A Gentleman Undone

by Cecilia Grant

  “A gentleman of good family isn’t always free to love where he likes.” Her husband, beside her, offered this gentle underscore to her argument.

  “I beg your pardon, he is perfectly free to love as he chooses.” Nick pivoted and set his hands on the back of the armchair. “Gentlemen fall in love with unsuitable women all the time. What they don’t do is marry them. If you would only keep her, discreetly, there need be no scandal at all.”

  “I’m sorry for the scandal. Truly, I am. I’m sorry for any injury to your name, and your practice, and I’m sorrier than I can say if my nieces’ fortunes should be affected. But the fact is I cannot seem to find my place any longer in a society where to keep a woman in sin is a more respectable path than to give her my hand and my name.”

  “Don’t dare try to cloak this act in morality.” Andrew had finally found his voice, and a fearsome voice it was, low and taut and suggestive of temper just barely contained. “And don’t insult us with ifs. You will do harm to your brother’s name and practice, either through the duel or through this … connection … you would impose upon the family. You will hurt my daughters, Kitty’s daughters, Martha’s daughter, by crippling their chances to make an advantageous marriage. If you insist on going forward with this astounding show of selfishness, you must count yourself a stranger to this house, at least.”

  He’d expected it. He’d borne reversals ten times as brutal. And still, it pierced his middle like an icy blade. He dropped his gaze to the carpet for a moment. “I don’t dispute anything you’ve said. Indeed, to cut my acquaintance would probably be the reasonable course for all of you.” He raised his eyes again for another look round at the familiar faces. “If I’m so fortunate as to … Well, I shall strive to keep my name out of gossip, and be as little known in your circles as I can.”

  No one spoke—really, what more was there to say?—so he bowed, and made to leave the drawing room. Martha jumped up and was at the door before him, hand extended. “Any day next week will do for a call. I look forward to knowing her.” With fierce determination she gripped his hand and said this, as though by making plans for the future she could will him safely to the other side of the duel.

  “I look forward to her knowing you, too.” Irrepressible hope fizzed through him at the thought that he might after all have more to offer Lydia than just himself. She would gain a sister, a brother, and a niece, if only—no, he would follow Martha’s example, and pass over the if only. “Thank you.” He kept his voice low. “And thank your husband. I’ve scarcely been acquainted with him. I shall strive to correct that.”

  His sister nodded, flushing with pleasure. She knew a bit, didn’t she, about the cost of marrying a black sheep. No wonder she’d spoken up for him. Please God he’d live to repay her loyalty.

  With a last squeeze of her hand he made his exit. He was in the entry hall, waiting for his hat and coat, when brisk, purposeful footsteps sounded on the stairs behind him. Nick. Save for when he was being dragged into a gaming hell, his brother always walked as if he had somewhere important to be and something important to do once he got there.

  Will straightened but didn’t turn. For all that he knew better, he couldn’t wholly suppress a hope that his siblings had relented en masse, and sent Nick to fetch him back among them where he belonged.

  He checked the hope. “Don’t try to argue me out of the duel or the marriage. For more reasons than I can share, this is the only possible course for me.”

  Nick’s step slowed, and halted. “I didn’t intend …” His voice trailed off, uncharacteristically hesitant. “That is, I do wish you’d change your mind. And I’m sorry you can’t tell me your reasons. But I only came after you to ask whether you’re in need of a second for your duel.”

  He turned, then. His brother stood on the lowest step but one, hand on the railing, jaw set with dutiful resolve. Will inclined his head. “Thank you for thinking of it. But Cathcart’s already agreed.”

  “Ah. Well, then.” Nick glanced away, almost as though he were stung by not having been asked.

  Will felt all over again the distance that had opened up between him and his brother—hell, between him and every other Blackshear—since he’d gone away to war. This last, decisive estrangement had perhaps been inevitable, and still, if he should be mortally wounded in a few days’ time, among his regrets would be that he hadn’t tried harder, in the months since returning, to reforge those familial bonds.

  Nothing for it now. “I am sorry, Nick.” Here was the footman with his coat; his parting remarks must be brief. “I know what your work and your good name mean to you. I would gladly have sacrificed my own happiness, if it were only my happiness at stake.” He settled his hat. “But she loves me. She trusts me. I’ll give my life before I’ll abandon her.”

  He might give his life indeed, not many days from now, and he couldn’t help wondering, as he left his brother’s town house and descended to the street, whether some in his family might not prefer that less scandalous outcome.

  AN HOUR later he sat before Fuller’s desk, elbows on the arms of his chair, frowning out the window at the sun-starved greenery of Russell Square. “I don’t know why you’re not angry.” He twisted to face the man again.

  “Because you’re angry enough at yourself.” Fuller shrugged, hands clasped atop some piece of correspondence. “And you’ve lost the better part of your family already today. And you might be dead by next week.” A grin cracked his face. “Altogether I’m more inclined to offer you a drink.” He set his palms flat on the desk and pushed to his feet.

  “What will you do, though? Is there any chance of finding another investor in time?”

  “Possibly. I have prospects. None I like as well as you; I’ll be frank about that.” At the other side of the room he fetched a bottle and two glasses from a cabinet. “None so likely to impress my trading partners with fine English manners. None with your gift for inspiring confidence.”

  “I think it may be more curse than blessing on balance, that gift.” He pressed the thin edge of one cuff-stud hard into the pad of his thumb, a tiny act of self-mortification. “People like yourself put their trust in me when perhaps they oughtn’t.”

  “Really, Blackshear, you lay it on a bit thick.” Brandy gurgled musically as he tipped the bottle over one glass, then the other. “What would a trustworthy man have done, that you didn’t? Turn your back when you saw Miss Slaughter’s gentleman hit her? Sorry, sweetheart, but Jack Fuller is expecting me to help him buy a ship and I can’t go risking myself.” He corked the bottle and put it away. “You dealt with me in good faith. You never planned to fall in love, to wind up in a duel, to have to provide for Miss Slaughter in the event of your death.” Carefully he took up the glasses and crossed the room again with his uneven step. “If you’d plotted it all from the beginning that would be different. I’d be more than happy to heap abuse on your head.”

  “I admire your equanimity.” Will took his brandy and tossed back a good swallow. “You ought to have seen my brothers.”

  “It’s an advantage of my class, I think.” Fuller resumed his seat. “We merchants get a good deal of practice, early, in contending with things that don’t go the way we’d like. We learn to take a philosophical view.” He tipped a mouthful from his own glass. “I recommend trade to any man, if only as a forge of character. Tell your brothers I said so.”

  Ha. Maybe he would, by letter at least. Another swallow of brandy, and already he was beginning to feel its warming effect. Or perhaps the warmth had other sources.

  It was all true, what Andrew had said—he was making a selfish choice, besmirching the family name—and yet here, in Russell Square, there were other truths. Other expectations. Not once had his friend suggested he ought to abandon Miss Slaughter, or keep her as a mistress and avoid all scandal. In this world, such a marriage might not be so very remarkable.

  He set down his glass and leaned forward. “Fuller.” The brandy had surely gone straight to his head. “
I’ll want an income, if I survive that duel. Not a great one—the money we’ve won at cards can establish us, at least—but if I’m to marry, I’ll want a steady source of funds.”

  He paused for a quick breath. To ask this of the man was impudent in the extreme. But devil take it. He might be dead in a few more days. “Whatever qualities you found appealing in me as a prospective investor … might I be able to bring those qualities to your business in some other capacity? It’s not just the income, you know. I had looked forward to being part of this. I’ve studied to learn about ships and shipping.” Now the brandy had hold of his tongue. He stilled it. He’d made his case and he could wait for an answer.

  Fuller rubbed a considering hand over his jaw. “To be sure I could use you when the Americans come. I might have other uses as well.” He was silent for a moment, gone somewhere else, picking his way through the intricacies of his business to find the places where Will might fit. “Come call on me after the duel, if you’re able.” He grinned again. “If you’ll promise to bring your wife sometimes to have a look at my ledgers, I think perhaps something can be arranged.”

  His wife. That sounded excellent. If he could live to see his own wedding, he had every reason to be hopeful. They’d work hard, the two of them, and scrape their way from subsistence to comfort. And with an income to look forward to, he could think again of carving out part of his winnings to provide for Mrs. Talbot.

  A muscle somewhere deep inside him twitched. Guilt. How was he to forgive himself, if he’d led the widow to expect an offer and now must disappoint her? What if he died some several days hence? The nearly twenty-eight hundred pounds he’d amassed could buy independence for one woman, but not two.

  He pressed the cuff-stud to his thumb once more, but the guilt-muscle only twitched harder. Sometime in the next few days he must call in Camden Town. He would swallow the medicine of correcting any mistake as to his intentions. But how to honor his promise to Talbot, while still securing a future for the woman who now had every claim on his heart, was a calculation requiring more dumb genius and depth of understanding than he knew how to summon.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  A WIFE’S HONOR, he’d said, was her husband’s concern. Then surely a husband’s honor was his wife’s concern, and his debts and obligations likewise her own. And so here she stood on the steps of the little house in Camden Town, waiting for the widow Talbot to fetch her cloak and come out for a walk.

  Lydia unwound and rewound her reticule strings until the purse sat snug in her palm. He’d gone to brave the wrath of his family for her, according to the note on the pillow, and then to withdraw from his partnership with Mr. Fuller. She’d woken too late to prevent him in that. Not for the world, though, would she give him any chance to default on this most solemn of debts. Not in her name.

  “You’re very good to call again.” Mrs. Talbot descended the steps, a polite wariness in her manners. Pity would well up, despite all Lydia’s firm intentions. The woman had lost her husband through circumstances too horrible for her to ever know. Nor could she ever have the consolation of being Mrs. Blackshear. For Will to marry her, bearing the secret he bore, would only be a cruelty to both. She understood that now.

  “It’s very forward of me. I beg your pardon for that. Shall we walk?” They started south, the widow’s skirts swishing in rhythm with her own. Time to set her shoulders and plunge ahead. “In fact I’ve come on a particular errand. My cousin left yesterday’s visit in a state of some confusion.”

  “I should be surprised if he hadn’t.” Mrs. Talbot dimpled suddenly, blushed, and shook her head, averting her gaze to the pavement. “Please tell him I’m sorry for the awkwardness. Assure him he was no more astonished than I was to hear of Mrs. John Talbot’s assumptions.”

  “You did look … startled.”

  “Perhaps I oughtn’t to have been.” She lifted her chin and frowned into the distance. “My sister-in-law would like very much to have the house to herself and her husband and her own children again. Little wonder, I suppose, that she’d jump at any chance of another establishment for me and my son.”

  This was near enough, wasn’t it, to a denial of any expectation? It wasn’t as though he could marry the widow in any case. And yet to know for a certainty—to be able to go back to him and say you have not disappointed her hopes in the least—would be a prize worth some risk. Lydia tightened her fingers where they gripped her cloak together. “I should think you must wish for that too. It must be very hard, living with relations who make you feel you’re a burden. Marriage, to say nothing of marriage to a man with Mr. Blackshear’s merit, must be an attractive option by compare.”

  “Not for me.” She studied the pavement again, then brought her chin round to address Lydia straight on. “I’ll be frank, Miss Slaughter. Your cousin appears to be an excellent man. Mr. Talbot spoke well of him in his letters, and his kind attentions speak for themselves. He deserves a wife who will love him, not one whose heart was buried with another man.” Her eyes shone blue and pristine as a reflecting pool under a cloudless sky. “I’d never remarry at all, if I could avoid it. I certainly won’t inflict such unhappiness on Mr. Blackshear.”

  And now she had the prize, a balm to his conscience, to take back to him. Better yet, she had a prize for Mrs. Talbot too. With the hand that wasn’t clutching her purse she caught the widow’s elbow and ushered her to one side of the walk. “Mr. Talbot must have known what would be your wish.” Was this a convincing story? Through the mounting haze of happiness she couldn’t be quite sure. “You’ll forgive Mr. Blackshear, I hope, for not telling you of this before now, but he wanted to wait until there was a result worth telling. The fact is your husband made an investment and left it in my cousin’s charge, and now that investment has made its return, and …” She was doing the right thing. Without doubt she was doing the right thing. “… and it’s my privilege, Mrs. Talbot, to ask whether you can spare an hour to journey with me to the bank.”

  MRS. TALBOT wept in the hackney. Her sweet dainty features concealed nothing, and Lydia could see the exact second when she understood that she was to have her independence. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted for an instant before she pressed them together in a futile attempt at command. But by then her whole lower face was trembling. She brought her hands halfway up and let them fall again, helplessly, and turned to the window. Then she gave up altogether and just let the tears come.

  It was wonderful, one of the most wonderful things Lydia had ever seen. Her foolish heart felt like a teacup into which someone had forgot to stop pouring. But that was all right. Such untidy brimming-over warmth kept the widow company in her untidy weeping.

  “I recommend you set aside two hundred in ready money, to see you through the year and to discharge whatever obligation you choose to recognize toward your husband’s kin.” One helpless peal of laughter spilled out from between the helpless tears, prompting another slosh of sentiment in her heart. “That will leave you with twenty-five hundred to invest, which will bring you one hundred and twenty-five pounds per year.”

  Mrs. Talbot found a handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes. “I scarcely know what to think. It’s Providential, isn’t it? That this money should come when I had no earthly hope of it?” She turned the handkerchief over to find a dry place, and dabbed at her eyes again. “My Jamey has two thousand pounds of his own from another such arrangement; did you know?”

  She hadn’t known. But she remembered, of a sudden, the night she’d asked after the proceeds of Will’s commission. Part of it was tied up elsewhere, he’d said. She touched a gloved knuckle to each eye. “I’m so happy for you. I’m sure you’ve deserved it.”

  Let her believe it was the work of Providence. Well, and it was. Good people provided for one another. The best people made a solemn duty of it. People like herself could at least make sure they didn’t stand in the way of such noble intent.

  At the bank she waited in that same line again, drawing inexorably near
er to the clerk whose insolent manners had thwarted her in a similar mission six weeks since.

  Six weeks had wrought changes, though. She’d struck a man in that time, and shot two. She’d recovered her heart, with all its frailties and its strengths as well.

  Besides, Mrs. Talbot was depending on her, as Jane never truly had. So was Mr. Blackshear, though he didn’t know it. And the dependence of other people proved a remarkably fortifying tonic—by the time they reached the front of the line she could have faced a dozen leering clerks, naked, if she had to, without so much as a blush.

  She only had to face one. And he never even worked up a proper leer. “Good afternoon, sir,” she said the instant she and the widow sat down. “May I present Mrs. Talbot, a widow of one of our brave fighting men. She’d like to invest in the Navy fund. She hasn’t a man of business, but she does have twenty-five hundred pounds.” She paused for an unhurried breath. “And she has me. And I will not leave this bank until she has her certificate, not if I have to sit down with a dozen of your worthy colleagues until I find one willing to help.” Colleagues who might be interested to hear a few things I can tell of you.

  She didn’t have to say that aloud. His face told her, plainly, that his imagination had supplied it. He dipped his pen and began to take down the widow’s information, avoiding her own eyes all the while.

  Thirty minutes later they passed through the doors onto the street, Mrs. Talbot clutching tight to her certificate and fumbling for her handkerchief again. “You’ve been so kind, Miss Slaughter. If I can ever be of service to you in any way—”

  And that was all that had been wanting; the final value that would make the whole equation come out right. “In fact you can do me a very great favor. You’ll have means enough to employ a maid-of-all-work, and I happen to know one who’s in want of just such a respectable situation.”