“I dare say his stipend is not large, so he cannot afford to lose.”
“Well, neither can I, but I shall be sure not to partner the duchess again. Very beautiful, but no head for cards at all. Goodness, look at that fire, Simon! What a glorious sight. Is this not the most comfortable place imaginable? If only we could stay here forever! Would you not like that?”
She sat in one of the two chairs arranged either side of the fire, curling her feet under her with a sigh of satisfaction.
“It would be wonderful,” he said with sincerity. There was no painted scene on his bedroom ceiling, but the plaster work was intricate and elegant. “We must make the most of it while we are here.”
“Yes, yes, but if wecouldstay… what do you think? Should you like that?”
“Of course, but it cannot be done.”
He took the opposite chair, for she was clearly settling down for a long chat and when she was in this mood there was no dislodging her.
“That is precisely my point — itcanbe done! Look what happened to the previous recipient of a letter from Mr Fake Goodenough, the non-existent attorney at law.”
“What did happen? Oh… she married the heir.”
“Exactly so!”
“Is there another heir for you to marry?” he said, amused.
“Me? Nonsense! Heavens, Simon, I am above forty years of age with nothing to my name but that tiny house in Finsbury Square…nearFinsbury Square, if we are strictly accurate, and a piffling little annuity. No one is going to marry me, butyou… well, that is a very different matter.”
Simon laughed. There was no other possible response.
“No, no, I am perfectly serious. Here we have a horde of unattached women running tame in the house, and the duke seems fond of them. He has not tried to throw them out, in any event. They must have some sort of dowry from their brother, and undoubtedly the duke can be persuaded to rustle up something extra for them. He seems to bleed freely — look at the way he wants this orangery to be a fitting monument to the birth of the heir. That means expensive, brother dear. If we can get our feet firmly under the table, we could be settled for life and think how blissful that would be. So if you could attach one of them, and she can wheedle a settlement out of the duke…”
“You mean one of the Miss Merringtons? The heir’s sisters?”
“Of course, who else? Oh, make sure not to look at the girl with the reddish hair. She is companion to the heir’s wife, an impoverished widow, and not to be thought of. The duchess has sisters, too, but none of them are here at present and we cannot depend on one arriving in time. My goodness, Simon, the duchess! She must be fifty years younger than her husband. The poor child! It is unspeakable!”
“My own mother was thirty years younger than her husband,” Simon said mildly. “Married at sixteen to a man well past forty.”
“Yes, well, that was not right, either,” Juliet said robustly. “But she seemed… contented, would you say? She never complained, did she?”
“No, she never complained.” But then she had never needed to express it in words. He had seen the strain in her eyes.
“Have you ever seen her? Since you left Edlesborough, I mean. You used to walk the streets at night quite a lot when you were younger, so I wondered if you went to meet her, or at least to loiter around the places where she might go.”
“She told me never to try to make contact with her, so I never did. It was better so. Kendle would tell me if ever there were any need for contact… if she dies.”
“Kendle? He is your father’s tool, Simon,” Juliet said. “As the heir, he must be. Has he ever made contact?”
“Only once. He wrote to tell me that he had given my address to Mama, but not to expect many letters, since she did not dare to defy Father openly. He put fifty pounds in the letter, too. Kendle is sound, Juliet. He does not defy Father openly, either, but he is a good man at heart.”
“Fifty pounds? In one letter? Not cut up?”
“It was hand delivered. I suspect from the description that he brought it himself. Do you remember the stables I designed for the baron in Gloucestershire? He was a friend of Kendle’s. The kennels in Yorkshire, too, although that never came to anything. He does what he can for us.”
“That was years ago. Nothing since then… another fifty pounds would be useful,” she said sourly. “Does it not grind you down, Simon, this dreadful poverty? You are an earl’s son — a younger son, admittedly, amongst a veritable army of brothersand sisters, but still you should not be scraping to put food on the table.”
“Nor would I be, if I had gone into the army, as he had wished,” Simon said equably. “I should have been comfortably situated, probably married to a shrewish society wife, mired in the emptiness of the season and I should have been unutterably miserable. I had far rather live on cabbage stew and be able to do the one thing that makes me happy. I live in hope that one day, perhaps sooner than you might think, I shall be a famous architect and rich enough to keep you in comfort for the rest of your life.”
***
Simon woke to the unusual sound of a footman creeping into the room. The bed curtains were swept aside and the spotty-faced youth called Robert was grinning down at him.
“Mornin’ chocolate, sir. Cold outside an’ snowin’ again.”
