Damn the woman. Why couldn’t Lady Chalfont do things in a straightforward manner? When Henry had asked for her help, he had forgotten her fondness for complications and machinations. It was almost as if the marchioness wouldn’t undertake a thing unless she could set thousands of cogwheels and levers and trundles into motion.
But the Earl of Ashthorpe was no cog.
Emma and Charlotte were perfectly pleasant young ladies. Henry didn’t know their ages—how was one to tell a twenty-year-old woman from a thirty-year-old woman?—but Emma was the elder of the two sisters and probably the one intended for him. She’d had several Seasons, and, despite not having found a husband, she had not become embittered. She played the pianoforte beautifully and was clever at whist. Her mother deferred to her in household matters. She claimed a fondness for reading.
Emma and Mina would have that in common.
In fact, Emma had far more in common with Mina than with Henry. She was certainly closer to his granddaughter’s age than she was to his. He was nothing but a dried-up husk next to Emma’s pretty freshness. He felt himself a creaky codger, and that feeling turned him surly.
Henry was not a jovial or social man, but he had thought himself capable of sustaining a polite conversation, paying a compliment, respecting the delicate sentiments of the fair sex.
He wasn’t.
Emma did not act injured when he lost sight of what itmeant to be a good guest, when he brooded or went silent. She spoke calmly and then turned her attention to someone or something else until he recovered himself.
She’d manage him very well. But Henry did not want managing. He wanted his countess to manage Mina’s introduction to society, that was all, and Emma was a country girl, the daughter of a baronet. In a dozen years, Mina would need a grandmother with the social power of, say, the daughter of a duke, a widow of a marquess, an Almack’s patroness-in-the-making. Why the hell hadn’t Lady Chalfont thought to send Henry to Middlewich instead? There were ducal daughters in abundance there.
And he felt no urge towards Emma, no heating of his loins. That was irrelevant, he had already decided that was irrelevant, but he could never marry a woman who felt more like a daughter than a wife. The idea of it made him sick at the stomach.
Until this morning, he’d thought the lack of attraction was a sign of his age. His cock was worn-out, like his knees. Except the knees were stiff and the cock was not. But Miss Beasley had made him realize there was nothing wrong with the blood flow to his member.
Yes, there was nothing wrong with his cock, and there was nothing wrong with his curiosity either. On his ride back to Sutton Hall, Henry had developed an intense curiosity about what his enchantress might say or do, in his bed or out of it.
So there, Aunt. Deficiency be damned.
He had thought the marchioness infallible, but she wasn’t. Lady Chalfont was mistaken not only about his lack of curiosity but also in this first clumsy attempt to find a wife for him. Henry must emphasize to her that he sought a mature spouse of high rank. A widow would be ideal. He thought he had been perfectly clear in his letter, but he’d write another one to her today and lay it out even more plainly.
First, he’d have a wash and change his clothes. And, after that, he’d make an appearance in the drawing room. The neighbor had likely paid a call to get a look at him, and giving this Miss Gulliver the thrill of meeting an earl was a small favor he could do for Emma since he wouldn’t be marrying her. No matter what the marchioness or Emma’s meddlesome mother hoped for.
He passed the drawing room on his way to the stairs. He could stop in and perform his duty now rather than later. He’d like to have it done with.
The door was slightly ajar.
“You shouldn’t repeat such things.” Emma’s voice.
Henry froze, his hand just an inch from the knob.
A different young woman’s voice. “But it’s true. My father says his wife gave him dozens of horns.”
Not Emma or Charlotte. It must be the neighbor. Henry was not meant to hear this. He should go, but he couldn’t move.
“Horns?” asked Charlotte. Her voice was a good deal higher than Emma’s.
“Hush.” That was from Emma.
“But I want to know about the horns,” Charlotte said.
“It means she cuckolded him. She took ever so many lovers and flaunted them all over London,” said the neighbor.
A rustle. Someone was standing up or moving. Emma’s voice. “We will talk of something else, Ida, or you will leave this house.”
Henry finally stepped away from the door as quietly as he could and went up the stairs.
Diana’s adultery was an old wound. Maybe not completely healed, maybe not painless, but it had scarred over, and mere gossip could not open it up again.
Henry knew happiness now because of Mina, and he meant to keep it. He’d had a magical morning in TommyTreadwell land. He’d met a beguiling woman. Diana had ruined so much in his life, but she was dead, and he would not let her ruin this day or what remained of his days on earth.
He washed up and changed his clothes with the assistance of his valet and went back down the stairs, making his footfalls heavy. He wanted the women to know he was coming so he would not embarrass them.
