Tawny with Lady Alyssa,’ Pru pointed out.
Temper shifted uncomfortably. If she were truly honest, she had to admit a niggle of envy for the sort of radiant happiness her brother Christopher and his friends had found with the women they’d chosen as wives.
But the possibility of finding happiness in marriage wasn’t worth the certainty of having to face a trauma she’d never been able to master—or the cost of revealing it to anyone else.
‘Besides,’ Pru pressed her point, ‘it’s the character of the husband that will determine how fairly and kindly the wife is treated. And we both know there are fair, kind, admirable men in London. Look at Gregory—or Gifford!’
Gifford Newell. Her brother’s best friend and carousing buddy, who’d acted as another older brother, tease and friend since she was in leading strings. Although lately, something seemed to have shifted between them...some sort of wordless tension that telegraphed between them when they were together, edgy, exciting...and threatening.
She might be inexperienced, but, with a mother like theirs, Temper knew where that sort of tension led. And she wanted none of it.
‘Very well, I grant you that there are some upstanding gentlemen in England, and some of them actually find the happy unions they deserve. I... I just don’t think marriage is for me.’ Squeezing her sister’s hand, she crossed to the doorway. ‘Don’t forget to come say goodbye before you leave! Now, you’d better find where your maid has disappeared to with the rest of your bonnets before Aunt Gussie arrives. You know she hates to be kept waiting.’
Pru gave her a troubled look, but to Temper’s relief did not question her any further. She kept very few secrets from her sister, but this one she simply couldn’t share.
Tacitly accepting Temper’s change of subject, Pru said, ‘Of course I’ll bid everyone goodbye. And you’re correct, Aunt Gussie will be anxious to get started. Anyway, since you can’t be presented this year, what do you mean to do in London?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Temper replied, looking back at her from the doorway. ‘Maybe I’ll create some scandals of my own!’
* * *
Trying to dispel the forlorn feeling caused by the imminent departure of the twin who had been her constant companion and confidante her entire life, Temper closed the door to the chamber they shared, then hesitated.
Maybe she should gather her cloak, find her maid and drag the long-suffering girl with her for a brisk walk in Hyde Park. With it being already mid-morning, it was too late to indulge in riding at a gallop and, as restless and out of sorts as she was this morning, she wouldn’t be able to abide confining herself to a decorous trot. While she hesitated, considering, she heard the close of the hall door downstairs and a murmur of voices going into the front parlour.
One voice sounded like Christopher’s. Delighted that the younger of her two brothers might be paying them a visit, Temper ran lightly down the stairs and into the room.
‘Christopher, it is you!’ she cried, spying her brother. ‘But you didn’t bring Ellie?’
‘No, my wife’s at her school this morning,’ Christopher said, walking over to give her a hug. ‘Newell caught me as we were leaving Parliament and, learning I meant to visit you and Gregory, insisted on tagging along.’
Belatedly, Temper turned to curtsy to the gentleman lounging at the mantel beside her older brother Gregory. ‘Giff, sorry! I heard Christopher’s voice, but not yours. How are you?’
‘Very well, Temper. And you are looking beautiful, as always.’
The intensity of the appreciative look in the green eyes of her brother’s friend sent a little frisson of...something through her. Temper squelched the feeling. What was wrong with her? This was Giff, whom she’d known for ever.
‘Blonde, blue-eyed and wanton—the very image of Mama, right?’ she retorted, hiding, as she often did, vulnerability behind a mask of bravado. ‘I suppose you’ve heard all about the latest contretemps.’
‘That was the main reason I came,’ Christopher said, motioning her to a seat beside him on the sofa. ‘To see if there was anything I could do. And to apologise.’
‘Heavens, Christopher, you’ve nothing to apologise for! Ellie is a darling! We would have disowned you if you hadn’t married her.’
Her brother smiled warmly. ‘Of course I think so. I’ve been humbled and gratified by the support of my family and closest friends, but there’s no hope that society will ever receive us. And wedding a woman who spent ten years as a courtesan wasn’t very helpful to the marital prospects of my maiden twin sisters, who already had their mother’s reputation to deal with.’
‘Society’s loss if they refuse to receive Ellie,’ Temper said. ‘To punish for ever a girl who was virtually sold by her father... Well, that’s typical of our world, where gentlemen run everything! Which is why we need to elect women to Parliament!’ She gave her brother and Newell a challenging look.
Rather than recoiling, as she rather expected, Christopher laughed. ‘That’s what Lyndlington’s wife, Maggie, says. Since their daughter was born, she’s becoming quite the militant.’
‘Maybe I can join her efforts,’ Temper replied. ‘If you and the other Hellions in Parliament are so sincere about reforming society, you could start with the laws that make a married woman the virtual property of her husband.’
‘Maybe we should. But the only earth-shaking matter I wanted to address today was to find out what had been decided about you and Pru,’ Christopher replied. ‘So Aunt Gussie agreed that, in the wake of the scandal, presenting you in London this year wouldn’t be wise?’
‘Temperance might prefer that you not discuss this with me present,’ Newell cautioned, looking over at her. ‘It is a family matter.’
‘But you’re practically family,’ Temper replied and had to suppress again that strange sense of tension—as if some current arced in the air between them—when she met Gifford’s gaze. If she ignored it, surely it would go away.
‘I don’t mind discussing “The Great Matter” with you present,’ she continued, looking away from him. ‘Since you are outside the family, you might have a more disinterested perspective.’
‘The situation has improved a slight bit since last week,’ Gregory said. ‘It appears that Hallsworthy is going to recover after all, so Farnham should be able to return from the Continent.’
‘Stupid men,’ Temper muttered. ‘It would have been better if they’d both shot true and put a ball through each of their wooden heads. Honestly, in this day and age, duelling over Mama’s virtue! You’d think it was the era of powdered wigs and rouge! It’s not as if she’s ever spoken more than a few polite words to either of them.’
‘Having them both dead would hardly have reduced the scandal,’ Gregory observed.
‘Perhaps not, but the population of London would have been improved by the removal of two knuckleheads who’ve never done anything more useful in their lives than swill brandy, wager at cards and make fools of themselves over women!’
‘Such a dim view you hold of the masculine
