Thorn raised an eyebrow. Laetitia was widely viewed as the most exquisite woman on the marriage mart. Her charms were obvious. “You really can’t guess?”
“Oh, I know she’s beautiful. And you’d be stealing her from any number of young bucks who write sonnets to her nose. But she’s not right for you.”
“How can you know that?” Thorn was genuinely curious. Vander didn’t look like a future duke—his hair was shaggy, and he had the jaw of a prizefighter, not a nobleman—and he didn’t act like one either. He never went to balls, so how in the hell would he have met a virtuous young lady like Miss Laetitia Rainsford?
“I was seated beside her at a dinner party given by my uncle. She certainly is pretty enough. But as your wife?”
“I’ve made up my mind. She’s the one.” Thorn took a drink, returning his brandy glass to precisely the same spot on the side table. “She is beautiful, well born, and well bred. What more could I want?”
“A brain,” Vander stated, his eyes not leaving Thorn’s face.
“I don’t look for intelligence in bed,” Thorn said dryly. In his estimation, Laetitia had all the requisite qualities for bedding and mothering, even if a high degree of intelligence didn’t seem to be one of them. “I believe one of the reasons that my factories thrive is that I suit talent to position. In fact, I see no meaningful difference between the two.”
Vander snorted. “You think I’m harsh? You will have to live with the woman!”
“That’s true, but I also live with my butler,” Thorn pointed out. “What’s the difference, really, besides the fact I don’t have to share a bed with Iffley? Laetitia will be the mother of my children, and it is my distinct impression that she is an excellent nurturer. In fact, I met her in the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, where she was watching boys sail toy boats.”
His intended probably wouldn’t appreciate the comparison, but Thorn had the notion that she was like a rescued hound, one that would adoringly follow her new master in return for some kindness. That was absurd, given that she was as beautiful as a wild rose, with hair like a Botticelli angel. By all rights, she should be arrogantly aware of her dominion over men. But instead she had a desperate look about her eyes, as if she needed saving.
It was a fair trade, in his estimation. Her beauty in return for his protection.
“You plan to drop your wife at this new estate of yours with a brood of children?”
“I see no reason to live at Starberry Court with her.” His own father had taught him little more than how to fence. Thorn intended to be that type of father, and he needn’t be in residence to do it.
“A mother does more than nurture her family,” Vander objected. “I hear scientists have estimated that half of one’s intellect comes from each parent.”
Thorn just looked at him. His children would be his children, just as his father’s were his father’s. He and the Duke of Villiers were carved from the same block of marble. It wasn’t just the white streak in his hair that had appeared in his and his father’s hair after each of them had turned nineteen. It was the set of his jaw, the way Villiers calculated outcomes, even the way he breathed air.
If one wanted more proof, it could be had in the fact that the duke had spawned children with five different mothers, and each of those children was—in his or her own way—a copy of their father. “Of course, I hope that they look like their mother,” he added, with a wry look.
“Bloody hell,” Vander said, disgusted. “I suppose you’ll raise the poor babes as a pack of wolves.”
Thorn grinned at that. “You’d better find someone to marry. You don’t want your wolves to be puny in comparison to mine.”
“I haven’t met the right woman yet.” Vander took a gulp of brandy, slumping lower in his chair. Thorn never sprawled. Sprawling would put him at a disadvantage; he would lose critical seconds before he could dodge a blow and launch an attack.
“Why don’t you ask Eleanor to find you someone suitable?” Thorn asked. His stepmother, the Duchess of Villiers, knew everyone in society worth knowing. Moreover, she was brilliantly strategic and would enjoy determining the future of the duchy of Pindar.
But Vander shook his head. “I want what your father has.”
“What’s that?”
“You know what.”
“You want Eleanor?” Thorn was, frankly, astonished. His stepmother was beautiful, intelligent, witty . . . and she was also deeply in love with his father. Eleanor wasn’t interested in younger men, nor indeed in any man other than her husband.
He gave Vander the kind of look he reserved for pickpockets just before he knocked them off their feet. “You keep your hands off my stepmother. I had no idea that you had propensities of that nature.”
“You should see your face!” Vander was positively howling with laughter. “Your stepmother is a very nice woman,” he said finally, more or less recovering himself. “But I don’t want her, you idiot. I want the type of marriage those two have. I want what Villiers has.” He took another slug. “I’ll be damned if I’ll settle for anything less.”
“I don’t consider the marriage I’m contemplating to be lesser,” Thorn objected. “Just different. My father’s life revolves around Eleanor, and hers around him. I can’t see either of us altering our habits for a woman. What about all those horses you’re training, and the fact you’re constantly off to one steeplechase or another? I have no problem imagining you with a wife—but one who is the center of your life? No.”
“I would make time,” Vander stated.
“Why?”
“You really have no idea, do you?”
“What I know is that Laetitia is remarkably beautiful and she’s a lady, which will protect my children from being shunned as a result of my birth. Part of the reason I treasure my stepmother is that she’s unlike any other woman I’ve met. Quite frankly, I’ve come to believe another such woman doesn’t exist.”
“She has to, Thorn.” Vander came to his feet but didn’t walk away, just stood, staring down at Thorn. “I want to love a woman the way your father loves his wife. I don’t care if she looks like an apple seller. I want to feel passion for the woman I marry. It doesn’t seem too much to ask.”
“My father almost married a woman who belonged in Bedlam,” Thorn said, leaning back so he could see Vander’s face. “It was pure accident that paired him with Eleanor. Are you hoping that the perfect woman will simply wander in your door?”
“If she doesn’t, then I’d rather not bother,” Vander said flatly. He moved to the decanter and refilled his glass. “If I’m to change my life to suit a woman, she’d damned well better be worth my trouble.”
He had a point there. Thorn was fairly sure marriage would be a bother. In order to woo Laetitia, he had been obliged to buy a country estate, although he was perfectly comfortable living in London. What’s more, he was taking on a wife when he already had twenty-three servants, along with men working in factories, solicitors’ offices, and the rest.
But he wanted children, and for that he needed a wife. He liked children. Children, whether boys or girls, were curious. They liked to ask questions; they wanted to understand how things worked.
“Since you’re not planning to change your life, I suppose you’ll keep your mistress?” Vander dropped back into his chair, taking care not to spill his brandy.
“I pensioned her off the day after I met Laetitia.”
“Then I’ll point out the obvious. You are signing up to sleep with no woman other than Laetitia Rainsford for the rest of your bleeding life.”
He shrugged. “She will give me children. And I have no doubt she will be faithful, so I’ll pay her the same respect.”
“Loyalty is one of your few virtues,” Vander acknowledged. “The problem with you,” he added, staring contemplatively into his brandy, “is your infernal childhood.”
Thorn couldn’t argue with that. Spending his boyhood as a penniless mudlark—diving into the Thames to search for anythin
g of value in the muck—had shaped him. He had learned the hard way that danger lurked where you couldn’t see it.
“You don’t trust anyone,” Vander continued, waxing philosophical. “Your father should have kept a better eye on you. I’ll be damned if I misplace any of my children, even if I produce a bastard, which I won’t.”
“My childhood made me what I am. I wouldn’t trade it to be the pampered son of a duke.”
Vander shot him a sardonic look. Thorn was the only one who knew what horrors had lurked inside the Duke of Pindar’s country seat.
“I trust my father, Eleanor, my siblings,” Thorn stated. “And you. That’s good enough.”
Frankly, he didn’t waste much time thinking about trusting women. And he found it rare that he respected them. His life revolved around his work, and most gentlewomen didn’t seem to do anything except their part in bed, though he generally did most of the work there too. That was the nature of it. He wasn’t a man to give a woman her way between the sheets.
“I trust you,” Vander replied. He added no other names. Not that Thorn expected him to, because he knew there were no other names to add. Vander’s face had darkened, and as Thorn saw it, his friend’s darkness was his own business.
“That’s why I want a marriage like your father’s,” Vander continued, staring at the fire through his empty glass. “There have to be more people in the world I can trust than a muscle-bound, sweaty bastard like yourself.”
Back when they’d been fourteen, that weak jest would have been an invitation, and the two of them would have pummeled each other until half the furniture in the room had been broken . . . and they’d come out the other side panting and happy.
What’s more, that remark, or another like it, would surely have been made on this very day of the year, because it was the anniversary of Vander’s mother’s death, which he generally spent skating on the edge of violence. Consequently, every year on this day Thorn ensured he was at Vander’s side.
Thorn got to his feet. “I’m sick of sitting around with a maudlin romantic, talking about women. Foil or épée?”
Vander rose with no sign that three glasses of brandy had impaired him. Probably they hadn’t; he seemed to have been endowed with the ability to burn off alcohol within minutes.
Predictably, Vander chose the heavier blade, the épée. Thorn was the better fencer; Vander had the habit of losing his temper and slashing instead of strategizing.
Once in Thorn’s ballroom, they stripped down to shirts and breeches and began circling each other, blades poised.
But even as he calculated every shift in Vander’s weight, Thorn kept thinking about marriage. Laetitia wasn’t bright, it was true, but frankly, he believed that to be a decided advantage in a wife. His mother had been that rare thing, a strong-minded woman with a vocation, and her art had mattered more to her than her son.
He didn’t have any interest in a woman with a profession. He wanted a woman who would never dream of leaving her children—for any reason. Laetitia adored children, and she clearly had no larger aspirations than motherhood. He had decided five minutes after meeting her that she would be his bride, though he hadn’t yet informed her of the fact.
Her approval was unnecessary, really, since their marriage was a matter of negotiation between himself and her parents. After meeting with Lord Rainsford, he understood that he would pay dearly for Laetitia’s beauty. But more importantly, he would pay the highest price for her birth.
The only remaining obstacle was Lady Rainsford; her parents had made it clear that her approval was necessary.
Vander was fighting like a madman, to the point where he had twice nearly broken through Thorn’s guard. His chest was heaving and he was bathed in sweat. But he looked better than he had earlier: less fraught, less furious . . . less grief-stricken.
Good.
Time to go in for the kill. In a coordinated series of strokes, Thorn danced around the edge of Vander’s blade, sliced his right arm around and under, feigned an attack, whirled, switched hands, came at him with the left.
Touché.
Vander’s response to defeat was a stream of oaths that would have made a sailor blanch. Thorn bent over to catch his breath, watching drops of sweat fall to the floor. He couldn’t best Vander in the boxing ring, but he could damn well wipe the floor with him when they held swords. Even better, the air of madness that hung about his friend every year on the anniversary of his mother’s death had evaporated.
Thorn pulled off his shirt and used it to mop his chest and face.
“Do you think that Laetitia will like you?” Vander asked.
“ ‘Like me?’ What do you mean?”
“The way you look. Does she seem attracted to you?”
Thorn glanced down at himself. Long bands of muscle covered his body, forming ridges over his taut abdomen. He kept his body in fighting shape, and no woman had yet expressed a complaint. “Are you talking about the scars?” Like every mudlark who survived into adulthood, he was covered with them.
“You never go into society, so you wouldn’t know, but Laetitia’s just spent the season dancing with a crowd of wand-thin mollies with no need to shave. We’re too big, and we’d both have a beard within the day if we allowed it.”
“Those men were all at school with us,” Thorn said, shrugging. “You’re taking marriage too seriously. It’s a transaction like any other. I’m giving her a country house; that will make up for my brute proportions.”
“Damn,” Vander said, pausing in the middle of rubbing sweat from his hair. “You really mean it, don’t you? I can’t see you as a rural squire.”
Neither could Thorn, but as he understood it, children required fresh air and open spaces. His new estate was close to London, and he could easily visit.
“What will you do with yourself there?” Vander gave a bark of laughter. “Go fishing? I can see you fashioning a new rod and selling the design for a hundred pounds, but reeling in a trout? No.”
Thorn had just acquired a rubber factory that was losing money fast. For a moment, he imagined a rubber fishing rod—he had to design something profitable that the factory could make—but then dismissed it. “I won’t be there often,” he said, tossing his shirt to the side. “I’ll leave the trout for idiots who fancy shriveling their balls in rushing water.”
He was an East Londoner to the core, and he’d only catch a trout if he were starving. Plus, his time as a mudlark had left one indelible mark: he didn’t like rivers. Given a choice, he’d never go in one again, and certainly never dive to the bottom.
“I like fishing,” Vander objected, pulling on one of the linen shirts that Thorn’s valet had left stacked on a filigree chair.
“Good, because I’m inviting Laetitia and her parents to the country in a fortnight or so, and you can come along and fish for your supper. I have to persuade Laetitia’s mother to accept my baseborn blood, and you can be proof that I know the right sort. I only hope you’ve never met each other.”
Vander threw his drenched shirt at Thorn’s head, but it fell to the floor. Thorn was already heading out the door.
He had a factory to save.
Chapter Three
India made an excuse and did not join the Dibbleshires for tea; there was no point in risking yet another passionate declaration from his lordship. Instead, she and her godmother retired to their sitting room, where India began opening the mail Adelaide’s butler had sent over by a groom. Letter after letter implored her to cure various ills: a disorganized house, an unfashionable dining room, even (implicitly) a marriage.
But she resolutely wrote back refusals, mindful of her decision to marry. She even refused an offer from the Regent’s secretary asking if she would renovate his private chambers in Brighton. The only truly tempting letter came from the Duchess of Villiers. Eleanor was older than India, and mother of an eight-year-old boy, but despite these differences, they had struck up a close friendship. Eleanor was brilliant, well read, and witty with
out being cruel, and India admired and adored her.
In fact, Eleanor was everything India planned to be, once she had time to read the books she had missed as a child. Someday she would like to invite Eleanor and her other friends to a country house of her own. They would spend lazy days in the shade of a willow, talking about literature. She would understand grammar by then, and never worry about who and whom again, let alone lie and lay.
But now Eleanor was writing to ask a special favor. “Adelaide, did we meet Tobias Dautry when we stayed with the Duke of Villiers?”
Her godmother put down her teacup. “No, he was in Scotland at the time. You must have heard of Dautry. He’s the oldest of Villiers’s bastards, and by all accounts, he owns five factories and is richer than Midas.”
“Didn’t he invent a blast furnace, or something like that?”
“Yes, and sold it to a coal magnate for ten thousand pounds. I must say, I do feel sympathetic toward Villiers’s by-blows. It must be awkward to be brought up as a lord or lady, with expectations of an excellent marriage. Who would choose to marry a by-blow? Still, I hear that His Grace has given the girls outrageously large dowries.”
India knew she was cynical, but common sense told her that those girls would indeed make excellent matches.
“Dautry is different from the others,” Adelaide continued. “Rougher. I think he was living on the streets when Villiers found him, and he was already twelve years old. Eleanor never managed to civilize him.”
“Why haven’t I met him?” India asked. What with one thing and another, she had been to hundreds of social events in London in the last few years, although she had never debuted. It was her considered opinion that the queen had no more interest in meeting her than she had in meeting the queen.
“He’s a man of business. Knows his place, I expect.”