by Kruger, Mary
An Inconvenient Affair
Mary Kingsley
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Mary Kruger
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Cover Art copyright 2011 Dara England
Chapter One
Jeremy looked up from the papers spread across his desk as his mother glided into the study, without so much as a knock or a by-your-leave. “Jeremy!” she said, her hand to her heart. “You startled me.”
Jeremy leaned back, biting back a smile. “How so, Mother?”
The dowager Viscountess Stanton settled herself in one of the wing chairs facing the desk, arranging her fluffy, fussy gown about her. She was in mourning, of course, as they all were since Father’s death nearly a year ago, and yet she managed to look both frivolous and fashionable. He loved her dearly. He also sometimes found her exasperating. “I thought you were from home.”
“But I made no plans.”
She made a face. “But to be inside this fusty room when all the world is out of doors—really, it is too much to be borne.”
Ah. Now they came to it, he thought. “Did you wish my escort, Mother? I fear I’m rather busy.”
“With all those dreadful papers? Oh, pooh. Forget about them. Your father always did.”
Which was what had led them to this pass. “Mr. Tuttle is coming soon to discuss them with me.”
The face she made this time, at the mention of Jeremy’s solicitor, was quite genuine. “Nasty man. Prosing on always about economy and retrenchment. As if we must even consider such things.”
Jeremy, looking at the unpaid bills on his desk, nearly sighed. “I found more debts, Mother,” he said, as gently as he could.
For a moment something shrewd and sharp stared out at him through her eyes. “Oh, pooh. What are they now?”
“Tradesman’s bills. Stuffed in a drawer.”
“Surely they can wait.”
He resisted the urge to rub his forehead, where a headache was forming. Being Viscount Stanton, and thus the head of the family, was proving to be a heavy responsibility. “No, Mother, they cannot. Or would you prefer that Madame Celeste refuses to make your gowns?”
“Jeremy!” she gasped. “As bad as that?”
“As bad as that.” He sighed. “Had I come back from the Peninsula as soon as Father died, perhaps things wouldn’t be so bad.” Had he returned from the war sooner, perhaps he could have reined in his mother’s spending. As soon as he had the thought, though, he reproached himself. His mother wasn’t to blame. The real cause of the problem was dead. “Mother, many of these bills date from after his death.”
The viscountess raised her surprisingly firm chin. “As to that, Jeremy, Margaret and I needed mourning clothes. Surely you can see that.”
“But in such amounts, Mother? Day dresses.” He tossed several pieces of paper onto the desk. “Morning dresses.” Another pile. “Ball gowns—for God’s—for heaven’s sake, Mother, why did you need so many ball gowns?”
“Not just for me. For your sister, too.”
“Maggie doesn’t particularly enjoy balls, which neither of you should be attending yet.”
“How else is she to find a husband?” she asked, reasonable and practical now, all traces of fluttering gone. “Could she but find the right man, it could solve our problems. He could—what is that phrase you used once—tow us out of the river Tick.”
“No.” He bit off the word.
“Now, Jeremy. Pray don’t let your pride overrule you. Why, I believe she may be in the way of contracting a marriage.”
“To whom?”
“Lord Denby. He is—“
“Denby!” That brought him to his feet. “Good God—that aging—that lecher—good God, madam, what are you thinking of?”
“She is not averse to the match.”
Of course she was, Jeremy thought, but he knew his sister had a strong sense of duty, perhaps stronger than his own. If she thought marrying Denby—Good God, Denby!—would help, he would do it. “No.” He shook his head. “As head of the family I cannot allow it. I will not allow it.”
“Then what are we to do, Jeremy? If matters are as bad as you say?”
“Worse,” he said after a moment. “It isn’t just that Father made such bad investments. He ignored the estates, and that is a great part of the problem.”
“But you gamble, Jeremy,” she point out quietly. “And drink too much. And don’t think I don’t know about your lights o’ love, because I do.”
“Mother!” he said, truly shocked. It was true that he’d not led an abstemious life since returning from the war. To have his mother speak of it, though, was galling.
“I am not naive.” Her eyes were sympathetic as he rose again, this time pacing to a window. “You are behaving as recklessly as your father did. Perhaps with better reason.” She shook her head as she turned back to him. “That war—what it did to you. You’ve not been the same since.”
Jeremy didn’t answer, but returned to the desk. “Mother, something must be done about these debts. Perhaps when I get the estates in order our income will recover, but that will take time. And that, we don’t have.”
“What do you plan to do about it? If Margaret is not to marry for money, then you must.”
“I will not be a damned fortune hunter!” he roared.
“Jeremy! Your language.”
“Am I to trade my title for a fortune, Mother? Am I?”
“Yes,” she said, and let the word hang there.
“Damn it. Damn and blast it,” he said, heading for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“Do think about what I said, dear,” she called after him, but the only answer was the slamming of the front door.
Think about what she’d said? Jeremy thought as, hatless and without his walking stick, he strode along the sidewalk. Not for Jeremy the sedate pace dictated by polite society; he ran through life, meeting every challenge headlong. This one, though, was beyond anything he’d ever experienced. Denby. Good God! It wouldn’t do. True, Denby came of good family and had a considerable fortune, but his reputation was unsavory. What his mother could be thinking of, to promote such a match, he didn’t know. She had, however, a potent argument. The family’s finances were in a dreadful state. Someone had to do something to mend them. He would have to do something.
Damn it. Jeremy scowled so fiercely that a young lady, walking with her maid down Brook Street, skittered away. He was head of the family now. It was his duty to make certain there was enough money, so that his sisters would have dowries and his brothers their education. As he struggled with the mess his father had left, Jeremy had reluctantly come, again and again, to the same conclusion. It had taken his mother to voice it, though, for him to accept it. Someone in the family would have to marry for money, and it would have to be him. He tugged at his neckcloth, feeling helpless, feeling trapped. He needed to talk to someone about this. He needed to talk to Thea.
Looking up, he saw in surprise that he was nearly at her house. Althea Jameson was, surprisingly, a very good friend. Very surprisingly. He’d met her several months ago, at the first ball he’d attended since selling out of the army. He had been in-between affaires, looking for a new attachment, bored, restless, glad to be home and yet unable to settle,
nearly ready to bolt from the crowded, overheated ballroom. Somehow, Thea had calmed him. Thea, with her chestnut hair and fine gray eyes and slender, graceful hands. A widow with as little desire to remarry as he, she didn’t expect things of him the way other women did, didn’t flirt, didn’t expect their relationship to be more than it was. She didn’t smother him, make him feel trapped. He could talk to her about anything, and any advice she gave him was invariably sound. Odd that he’d thought of her in connection with marriage. She was certainly young enough, and pretty enough, to marry again, but she wasn’t his type, being far too level-headed and independent. But, if anyone could help him with his latest troubles, she could.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he reached the landing of the narrow brick house and rapped on the door with the knob of his walking stick, until Hanson, Thea’s butler, let him in. This wasn’t Thea’s normal at-home day, but he wasn’t surprised when Hanson returned to the hall to lead him to the drawing room. Already he was feeling better; Thea’s house, like the woman herself, always had that effect on him. Though small, it was immaculately kept. A turkey carpet in exquisite colors was laid on the polished parquet floor of the hall, and spring flowers bloomed in a china bowl on the small mahogany table that stood under a gilt-framed mirror. A feeling of peace, almost of homecoming, stole over him, and he was suddenly very glad he had come.
Thea smiled up at him as he walked into the drawing room, her hands outstretched. “Jeremy! This is a surprise.”
“Yes, well, I was passing by.” He took her hands in his and stood smiling down at her, grateful she didn’t expect him to do the pretty. She was, as usual, a picture of serene attractiveness in her afternoon gown of dove gray with white ruching at the throat, and her glossy hair caught into a chignon. On another woman the color might have been unflattering, but it suited her, making her eyes seem even larger and her cheeks glow pink. “You don’t mind if I visit a while?”
“No, of course not.” She picked up an embroidery frame and frowned down at it. “Is there a problem, Jeremy?”
“Problem?” Jeremy turned from the window, where he had paced restlessly. “Why should I have a problem?”
“You’re rather mangling my new curtains,” she pointed out, gently.
Jeremy looked blankly down at his hands, crushing folds of oyster white brocade, and let the draperies drop. “I’m sorry, Thea. I didn’t mean—”
“If there’s a problem, you might as well tell me.”
“Oh, the devil.” He wheeled from the window and walked over to the unlit fireplace, his shoulders slightly hunched. “The deuce of it is, Thea, I have to get married.”
“What!” Thea’s eyes widened, and she began to laugh. “Jeremy, have you sunk so low in iniquity, then—”
“No, the deuce take it, Thea, nothing like that!” He threw himself into a cream satin chair, legs flung out, fingers drumming on the arm of the chair. “You don’t have to look at me like that. I’m not that much of a rake.”
“Oh, no,” Thea murmured, looking down at her embroidery to hide her smile, and something else, a feeling she didn’t quite want to acknowledge. Heavens, she surely didn’t wish to remarry, especially not someone with his reputation with the ladies. Especially not. She prized his friendship, and nothing more did she want from him. She wished, though, that he had found someone else to discuss his marriage with. “Far be it from me to think such a thing. But why, then?”
“Money.”
“Money?”
“Precisely. Money. Do you know, that is an abominable piece you are working on.”
Thea looked ruefully at the crewel, neat enough on the front but knotted and tangled on the back. “Yes, I know. I detest needlework. I only do it to keep Aunt Lydia company. Money, Jeremy? I thought things were settled.”
“So did I,” he said, gloomily. “But my man of affairs has turned up more debts of my father’s.”
“More?”
“Yes. A canal scheme gone wrong.”
“At least he didn’t gamble his money away.”
“It comes to the same thing. I don’t know what happened to him, before he died. He used to be the most rational of men. But now, there’s not enough for my sisters’ portions.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Precisely. Deuce take it, Thea, but I’ve an expensive family. The worst of it is, my sister Meg has got it into her head that she has to do something about it. She claims she wants to marry Denby.”
“Good heavens!” Thea stared at him. “But he is much too old for her. Surely she hasn’t a tendre for him?”
“No. But he has money, Thea, there’s no denying that. Meg has a point. Someone has to do something.”
“So you’ll sacrifice yourself on the altar of matrimony for your family.”
“You needn’t laugh.”
“Oh, I’m not laughing,” Thea said, staring fixedly at the embroidery. Jeremy, married, and to someone else. Why should that bother her so?
“And then there’s my mother. How do you tell a lady who has never skimped in her life that now she has to practice economy? I tried to explain matters to her the other day, and do you know what she said? She said she would do her shopping at the Pantheon Bazaar, it is so much cheaper.”
“Oh, dear. I know it’s not funny, Jeremy, but—”
“But you see the tangle I am in. I haven’t the heart to cut her allowance.” He glanced at the fireplace, filled, on this warm spring day, with an arrangement of fresh flowers. Upset though he had been when he had left his mother’s house, he was beginning to feel calmer. Thea’s house, as serene as she, always had that effect on him. “I may have to sell one of my estates.”
“As bad as that?” Thea exclaimed. If he were thinking of selling property, then he must be rolled up, indeed. No gentleman would do so unless it were absolutely necessary.
“As bad as that. Unless I marry an heiress with a good deal of money.”
I have money, Thea thought, and bit her lips to keep from blurting the words out. Yes, and hadn’t she paid dearly for what she had? She’d never marry again. Not even Jeremy.
Her eyes flickering up from her embroidery, Thea studied Jeremy as he paced back and forth across the room. He surely didn’t lack for willing females; it seemed he only had to smile at one, and she was his slave. It wasn’t that he was handsome, precisely, not with that strong Roman nose, and yet there was something about him that compelled every woman she knew, butterflies to the flame. He did have marvelous eyes, a heavenly shade of blue, and his dark, straight hair insisted on falling onto his forehead, tempting a woman’s fingers to brush it back. Undeniably he was well-built, too, trim and lean, but with broad shoulders that usually made Thea, tall though she was, feel small and feminine. Until today, though, she had been immune to his charm. Or so she’d thought.
“Who is the lucky girl?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the crewel.
“I don’t know.” Jeremy turned from the window. “You?”
A curious pain went through her. “If I thought for one moment you were serious—”
“Well—”
“It would serve you right if I said yes.”
“Why? We rub along tolerably well together.”
“Come, Jeremy, I’m not at all your type. You like small, delicate girls who bow to your every wish. I could never do that, you know.”
Jeremy smiled, the charming smile that was another of the tools he used to unfair advantage. “No, you’re much too independent and sensible.”
Thea stabbed at the canvas. “How odious of you!”
He sat across from her, leaning forward. “I meant it as a compliment.”
“Well, then, I’m too sensible to marry you. How many flirts have you had this season—”
“That doesn’t signify.”
“It does to me. No, Jeremy. I’ve no desire to marry again. You know that.”
Jeremy sighed and sat back, stretching his legs out. “I was afraid of that. You’ll consign me to my fate, th
en?”
“It’s what you deserve.”
“So harsh, Thea. Will you at least be my mistress?”
Thea’s head jerked up. “What!”
“You wouldn’t regret it.” His voice, his smile, were caressing. “I would make certain of that. In fact, I daresay you would enjoy it.”
“Enjoy—of all the nerve!” She snatched up a pillow and threw it at him. “I am not one of your flirts, Jeremy!”
“No, worse luck,” he said, ruefully, and hastily raised his arms as Thea took up another pillow. “Hold your fire, Thea! I’m only funning you.”
“You had best be,” she said, lowering the pillow. A reluctant smile touched her lips as she saw the glint in his eye. “Why cannot I ever stay angry with you when you are such an odious man?”
“Perhaps because you like me.”
“Lord knows why.”
“Admit it, Thea. You like me.” He smiled at her. “Pax?”
She glared at him, and then, shaking her head, smiled. “Pax.”
“Then we’ll go on as we are.”
“Of course.” She bent her head to her needlework again. Oh, would he never leave? She had been glad when he had come to visit, but now she wished only that he would go. He was going to marry another. How could they possibly go on as they had? “The season’s nearly over. If you’re going to marry, you’d best find someone soon.”
“I know. I haven’t the slightest idea who.”
“You haven’t a tendre for anyone?”
“What, Thea, so romantic? Love doesn’t last. You know that.”
Thea didn’t look at him. “I suppose you are right. There must be someone you prefer, though. Some very pretty girls made their come-out this spring.”
“They all look alike to me,” he said, cheerfully. “They all sound alike, too. I’ve never been much for young girls just out of the schoolroom.”
“Are your flirts any more suitable?” she asked, giving him a level look.
Jeremy returned her look, though his eyes glinted. “Thea, for shame. A lady shouldn’t refer to such things.”