“He will look after you, then,” the old man said. “I am content.”
After a few minutes of silence, her father’s breathing deepened and his hand loosened on Rose’s as he fell back into sleep. She did not rise immediately, however, preferring the sickroom to anywhere else in the house at present.
Rose was glad to know that this marriage brought happiness to her father, if to no one else. For his sake, she would do her best to follow Josephine’s advice and give Dorian Voss a chance to show her what kind of man he was.
“Wolf of West London” or not, she must learn to live with the Duke of Ravenhill and do her duty as his duchess.
Chapter Six
“Is there a problem with the brandy, Your Grace?” asked the footman in club livery as he passed by the fireplace where the Duke of Ravenhill had been staring into the flames for the past quarter hour, his glass untouched. “We have a particularly fine cask of Armagnac, or an unusual Spanish brandy that arrived this week, if you wish to try something new.”
“Hmmm?” Dorian Voss turned his head at the question, taking a few seconds to recollect his surroundings in the club’s lounge, and the presence of the drink on the table beside him. “No, no. This cognac is perfectly fine, thank you, Smithers. You know I am not a man to hurry my drink. The best things in life are even better when enjoyed slowly, I believe.”
“Very true, Your Grace,” the man nodded and continued on his business.
Dorian lifted his glass now and inhaled the brandy fumes appreciatively before setting it back on the table untasted. It hadbeen a busy day in a busy week and he was satisfied with the result of his efforts, although it would be going very far indeed to say he was pleased.
The scandal sheet writers had been silenced under the combined weight of reasonable payment and the threat of being cut off by some of their best sources in the demimonde, who also happened to be good friends of the Duke of Ravenhill.
The announcement of the imminent wedding in theTimeshad also cooled general interest, just as Dorian had predicted. The world was less interested in supposedly good news than in scandal, vice and bad endings.
“I suspected I would find you here,” a familiar voice broke in on his depressing reflections, and Dorian found his old friend Cassius Emerton settling himself in the chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. “But why so morose, Dorian? No one would think that you were about to lead one of the most beautiful young women in London to the altar.”
“Yes, I am about to acquire the duchess I never wanted or needed for the duchy of Ravenhill,” responded Dorian with somewhat bitter humor. “Lady Rose is indeed very lovely and I have nothing against the young woman but I would much rather we had never met. It would have been better for both of us.”
Cassius smiled slightly, neither surprised nor shocked by his friend’s attitude. Dorian had never pretended to play by society’s rules and Cassius had always preferred honestly-living rogues to hypocritical defenders of supposed virtue.
“Well, unfortunately, you did meet, and became irretrievably entangled in a most bizarre accident in the grounds of my home, Dorian. Now you must live with the consequences. It would have been funny if it had happened to another man, wouldn’t it?”
Dorian smiled, acknowledging the truth of this, and appreciating Cassius’ irreverent humor. The Duke of Ashbourne was the one man he had trusted enough to reveal the whole story of his encounter with Rose Williams, and perhaps the only man whose views on morality and marriage remotely chimed with his own.
“That night at Ashbourne Castle belongs in some bawdy ancient comedy doesn’t it? I’m the lust-ridden fool who mistakes one lady for another in the darkness, rushing in so confidently and receiving only a slap in return for my amorous caresses.”
Cassius only chuckled to himself and signaled to a waiter for a drink.
“It’s not even as though I was remotely inebriated at that damned ball,” Dorian added. “In my defense, I can only say that I had not been thinking with my head – not after that waltz with Leonora and all those wicked little whispers we exchanged. Damn it all!”
“Plautus himself could not have set up the scene more perfectly, including the arrival of the two angry brothers. All that was missing was some dramatic intervention from the indignant lady you inadvertently abandoned.”
“Leonora, Lady Lepford, was still waiting for me in the other rose garden,” the Duke of Ravenhill noted glumly. “The one near the gardeners’ huts. Apparently, she waited for twenty minutes and then gave up due to the cold. I had a letter later, once Leonora heard the gossip and guessed what must have happened. After initially being furious with me, she is now as amused as you.”
“Amused? I suppose I am, in a dark sort of way,” Cassius admitted. “I am also concerned for you, Dorian. I respect what you are doing and I know why you are doing it, but it cannot be easy.”
“It is not,” Dorian confirmed shortly. “Although it feels like the gods are playing a huge joke on me and punishing me in the manner the world believes I deserve.”
“Punishing you with a comely wife of generous dowry, whom my own beloved Josephine assures me is the sweetest young woman in the kingdom?”
Dorian looked unimpressed by this interpretation of his “punishment” but held his tongue until the waiter had set down Cassius’ drink and left them alone once more.
“I never wanted any of this,” he told his friend. “Marriage, social entanglement, obligation. I spent my life avoiding such snares and trammels. I never even wanted my damned cousin to die without issue and make me a duke. Yet here I am, Duke of Ravenhill, fallen headfirst into a most ridiculous trap and aboutto be married, against both my own inclination and that of my future wife.”
“Why not give Lady Rose a chance before you reject marriage so decidedly?” suggested Cassius, sipping his brandy. “When you get to know her, perhaps it will feel like less of a burdensome state for you. Until I met Josephine, I had sworn off marriage forever. Yet once she was in my life, I could never be happy without her.”
Dorian sat back in his chair with his hands behind his head. He could understand why the Duke of Ashbourne had fallen so hard for the spirited and expressive Lady Josephine. He also perceived the erotic sparks that flew between them with highly experienced eyes. His own case, however, was entirely different.
“What could Lady Rose Williams and I possibly have in common?” he asked. “I will be kind to her, of course, and she will have the title, rank and security I can provide. But I cannot see that we will have many shared interests or acquaintances, or that our union can ever be more than a formality.”
“What does Jane Chatham say, may I ask?” Cassius put to him quietly, with a smile. “I assume you have spoken to her about your marriage.”
