by Mary Balogh
“An earl’s daughter!” Angeline exclaimed. “How utterly splendid. It will be quite unexceptionable for you to marry her, Ferdie. The very highest sticklers may frown upon natural sons and daughters, but perfectly respectable people marry them all the time. And Miss Thornhill was recognized by her father before he died. He gave her property—I am sure he meant to do it even if he forgot to say so in his will, and now that you have given it back to her, no one will be any the wiser anyway. She will be known simply as Miss Thornhill of Pinewood—until she becomes Lady Ferdinand Dudley, of course. Jane, we must waste no more ti—”
“Angie!” Ferdinand said sharply. “Her illegitimacy is not the worst charge the ton would level against her. Not that I would care the snap of two fingers, and I would defend her honor against anyone who chose to argue the point. But you would care. At least you would by the time Heyward had finished with you.”
“Pooh!” she said. “Heyward does not rule me. Besides, he would not be so stuffy.”
“Ferdinand.” Jane leaned forward in her chair. “You are fond of her, are you not? Are you going to marry her? We will never disown you if you do. Will we, Jocelyn?”
“Will we not?” he asked, looking at her with one of his black stares.
Her eyes sparked. It had always fascinated Ferdinand to see that not only was Jane uncowed by that look, which could cause even the strongest man to quake in his boots, but that it provoked her into giving as good as she got. Perhaps, he had concluded long ago, that was why Tresham had married her.
“You claim to be a Dudley and yet ask such a question?” she cried. “I will not disown Ferdinand, even if you do. And I will not disown Miss Thornhill either if he should choose to marry her. She cannot help her birth. And who knows why she chose the career she did? Women become courtesans and mistresses and … and whores for a number of reasons. But it is never from personal choice. No woman would freely choose such degradation. If Miss Thornhill has won Ferdinand’s respect and admiration and love, then she is worthy of recognition by his family. She will have my recognition, if no one else’s.”
“Indeed, my love!” Tresham said softly before turning his eyes on his brother. “So there you have it, Ferdinand. We are Dudleys. And if society tells us that something is impossible, then of course we have been provoked into proving that we do not care that much for society’s good opinion.” He snapped his thumb and middle finger with a satisfyingly loud crack.
“Bravo, Tresh!” Angeline said. “The White Horse Inn, did you say, Ferdie? Jane, we must call on Mrs. Wilding and Miss Thornhill there. I cannot wait to see her, can you? She must be extremely beautiful, to have caught Ferdie’s eye. Heyward says he has never been in the petticoat line, which of course he ought not to have said in my hearing, but I persuaded him years ago that I am no delicate bloom and will not faint away at the merest provocation. What we will do, Jane, is invite them here for some grand reception to introduce them to society. Ferdie can announce his betroth—”
“Angie!” Ferdinand was on his feet. “Take a damper, will you? She won’t marry me.”
For a rare moment she was speechless. She stared at him, her mouth still open. But she recovered quickly.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because she does not want to,” he said. “Because she would prefer to retain her freedom and live her own life. Because she does not care for me. Because she does not love me.” He ran the fingers of one hand through his hair. “Deuce take it, I cannot believe I am discussing my personal life with my family.”
“Is she going back to Pinewood, then?” Jane asked.
“No,” he said. “She dashed well won’t do that either. She is going back to her old way of life, if you must know. There! End of discussion. For all time. I will take my leave now. Thank you for tea, Jane.” He had not touched a drop of it.
“Angeline.” Jane spoke to their sister-in-law, but she was looking at Ferdinand. “I like your idea. We will call at the White Horse Inn tomorrow morning. I think we ought not to delay any longer than that. Don’t forbid me to go, Jocelyn. I would simply defy you.”
“My love,” he said, his voice deceptively meek, “I cannot have it said that I am one of those sad men who cannot control their own wives. I issue commands only when I have a reasonable expectation that they will be obeyed.”
Ferdinand heard no more. He had left the room and closed the door behind him. But he had not had an answer to the question he had come to ask, he thought as he ran down the stairs.
He would just have to find Kirby himself. It should not be impossibly difficult. He just hoped Kirby would be reluctant to talk. He hoped the man would need considerable persuasion, in fact.
* * *
VIOLA WAS IN THE small office of the White Horse Inn the next morning bringing the account books up to date, making sure that the columns of figures balanced. She had dressed in one of her plainest morning gowns, one she had left behind at the inn years ago. It was not particularly out of fashion, simply because it had never been in fashion. She had had Hannah dress her hair in a tight coronet of braids.
She wanted to feel, at least for the rest of this week, as if she were nothing more than her uncle’s secretary and bookkeeper. She did not want to look either ahead or back. She kept her mind ruthlessly focused on the figures before her.
Yet the mind is a strange thing. It can concentrate on a mechanical task while at the same time wandering in the most undisciplined way.
To her meeting with Daniel Kirby.
To the upsetting confrontation with Ferdinand.
To all that had happened afterward.
Her mother had come back to the sitting room soon after he had left. So had Maria and Claire and Uncle Wesley. They had all been beaming expectantly.
“Well?” her mother had asked.
“He brought me the deed of Pinewood,” she had told them, indicating the papers on the table. “He has had ownership transferred to me. It was always more mine than his, he said.”
“That is all?” her mother had asked, clearly disappointed.
“Oh, Viola,” Maria had said, “he is so handsome.”
“He offered me marriage,” Viola had told them. “I refused.”
She had not been able to explain any of her real reasons, of course, and so had been forced to allow her mother to draw the conclusion that it was her illegitimacy that had led her to refuse. Mama had wept. But she had not been able to understand why that fact should mean so much to Viola when clearly it did not to Lord Ferdinand Dudley.
“Mama,” Viola had said at last, “I do not love him.”
“Love? Love?” Her mother’s voice had risen. “You refuse a lord, the son of a duke, when you might marry him and be secure for life? When you might do something for your sisters? How can you be so selfish?”
“How can you not love him,” Maria had wailed, “when he is so gorgeous?”
“Hush, Maria!” Claire had said sternly. “Mama, do dry your eyes and let me bring you some tea.”
“Oh,” their mother had said after blowing her nose, “I am the selfish one. Forgive me, Viola. You always sent us money from your governess’s salary. You were kind to us.”
“And since then too, Rosamond,” Uncle Wesley had said. He had continued despite Viola’s shake of the head. “I am not the one who has been paying Benjamin’s school fees, you know. Viola has. And other things too that you have thought came from me. It is time you knew. You do not have to marry any wealthy aristocrat you do not even like, niece. And you do not have to go out as a governess again either if you do not want to. The inn will support my sister and her children just as it would have supported Alice and our children if she had lived.”
They had all ended up in tears, except Uncle Wesley, who had slipped off back downstairs. No one had mentioned Ferdinand again—except Hannah, who had still been in Viola’s room when she returned there.
“Well?” she had asked. “Did he come to take you back to that house? Or has he come
to his senses and offered you something better?”
“Something better, Hannah,” Viola had told her. “He has given me Pinewood. Perhaps one day, when Mr. Kirby can make no more money out of me and decides that the debt is paid off, we will go back there, you and I. Everyone needs some hope. Lord Ferdinand Dudley has given it to me.”
“And he didn’t offer to make an honest woman of you?” Hannah had asked. “I thought better of him, I must confess.”
“An honest woman.” Viola had sighed and then laughed. “He did offer, Hannah, and I refused. No, don’t look at me in that mulish manner. You of all people must know why I refused, why I could never marry him or any other man. I could not do that to him.”
“Why not, lovey?” Hannah had asked.
It was really a rhetorical question, but Viola had answered it anyway.
“Because I love him, that is why,” she had cried. “Because I l-l-love him, Hannah.” She had sobbed in her old nurse’s arms, which were wonderfully comforting but which had somehow lost their magical ability to make all better.
She had definitely added up that column correctly, she thought now, her head bent over the account book. She had added it three times and arrived at the same total each time. The trouble was that there was no more paperwork to do and she did not want it to be at an end. She wanted to lose herself in work.
But the door opened suddenly and Maria’s flushed, excited face appeared around it.
“Viola,” she said, “you are to come up immediately to Mama. She has sent me to fetch you.”
“Why?” Viola was immediately suspicious.
“I am not going to say.” Maria smirked importantly. “It is a secret.”
Viola sighed in exasperation. “He has not come back, has he?” she asked. “Tell me if he has, Maria. I do not want to see him and you may go back and tell Mama so.”
“I am not saying,” her sister said.
As Viola made her way upstairs, it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps it was Daniel Kirby who had called. But Maria would not be so excited about that, surely.
“You will never guess,” she said from just behind Viola.
There were two ladies in the sitting room with her mother, who was looking almost as flushed as Maria. Two very grand ladies, both dressed in the first state of fashion, the one quietly and expensively elegant, the other brighter and more flamboyant.
“Viola.” Her mother stood, as they both did too. “Come and make your curtsy to these ladies, who have been kind enough to call upon me and ask to make your acquaintance too.”
Maria slipped past her into the room, but Viola stood just inside the door.
“This is my eldest daughter, Viola Thornhill,” her mother said. “Her grace, the Duchess of Tresham, and Lady Heyward, Viola.” She indicated first the elegant, golden-haired lady and then the other.
Viola was never sure afterward if she curtsied or not. She did know that somehow her hands found the doorknob behind her back and gripped it as if for dear life.
Both ladies were smiling at her. The duchess spoke first.
“Miss Thornhill,” she said, “I do hope you will forgive us for calling on you and your mama without any warning. We have heard so much about you from Ferdinand, you see, and longed to make your acquaintance.”
“I am his sister,” Lady Heyward said. “You are every bit as lovely as I expected. And younger.”
Did they know? Did they know? Did Ferdinand know they were here? Did the Duke of Tresham?
“Thank you,” Viola said. “How very obliging of you to call upon Mama.”
“Her grace has invited us to take tea with her at Dudley House tomorrow afternoon, Viola,” her mother said. “Do come and sit down.”
Did they know?
“Actually, Mrs. Wilding,” the duchess said, “we would like to take Miss Thornhill for a drive with us today. It is far too lovely a day to be spent indoors. Can you spare her for an hour?”
“I am working on my uncle’s books,” Viola said.
“But of course you can be spared,” her mother said. “Run and change into one of your pretty dresses. I cannot imagine where you found that old thing you are wearing. Whatever will her grace and Lady Heyward think of you?”
“Please come,” the duchess said with a warm smile for Viola.
“Yes, please do,” Lady Heyward added.
There seemed to be no other choice but to go and change. Ten minutes later Viola was seated in a very luxurious open barouche beside Lady Heyward while the duchess sat on the seat opposite, her back to the horses.
Please not to the park.
But the barouche turned in the direction of Hyde Park.
“We have disturbed and upset you,” the duchess said. “Please do not blame Ferdinand, Miss Thornhill. He did not send us. He told us you had refused his marriage offer.”
“You must have seen from your visit to my uncle’s inn how unsuitable such a match would have been,” Viola said, clasping her gloved hands in her lap so that she would not fidget.
“Your mother is a real lady,” the duchess said, “and your younger sister delightful. We did not meet the older girl. You have a half-brother at school too, I believe?”
“Yes,” Viola said.
“We were so very curious, you see,” Lady Heyward said, “to meet the lady who has stolen Ferdie’s heart. You have stolen it, Miss Thornhill. Did you know that? Or did he neglect to tell you, as gentlemen so often do? They can be such foolish creatures, can they not, Jane? They will make a perfectly decent marriage proposal in which they list all the considerable advantages of making a match with them and neglect to mention the only one that really matters. I refused Heyward when he first offered for me, even though he went down on one knee very prettily and looked very foolish, the poor darling. Everyone says he is just a dry old stick—at least Tresham and Ferdie say it, because of course he is so very different from them. He is not really stuffy, at least not when one is private with him, but when he first offered for me he made not the slightest hint of a mention of love. He did not even try to steal a kiss. Can you imagine anything so provoking? How could I have accepted him, even if I was head over heels for him? Now, what was it I set out to say?”
“You wondered how I could have refused Lord Ferdinand,” Viola said. The barouche was turning into the park, and her heart was beating faster. Of course, this was not the fashionable hour, which would draw the whole of the ton into the park in a few hours’ time, but even so, she might be recognized at any moment. “There are very compelling reasons, believe me, none of which have anything to do with the regard in which I hold him. Not the least of those reasons is that I am not a daughter of my mother’s marriage. Perhaps you wondered why my name is different from hers. It is her maiden name, you see.”
“You are a natural daughter of the late Earl of Bamber,” Lady Heyward said, taking Viola’s hand in her own. “Which is nothing to be ashamed of. Natural sons cannot inherit their fathers’ titles and entailed property, of course, but apart from that it is as respectable to be a natural child as to be one born within wedlock. That need not keep you from wedding Ferdie. Do you love him?”
“There is a reason,” Viola said, turning her head away so that her face would be hidden by the brim of her straw bonnet, “why that question has no relevance at all. I cannot marry him. And I will not explain to you. You must take me back to my uncle’s inn, please. You would not wish to be seen with me. The duke and Lord Heyward would not wish it.”
“Oh, Miss Thornhill, do not distress yourself,” the duchess said. “I am going to tell you something that very few people know. Even Angeline will be hearing it for the first time now. Before I married Jocelyn, I was his mistress.”
Lady Heyward’s hand slipped away from Viola’s.
“He kept me in the house where Ferdinand took you on your return to London,” the duchess said. “Jocelyn has kept the house. We always spend an afternoon or two there when we are in town. It holds many fond memories. It wa
s there we learned to be happy together. But that does not alter the fact that I was a mistress. A fallen woman, if you will.”
“Jane!” Lady Heyward exclaimed. “How utterly, splendidly romantic. Whyever have you never told me?”
So they did know, Viola thought. How rash of them to bring her out with them like this, in an open carriage.
“It was always a matter of pride with me,” she said, her head averted again, “to keep on asserting that I would be no man’s mistress. You knew one man, your grace. During the four years I worked, I knew so many men that I lost count. I never even tried to keep count, in fact, or wanted to. It was work. It was entirely different from your situation. I was famous. I was much in demand. I might still be recognized at any moment. Take me back home.”
“Miss Thornhill.” The duchess leaned forward and took Viola’s hand in both her own. “We three are women. We understand things that men will never understand, even the men we love. We understand that what brings men pleasure by the very nature of the act can bring us none unless it is more an emotional than a physical experience, unless there is some sort of love commitment from and to our partner. We understand that no courtesan embarks on her career with a free or joyful heart. We know that no woman could enjoy such a life. And we know too—as men most certainly do not—that the woman, the person, is something quite distinct from what she does for a living. You are uncomfortable with us. You probably resent us. But I know—I sense—that I will like you very much indeed if you will allow me to. Do you love Ferdinand?”
Viola turned her head sharply to glare at the duchess and pulled her hand away. “Of course I love him,” she said. “Of course I do. Why else would I have refused him? It would be a magnificent coup, would it not, for an illegitimate whore to marry the brother of a duke? Well, this illegitimate whore will not do it. I can do only one thing in my life to demonstrate how very much I love him. One thing—I can refuse him. I can make him believe that the prospect of returning to my old life is more enticing than the possibility of marrying him. If you love him, you will take me home now and go back and tell him how coldly and disdainfully I received you. I have feelings. I have feelings, and I cannot stand much more of this. Take me home.”