Five
In Montford’s opinion, there was nothing quite like a social disaster to guarantee a pleasant evening. In an effort to please him, the hostess’s nerves were usually strung as tightly as the wires on a pianoforte. Just as Generva Marsh had been when they’d been at table.
The food had been excellent. The children had been clean and polite. The lady of the house had taken extra care with her own toilette and donned a gown of burgundy satin, cut low enough to show the freckles on her shoulders and bosom and to leave her shivering in the chill air of the dining room. Was any room but the kitchen ever truly warm in December?
She had dressed her hair as well, with worked gold pins that were probably the pride of a limited jewellery box. Captain Marsh had been a loving husband, but unsuccessful in taking prizes, if this was all he could manage for those dark brown curls.
It was a joy to look at her. But it seemed that would be the only pleasure of the evening. The conversation was stilted and dull. Master Ben was presented with a heaping plate so that he might be too busy to speak wrong. And it was clear, from her wary eyes and stubborn chin, that Miss Marsh was not the least bit interested in his solution to her disgrace. Out of courtesy, he had done his best to engage her in conversation and she had resisted at every turn.
It was just as well. If she changed her mind tomorrow, he’d have to keep his word and marry her. But when he looked at her, he felt nothing more than polite curiosity. It did not bode well for a possible marriage between them.
Especially since he could not seem to stop staring at her mother. Generva was not a memorable beauty, as his first wife had been, but she was quite lovely. Nor was she as witty as his second wife, though she was more than clever enough to suit him. More important, she had suffered both pain and hardship and was still very much alive. Wit and beauty had been transient things when compared with the rigours of childbirth. But Generva had faced them twice already and survived. In fact, she seemed to have thrived.
And now that all hell had broken loose in the parlour, he would have her all to himself.
She shooed the children away, then handed him a blanket for his shoulders and insisted that he remove his coat so that the housekeeper could brush the coal dust from it before it was ruined.
He kept it long enough to lay a fire for them, then did as he was bidden. By the whispering of the two women, it was only propriety that kept them from demanding he surrender his breeches for cleaning, as well. They would likely disappear in the night and be clean in the morning, just as the coat had when the housekeeper left.
‘I am sorry.’ The words were out of Generva’s mouth before the door could latch.
Generva. It was a fine name. He looked forward to using it often, rolling it around in his mouth like a fine wine. ‘You have nothing to apologise for.’
‘My family behaved disgracefully.’ She was not wringing her hands, as some women might, but stood tall, like a young officer on the deck of her husband’s ship, waiting to be dressed down.
‘All families do, at one time or other. It is my nephew’s terrible behaviour that brought me to you.’ He fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief.
‘At least he did not kick anyone in the ar—the bottom,’ she amended. ‘Here. Allow me.’ She pushed him towards a seat by the fire and took the handkerchief from him, dabbing carefully at his face.
He watched intently as she perched on the arm of the sofa and dipped the corner of it into her mouth, then wiped at the soot on his face. Did she mean to clean him like a cat with a kitten?
Because he would not mind that.
‘Ben grows worse each year,’ she admitted quietly as she worked.
‘He will grow worse until he grows better,’ the duke agreed. ‘All boys his age are monsters. The trick he played on me was but a child’s game. I played it myself, when at school. One boy must put on a blindfold. One of the others hits him and shouts, “Hot cockles”. Then the victim must guess the assailant.’
‘There was only one possible assailant,’ she said with a dark look towards the upper floor.
‘It did take the mystery from it,’ he agreed. ‘But my posture was all but asking for a kick. At that age, my mother would have needed to physically restrain me from taking action.’
‘It is proof of what idiots men can be when there are no women around to stop them from it.’ She switched the dirty linen in her hand for her own handkerchief and dipped it in the water from a drinking glass set beside his port. ‘Or perhaps it is that he needs a father. I worry, when he is old enough, he will run away to join the navy.’
Her hand stilled in her lap. Either he was clean to her satisfaction, or the thought of losing another man to the sea distressed her.
‘Do you mean to find him one?’
Her distant look turned to one of confusion.
‘A father,’ he said carefully. ‘Do you mean to find a husband? You are still young enough to remarry.’
But too old to blush over it, apparently. There was no pink in her cheek, other than what had been there from the first. He would not have compared her face to porcelain, unless it was to note the contrast of pale-pink rose petals painted on china. ‘A lady does not get herself a husband,’ she informed him. ‘A lady waits until a gentleman makes up his mind.’ She smiled. ‘And this lady has reconciled herself to the fact that none is coming.’
He took a sip of the port, which was excellent. It appeared that Captain Marsh had had excellent taste, all around. ‘Courting is not as I remember it. I thought I was the quarry, not the hunter.’
‘Because you are titled, Your Grace,’ she said with a smile that was much less sad. ‘I am a widow. Should I be the pursuer, society will think I am searching for something far different than a father for my children.’
Might she be longing for companionship? Did she miss a man in her bed? Or was that just what men wished to think, so that they need not worry about the reputation of the widows they claimed to be protecting? ‘I hope my presence here does not lead to more gossip,’ he said. ‘When I arrived, I assumed there was a man of the house. Now it is evening and we are unchaperoned.’
She laughed, and it was a sweet sound, as youthful as her daughter’s face. ‘If anyone talks, I will inform them that you are a duke and ask them if they thought you rode all the way from London because you had heard of my beauty. Then I will remind them of the fleas at the inn. If I could think of a house that was not already too full to hold you, I might have sent you there. But I could not.’
‘As long as I am no trouble,’ he said.
‘It is only for a few nights.’ Then she remembered their original plan. ‘And I wished for you to meet my daughter.’
Should he tell her now of the hopelessness of that particular plan? Better to wait until he could offer another. Though one was already forming in his mind, he had no evidence that she would approve of it. ‘Your daughter. Ah. Yes. Gwendolyn is a lovely girl. I suspect I will have a chance to talk to her again tomorrow. But tonight, I will retire early. If you will excuse me, Mrs Marsh?’
‘Of course, Your Grace.’ She hopped from her perch on the arm of the sofa and offered
