“I do not. I am only sure we both enjoyed the night, however contrived it may have been. I am sorry if I have been the means of causing you trouble.”
“It is Frances I worry for, more than myself,” confessed Ambrose, “and I do not blame you. Annabelle Sinclair is a most manipulative woman. Sending her maid to my best friend’s bed to gather information is audacious and repellent. Your story does at least explain some of the insinuations in Miss Sinclair’s letters. She believes that I married Frances only to secure that inheritance.”
“It isn’t entirely untrue, is it?”
“No,” Ambrose said with a firmness that took him by surprise. “I married for that reason, but it was not why I chose Frances. That was…something else.”
“Anyway, I think Miss Annabelle Sinclair still wants you,” Colin advised, reaching again for the crumpled letter and dropping his voice lower, even though they were already talking quietly.
“But if I am married already, that can neither be undone, nor would I want to undo it,” pointed out Ambrose with a frown. “How can Miss Sinclair, or any other respectable woman, have expectations of me? Unless she is out of her mind.”
“Has it occurred to you, Ambrose,” Colin asked, tapping his fingers on the table in thought, “that Miss Sinclair might not be an entirely respectable woman?”
“What are you implying?”
In response, the Duke of Redford raised a knowing eyebrow and glanced about the sparsely filled room.
“Not all women are seeking marriage, Ambrose. No more than all men. Come now, we both know that well enough.”
It was true that older, more experienced and more financially independent women might discreetly choose their own bed partners, as might the denizens of the demimonde. But an unmarried young lady from a good family? This suggestion was too incredible for Ambrose and he shook his head.
“You think Miss Sinclair would risk ruin for passing desire? I cannot believe that. Her behavior seems more likely a failure of reason to me. No, I’m minded to pass this note to her family and let them deal with it. I have more pressing matters to attend to this afternoon.”
After consulting his watch, Ambrose called for sealing wax, paper and pen. Refolding and sealing Annabelle’s letter from the prying eyes of club servants, he addressed it to Dowager Countess Delingford at Delingford House.
“Let us hope that Lady Delingford is as fearsome and indomitable as Lady Levene,” remarked Colin. “But where are you rushing off to now?”
“There’s a man I must meet at Whites at five o’clock.”
“You cannot possibly have any friend who is better company than me, or a club that is preferable to our own,” huffed Colin in mock offense.
“You are right. The man I am meeting is no friend and I would rather stay here with you, or go home. However, needs must when the devil drives.”
“Anyone I know? No? No name either? You really are a man of mystery today.”
Ambrose gave a short, humorless laugh and shrugged after declining to answer Colin’s previous questions.
“I shall tell you what I can another time, but it is a delicate matter concerning a lady. Let us hope that one conversation will suffice to put matters right.”
“I expected this to be a private conversation, Lord Mulford,” objected the Duke of Westall, stopping dead in the doorway of a small private room at Whites.
What game was Oswald Keeton playing? He had agreed to meet Ambrose for a personal conversation but inside the room, a vaguely familiar young man with wine-heated cheeks and nose was already sitting on one on of the comfortable sofas. At the duke’s words, he rose and immediately began to look apologetic.
“I can go, of course,” the youth slurred slightly. “No need for me.”
Lord Mulford, took greater exception. His attitude had been mildly uncooperative since the moment Ambrose declined to shake his hand on introduction downstairs, or to dine with him that evening.
“There is no need for you to go anywhere, Hubert,” maintained Lord Mulford. “I may need a witness.”
“A witness?” repeated the young man uncomfortably. “What kind of witness? I thought we were having drinks with your friend, Lord Mulford.”
“This is a private conversation, Mulford,” Ambrose insisted at the same time, an warning edge to his voice. “You cannot draw random acquaintances into it.”
“Hubert is another old friend of your wife’s family, Your Grace,” responded Oswald Keeton. “He is hardly a stranger. While you have not told me exactly why you requested this meeting, I can guess that it concerns Lady Frances and…”
“Enough,” snapped Ambrose, not liking to hear his wife’s name bandied about in a gentleman’s club, especially by this man. “Lord Baxworth and I already know one another from the dinner Lord and Lady Scovell were kind enough to arrange before the wedding. Neither he nor I see any reason for his presence now. Let that be an end to it.”
At this reference to his evening of drunkenness and well-witnessed humiliation, young Lord Baxworth fled, Lord Mulford no longer attempting to stop him. Something in Ambrose’s words had an effect on him too.
