An Ideal Husband? (3 page)

It was only a chance encounter with his half-sister eighteen months ago which had led him from the path of self-destruction.

‘Richard, are you going to speak to me? I
know you are awake.’ A tall woman stood silhouetted in the doorway. His man lurked behind her.

Richard shook his head. Myers had always been a soft touch where women were concerned. He focused on his mother instead of his valet. The sooner this contretemps in a teacup was sorted, the sooner he would get back to his dream.

‘Mother, what are you doing waking me up so early?’ Richard sat up and stretched. He glanced at the small ormolu clock on the bedside table. ‘I thought you would find this time of day exceedingly early for civilised people.’

He waited for her to make her excuses and withdraw.

‘I left you to sleep for as long as I dared,’ his mother said, straightening her cap. ‘Luckily your sister remains in ignorance of last night’s events. I only pray we can keep it that way. Her head cold last night turned out to be a blessing in disguise after all. I dread to think what would have happened if Hannah had been at the ball.’

Richard’s heart sank. His mother had obviously heard the wrong sort of gossip. Silently he bid goodbye to a morning’s rest. He would have to sort out whichever mess.

‘What promise have I broken?’ Richard retained
a leash on his temper. His mother enjoyed her dramatics. ‘At least do me the courtesy of hearing the full accusation.’

‘You obviously haven’t seen the morning papers. It is in all of the local ones. It is sure to be in the London ones by nightfall. Your father will know you are here! He is far from stupid and he will know your reason for coming to Newcastle.’

‘I’m a grown man, Mother. My father doesn’t dictate or control my movements. There are numerous reasons why I might have travelled to Newcastle, none of which involved yourself or Hannah.’

‘He will ruin any chance of Hannah’s happiness out of sheer spite. You know what he is like when he is in one of his rages. How could you involve yourself in scandal at this juncture?’

Richard pressed his palms against his eyes. He did know what his father was capable of and how, each time, the fits of anger appeared to last longer. Most of all he feared the gentle father he loved would remain a raging mad man, incapable of coherent thought. The doctors told him that there was nothing they could do except lock him up, and Richard was not prepared for that to happen.

‘Mother, as I went to bed in the not-so-early hours of the morning, I have not seen the papers.
Whatever you are seeking to blame me for, I am innocent.’ He held out his hand. ‘Pinch me. See, I am here in my bed, alone.’

‘At least tell me that the woman in question is an heiress, this redoubtable woman of yours. Your father might understand your need to chase her up here if she was eligible. Your being single must be a worry. I know how relieved he was when I produced you as the heir. All your father has ever cared about was having the line continue and those blasted pigs of his.’

He pressed his lips together, considering the first part of his mother’s statement. He could explain away Newcastle on chasing an heiress. His father would accept that, rather than going into some apoplectic rage over the fact that his son had regular contact with the one woman he hated more than life itself. His father’s mental state and health were far too fragile to risk that. He loved both parents and refused to bow to his father’s insistence that he choose a side. Once his father’s health improved, he would explain properly. For now, a small amount of subterfuge had to be used. Two parts of his life kept separate.

‘What do the papers have to do with it?’ he asked.

‘Myers, the
Newcastle Courant
for your master, if you please.’

Richard nodded to his valet, who gave a bow.

His manservant brought the
Newcastle Courant
as well as one of the more popular scandal sheets, freshly ironed. He turned to the gossip page of the scandal sheet and pointed. Richard gave him a curious look.

‘It has the best wording, my lord. The
Courant
used a bit more veiled language. I thought it best to take the precaution of examining all the papers. I like to be prepared for all mention of my gentlemen.’

Richard scanned the paper and winced.
Has the scandal-prone Lord B—been captured at last by the redoubtable Miss R—? Turtledoves were cooing last night. A wedding is devotedly hoped for but, given Lord B—’s form, not expected
.

Scandal-prone indeed! The last crim. con. trial had not been his fault at all. His name should never have been mentioned. The Duke of Blanchland admitted that later. He’d been the innocent party, attempting to assist a woman, driven to distraction by her errant husband. The Duchess had never been his mistress. He had already bedded her sister. He had his code.

He folded the offending paper in half and glared at his mother.

‘Preposterous nonsense, Mother. You shouldn’t
believe things that you read in the papers. Surely you learnt that long ago!’

His mother slapped her gloves together. ‘I won’t have it, Richard. Not when Hannah is about to be married. They will drag up the whole contretemps between your father and myself … and the issue of Hannah’s parentage. And if your father comes up here, there is no telling what he’d do. He swore revenge. I won’t have my innocent child suffer!’

‘And this has nothing to do with Hannah. In any case, your late husband adopted his daughter. It was all sorted in the end. My father did behave well on that.’

‘He never paid back my dowry and he ensured I had to lead a life of economies.’

‘It was your father who negotiated the settlement. The money was spent in part on refurbishments that you ordered.’

‘Do you know this redoubtable Miss R?’ His mother slapped her hand down on the paper. ‘For the life of me I can’t think of any acquaintances with the last name of R who would warrant the sobriquet of “redoubtable”. There is Petronella Roberts, but she has spots, and Sarah Richards fills out her ball dress in all the wrong places.’

‘Sophie Ravel—yes, I know her. I would have used the word ravishing rather than redoubtable.’
Richard put his hands behind his head and conjured up Miss Ravel’s delicate features. Her generous mouth had held the promise of passion, if a man could find a way to unlock it. ‘Even Aunt Parthenope declared there was nothing scandalous in our behaviour.’

His mother went white. ‘Parthenope was there?’

‘My aunt attended the ball last night. Apparently my grandmother is buried in Jesmond. She visits the grave every year.’ He glared at his mother. ‘You never said.’

‘She is sure to write to your father, giving a report. Even if he misses the papers, he will know you have been in Newcastle. Parthenope is like that—full of spite disguised as doing good. When she is at her most charming, she is also at her most deadly.’

‘You overreact, Mother.’

‘Richard, this is important. It is your sister’s future. Hannah has an excellent chance to have a glittering marriage. Could you use this Miss Ravel as an excuse to stay, rather than dashing off to London this afternoon?’

Richard tapped his finger against the scandal sheet, the beginnings of an idea forming. Pursuing Miss Ravel without interference from either parent and seeing if there was passion underneath
the ice she presented to the world was tempting, but…

Richard folded the paper in half again. ‘What puzzles me is how quickly the papers have acquired the story.’

‘Someone is always willing to sell a good story.’ His mother gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Poor girl. It is the women I feel sorry for. The men can survive, but a woman, well, she always has the whiff of a scandal hanging about her skirts.’

‘I will sort it out before it becomes an inferno, Mother.’

‘I trust you to do the right thing, Richard.’

‘I am surprised you even need to say that, Mother. I know my duty. The necessity of doing it has been beaten into me since childhood.’

‘Did you have a pleasant time at the ball, Sophie? You said very little about it last night. You were back far earlier than I expected.’

Sophie’s hand froze in the act of buttering her toast. It made no sense for her stepmother to be asking further questions about last night. She’d given an account when she came, an account in which Lord Bingfield did not feature as there was no point in alarming her. Her stepmother seemed well satisfied then, but now she regarded
Sophie with razor-sharp eyes. Her stepmother waved a newspaper in Sophie’s direction. ‘I do read the papers. Every item.’

‘The papers? Why should they say anything about me?’ Sophie asked, genuinely perplexed. Lady Parthenope had declared that the little incident was entirely innocent. She’d left it to Lord Bingfield to explain to his aunt that they would … alas … not be marrying.

‘It is what I want to know.’ Tears shimmered in her stepmother’s eyes. ‘I trusted you, Sophie, last evening and allowed you to go to the ball without a chaperon. When you were younger, you used to be involved in harum-scarum affairs and I despaired. After Corbridge, you changed. Perhaps you became a bit too stand-offish, but I retained hopes of you fulfilling your father’s dying wish and marrying into society.’

Sophie attempted to ignore the nasty prickle at the back of her neck. ‘Do what? What have I done? I behaved perfectly properly all evening. You knew about Cynthia’s elopement and approved.’ Sophie carefully kept her mind away from how she’d nearly kissed Lord Bingfield in the dark. Wanting to kiss him and actually kissing him were two separate things. She had behaved properly and they would never encounter
each other again. ‘Show me the papers. I need to know what I have been accused of.’

Her stepmother held out one of the worst scandal sheets. Sophie’s eyes widened. ‘The redoubtable Miss R? Do I look redoubtable to you? I am the least formidable person I know. Really, Stepmother, I’m surprised you read such things! All they print are lies and tittle-tattle.’

‘How else can I find out what is going on in Newcastle, let alone in the rest of the country?’ Her stepmother dabbed her eyes. ‘Who is this Lord B who has captured your attention? Were you too ashamed of me to introduce us? I know I used to be in service, but that was long ago before your father fell in love with me.’

‘Ashamed of you?’ Sophie stared at her stepmother in astonishment. ‘I love you and whomever I marry had best love you as well or he will not be the man for me. Now that we have cleared that up, I want to know about your plans for your new bonnet.’

‘Sophie, stop confusing the issue with bonnets. The item in the papers. I shall not be deterred.’

‘You know it is a pack of lies, don’t you?’ She put her hand over her stepmother’s. ‘As if I would consider marrying without consulting you first. Honestly, Stepmother, sometimes you read
too many penny-dreadfuls. When have I ever kept any of my friends from you? And I would never marry anyone who was not a friend first. I learnt a painful lesson three years ago.’

‘But there is a kernel of truth.’ Her stepmother’s cap trembled. ‘I know how to read your face, Sophie. You can never hide things from me, not things which truly matter. Who is this Lord B? Would Robert and Henri approve?’

‘Lord Bingfield,’ Sophie supplied. Her stepmother conveniently forgot the times when Sophie had kept things from her, including the precise truth about Sebastian. ‘He assisted me after Cynthia’s elopement. I doubt the entire proceedings would have gone as smoothly if not for his assistance. I was introduced to his aunt, Lady Parthenope, who is great friends with three of the Lady Patronesses at Almack’s. However, that is as far as it went. Someone has an overblown imagination and is making mischief.’

Sophie waited for her stepmother to ask about Lady Parthenope’s dress or what she had said.

‘Almack’s is far from the power it used to be and I won’t be distracted.’ Her stepmother frowned and Sophie’s heart sank. Her stepmother was worse than a dog with a bone about this snippet of gossip. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Lord Bingfield immediately?’

‘Because you would have jumped to the wrong conclusion like you are doing now, and I was tired.’ Sophie crumpled the toast between her fingers. The last thing she needed after her broken sleep was to be quizzed about Lord Bingfield. Every time she closed her eyes last night it seemed she remembered how his breath had fanned her cheek or how he had nearly kissed her. The encounter was nothing to him, but she couldn’t forget it. About three o’clock, she had decided that she’d been foolish and arrogant to reject his offer of an innocent dance. She should have danced with him and been done with it. She never dreamt about any of the men she danced with. The knowledge did not make her any happier.

‘You were thinking about me and my health.’ The ribbons of her stepmother’s cap swayed their indignation. ‘Sophie! Do you think I was born yesterday?’

‘Given how you are reacting now, is it any wonder? You are seeking a romance where there is none.’ Sophie was unsure who she was trying to convince—her stepmother or that little place inside her which kept whispering about Lord Bingfield’s fine eyes. ‘Besides, I doubt Lord Bingfield’s ultimate intentions towards me were honourable. He inhabits the scandal
sheets, after all. Remember The Incident and why I had to hurry up to Corbridge? I’ve sworn off men like that.’

Her stepmother’s eyes narrowed. ‘You had better hope it is a proper proposal from Lord Bingfield. People have long memories, Sophie. Your name will now be tainted from the mere association with his. Did you think about that last night when you were so busy accepting his trifling assistance? You know what your father wanted for you—a marriage into the higher echelons of society—and you have jeopardised that.’

‘You are talking fustian nonsense.’ Sophie tapped her finger on the scandal sheet. ‘How many papers?’

‘I have sent the butler to check. I should think most of them. Lady Parthenope sent me a note. She has invited us to take tea with her.’ Her stepmother’s hand trembled with excitement as she reached for the letter. ‘She wants to vet us. That’s what this is. You know what they say about her door-keeping at Almack’s. I shall need a new bonnet!’