What, indeed? Pamela’s heart gave a pang, for she understood Virtue’s plight more than she dared reveal. What she wanted was to find happiness again. To live again. But what had happened today between Virtue and Ridgely while Pamela had been distracted—making love with Theo in scandalous fashion—served as a bittersweet reminder that she could not have what she wanted. She could not openly take a lover, and Theo had made it clear that he had no wish for a future with her. All they had was stolen moments before he disappeared from her life forever. And when he was gone, she would return to being the icy widow, guarding her heart and living for the past.
A dutiful widow, who lived a life above reproach.
“I am afraid ours is a life of duty rather than wants,” she told Virtue.
“Did you never want something more than the life you were told you should lead?”
Pamela thought of Theo again. Of his kisses and knowing hands, the way he held her in his arms. The way he felt inside her.
“It wouldn’t signify if I did,” she said hastily. “We are, all of us, governed by society. We must follow its dictates or suffer the consequences. I do not think you are prepared to pay the price, Virtue.”
“What price is dearer than marriage?” Virtue shook her head, as if she couldn’t bear to contemplate it for another second. “No, I’ll not marry him. Not after the way he sold Greycote Abbey without a word of warning to me. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye, nor to see it one last time.”
The younger woman blinked, her eyes shining brightly with tears, and Pamela felt her own eyes welling in response. She hated to see Virtue so distraught, and she knew what her home had meant to her. Even if Ridgely’s hands had been tied in the matter—Virtue’s father’s will having decreed that it be sold and the funds used for her dowry—it hardly seemed fair.
“I understand you are frustrated with my brother,” she said. “However, he was only acting in your best interest as he was charged, carrying out your father’s wishes. As Greycote Abbey has been sold, and you have been compromised, there is nothing that can be done to change what has been set in motion.”
Virtue started across the Axminster. “He cannot force me to marry him. I’ll leave Hunt House and absolve him of all duty related to me.”
With that pronouncement, she opened her wardrobe and began pulling her belongings from it and draping them across her neatly made bed. It appeared as if she was intent upon fleeing. However, any such attempt would prove even more ruinous than what had already come to pass. Pamela couldn’t allow it.
She followed Virtue, placing a staying hand on her arm. “Don’t be foolish, my dear. Where would you go, a young lady alone in the world, with no one to protect you? You haven’t even access to your own funds.”
Virtue collapsed onto the bed in dramatic fashion, draping herself over her morning gowns and petticoats.
“You will accustom yourself to the notion of marriage,” Pamela suggested with a reassuring tone.
“I won’t,” Virtue said to the ceiling.
She settled herself primly on the edge of the bed. “I do believe he possesses the ability to be a good husband to you. He has been wild, heaven knows, but I’ve never seen him so attentive with another lady before you. When you are in a room, you are all he watches. His reputation is well known, but it isn’t like Ridgely to dally with innocents. He usually prefers widows and unhappy wives.”
“I shouldn’t like to think of anyone else the duke has preferred just now.”
She couldn’t blame Virtue, because heaven knew that she didn’t want to think of any lover Theo had taken before her. Most especially not the lovers he would take after her.
“No other will be his duchess,” Pamela told her. “That right will belong to you alone.”
Virtue turned to face Pamela. “He will take mistresses, you mean.”
She couldn’t speak for her brother. But yes, it was the world in which they lived.
“He may,” Pamela allowed. “It would be his right.”
Although that didn’t mean she wouldn’t personally box his ears if he chose to do so, or if he hurt Virtue in any way.
Virtue sat up, her brown eyes intent and searching upon Pamela’s. “Did Lord Deering have mistresses?”
Her cheeks went hot at the question, quite unexpected, and at the realization that during most of her conversation with Virtue, it hadn’t been Bertie occupying her mind, but Theo. “No, he did not.”
“How would you have felt,” Virtue asked, “if he had taken one?”
She had an easy answer for that question, at least.
“It would have broken my heart. Ours was a love match. But you are not in love with Ridgely, are you, dear?”
“Of course not!” Virtue scoffed, with rather telling emphasis. “And what would my match to Ridgely be? A pity match? I’ll not do it.”
“Not a pity match, but a match of good sense,” Pamela said. “You require a husband. Ridgely must marry eventually anyway. The two of you clearly share some manner of connection, or else you would not have found yourselves in this predicament.”
