Vennor’s gaze moved to her right, meeting the steely grey eyes of Viscount Hayes before returning to Marianne. ‘I hope the arrangement meets with your approval, Miss Treleven? Forgive me if I’ve been too bold.’ It rather obviously did not meet with Hayes’s approval. The man was fairly bristling at his presumption, but he wasn’t asking for Hayes’s permission. He was asking for Marianne’s and Hayes was far too well bred to do more than glare at him. Still, the action was duly noted.
‘There is nothing to forgive.’ Marianne nodded to him and turned her smile on Hayes, quick to smooth things over. ‘My lord, I believe this our dance.’
Vennor watched from the sidelines as Hayes and Marianne took to the floor, her crystal sequins shimmering beneath the chandeliers as they danced. So that was the lay of the land this Season. It confirmed the gossip floating around the clubs. Hayes meant to declare himself. How interesting. How inevitable. Something inside him sank.
He should not be surprised. Hayes was newly returned from a two-year Grand Tour of the Continent, apparently ready to wed and it was a given that Marianne would marry well. She was a beautiful young woman who’d acquired a certain polish in the years since her debut. Intelligent and sophisticated, imbued with a respectable dowry, she’d managed to rise above her father’s station as a Cornish baronet to catch the eyes of men much higher up on that ladder. A glittering, confident woman had replaced the tangle-haired tomboy who’d once begged to be taken along on fishing expeditions and truffle hunts. Time had not stood still nor had Marianne while he’d mourned. Viscount Hayes had noticed and he’d taken advantage.
Vennor reached for a glass of champagne from a passing tray and swallowed thoughtfully. Marianne was an ambitious girl in ways that did not limit themselves to matrimony. She would not settle for an idle life. What would Hayes say if he knew those ambitions? He might be in for a surprise. And so might Marianne if she wasn’t careful.
His own reaction to that pairing was worth examining. Was he envious of Marianne’s good fortune? Jealousy seemed too cruel a word for his feelings. He only wanted the best for her. Frien-vy, perhaps? He tried the made-up word out and gave a wry smile. He liked it.
The dance ended and Hayes and Marianne returned to her court. She was slightly breathless, her cheeks flushed. ‘Our supper dance is next.’ She looked vibrant and happy as she took his arm. Why shouldn’t she be? There were no shadows in her world, no death, no loss, no failures to mock her in the darkness of sleepless nights. Marianne seized the world by the horns and made it dance to her tune. He was surprised such a trait appealed to the strait-laced Hayes. The man was something of a puritan. But Marianne had other traits that no doubt offset that. Vennor could guess what Hayes saw in Marianne, but he wondered what she saw in Hayes.
Vennor led her out to the floor easily. They’d waltzed together often enough. Even before she’d come out, he’d spent afternoons pressed into practice at the Trelevens’, partnering the Treleven sisters as they learned their steps. But tonight, he was more conscious than usual of his hand at her waist, of her hand in his, the way her body matched his in the steps, how the merest press of his hand at the small of her back was met with an instant response. She knew him and he knew her in even the smallest of ways, and he might lose her. When she married, he would lose Marianne’s friendship. There would be no more supper dances, no more witty conversations, no more good company.
As much as he was determined to savour the dance, by the turn at the top of the ballroom, Vennor knew he’d overplayed his hand. Walking on his sore leg was one thing, dancing was another. Despite Honeycutt’s salve and the hot bath, his thigh ached. The exertion of a waltz was simply too much.
‘What is it?’ Marianne’s dark eyes searched his face with concern as he slowed their pace.
‘Would you mind terribly if we stepped outside? I don’t feel like dancing tonight,’ Vennor confessed.
Marianne slanted him a curious look. ‘Of course. I could do with some fresh air myself.’ The dance sent them past glass doors leading to the gardens beyond the ballroom and Vennor took the opportunity to guide them outside. The ache in his leg eased as they slowed to a stroll along with the other couples. He wished he could say the same for the ache that had taken up residence in his heart. His parents’ killers remained at large and Marianne was considering Hayes. Everything he cared for was slipping away.
* * *
Vennor had slipped a little further away from her tonight, that urbane mask he’d acquired when he’d inherited sliding further into place. Some day, she feared she might lose her friend altogether. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s on your mind or do I have to guess?’ Marianne queried gently. It wouldn’t be hard to guess. The same thing—person—was on her mind as well.
‘Hayes wasn’t pleased to see me tonight. He seems to think I am infringing on his territory. Am I?’
‘I’d rather not think of myself as territory to be conquered or owned,’ Marianne snapped and immediately apologised. Vennor was not responsible for her anxious state of mind. She ought not treat him as if he was.
Vennor lowered his voice confidentially. ‘He means to offer for you from what I’ve heard. Do you want him to?’
The disclosure was not surprising. She’d suspected as much. Hayes had made no secret of his intentions. Her own intentions were less clear. ‘I’m not sure,’ Marianne confessed. That was the question she’d been debating since the Season opened and Hayes had taken up residence in her court. Was she seriously contemplating him? Or, more to the point, was she seriously contemplating marriage at all? It was nearly the end of May and she was no closer to an answer. She had time. He would not ask until the Season was nearly over.
‘Is Viscount Hayes not adventurous enough for you?’ They approached a fountain with a wide basin and stopped to sit at its edge, the burble of water lending their conversation privacy.
‘I think that’s the problem. He should be enough for me.’ Marianne trailed her hand in the water and offered a little laugh. ‘I will outrank all my sisters.’ But the humour fell flat. They both knew she had never put much stock in titles. ‘He’s very proper, highly respected. He doesn’t appear to be riddled with vices. I could hope for no better in a man, yet I resist.’ Vennor was the only one to whom she’d confessed those worries. She’d not even articulated them to her mother or in letters to her sisters. ‘I fear I might disappoint him.’ Their gazes locked and a frisson of understanding borne of long friendship passed between them. You know why, her gaze whispered to his.
‘He does not know about your ambition,’ Vennor answered out loud. ‘You feel he would not approve.’ Sometimes it was nice to have a friend who could read your mind. It saved having to put complicated feelings into words.
She nodded. There was a modicum of relief in knowing at least one other person understood. She could always count on Vennor for that. ‘Can you see him tolerating Viscountess Hayes being a columnist—and for a gentleman’s magazine no less?’ Not that Hayes’s approval would make her like him more. It wouldn’t. Still, telling him in hopes of earning that approval was out of the question. She couldn’t even imagine her parents approving of it, which was why she’d never told them. It would be one eccentricity too far for them.
‘Perhaps you could continue to do it in secret?’ Vennor suggested. ‘If no one knows, why should that change?’
She speared him with an incredulous smile. ‘I can’t believe you’d propose such a thing, a wife keeping secrets from her husband? What sort of marriage would that be? Not one that I would want, if I married at all. I’d be lying to him. Besides, writing in secret is fine for now, but that’s not my intention, as you well know.’ Her ambitions went beyond an anonymous social column. She wanted to be a journalist who changed the world with her words, who didn’t have to hide behind the pseudonym M.R. Mannering.
She gave the water a slap, her frustration mounting and not all of it due to Lord H
ayes’s persistence. ‘There’s little chance of that, though, when all I do is cover the opera and who wore what. Nobody will ever care about that.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘That’s not serious journalism. Anyone can do that. I want to cover real events, solve a mystery, something meaningful people would want to still know about years from now.’
‘The present is important, too. I think you do yourself a disservice in thinking your column doesn’t matter. People need to be entertained and M.R. Mannering does a fine job of it.’ He gave her a winning smile. ‘For instance, I need to know what I missed with my late arrival.’
She couldn’t help but smile back. She could always rely on Vennor to cajole her out of the blue devils. ‘The Vigilante. Of course. He was out early tonight. There were rumours of him in Covent Garden defending a flower girl. He’s quite the hero these days, having lasted so long. I would have thought the novelty would have worn off by now, but it is just the opposite. It intensifies the longer he goes unknown. I think every woman in London is dying of love for him. Angeline Mercer even went driving in the stews in hopes of needing rescue just to meet him.’
‘Did it work?’ Vennor chuckled.
‘No.’ Marianne laughed, her mood lighter now that they’d moved away from serious topics. ‘But I don’t blame her for trying. I wouldn’t mind meeting such a paragon of a man.’ She gave him an impish smile and leaned a little closer, taking advantage of the fountain’s burble for secrecy. This was the perfect chance to tell him of her latest plans. ‘I have an idea for having a little adventure of my own and taking my reporting to the next level. I’ve been thinking maybe I should unmask the Vigilante. That would certainly get me a byline. He is all anyone talks about.’ She waited for his smile, for his face to light up in commendation, perhaps even ask to join her in the adventure. She got none of those.
‘Are you insane? You could very well end up dead.’ Vennor’s voice was a growl of disbelief. ‘You can’t possibly mean to go into Seven Dials, or the East Docks.’
She returned his stare, as surprised by his rejection as he apparently was by her suggestion. ‘I was expecting your support,’ she scolded.
‘Absolutely not, Marianne. It’s too dangerous. That man deals with real criminals, real violence. You could be hurt, or worse.’
‘I’d be careful,’ Marianne argued. ‘I know how to shoot. I could carry a gun.’
He reached for her hands and gripped them with an intensity that mirrored his words, his eyes holding hers, sending her pulse skittering again in that new way. ‘Promise me that you will not attempt such a thing. You could never be careful enough. You don’t know that world and what it’s like. I need your word, Marianne.’ His voice was low and imbued with seriousness. His grip on her hands tightened, a sure sign he would not leave the garden without her word.
This was her friend speaking, but also someone else, someone she didn’t recognise. It was thrilling and unsteadying. Their eyes locked, and it seemed the air between them was charged, the atmosphere surrounding them changing. They were changing. A new awareness of the other hung between them. For the first time, she was mindful of losing him, to marriage, to the dukedom. The friendship they’d taken for granted over the years had suddenly become precious and fragile.
When she spoke, her words were quiet, hushed, out of reverence, perhaps, for that awareness. ‘All right, Vennor. I promise. I will do nothing rash.’
Chapter Three
Damn, he was stiff—and not in the usual morning sort of way. Vennor nearly fell out of bed, a feat he hadn’t managed since he was six years old. Back then, he would merely spring to his feet and carry on. This morning, however, he could barely walk. Honeycutt would say it was a sign he should give up his masked crusade, that one of these days he might be more than sore.
Vennor made his way to the washbasin with tentative steps and splashed water on his face. Lord, he was tired. Tired of late nights, tired of too little sleep, tired of it all amounting to so little. The man looking back at him in the mirror was tired, too. His eyes sported purple smudges beneath them and the beginnings of puffiness.
He’d like to go back to bed, but there was too much to do: bills to read from Parliament, a speech to prepare in support of his latest piece of legislation, the last of his father’s special projects, and estate reports to review from land stewards on the various ducal properties—properties he had put off visiting since his father’s death.
There was the Vigilante’s work as well: baskets to send, supplies to distribute to those in need and arrangements to be made for apprentices and cabin boys, all in the hopes that his efforts would make a difference, that they were not a drop in the never-ending ocean of the London slums. He could not rescue them all, but perhaps he would make a difference in the lives of those he could. He raked a hand through his hair. He’d make no difference if he didn’t get started.
His father had spent each morning from nine until one taking care of his responsibilities with a work ethic that had impressed itself on Vennor growing up. It had been a natural model to fall into when he’d assumed the dukedom, although many of his fellow peers didn’t rise until after noon. He could at least do this much right, even if it was just pushing paper.
* * *
An hour later and only one letter answered, Vennor was rethinking that assumption. He wasn’t doing this right or even at all. He pushed back from the desk in the office and rubbed at his brow. This morning, it was impossible to keep his mind on his work when it insisted on straying back to thoughts of Marianne. Marianne was considering Hayes. Marianne was considering unmasking the Vigilante. Marianne was considering gallivanting around the slums with a pistol in her pocket. Sweet heavens, just the thought of it in broad daylight caused him to break out in a sweat. Marianne with a gun would think herself invincible. She would be fearless and that would be her undoing, as would her stubbornness.
Vennor set aside his correspondence and walked to the long window overlooking the street, using the opportunity to stretch his leg. Her stubbornness worried him. He’d seen that look in her eye last night when she’d outlined her plans. She meant to find the Vigilante. He’d seen that same tenacity the day she’d told him she meant to answer the ad in Gentlemen’s Weekly for a columnist even though it had asked explicitly for a male applicant. She’d triumphed against those odds. She was sure she’d triumph against these odds as well.
He’d disappointed her last night when he’d not offered encouragement. She’d been counting on him to support her latest endeavour, this next step in achieving her dream, and he’d shot her down. Guilt for that gnawed at him this morning. He was her friend, her confidant, the only one she talked with about her ambition, and he’d failed her—he was very good at that, failing people. But short of revealing himself to her, what was he to do? For both their sakes, he needed to talk her out of this.
He reached for the window and pulled back the curtain. Outside, the day was sunny and bright. The street looked peaceful from up here, so orderly, unlike his life. What was he to do about Marianne? Did he let her go off into danger hunting the Vigilante, knowing she’d never find him? Or tell her his secret in order to keep her safe at home? He wouldn’t be safe, of course. Marianne might just shoot him when she discovered he’d been holding out on her. She’d entrusted him with her biggest secret and he’d not reciprocated.
Guilt dug at him, no longer merely gnawing, but chewing hard. He’d not behaved as a friend ought last night. The code of the Cornish Dukes insisted that one always had the backs of his friends. Whatever else he owed Marianne, he at least owed her an apology. He dropped the curtain and glanced at the clock. It was still early by town time, but Treleven House was one place he could call without standing on ceremony.
Downstairs in the pristine hall, with its immaculate black-and-white-tiled floor and dust-free consoles, Vennor shrugged into a coat and gave his cravat a cursory straightening in the mirror, a large, impressive r
ococo piece trimmed in pounds of gilt. Good lord, his entrance hall felt like a museum, quiet, stately, tasteful, but not lived in. He might as well be a guest passing through for all the blandness the place possessed. He looked about, seeing the hall in a new light. Clean and pristine was not enough to give a home personality, to give it character. His mother’s home had always had that. When had the town house lost it?
Honeycutt handed him his hat and walking stick; the man was as immaculate as the hall but more alive. Perhaps museum wasn’t the word he was looking for. Mausoleum might suit better. ‘Where to, Your Grace?’
‘To see Miss Treleven,’ Vennor gave his waistcoat a final tug.
‘Very good, Your Grace,’ Honeycutt said with the air of one who’d known the answer long before he’d asked the question.
* * *
The Treleven hall didn’t feel like a mausoleum, Vennor noted as he left his things with a footman. The space was smaller than Newlyn House, but it was brighter. Livelier. There were flowers in a vase of coloured glass on the console and sunlight streamed in through the large fan-shaped window above the door, adding to the warmth of the butter-yellow walls. Under his boots, a polished oak floor gleamed, decorated by a patterned Turkish throw rug.
‘Vennor, my dear boy, it’s so good to see you!’ Lady Treleven, red-haired and as lovely as her six daughters, sailed into the hall, hands outstretched. If not for the hints of faded red at her temples, she might have been one of them. ‘Marianne’s upstairs in the reading room. Shall I take you up? I assume you’ve come to see her.’ She had her arm through his and had him halfway up the stairs before he could answer, filling him in on the latest news. Perhaps Marianne got her nose for a good story from her.
The Confessions of the Duke of Newlyn Page 2