“A duke,” Papa said, giving her a frown as he swirled his brandy and took another generous swallow, “could be very helpful to my cause, if we could get into his good graces.”
Irene shot him a wry look. “Not to crush your hopes for our future, Papa, but having me in the Duke of Torquil’s good graces is about as likely as flying pigs.”
“What did you say to him? Gave him your cheek, I suppose?”
“Not at all,” Irene said with dignity, but Clara ruined her attempt to prevaricate.
“Well, you did call him a lily of the field,” her sister said, causing their father to groan and pour himself another glass of brandy.
“All my good work undone, likely as not,” he muttered, shaking his head. “It won’t matter a jot if you’re a viscount’s granddaughter if you insist upon snubbing dukes. Really, Irene, must you air your opinions at every opportunity?”
“Oh, I couldn’t help it, Papa! The man was so damnably arrogant. And besides, my description of him was apt. I doubt he does any work at all.”
“Nor should he,” her father said severely. “It would be unthinkable for a gentleman, especially a duke, to work. It’s beneath him.”
“Yes, so this particular duke reminded me while looking down his nose and oozing disapproval of me and my profession.”
“You can’t blame him for that, since a woman isn’t supposed to have a profession,” her father retorted, leaning back with his glass. “You should be going to parties and juggling the attentions of young men. Not slaving away in that musty office you’ve made out of what used to be our library.”
Irene did not reply, for what was there to say? Her father had never been good with either money or the lack of it, a fact her brother Jonathan had attempted numerous times to remedy without success. A violent quarrel on that topic three years ago had resulted in the banishment of Jonathan from their house and the tearing up of every letter sent by him to their father in the aftermath. Her brother had taken off for America, his present whereabouts unknown, and their father, as if to prove his son wrong about his abilities, had begun speculating wildly with what money they had left. If Irene hadn’t intervened, they’d be destitute.
She noted how his hand shook as he refilled his glass again, and she appreciated—not for the first time—that if food was to be put on their table, and if tradesmen and servants were to be paid, she would have to be the one who provided the means. She also knew from past experience that attempting to make her parent accept the hard realities of their life now was as much a waste of breath as telling him not to drink.
“Be that as it may,” she said instead, “the duchess’s life is her own business, and if the duke doesn’t like the man she chooses to marry, the duke shall be forced to lump it.”
“Good heavens, Irene.” Her father stared at her, appalled. “You didn’t tell him that?”
“Essentially, yes.”
Papa groaned. “What will Ellesmere think if he hears about this?”
“Nothing he wasn’t thinking already, Papa.”
“Yes, but Irene,” Clara put in before their father could answer, “the duke does seem to care very much about his mother. You may find his manner arrogant, and even discourteous, but surely worry accounts for that. And it doesn’t mean you ought to behave in kind.”
Irene felt a stab of guilt. “Really, Clara,” she said with a sigh, “it is so aggravating when you decide to be my conscience.”
“Someone has to be,” her father put in. “Otherwise, God only knows what you’d take it into your head to do. Start a revolution or resume working for the vote, or some other ghastly thing.” He shuddered and took another drink.
“I fully intend to march in the streets and champion the vote for women whenever I have the chance,” Irene answered. “But at the moment, managing the newspaper takes all my time.”
“That is one point in its favor, I suppose,” Papa grumbled. “It keeps you away from politics.”
Irene made a face at him as she stood up and walked to the secretaire. “As for the rest, neither of you need accuse me of being uncaring, for I have every intention of telling the duchess of her son’s visit to me.”
Clara shot her a startled glance. “So you do know where she is?”
“I do. A letter from her arrived this morning from a London hotel. I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, but I shall do that now, then offer a reply, informing her of her son’s visit to me and his concerns about her. I shall also recommend she communicate with her family posthaste.”
“Really, Irene,” her father said, “I don’t understand you. If you have had a letter from the woman and you know where she is, why didn’t you convey that information to the duke?”
“Because Lady Truelove promises confidentiality to all her correspondents, Papa. You know that.”
It was Papa’s turn to make a face, one that made him look as if he’d just eaten a persimmon. “Don’t go quoting that abomination you’ve created in my presence.”
“It puts food on the table, Papa,” she said as gently as she could.
“There are other ways to do that.”
Irene would have appreciated his suggestions on that score a year ago when creditors were threatening to take their home and all their furnishings, but when she watched him down the remainder of his third glass of brandy and pour a fourth, she reminded herself it did no good to fire off tart rejoinders and be cross. “Either way,” she said instead, “I have given my word to my readers to respect their confidence, and I won’t break it.”
“But, Irene, he’s a duke.”
She was becoming quite tired of that particular refrain. “I don’t care if he’s the Prince of Bohemia.”
Her father gave her an unhappy look. “It would grieve your mother to see you display such irreverence for the aristocracy.”
“Would it?” Irene countered with asperity. “I think Mama displayed an admirable irreverence for her aristocratic family when she had the courage to follow her heart and marry a man of the middle class. And since the viscount and all Mama’s family turned their backs on her from the day of her wedding and I’ve never met any of them in my life, I don’t see why they ever deserved her reverence. They certainly don’t deserve mine. Or yours.”
Pain shimmered across her father’s face at this reminder that Mama’s family had deemed him so unworthy of her, making Irene regret her words at once. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant, my dear,” he said, cutting her off mid-sentence. “And I am grateful for your loyalty to my side of your family tree. But my dear child, it doesn’t do to have such blatant disregard for the aristocracy. They are very powerful, and their influence is mighty.”
“Yes, so His Grace took pains to remind me.”
“Did he, indeed? And what was your response?”
She grinned. “What do you think?”
Her father sighed, shaking his head. “One of these days, Irene, your cheek will be your undoing.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” she said, trying to look suitably chastened. “But really, Papa, duke or no, what can that man possibly do to me?”
Chapter 4
Private detectives, Henry soon discovered, could be surprisingly efficient. Immediately after leaving Miss Deverill, Henry had engaged their services, and a mere forty hours later, they had occasion to call upon him, having managed to fulfill all of his requests for information.
First, and most important, they had determined that his mother had not yet married Foscarelli, much to Henry’s relief.
Second, they had located the Italian, who was now living in a flat in Camden Town, a full-service suite of rooms leased in his own name the same morning his mother had departed from home. The news that Foscarelli now had an official residence for the purpose of obtaining a marriage license was no great surprise, but in regard to finding his mother, it proved irrelevant. The duchess, he was told, was not residing with the artist, but had ensconced herself in a suite of roo
ms at Thomas’s Hotel in Berkeley Square.
Immediately upon the departure of the detective, Henry called for his carriage. While waiting for it to be brought around, he wrote a letter to his solicitors, giving them Foscarelli’s address and instructing them to open negotiations with the Italian. Buying off Mama’s lover would be, he had no doubt, an expensive proposition, but to avert the looming disaster, he’d write the check happily.
Once in his carriage, Henry ordered his driver to take him to Berkeley Square, and during the short ride, he read the dossier the detective agency had compiled for him about Miss Irene Deverill, her family, and her newspaper. That particular request had been an impulse on his part, for his heated conversation with the woman had sparked not only his ire, but also his curiosity. She had also evoked in him certain other emotions, those of a darker, more erotic nature, but he knew he’d do well not to explore those particular feelings too deeply.
It was just ten o’clock when his carriage pulled into Berkeley Square. Thomas’s was a small but comfortable hotel located on the north side of the square. It was considered to be somewhat old-fashioned, but to Henry’s mind, that was a point in its favor. Upon his arrival, he inquired after his mother, handing his card to the concierge. “Please have the duchess informed of my presence and inquire if she will receive me.”
A footman was dispatched upon this errand, and though Henry wasn’t at all sure his mother would see him, a few minutes later the footman returned, affirmed the duchess was receiving, and gestured toward the electric lift tucked discreetly behind a trio of potted palms. “If you will follow me, Your Grace?”
He was led up to a suite of rooms on the second floor, and though he knew his mother had taken no servants with her, not even a maid, it nonetheless seemed incongruous when she opened the door to him herself.
“So you’ve found me.”
That cool greeting did not bode well, nor did her equally cool demeanor. No one had ever thought he and his mother bore much of a familial resemblance, for the duchess was diminutive, sweet-faced, and amiable, and Henry, as everyone knew, was none of those things. Right now, however, there was a determined line to his mother’s jaw and a guarded cast to her countenance that reminded Henry far too much of his own character for his peace of mind. Still, given the current circumstances, he could hardly have expected her to welcome him with open arms. “Did you think I wouldn’t find you?”
She gave a sigh and opened the door wide. “No,” she admitted as he came in. “Although I did think it might take you a bit longer than it has.”
“I daresay, since the nuptials haven’t yet taken place.”
“A fact that fills you with delight, no doubt.”
“I find nothing delightful in this, Mama,” he assured her as she led him into the suite’s small sitting room. “We have all been concerned for you.”
“There is no need to be.” She gestured to a pair of moss-green settees, and when she sat down upon one, he seated himself directly opposite. She gave him no chance, however, to begin the eloquent speech he had been preparing since her departure Tuesday morning.
“Henry, I know your intent is to change my mind about my marriage, so allow me to save you the trouble and spare us both what would surely be a quarrel. I shall not change my mind, regardless of your efforts.”
“I am not here only for that reason, Mama. I am also hoping to persuade you to return home. A hotel cannot be as comfortable as your own home, especially with no servants to attend you.”
“Now that you know where I am, I shall send for my maid. She is all the help I need for the present, since this situation will not be for long. Antonio secured the lease on his own flat here in London yesterday. A fortnight from now, he will be able to obtain the marriage license and we can be wed.”
Though this news confirmed his earlier prediction of Foscarelli’s actions and further cemented his low opinion of the other man’s character, it was nonetheless a relief, for it meant he now had two full weeks to change his mother’s mind. Despite that, he knew he had to tread carefully, and he decided pretending a lack of knowledge about the other man was his best course. “I take it Foscarelli had not previously had a fixed abode in town?”
His mother’s nose wrinkled at the implication. “You make it sound as if he’s been indigent.”
Not indigent, Henry wanted to say. Just low enough to sponge off his friends as long as possible.
Wisely, he didn’t voice that opinion. “Not at all,” he said instead, but he must not have sounded convincing enough.
“It is the season, Henry. You know how difficult it is to find rooms in town. It’s only because it’s nearly August that he’s found rooms of his own at all.”
Henry didn’t debate the point. “Of course,” he said politely. “But if we may, could we discuss your living arrangements rather than those of your . . . ahem . . .” He paused, grasping for a description of Foscarelli he could manage to utter without choking. “Rather than those of your acquaintance? There is no need for you to stay in a hotel, Mama,” he added. “You have a home.”
“Where I would leave myself open to the continual arguments of my children over the course I have chosen? I think I would prefer to remain here. Thomas’s is a perfectly respectable establishment.”
“If one is a tourist, yes. But not if one already has a comfortable home a mere five blocks away.”
His mother drew herself up, the morning light through the windows glinting on her steel-gray hair. “When a woman has chosen to elope, there is no going back.”
At that somewhat melodramatic declaration, Henry had to suppress a sigh. “You aren’t married yet.”
“Which is why I am here, and not already living with Antonio in our new home.”
“New home?” Henry stared at her, dumbfounded. “You intend to live with him in a Camden Town flat?”
“Why not? It is a full-service flat.” There was a hint of amusement in her blue eyes that told him she was teasing him a little, but she spoke again before he could reply. “You may rest easy, Henry. Antonio only leased the flat to apply for the license. We shall sublet it. But I could hardly expect you to welcome him into the ducal residences after the wedding, so I have made an offer to purchase a very comfortable little villa for us. It is in Chiswick, on the river. Once the wedding has taken place, that is where we shall begin our life together. We shall travel to Italy in the autumn, for he does so want me to see Florence, and I have never been—”
“Mama, please,” he cut in, unable to bear it. “You talk as if you and Foscarelli shall be a pair of young newlyweds on honeymoon. You are fifty years old, not nineteen.”
“So I am too old to see the world?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do. What you mean is that at my age, I should not be prone to the reckless actions we all take in our youth.”
He stiffened, all his defenses rising to the fore. “Just so. God knows, when I was nineteen, I was unbelievably foolish. My passion blinded me to the consequences of making a rash marriage to someone far beneath my station. But I was paid out for my folly.”
“You married the girl in honorable fashion.”
“Honorable?” he echoed, his voice scathing even to his own ears. “Making a marriage so wrong that I had to conceal it from the world, hide it even from my own family? Putting my own wife away in a cottage in the country, sneaking away from Cambridge to visit her . . . yes,” he said with bitterness, “I was so honorable.”
“You loved her.”
“Did I?” He shook his head. “No, infatuation is not love. Passion is not love. Lust”—he forced the word out—“is not love. Do not paint a romantic picture of my actions, Mama, or attribute to me honor that I did not possess. I married Elena because I wanted her, and I could not have her any other way.” Guilt and regret felt like a weight against his chest, making it even more incumbent upon him to steer his mother from the mistake she was about to make. He leaned forward in his seat, considering his
next words with care. They had never spoken openly of his clandestine marriage a decade ago, but though he hated doing so now, it was necessary.
“It only took eight weeks for our mad infatuation to die. Eight weeks, and then there we were: two desperately unhappy souls with nothing in common but the ashes of a dead passion, caught for life in the consequences of our—my—mistake. For it was mine,” he rushed on as she tried again to speak. “The power in the situation was all mine; she had none. Papa said she was my ruin, but—”
“Your father was an unyielding man who could see no way but his own. And in this, he was wrong.”
“I know that. Elena was not my ruin.” He paused, swallowed hard, and met his mother’s gaze. “I was hers. Is it any wonder we were unhappy?”
“Stop, Henry,” she cried, her voice sharp. “Please, stop this. I cannot bear to hear you berate yourself this way.”
He could have continued in this vein. He could have asked her what she and a man so different from herself would share, work toward, and talk about once their passion had cooled and they discovered there was no foundation beneath it. But he refrained, for the point had been made, and hammering it to death would serve no purpose.
“Until this wedding takes place,” he said instead, “would you at least consider returning home? We have friends and acquaintances who live in Berkeley Square. You are bound to be seen coming and going from here, if you haven’t already. What do you imagine our friends will think to see you slipping in and out of a hotel two blocks from your own residence? Or worse, what if they see that man coming here to visit you?”
“Heavens, Henry, you make me sound notorious.”
“You soon will be, I can assure you, if you follow through with this elopement.”
His mother sniffed. “That would say more about the quality of our acquaintances than it would about me. My true friends will stand by me. The rest don’t matter.”
The Truth About Love and Dukes Page 5