Page 42 of His Mistress, His Muse, and Other Madness
“Will go to my younger brother. And then to his son.”
“Ronny’s brother has three beautiful boys,” Mrs. Bexford said with a gentler tone than he’d heard from here before now. “Though we don’t get to see them. Except from afar. In the park if we happen to meet.” Her gaze sharped and the dreamlike haze she’d sunk into dropped away. “Ronny married for money so that his brother could marry for love.” She looked down at the knitting frozen in her lap. “All is as it should be.”
Perhaps in some ways. Not in others, though. Mrs. Bexford clearly did not approve of all aspects of the situation.
“But surely,” Theo said, “your brother was not trained to manage the estates.”
“Of course he was!” Behind his mustache, Lord Armquist bristled. “We were trained since childhood. Together at Father’s knee. Taught to do what was best for the estate, for those in our care. For me, that meant giving it all up to my brother.” He reached for his lover’s hand, and she reached back until their fingers tangled together, wove a deep pattern, a heart beating outside of their bodies.
“You’re sure you didn’t know all this?” Mrs. Bexford asked. “You’re not very good at gossip are you? I must not be either, or I’d have heard of the marquess’s son sleeping with his dead father’s mistress.”
Another lump of charcoal gone to dust, his palm a dusty, dark cemetery. “Where did you hearthat?”
Cordelia laughed, a brittle thing like a leaf in autumn. “Is that what Mr. Bradley has been saying?”
“Everyone here is talking of it. I’d heard rumors before that the Marquess of Waneborough had a pretty little thing hidden away, but with no evidence, I scarcely believed it. But now…” One of her brows lifted high.
“What else is Bradley saying?” Theo asked. He pinned his gaze to the man, imagining the ground opening up and swallowing him. No, Theo did not wish that. He wanted to pummel the man into the ground himself. No sudden geological shifts required.
Bradley must have felt Theo watching him; he turned toward Theo, nodded an acknowledgment, then leaned close to his mistress and whispered something in her ear. Then his attention flitted to Cordelia, and the mistress’s did, too. Her hand flew to her mouth, and they laughed, not even trying to hide their mirth nor the object of its arousal. Cordelia.
Theo’s fists itched. “Tell me what he’s saying,” he demanded again.
“That she stole the marquess’s patronage from Simon Oakley,” Armquist said, his face a scant inch from his paper, paint splattered across his cheek.
“I did not.” Cordelia did not drop her gaze or let her shoulders droop.
How could he protect her from this? She clearly did not wish to discuss her past, nor to discuss Simon, but if she did not, the rumors would continue.
“It’s horrid falsehoods,” Mrs. Castle cried. “I’ve known your late father, Lord Theodore, and he was not the sort to have a mistress.”
Mrs. Bexford hummed. “And a man so old with a mistress so pretty doesn’t leave her to rot alone in London 364 days of the year. And my dear friend Sophie, who gives voice lessons, worked with Lady Cordelia for an entire year. Said the marquess visited only once that she could tell. And everyone knows he rarely left the country.”
“Just so.” Mrs. Castle looked like she might spit if she saw Mr. Bradley.
Cordelia’s hands gripped the arms of her chair like claws. “Mr. Bradley does not understand the true story, but I will not speak unkindly of Mr. Oakley.”
“That’s sweet,” Miss Mires said. “You’re kind, Lady Cordelia.”
“Just the sort we want here,” Pentshire said.
“I’m done.” Theo snapped his chalk down.
Mrs. Bexford on his one side and Mrs. Castle on his other craned their necks to view his work.
“Admirable,” Mrs. Castle said.
“You’re no Turner,” Mrs. Bexford added, “but there’s a fierceness to your style that catches the eye. You’ve expressed something vulnerable in her, I think.”
Mrs. Castle nodded.
“No!” Cordelia leapt from her seat and joined him, almost pressed her face entirely to the paper. “I don’t see it.”
Had he caught something fragile about her? He’d not meant to. He did not see her that way. Except for last night when she’d laid her past before him, her stockinged feet peeking out from beneath the hem of her skirt, her toes curling and uncurling when she could not meet his eye.
Perhaps he’d put a bit of that in her.
But was that the best thing about her? Did the drawing fulfill the requirements? Hell if he knew.
