“She knowsyou. Is that why Rob wanted to speak with you? To find out whether you plan to acknowledge the relationship?” They had reconciled over the matter of the will and begun to form a relationship, but Ashmead was one thing, London another. Maddy hadn’t considered the complication of the earl encountering his half-brother in London.
“Perhaps. He didn’t say. His concern is Lucy. As my late wife’s sister, we’d have presented her. If Marjory had lived. Now, though…” He sighed.
Fussing about propriety.Sometimes David exasperated her. “She’s coming to London as the wife of a baronet, the bastard brother of an earl, and you aren’t sure what to do about it. What do you want from me?”
“There must be no skulking around. Lucy should be properly introduced into society. Rob suggested a dinner. I think she deserves more than that. She ought to have a ball to celebrate her marriage.”
David’s attitude surprised her—surprised and pleased her. “I agree and commend you, David. It’s the right thing to do.”
“So you will come?” he asked.
Come?Maddy froze. It had taken backbone and strength to walk away from the horror of her marriage with her sense of self-worth intact. It had taken more to fend off her mother’s determination to force her into another marriage, demands permeated with incessant harping and criticism. Maddy had stood her ground against the bullying until they had left her alone to make the dower house her refuge.How can he ask me to leave it?
“You know I don’t go to London,” she said, her jaw tight.
“You had your reasons, and I never pushed you, Madelyn, but Mother no longer lurks in my townhouse like a troll waiting to ambush unsuspecting maidens. Come! I need a hostess if I’m to give Lucy the attention she deserves. I can’t do it alone. Besides, it will do you good.”
“I—I can’t. I’m comfortable here.”
David stared at his coffee, as if choosing words from the black liquid. He took a swallow and put it down. “I can’t force you. You’ve had a will of iron since Glenmoor died, freeing you from what I can only surmise was a distasteful situation.”
Distasteful doesn’t begin to describe it.
Her brother rose to his feet. “Think about it, though. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need help. Please come. For my sake and for Lucy’s.”
“I’ll consider it. That’s the best I can promise. I’ll think about it.” She rose with him. “In the meantime, I’ll visit your children, since you insist on leaving them here.”
“They are better off in Ashmead than London, but I do worry about them. You know I fired that horrid woman Mother had insisted on. I hired another a month ago, but she quit after two weeks. The new nursery maid started yesterday. Can you make certain all is as it should be?”
Maddy felt her face tense. Visits to the nursery always dragged her barren marriage to mind.
Her brother didn’t notice her abstraction. “They aren’t unprotected. Eli Benson will be there. I’ve hired him to continue reviewing the impact of Father’s will and the fraud repayments and to manage my local affairs. But the nursery maid is an unknown. I’ll be grateful for your observations.” Rob Benson’s younger brother—his other half, Eli liked to say—had the unhappy task of piecing the finances back together as much as he could after the disaster of the previous year.
“I’ll look in on them,” she agreed, realizing with a jolt that she anticipated it happily. It had been her mother whose glare and implied condemnation for her failure to give her husband children that had kept her away from them. On the contrary, they filled empty spaces in her heart her own children might have filled.
She saw him to the door shortly after and watched him ride off, feeling bereft. Now that the wedding was over, they would all leave. Brynn Morgan already had. Rob would take her best—if she were honest, her only—friend, Lucy, away in a few days, leaving Maddy alone. The weight of sorrow crushed her.
Don’t be a ninny. Isn’t solitude what you wanted? What you’ve cultivated? What you just told David you want? Besides, you’ll have the children.
Chapter Three
Two weeks inLondon, and Brynn didn’t know what to do with himself. Lord Rockford had some enticing ideas, but if the work included more evenings like the Russian ambassador’s ball, Brynn might refuse.
He watched the Grand Duchess Natalia Alexandrova’s toothy smile, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes, freeze in grim acknowledgment of a curtsey from a petrified young woman. Brynn couldn’t tell if the grand duchess’s stone face reflected disapproval of this particular debutante or if the evening’s affair had somehow failed to meet an unknown objective the grand duchess kept to herself. Brynn suspected the latter and didn’t care enough to speculate about why.
The entire ball, an exercise in overly ornate decoration, overheated conversation, and overrated refreshments, palled within a half hour of his arrival. Now he stalked between the tepid punch bowl and a quiet spot sheltered by a palm.
“You won’t attract any ladies with that face.” Rob Benson came up next to him.
He had enjoyed Benson’s company in recent weeks. When Lucy had issued an open invitation almost as soon as they had reached London, Brynn hadn’t been able to stay away. The delicious meals eased his purse, and the excellent conversation provided much-needed company. What drew him most, however, whether they knew it or not, was the chance to hear news of the duchess.
This night, he dismissed Benson’s teasing. None of the ladies in their glittering gowns and primped coiffures, with their frozen smiles and avid eyes, interested him. None fascinated him like the woman he had last seen enter the Clarion dower house by moonlight. “What makes you think I want to?”
His friend’s mouth hitched up on the side. “Why did you come?”
“Rockford suggested it.”
“The idea is for you to observe the operation. You can’t do that behind this palm,” Benson said.
