Page 34 of A Spinster to Reform the Duke
He walked on, finding his mother hurrying at his side, clearly not so eager to let the conversation be at an end.
“What of this Lady Rebecca then? If you cannot marry for love, perhaps you can marry for friendship?”
“Lady Rebecca? Good Lord, no! How could I marry her?”
“You do not need to sound so horrified, Timothy.”
Timothy was aware of others in the street turning to look at them, clearly curious at the rather loud conversation. He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, tipping the top hat on his brow forward, to hide a little more of his face, before he gestured to the carriage at the end of the road, urging his mother to hurry toward it with him.
“I am not the husband for Lady Rebecca. That is all needs to be said on that subject.”
“It is not,” Catherine shook her head, stopping in front of the carriage with her arm across the doorway, preventing him from climbing inside. “Why can you not be her husband? Because she is a spinster? Does her reputation bother you so?”
“Her reputation doesn’t bother me at all. On the contrary, the reason I could never marry Lady Rebecca is because I have far too much respect for her.”
“Timothy, you are making no sense,” Catherine pleaded with him, her jowls shaking as she shook her head back and forth. “What are you saying?”
“Look at me, Mother. We both know what you think of the way I have lived my life. I have lived it as my uncle has lived his, earning the same reputation as belongs to him, have I not?”
She looked away from him, staring down at the pavement instead.
“You do not always have to be a cad. You can change your ways.”
“No, Mother, I cannot,” Timothy said firmly. “I am not capable of falling in love. That isabundantlyclear to me. As fast as I like one lady, I move onto the next, always with a wandering eye.”
Catherine practically shuddered at the words.
“I do not need to hear the details,” she begged, holding up her hands.
“I am disloyal. Always have been. In a way, what Uncle George said the other week was right. Whoever I marry, they will be hurt by the way I am. I will not do that to Lady Rebecca. She deserves a good husband. Not someone like me.”
Seeing that his mother had at last let down her arm from the carriage door, he eagerly moved past her, climbing into the carriage.
“Odd,” Catherine murmured as she climbed in behind him, sitting down opposite his position and turning her gaze out of the window.
“What is odd?” he asked in a hushed tone.
“I was not aware you had pursued a lady for a number of weeks now, months even. Has your eye wandered since you met Lady Rebecca?”
Timothy snapped his gaze toward his mother, finding the answer coming quickly from him.
“No. It has not.”
She smiled a little, triumphant in his answer.
“It means nothing,” he said hurriedly. “I would soon look elsewhere regardless.”
“In the meantime, you just buy her gifts and see her as often as your friend sees the lady he is courting.”
Timothy had no more answer for her. He hung his head forward instead, painfully aware of the parcel that was under his arm.
* * *
“Any more advice?” Alexander asked as they waited on the doorstep of the Birkston’s house.
“You do not need any more,” Timothy said with a smile. “Be yourself, my friend. She likes you for who you are.”
Alexander seemed imbued by this news, just as the door opened, and they were shown through the house by the butler. The more they walked through the corridors, the more nervous Timothy grew about the parcel that was in his grasp. He half hoped he could make it disappear, but it stayed there, reminding him of the conversation he had shared with his mother two days ago in that shop.
