Teddy gave her a charming smile. “Just a feeling.”
She batted him on the arm with her fan. “Now you are teasing. You cannot possibly have such passionate feelings towards this young lady so soon.”
Mariel walked into the entryway to join them. “Oh good, you’re ready. Let us leave.”
Joanna looked about as she dawned her spencer. “Is Mother not coming?” She knew her father was at what he called his Deliberation Club, but it was no more and no less than he and his close friends discussing the latest discovery over a meal.
“No, she’s tired. She asked that I let her know if I chanced upon Lady Barrage. It seems the woman complained that she could not possibly support The Asylum for Female Orphans because it did not instill a proper virtue into the girls there.”
Joanna grinned. “And if Lady Barrage happens to be at the Pleasure Gardens and by chance decides to waltz with a gentleman of no relation, then Mother can argue the orphanage’s worthiness.”
Mariel nodded as she led them to the door, her cloak punctuating her answer as it swished when she turned. “Precisely.”
In little time, the three of them were settled into the Mabry coach. As soon as the coach started forward down the dark street, Teddy was quick to continue their conversation. “Mariel, for argument’s sake, do you think a young man can feel passionately for a young woman after a month of knowing her?”
Joanna frowned. He should not have enlisted Mariel’s aid in this particular dispute. She was the only one of them who had loved passionately and lost her love. It had been why she married Lord Beaumont, the elderly gentleman who was their father’s age, burying her grief in the running of her own household.
As the silence lengthened, Joanna elbowed Teddy. “Don’t be asking Mariel about passion. She is not a young man who must marry the right woman so that he can continue the Mabry line. There is much more importance placed on your choice than on hers.”
“I was just looking for another opinion.” He shrugged. “Didn’t you say that you would never marry unless you felt an incredible passion for the man?”
She leaned her head back against the seat and shook it. “Teddy, that is me. I do not have your coming responsibilities.” She lifted her head away and looked at him. “I don’t even have the same constraints as Amelia does. Since Aunt Mabry left me her fortune and Silver Meadows, I can live happily for the rest of my life as a spinster.”
“Oh, Joanna, don’t call yourself that.” Mariel’s hand reached out and tapped her knee. “You are barely twenty-four. You still have time to make a comfortable marriage.”
In consideration of her sister’s sad past, she reined in her first response. “But I don’t want a comfortable marriage. I am perfectly happy as I am. It is not so different from you. Would you remarry? You are yet still a young widow.”
Mariel shook her head. “No.”
When she didn’t elaborate, Joanna let her be. Her older sister knew what it was like to be married, and if she was not anxious to repeat the experience, then it could not be all that it was touted to be.
Teddy was quick to fill the brief silence. “Well, I am not only going to marry because it’s my responsibility. I’m going to marry a woman I can love. And I may very well have found her.”
Her cousin could be such a romantic. “Or you may not have. Remember, you need Uncle’s blessing.”
He lifted his hands out palms up. “What possible reason could he have to withhold his blessing. She’s a duke’s cousin and a marquess’ daughter?”
That was true. “But what a shame it would be if you were to marry her and then fall in love with someone else.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s what a mistress is for.”
This time she punched him in the arm.
“Ow.”
“Theodore Bartholomew Augustus Mabry. You will not demean a woman in such a way as to force her, who you once claimed to love, to have to endure the gossip about you and a mistress. Do you see your father or ours bedding down with some fallen woman? Do you?”
“No.” Teddy’s voice took on a sullen quality. “But many gents have one.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “That may be, but a Mabry would not do that to the mother of his children. I predict that soon there will be very few women who will allow for such an arrangement.”
Teddy slumped down on the seat. “Please. Spare me your women should have the same rights as men argument.”
“Why because you know it or because you don’t want to listen to it?”
He grinned. “Because I know it?”
She harrumphed, but relented. Her family and friends were well aware of her opinions on the matter. She was in a unique position in regard to the subject of women’s intellectual equality. She hadn’t realized until recently how much being a wealthy unmarried woman undermined her arguments that women of the peerage be able to own property without having to hire a sly and well-versed solicitor or that women of all levels of society should be allowed to attend schools and be taught the same subjects that men were taught. When she spoke about these issues, she was dismissed because she didn’t understand the difficulties of her beliefs.
