It was a scene Phoebe had played over and over in her mind. “He jumped to his feet, gathered the contracts I had just signed for the new distribution of our spring hats and said, ‘I will get onit right away, Lady Drake.’ Then he rushed out the door without another word. I think I embarrassed him more than myself.”
“Is it possible he felt something—else?”
“The man is a paragon of propriety.” At least she’d believed him to be until his first letter. Then, their encounter in her library had shown just how wicked he could be. His latest letter…well, it was far from the correspondence of a paragon. It was gloriously unprincipled and she found she liked that side of him so much more.
“Except when it comes to you.” Iseabail took a deep breath and exhaled.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“When he first approaches you, he smiles as he bows. With everyone else, he gives a polite nod.”
She shook her head in dismissal of the idea as she began running through past encounters with Forrester one at a time. “I hardly think a smile makes a man fall off his pedestal of propriety.” Yet he did smile in her company, and then his second letter…and at the house party they truly had beendebauched, depraved and downright dirty. She would take it one step further and describe them as filthy, debased, immoral—and she had never enjoyed herself more thoroughly.
She closed her eyes and confessed. “Last February at my house party he told Ross and Astley that he had been courting me for months.”
Iseabail’s mouth dropped open. “Why didn’t you tell me he was courting you?”
“That’s just it. If the man had been courting me, I was more ignorant to the event than you. To make matters worse, he said Nithesdale approved the match.”
“So Nithesdale knew of his courtship, but you did not?”
“According to what Forrester said, yes.”
“Has he kissed you?”
“Of course not.” Lie number two.
“Has he taken you for a ride in the park?”
“He is my man of affairs. He manages my money, he handles the banks, and he handles any disputes I have at my business. I have considered him a friend and a confidant for years, but a suitor? Most certainly not.”
Iseabail frowned. “Does his lower station bother you?”
“I haven’t given it any thought.” She found it preferable.
“You should. If you were to marry?—”
“You’re jumping too far, too fast. I haven’t even considered him courting me,” Phoebe insisted; but then looked down at the letter in her sleeve.
“Suppose he did want to court you, would his lower station be a concern?”
“No.”
“You didn’t give it much thought.”
“That’s because I have no wish to marry at all, let alone marry an aristocrat. My parents decided my first marriage for me.IfI marry again, it will be my decision.”
“I thought you loved your husband?”
Phoebe smiled. “I was very fond of Richard. The Countess of Astley introduced us because she knew I wanted someone who was kind. Richard treated me well, but it was never a love match despite our tender feelings. Yet I feel betrayed by the manner in which he did not disclose the state of our financial affairs. I know it was his male ego that kept him from telling his much younger wife that he’d made a hash of everything, but I still have a hard time forgiving him. My father was made a baron because of his business acumen, not because he was born into the peerage. He had viewed my marriage as a shrewd business move for growth in our family business. I trusted him to choose someone who understood business.”
“What would women do if we weren’t chattel to the men in our lives?”
Phoebe shrugged. “It made little difference to me. When my father was made baron, I suddenly became anhonourable. I lost all my friends and found myself alone in a school full of girls born to the aristocracy. When it came time for my Season, it was not filled with friends or lords wanting to make my acquaintance. It was full of dowry hunters who viewed me as property to tolerate.
“When the countess introduced me to Richard, I was thrilled with the match. Richard was the only man of the ton who treated me like a queen, and when he offered for my hand, my father accepted. He said a match like Richard was beneficial to us all. I was too ignorant to know what questions a bride should ask, let alone question my betrothed’s knowledge of business. Apparently, my father was as well.”
“Since I never had a Season, I wouldn’t know what one entailed. Yet still, I find myself a duchess. Do you want to give up the hopes of holding rank within the peerage?”
