“I’m too young for that. More to the point, I’ve no ambition to play a part.”
“Then what do you want to use the theater for?” Rafe suddenly remembered his forgotten whiskey and took a mouthful.
“How can you drink that rotgut at nine in the morning?” Gabe asked, his eyebrows lowering again.
“It’s the finest Scotch whiskey, not rotgut. It’s been through an aging process,” Rafe said, regarding his glass fondly. “This is from the Ardbeg stills, and not available in England yet. I had to send a man all the way to Aberdeen to fetch me some. It tastes…” Rafe paused and rolled the golden liquor on his tongue, “It tastes like burnt honey and kisses your throat like a strumpet.”
Now that was Peter’s look of disapproval. Just so had Rafe’s elder brother signaled his ducal displeasure.
“It’s not every day that one gains a brother,” Rafe added. “You can remind me daily what I would look like if I were slimmer and more jovial and altogether a better person.” He threw back the rest of the whiskey and then put down the glass with a click. It didn’t taste very good, not with those eyes narrowed on him.
“I need you to put on an amateur theatrical,” Gabe said. “Using a mixture of professional and amateur actors. I believe that is quite in fashion these days.”
“I—”
“You’ll have to open up the theater,” Gabe continued. “By all accounts, the place hasn’t been used since a performance of Hamlet in 1800. Unless you’ve been putting on private theatricals?”
Rafe shook his head.
“If you’re not a drama enthusiast yourself,” Gabe continued, “there appear to be any number of gentry about who are taken with the idea of amateur theatricals. Perhaps you could import one of them to do the business.”
“I haven’t even been to a theater in a year,” Rafe said, “perhaps three or four years.”
His brother scowled. “You’ll have to find someone then.”
His eyes were remarkably compelling under those eyebrows. Rafe felt as if he were expected to leap from his chair and begin ripping a copy of King Lear into players’ parts. “Why?”
“Because if you can’t get together a theatrical, we need someone who can.”
“No, why am I putting on a play? And why here? I’d be happy to back the play of your choice in a London theater. But what possible value can there be to having such a performance here?”
Gabe paused.
“I’m waiting for an explanation,” Rafe said, getting up and wandering over to pour himself another drink. The day would clearly have nothing productive about it. He might as well celebrate.
His brother appeared at his shoulder. “One glass,” Gabe said, “may be attributed to the enthusiasm of discovering a sibling. Another smacks of something altogether different.”
Rafe put down the decanter without pouring a drink. “How quickly one forgets the joys of living with family,” he stated. “Now, do you care to tell me what this play business is all about?”
He could tell precisely how unpleasant the revelation, whatever it was, felt for his brother: by the rigidity of his jaw and the glower in his brows.
“I have a daughter,” Gabe said abruptly.
“What!”
“Out of wedlock,” he clarified. “Like father, like son, it appears.” That was no smile; more a widening of his lips.
“I have a niece,” Rafe said to himself, knowing he was grinning like a fool. “Is she a very good actress?”
“God’s sakes, no!” Gabe bellowed. “She’s only two months old.”
Rafe was thoroughly enjoying himself. He leaned against the sideboard, and crossed his arms. It was precisely the kind of pleasure he used to feel on the rare occasions when Peter betrayed some emotion unfitting to his dukedom. “And here I thought I’d gained myself a respectable biblical scholar as a brother. Perhaps I should check you for a cloven hoof.”
“My daughter’s mother is an actress.”
Not a lady, then. Rafe sobered and tried to put the question delicately but it came out with all the finesse of a blunt weapon: “They say marriage is pressing to death, but sometimes it’s acceptable.”
“She’s refused me. Several times.”
“That’s odd,” Rafe said. In his experience, women used pregnancy as a battering ram to make their way into marriage. And that went equally for the kind of woman labeled lady and for her counterparts, those labeled by profession as actresses, singers and other less salubrious occupations.
“Loretta believes that a husband would hamper her career as an actress,” Gabe said, his mouth a hard line.
“She let you warm her sheets, but she wouldn’t take a ring? She must be stark, raving mad.”
“Not mad, but young.”
“How young?”
Gabe’s mouth grew even tighter. “I had assumed she was at least three and twenty. It seems that she is only nineteen years of age.”
Rafe gaped at him. “What the hell did you do? Steal her from under her father’s roof?”
“Absolutely not. Her father was a wealthy burgher who left her his fortune. She was raised by an aunt, but the moment Loretta turned eighteen years of age and inherited control, she set up her own household.”
“In Cambridge?”
“In London. She has a fierce passion for the stage.”
It seemed his brother had fallen prey to a woman of little morals and less family. He tried to make the question delicate. “Are you quite certain that the child is…”
“She is mine. And she lives with me.” Gabe swung around to face Rafe fully. “Loretta had no more wish to be a mother than to be a wife. Unfortunately, I am responsible for Loretta losing her place at the Royal Theater at Covent Garden. And a well-attended lead role in an amateur production might well result in a permanent position at one of the London theaters.”
“That’s where I come in,” Rafe said, grinning.
Gabe didn’t look amused. “Just because I’m named after an archangel doesn’t mean that I couldn’t clout Raphael to the ground if I wished.”
Rafe laughed aloud. No one had offered to clout him since Peter died. Just so had Peter looked, about two minutes before he would make a concerted effort to pound him into the pavement. Not that a brother one has known for a mere twenty minutes would presumably lose control on such brief acquaintance, but the very thought of it made Rafe grin.
“We can have the theater in ready shape in a matter of a month or two.”
Gabe’s jaw was rigid. “I would never have approached you except this happened,” he said fiercely. He stood in the middle of the room, his eyes shadowed, his face beautiful as that of an archangel himself, his body furious with rage.
Rafe couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “I seem to remember the housekeeper nattering on about rain on the stage. The floor might have to be replaced.”
“I regret putting you to the trouble.” His eyes were bleak with distaste. Whoever Gabe’s mother was—and she must have been quite a woman to inspire the former Duke of Holbrook’s devotion—she had raised her son as a gentleman. Gabe had the pained look of every English gentleman caught in an untenable situation.
“You’ll have to bring the baby here,” Rafe said. “Believe it or not, I have a brand-new nursery upstairs. What’s her name?”
“I most certainly will not!”
Rafe folded his arms over his chest. “You will. Unless you and my niece are here, I won’t order work on the theater.”
“I’m in the midst of the Easter Term.”
“Don’t tell me you’re actually planning to talk to a student,” Rafe scoffed. “Oxford can’t be so different from Cambridge, and I think I only met a proper professor once in my years there.”
“Why would you want us here?”
“You’re my brother,” he said, grinning. “My brother and his daughter will live at Holbrook Court.”
“Your illegitimate brother and his illegitimate child,” Gabe said grimly. “And I won’t live here
; I have a perfectly respectable house in Cambridge.”
“Do I look as if I give a damn about your respectable house or my reputation?”
A grin quirked the corner of Gabe’s mouth. “No. But I wouldn’t wish to separate my daughter from her wet nurse, and the woman has children of her own in Cambridge.”
“What is my niece’s name? And don’t tell me—” But he saw the truth of it in his brother’s eyes. “You didn’t!”
“I couldn’t help it,” Gabe said, and he was starting to laugh now as well.
“Poor child,” Rafe said mournfully. “She has a crazed papa. Lucky for her, she will have me as a mitigating influence.”
Gabe rolled his eyes.
“Poor little mite,” Rafe repeated. “So she’s Mary, is she?”
And, at Gabe’s nod, “Heavenly. That’s just heavenly.”
3
Lessons in the Art of Widowhood
September 14, 1817
On the road from Scotland
There are people who travel well. They make long journeys with cheerfulness and fortitude, watching endless leagues spin by the window with equanimity. Imogen was not one of them. Sitting in a carriage gave her far too much time to think, and thinking tended to turn into brooding. Should she remarry? She’d spent so many years longing for Draven that she felt far more unmoored than one presumably should after the demise of a two-week marriage. It wasn’t just a two-week marriage. It was the five years of adoration that preceded their marriage. It was the hundreds of times she’d traced the name Lady Imogen Maitland on a scrap of foolscap, and the thousands of times she’d assured her sisters that she would marry Draven…someday.
It was a fact that she had designed her entire adult life around Draven Maitland. And now he was gone, sometimes she felt as if there was no Imogen without him.
Marry? Marry whom? And why?
Draven had been gone a year, and it was only now that such questions seemed to be leaping before her, unhampered by that burning grief that kept her in tears and anger for the past twelve months.
But the discomfort of being thrown on the mercy of her own thoughts was not a scrap on the discomfort suffered by her poor chaperone, Lady Griselda Willoughby.
Griselda had climbed into the carriage in Scotland with her crisped curls tucked under a beautiful little bonnet. She was starched, plump, and charming. Now, a fortnight later, she turned pale at the very sight of the carriage. She was no longer starched, much thinner, and charm was in short supply.
“I just don’t understand what is wrong with your stomach,” Imogen said, ringing the bell so that the coach could pull over for the second time that morning.
“I’ve always had these problems,” Griselda said. She was leaning against the wall, her face a delicate green. The color of spring leaves that have just unfurled, Imogen decided. “How long have we left on this benighted road?”
“Just one more day,” Imogen said, tucking a rug around Griselda’s knees.
“Just look at me,” Griselda moaned. “I’ve lost my shape entirely.”
“Well,” Imogen said tentatively, “there are a great many people who find a slim figure desirable given the current fashion in slender gowns.”
“Naught more than female fools,” Griselda moaned. “Men like curves and they always will. I do try to reduce sometimes, but not—not in this drastic fashion!”
“But Griselda,” Imogen said, searching for a way to put her question delicately, “are you…interested in what men think?”
“I haven’t been measured for a coffin yet,” Griselda said, not opening her eyes.
“Of course not!” By Imogen’s calculations, her chaperone was around thirty years old: not young, but not old either. And certainly not too old to remarry. “But you haven’t shown any interest in marriage, to this point. Your husband has been gone for quite a while, hasn’t he?”
“Over ten years,” Griselda said. “And I am considering the possibility of marriage.”
“Do you have anyone in mind?” Imogen inquired.
“No.” She huddled in the corner looking as miserable as a sparrow with a broken wing. “I shall take the matter under consideration when the season begins.”
Imogen thought for a while about the delights of marriage. Of course, she’d only been married two weeks, so it could be said that her experience was insignificant. “How long were you married?” she asked.
“A year. Did I have a small dog when you first arrived from Scotland?”
Imogen thought back to the days before she married Draven, when she, Tess, Annabel, and Josie had arrived at Rafe’s house with little more than the clothes on their backs. “No,” she said. “You didn’t have a dog. I would remember that.”
Griselda had walked into Rafe’s drawing room wearing one of the most exquisite gowns that Imogen had ever seen. That night, Annabel had said dreamily that there could be nothing better than to be a rich widow with all the money in the world to spend, and no husband to share it with.
And here was Imogen, a rich widow with no husband. It was odd how unpleasant desirable states could be when one was experiencing them.
“I had a dog briefly,” Griselda continued. “His name was Milo. He was one of those small brown dogs. But he started eating and eating and growing and growing.” She opened her eyes and stared at Imogen. “Before I knew it, he was as high as my knee. All he thought about was food. A very nice dog, in his own way, but desperate to eat at any moment of the day.”
“Hmmm,” Imogen said, wondering if she should get a dog. At least it would provide companionship.
“Willoughby—my husband—was precisely like that dog,” Griselda said, closing her eyes again. “Both of them thought about food before anything else. Both would get a painfully eager look in their eye and a little anticipatory wiggle in their bodies when it was time for a meal.”
“Oh dear,” Imogen said.
“The only difference was that I did not wait to find out whether Milo killed himself overeating, the way Willoughby did. I gave Milo away.”
“So we have to find you a very slim man to marry.”
“One who is uninterested in food,” Griselda said firmly.
“Why have you decided to marry after so long?”
“I’m tired of being alone. Playing a chaperone to your sisters has been eye-opening in that respect.”
Imogen thought about how much her sister Annabel was in love with her husband. And then there was Tess, whose eyes glowed at the very sight of her spouse. “I see what you mean,” she said with a sigh. “My sisters are happy in their marriages.”
“It gives one to think,” Griselda said. She delicately wrapped a lacy scarf around her neck. “My marriage was not, you understand, of the same caliber.”
“Nor mine,” Imogen said, pushing away a tiny pulse of disloyalty.
But Griselda’s eyes had no surprise in them. “Maitland was a very beautiful man,” she said tranquilly. “In many years of being in society, I have found that beauty is a great drawback in a man. It seems frequently paired with petulance and an unfortunate degree of arrogance.”
Imogen opened her mouth to defend her Draven…and shut it again. He had been arrogant. He had been petulant too, whining about his mother’s tight control over her money. But worse than those, he had been reckless, throwing himself on the back of any horse in the pursuit of a bet. He simply couldn’t bear not to win.
“Of course, Maitland may well have grown into an easier person over the years,” Griselda offered.
A little smile curled Imogen’s lips. “Or not.”
“I find it helpful to regard the past optimistically. The important thing to remember is that there was little you could have done, either to make your marriage a success or to keep Maitland alive.”
Imogen swallowed. She was finally coming to agree with Griselda. At first, she couldn’t bear the pain of her own guilt. Then she began blaming herself. And now, finally, she was beginning to accept the fact that she co
uldn’t have stopped Draven from racing to his death. He was like an unbroken colt, and she was by no means a strong enough woman to put him to bridle.
“I am not ready to remarry,” she said suddenly. “I dreamed about marriage to Draven for most of my life. Now I would like to just be Imogen for a while.”
“A laudable ambition,” Griselda said. “Would that I did not have to be Griselda, at least until we get out of this carriage and my stomach calms.”
“This may shock you,” Imogen said, biting her lip.
“I doubt it,” Griselda replied. “I have some difficulty working up to such excesses of emotion when in the throes of nausea. Besides I know perfectly well what you are planning.”
Imogen raised an eyebrow.
“Last year,” Griselda said, “you desired a little affaire for all the wrong reasons. You were angry at your husband for dying.”
“I was angry at myself for failing him,” Imogen said softly.
“Now you have decided on the same course of action, but for different reasons.”
“You say it so calmly! Don’t you mean to lecture me on the evils of illicit relationships?”
“No. I am quite certain you are aware of the disagreeable consequences if the ton were to discover your activities. But I have found that occasionally a small peccadillo that harms no one can be conducive to a cheerful disposition.”
Imogen’s eyes widened. “Are you saying that you have indulged in a peccadillo, Griselda? You?”
Griselda frowned. “As I said, I haven’t been measured for a coffin yet. And the fact that I have not chosen to give myself in marriage does not mean that I haven’t availed myself—very occasionally and very discreetly—of the pleasures of companionship.”
Imogen stared with fascination at her chaperone, who was known far and wide in the ton for being one of the most chaste and virtuous widows in London. “Does Mayne know?”
“Why on earth would I share such a detail with a brother? Believe me, child, one learns quickly that making a confidant of a man can lead to nothing but trouble, and men who are actually in one’s family are the worst choice of all.”