my lady,” Theo said. “Expect a visit from me tomorrow.” And a lecture.
Two minutes later, Theo was handed into a town coach that made Bea’s little carriage look like a doll’s hackney. The velvet upholstery was exquisitely soft, the cushions deep, the sheer size of the conveyance a testament to luxury.
How does he afford this? The question wandered through her mind as Jonathan came down beside her on the forward-facing seat.
“I will pay that violinist to tour the Continent in perpetuity,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”
Pleasure stole over Theo’s determination to remain sensible, like night steals over day at sunset. Jonathan was being honest—the violinist had spent more energy tossing his dark hair about than coaxing melodies from his instrument—and Jonathan was also being swainly.
“You saw me yesterday morning.” Had kissed her yesterday morning, or she had kissed him. Truly, madly, passionately kissed him and wanted to kiss him again.
Jonathan pulled the shades. “I sat with Lady Antonia Mainwaring, who insisted on discussing the music in the most effusive terms. I went through the buffet line with Miss Penelope Bainbridge, whose great fortune earned her a spot on your infernal list. I strolled at the interval with Miss Clytemnestra Islington, another sparkling gem who can discuss the weather more passionately than most MPs can debate the Irish question. Why didn’t you warn me that being a gentleman is exhausting?”
“Would you rather they’d been pressing their bosoms to your person?”
He slanted a look at her. The carriage lamps were turned down, but streetlamps had been lit. His expression conveyed frustration and mischief.
“I’d rather you pressed your bosom to my person.”
He sounded so disgruntled that Theo laughed. “You’re lucky only three of your prospects were in attendance tonight.”
His sour mood reassured her, which was very bad of Theo. She was glad he’d found the evening tedious, glad he was having to work to comport himself as a gentleman among his peers.
She was not glad she’d been on hand to see him succeed at that pursuit. Every one of the ladies present had regarded him with the sort of veiled yearning Diana reserved for French chocolates.
“You went through the buffet with Lady Della Haddonfield,” Theo said. “You should consider her.” Some demon prompted Theo down this path, the same demon that had warned her for years that she was doomed to penury and ruin.
“Don’t, Theo. You chose your six names, I’m doing my penance, and you shall be my duchess when you’re done watching me genuflect before the altar of polite ritual.”
Genuine irritation marked those words, so Theo let irritation show in her reply. “I decide whose duchess I shall be, and I have not decided to be yours. Lady Della is young, but she’s quite well connected, she’s blazingly intelligent, and you’re on good terms with her family.”
“No, I am not. They tolerate me for Lady Della’s sake.”
The horses clip-clopped along. The coach swayed around a corner.
“You are upset,” Theo said, though it wasn’t a version of upset she recognized. Archie had stormed and threatened when in his cups. An unhappy Seraphina brooded in silence, while Diana scratched out rhymed couplets of juvenile indignation.
“I’ve told you how it was between my father and me,” Jonathan said, taking Theo’s hand. “You might think I judge him harshly, but Lady Della is my half-sister. She was told this, though I know not why, and she had letters… she has them still.”
He stared straight ahead, into the shadows, and his voice was flat. Not angry, so much as resigned.
He’d surprised Theo, also relieved a worry. Lady Della had most assuredly not been flirting with him, and yet, she’d held his attention for the entirety of their conversation. Lady Bellefonte had pointedly ignored the whole business—very pointedly—while Theo’s curiosity had been piqued.
“These situations arise frequently in polite society,” she said. “A woman does her duty by the title, and then she’s free to discreetly—”
“Don’t make excuses for them, Theo.”
“Don’t judge them. Bellefonte has brothers and sisters in abundance. Lady Della is the youngest. You have no idea what the late Lady Bellefonte was enduring in her marriage when she indulged in an affair with your father. Bellefonte’s father was no saint, and neither are you.”
Jonathan turned his head to regard Theo in the gloom. A trick of the light reflected his gaze unnaturally, as if he were a lurking predator and not the same gentleman who’d shared such a lovely kiss with her.
“Explain yourself, Mrs. Haviland.”
Not even Archie at his drunken worst had attempted that tone with Theo. “Comport yourself with an iota of manners, and I might.”
A fraught silence, then a bark of laughter. Jonathan peeled off Theo’s glove, his touch far from seductive.
“My nose was broken three times,” he said, drawing her middle and index fingers down the slope of said nose.
The bone was uneven, though Theo would not have said his nose was crooked. “That sounds painful.”
He linked his fingers with hers and curled her hand on his thigh. “Do you know what hurts worse than having your nose broken? Having it set. The Quimbey spare was not permitted to be disfigured by schoolyard brawling.”
“This has to do with your father?”
“With my mother. Papa’s philandering was far from discreet. Mama retaliated in a predictable manner. My classmates made sure I was aware of her every flirtation. I made sure they regretted passing along the gossip. I now sit on the board of governors for a boys’ school, in part as a penance for having been such a disruptive youth.”
“Were there duels?” Please say no. Please say your self-restraint was adequate to the challenge of controlling your temper. For if he said yes, Theo certainly could not marry him—not that she was considering such folly—and she couldn’t in good conscience allow any decent woman to yoke herself to such a hothead.
“Of course not. I was twelve when Quimbey became aware of my temper. You know him as a dear old fellow with charm to spare. He stormed into the headmaster’s office like the wrath of God and delivered me such a dressing down… I’d rather he’d gone at me with the birch rod. Until that day, I hadn’t understood that I was the spare—the only spare. In some dim corner of my boyish mind, I recognized the theoretical possibility that I might be a duke someday, but not… the duke. Not His Grace of Quimbey.”
In a sunny alley, Theo had kissed Jonathan the way a woman kisses when she knows what intimacy between the sexes is, in all its messy, glorious details. This conversation was intimate in a more complicated way, one that had nothing to do with pleasure.
“You stopped brawling?”
“I became a model student, for which I was regularly pummeled. I fought back, but no longer so hard that my opponent took two days to wake up or had to learn to write with his left hand.”
“You were very angry.” Is he angry still?
“I was very determined to gain my father’s notice. In the end, I did, but whether he took note of my accomplishments no longer mattered.”
The coach slowed as they turned onto Theo’s street, which was mostly a relief. This conversation wanted pondering, as did Theo’s entire situation.
“I did not like seeing you with those other women.” She hadn’t planned to admit that.
“Good. If I’m suffering, you should suffer too, though when I’m see
n to choose you from among a throng of lovely ladies, your consequence as my duchess will be off on the right foot.”
Oh, ye gods. “Jonathan, you must not assume I will agree to be your duchess. I am the—"
He thumped his head back against the squabs and stared at the coach’s upholstered ceiling. “Penniless, aged spinster-widow, who bore only a girl child—though your daughter is a proper healthy terror—and who is so unattractive that mirrors crack when you pass before them. I know, Theo.”
He did not know. God willing, she’d never have to tell him. “I’m glad you see the problem. I suggest you present yourself in the park at the fashionable hour tomorrow and exert yourself to be charming to the other three ladies on your list.”
The coach slowed further, the coachman calling to the horses to halt.
“It’s your perishing list, Theo.”
“And my decision.”
“Don’t invite me in,” Jonathan said. “I’m expected elsewhere.”
At least he sounded unhappy about that. “I hadn’t planned to invite you in.”
The door remained closed, suggesting Jonathan’s footmen were well trained—also accustomed to their employer tarrying in coaches late at night.
He folded Theo’s hand between both of his. “I’ve told you my secrets, Theo. I have a sister I don’t know what to do with. I had a terrible temper as a boy. My father was a disgrace, and I left England for years to remove myself from his ambit. At least assure me you aren’t horrified.”
How could he possibly think…? “I am beyond horrified on your behalf. I want to pummel your father and break his nose at least three times, then I’d like to deliver a sound scolding to your mother. Why Quimbey took twelve years to intercede I do not know, and you’d best hope I never ask him.”
A great sigh escaped into the darkness. “I see.”
No, he did not. Theo kissed his cheek, wishing she could take him in her arms and make him forget all those disappointments and betrayals.
“I’ll bid you good night,” she said, “and hope to see you at the Swanson’s Venetian breakfast.”
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