“Come. Let’s move this conversation to the parlor,” Helen stated. “Where I can fill you in on whatI’velearned on the matter.” She waved to a footman who hurried over and nodded when she gave him instructions in a quiet voice. The servant headed down the corridor in front of them, his long legs covering the distance to the butler’s pantry in only a few strides.
William’s eyes widened. “Is Bostwick’s heir back in town?” he asked.
“He is,” James acknowledged, turning toward the stairs to lead the family to the first floor.
“Bennett-Jones has been gone for…”
“Three years,” Rose stated as she walked alongside her brother, ahuffsounding at the end of her comment. She had been about to add, “two months and ten days,” but she didn’t want her brother knowing she had been keeping track. Not that she had, really. But the anniversary of David’s and Lord James’ departure from England had marked a pivotal moment in not only their lives, but hers.
That was the day she realized Lord James wasn’t interested in marrying an English girl—even a duke’s daughter—and the first day she thought herself on the shelf.
It had also been the last day she felt hope for a possible future with someone she had known her entire life.
The first day she had given up her guise as a proper young English miss and begun behaving as a spoiled rotten lady. She was a duke’s daughter, after all, entitled to do what she pleased.
That had been a yearbeforeher accident. A comeuppance of sorts, she had begun to believe. A means to remind her that even if she was a duke’s daughter, she was still a woman in a man’s world and subject to the same rules those of lesser birth had to follow.
Arching a brow, William aimed an expression of shock at his sister. “Tell me how youreallyfeel about David Bennett-Jones,” he said sarcastically.
Rose huffed again. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she claimed. “It’s just that when he left with Lord James, they were going on their Grand Tour. They were only supposed to be gone for two years.”
“Lord James couldn’t help it if he fell in love with a sultan’s daughter,” Helen said, her gaze darting to her husband, as if she wanted him to provide assistance in thwarting their daughter’s complaint.
“Bennett-Jones was given an excellent opportunity,” James stated, immediately understanding his wife’s unspoken plea. “To oversee the placement of decorative arts for several buildings in the Empire… it’s not an assignment he could have turned down,” he added, hoping his claim was convincing. “In doing so, he has helped keep England in good graces with the sultan.”
In reality, he would have loved the opportunity to do something similar back when he was David’s age. Instead, he had been hopelessly in love with a courtesan and already the father of two young girls. If he’d had to do it over again, he wasn’t sure he would choose domesticity over adventure.
A sense of guilt swept through him at the thought of what life would have been like if he hadn’t fallen in love with the illegitimate daughter of a baron. If Daisy and Diana hadn’t been born.
Daisy was now the Baroness Streater, Diana the Countess of Aimsley. They were accomplished matrons, mothers to their husband’s heirs.
Entirely the opposite of Rose in so many respects.
Had he been the reason Rose had developed thorns as she aged? Or had his wife been too lenient with her? Rose was Helen’s only daughter, born to her far later than most aristocratic women’s children.
Deciding he best leave the past in the past, James listened to the conversation taking place as they made it to the top of the stairs and the first floor.
“Well, I hope David won’t be too shocked to learn his first choice for a wife didn’t wait for him,” Rose stated as they entered the parlor.
A maid was setting a plate of cakes and biscuits on the low table in front of the settee, and the butler followed them into the parlor with a tea set on a silver salver.
William immediately helped himself to a biscuit and moved to the fireplace mantel, casually leaning against it as he crossed one foot over the other. “Oh, I think David knew Lady Grace wasn’t going to wait for him,” he said before biting into the lemon confection. “Besides... marrying her would have been like he was marrying a... a first cousin, I suppose, given their mothers are such good friends.”
Rose furrowed a brow, but she joined her mother to assist with the tea service.
“I can’t imagine why a sultan’s son would wish to attend a Season in London,” James said as he settled into an upholstered chair near the fireplace. “They don’t usually even take wives unless there’s no chance they’ll inherit the sultanate.”
Helen’s eyes widened, and she paused while pouring a cup of tea. “Why, of course they do, darling. The Duchess of Chichester is married to a sultan.” Her gaze darted to her husband. “To the father of this young man, is she not?”
“Ziyaeddin the First, yes,” James replied, surprised she had sorted the relationship on her own.
The duchess finished pouring the tea and set the cup aside for Rose to add the milk and sugar. “Besides, if sultans didn’t take wives, then how do they expect to have any legitimate heirs?” she added.
The duke displayed a grimace, realizing his response might send Helen into a state of vapors. “Sultans haveharems, my sweet. Their concubines are the mothers of their children.” He didn’t add that most children of a sultan were illegitimate.
He knew about Charlotte Wainwright, of course, but he also knew that the circumstance of her marriage to Sultan Ziyaeddin I of the Ottoman Empire was rather unique. Having enjoyed the company of several women in his younger years, and now having grown very fond of his duchess after nearly thirty years of marriage, James could appreciate a man’s desire to choose just one woman with whom to spend the rest of his life.
He was pulled from his brief reverie when he noticed Rose’s expression of consternation.
