Richard could feel his friend’s gaze on him from the corner of his eye.
“Though, you are not your father’s keeper. You should not make yourself responsible for his every action, or you will continue to be miserable.”
“Easy for you to say, your father likes to spend all day tending to his many horses. The same thing that you would do all day, every day if you could,” Richard teased his friend with a soft smile.
“You say that like it is a bad thing! We are all allowed our hobbies, are we not?” Wentworth chuckled and held his hands up in a gesture of faux surrender.
“He has commanded me to take a wife. So, at least I will not be able to be his keeper for very much longer,” Richard added. His words swiftly changed the subject and seemed to leave a weight in the air between them. He was suddenly overcome with the desire to spur his hose forward and run away as quickly as he could. But running had never been an option. Not for him.
“I know that if I do not choose one for myself, or at least settle on a woman to court at the upcoming ball, that the choice very well might be removed from my hands entirely.”
“I thought that you were averse to marriage?”
“It is not that I am averse. I certainly am not as committed to raking myself across London as you have done for yourself.”
“Here now, friends are not supposed to judge one another.” Wentworth nudged him playfully.
Richard grinned but kept speaking, “I am notopposed,but I disapprove of having to select a woman from a list of accomplishments like one is ordering something from a catalog. I do not see what is so wrong with wishing for even a small spark of connection. Besides, how am I supposed to dedicate the appropriate time to such an endeavor when my focus is on the Thompson family?”
“One woman is much like the other, are they not?” Wentworth waved off that particular concern.
Though, Richard felt differently. If only Wentworth had met the young Lady Thompson, he would have felt very differently indeed. She was unlike any other woman that he had ever met in his life.
“Perhaps you just need to look at this like the opportunity that this is,” Wentworth offered.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, perhaps there is a way to both undermine and obey your father at the same time,” he continued. “I think that would be the most satisfying outcome for all parties involved.”
“I can see the wheels in your mind turning. Which is rarely a good thing. I have known you for quite some time now, and your plans rarely work out in anybody’s favor. Least of all your own. So, tell me, why should I listen to your schemes?” Richard asked.
“Come off it, you sound as if everything that I concoct is a mistake.”
Richard gave him a look, and Wentworth laughed. “Fine, fine. But just hear me out. As you say that you feel responsible for the Thompsons, and your father is insistent that you find somebody to court—why not invite the Thompsons to the Wallingham ball. Unless the young Thompson is wholly unfortunate looking, announce her as the one that you wish to court.”
Richard dismissed the idea immediately. “Very clever, I will give you that,” he said as he shook his head. “It would never work. The woman despises me and my family, and I can hardly blame her for it either.”
Though the idea was already starting to sink lower into his brain. It wormed further into place, and he could not dislodge it. The image of Lady Catherine on his arm at the Wallingham ball…the look on his father’s face when he realized just who it was that he had brought with him. It was better than he could have imagined.
Only, she would never go for it. She had made her feelings toward him perfectly clear during their last encounter when he had disappointed her so deeply. There was no telling just how poorly she thought of him now.
“So, pose the idea to her in another way. Situate it as if it is a mutually beneficial favor to you both. She will have access to society once more. She will be able to forge new connections, perhaps even repair a touch of the damage done to her reputation due to your father’s actions.
You, in turn, will get a handsome woman on your arm as well as the attention of your father for knowing that you have exploited a loophole that he was not intelligent enough to close. It does not even have to be a lie. It just has to be a ruse that she will participate in until your father drops this marriage foolishness.” Wentworth waved his hand as if the whole idea should have been obvious to him from the beginning.
But, perhaps it would work. It was just crazy and daring enough to try.
He would just have to find the proper way to convince her first.
“And if something more becomes of it in the process? Well, no harm done.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you have a tendency to get overly involved in things that do not necessarily always pertain to you. It is not a shortcoming, but if in the process of getting to know this young lady that you find there is more to her that appeals to you—then you will have still fulfilled your bargain.
It will work out in the interest of all parties, other than myself, of course. You will note that I am selflessly giving up my best friend’s attendance at my side for the Season by offering you this plan.”
“Oh, whatever shall you do?” Richard rolled his eyes.
