Page 10 of My Own True Duchess
“A title was involved,” Mrs. Haviland said. “My husband was in line for the Penweather viscountcy, though like you he was the previous titleholder’s nephew rather than his son. Another nephew holds the title now, a fellow over in Hampshire. Any number of people will doubtless acquaint you with my history if Dora Louise mentions she saw us in the library together.”
Comus watered a shrub, and again, Diana waited patiently.
“Dora Louise will keep her pretty mouth shut,” Jonathan said. “I made it plain that young women who gossip about others raise questions regarding their own whereabouts at the time of any curious incidents.”
“Thank you.”
For that bit of prudence, Jonathan did not want thanks. “This troubled you?”
“I’m a widow, Mr. Tresham. Our reputations matter. I can be behind a closed door with you and not be ruined the first time it occurs, but a habit of being closeted with single gentlemen would see an end to my invitations.”
“Because Society is nothing if not hypocritical. Diana is very good with the dog.”
“You were good with her.”
That observation had a whiff of we must be going about it. “Did my basket arrive?”
“And your flowers. You needn’t have, but thank you. If Diana learns the chocolates were from you, she’ll make you the hero of all of her fairy tales.”
Jonathan had wanted to make Mrs. Haviland smile, not make her mouth pinch up in that resolute line. “I learned something while I danced a quadrille with Dora Louise.”
Mrs. Haviland left off watching her daughter long enough to spare Jonathan a curious glance. “From Dora Louise Compton?”
“About Dora Louise. She titters.” Jonathan affected a high-pitched giggle, which earned a puzzled look from the dog. “Incessantly, loudly, gratingly. The entire ballroom was forced to notice that I’d partnered her by virtue of that battle trumpet sounding at frequent intervals. I must marry—my uncle and his duchess are elderly, there is no spare—but thanks to you, I don’t have to marry a tittering ninnyhammer.”
Ah, a smile. “You make her sound like a variety of North American bird: the junco, the chickadee, the tittering ninnyhammer.”
Jonathan took Mrs. Haviland’s hand in his and raised her knuckles to his mouth, though, of course, he did not touch his lips to her glove in public.
“I am eternally in your debt. If you ever need anything, if you are in want of an escort, if that child needs a stern lecture, or if you develop a yearning for fresh peaches, you will apply to me, Mrs. Haviland.”
He’d flustered her, which meant he’d at least made an impression. The girl and dog were edging closer, so Jonathan stood.
“Might I escort you home?”
“Thank you, no,” Mrs. Haviland said, rising. “We follow a prescribed path, one intended to work off Diana’s high spirits. The more routine I can impose on her, the less mischief she gets into.”
“You are a very good mother,” Jonathan said, letting go of the lady’s hand. “You might err on the side of too much or too little discipline, you might bungle as a parent from time to time, but you see her and you love her. That matters to a child tremendously.”
He’d said too much, and not on a topic remotely akin to flirtation. Jonathan tipped his hat, collected Comus, and took the dog snuffling and sniffing up the path. They were past the park gates and halfway home before Jonathan realized how extraordinary the encounter had been.
He’d conversed with an unmarried woman about topics other than the weather or fashion.
He’d enjoyed the exchange, despite the presence of a manipulative child and a drooling mastiff.
And he’d wanted to make an impression on the lady—a lasting, positive impression.
* * *
“Jonathan danced with Dora Louise Compton,” Lady Della Haddonfield said. “He even spoke to her. I saw him all but whispering in her ear, and Dora Louise will not do, Nicholas.”
Della was small and dark, unlike her tall, blond Haddonfield siblings, and while not mighty, she was a whirlwind. When Nicholas, Earl of Bellefonte, was near his youngest sister, he felt like a mastiff beset by a kitten. The little creature was pretty, sweet, and perpetually in motion, but what was one supposed to do with it?
“Tresham danced with any number of young women,” Nick replied, etching tiny lines in the tail of the nightingale he was carving. “My countess does not suffer bachelors to sit out, and Tresham isn’t rude.”
“Not on purpose,” Della replied, holding up the unpainted pigeon Nick had finished carving last week, “though Jonathan has a forbidding quality.”
Tresham had an instinct for self-preservation. “Della, he’s a ducal heir. He’s a wealthy, single, young ducal heir, and the present titleholder is getting on in years.” Quimbey was seventy if he was a day and had only recently married. His duchess was well past child-bearing years, and yet, the couple billed and cooed like the newlyweds they were.
