Page 29 of My Own True Duchess
“The biscuits are fresh,” he said, flipping out his tails, taking an armchair, and lifting the tray in Theo’s direction. “We order them from the bakery across the street. Help yourself.”
“I’m too nervous.”
He sat back and set the biscuits aside. “Then tell me what’s on your mind. You have more privacy here than you’d have in a confessional, Mrs. Haviland.”
She knew that. When Archie had died, she’d had to confide the situation—finances and all—to somebody knowledgeable and utterly trustworthy, and Bea had recommended Mr. Wentworth.
Theo withdrew the bank draft from her reticule and passed it to him. “I’m told that if I endorse that illegibly, nobody will know to whom Mr. Tresham remitted the funds. I am passing that document to you personally, so that the transaction remains confidential at this institution as well.”
He studied the draft, turned it over, held it up to the window, and even sniffed it. “This is legal,” he said. “Not that Tresham’s word is suspect. But tell me, Mrs. Haviland, do I have cause to doubt his honor?”
The question was so quietly put, Theo at first didn’t grasp… “Mr. Tresham and I have no arrangement of the sort you’re implying, Mr. Wentworth.”
Blue eyes regarded Theo with all the mercy of a winter storm bearing down on open country. “I ask, madam. I do not imply. You would not be the first widow whose situation left her vulnerable to the unscrupulous.”
Mr. Wentworth’s speech was that of a gentleman, but occasionally, she heard an echo of the West Riding in his vowels. In his reply, she heard more than an echo of a threat, albeit aimed at Jonathan Tresham.
“He knows little of the circumstances surrounding my late husband’s death,” Theo said. “Mr. Tresham is a ducal heir. He must marry soon and well. I am to ensure that he makes a well-informed choice.”
Mr. Wentworth set the draft face-up beside the biscuits. To Theo, that was vaguely obscene, but Mr. Wentworth was a banker, and the draft was a mere commercial instrument to him.
“You know everybody in polite society,” he said, “are seldom noticed among the chaperones and wallflowers, and won’t send Tresham to a bad fate if you can help it. He should have paid you three times this sum.”
“He should not have to pay me at all,” Theo retorted. “I should assist a gentleman in distress out of simple human decency.” Mr. Tresham would be horrified to hear himself described thus, though the term was apt. Theo had questioned him for more than an hour, and he’d never mentioned friends from school, neighbors at Quimbey Hall, old tutors recalled fondly, doting aunties… not a single soul who cared for him.
Was there any greater distress in life than to be alone with all of one’s joys and burdens?
Mr. Wentworth took the draft over to his desk. “Jonathan Tresham is something of an unknown quantity, but he’s not in distress. He had substantial assets on the Continent, Paris in particular, and sold them all before removing to London. He does not bank with us, nor with the Dorset and Becker, which is where the ducal funds are kept. I can tell you little about his situation, except that you should be cautious.”
Theo was always cautious, but that summary left her feeling encouraged as well. If Mr. Tresham were in difficulties or engaged in shaky investments, Mr. Wentworth would have known.
“More than usually cautious?” Theo asked.
He slipped the draft into a drawer. “Yes.”
She waited while Mr. Wentworth resumed his seat.
“I was not born to all this,” he said, making a gesture that included a silver biscuit tray, fragrant daffodils, and a desk that was worth more than all the furniture in Theo’s house combined. “People know that, and they speculate: Where did Wentworth come by his fortune? I will tell you honestly, Mrs. Haviland, I worked very hard, I was very lucky. There’s no more to the story than that.”
There was likely much, much more.
“Is Mr. Tresham personally wealthy?”
“You decide: He has some of the best rooms at The Albany, though he doesn’t appear to occupy them. His fancy coach is pulled by four matched grays, and he keeps teams waiting from here to the family seat at Quimbey Hall. He also has a private apartment in St. James’s Street, three different country estates that I know of, a yacht he uses for Channel crossings when the mood strikes him.
“And yet,” Mr. Wentworth went on, “Tresham is not an owner or investor in any business I or my partner have ever heard of. His name never appears on the betting book at White’s. He doesn’t keep a stable of hunters. His father, by contrast, was a legendary scandal. Public inebriation, liaisons that should have remained private, endless inane wagers and deep play he could not afford.”
Theo helped herself to a biscuit. “If I expect polite society to overlook my late husband’s faults, I can hardly hold Mr. Tresham accountable for the sins of his father. Mr. Tresham is a ducal heir. They aren’t supposed to be paupers.” And apparently, Mr. Tresham’s differences with his father ran far deeper than boyish rebellion and aristocratic indifference.
Though Mr. Tresham had also mentioned business meetings. What had those been about if not investments or commercial enterprises?
“A ducal heir,” Mr. Wentworth replied, “usually receives only a quarterly allowance, and the Quimbey dukedom is quite modest compared to most such titles.” Mr. Wentworth looked as if he wanted to say more. “Be careful, Mrs. Haviland.”
His sound advice had seen Theo through the worst months of her life. “So careful that I refuse his money?”
“If all he wants for that sum is matchmaking advice, then by all means, keep the blunt. I’ll sign the draft and deposit it into one of the bank’s operating accounts, then transfer the funds to your name. Such transactions are commonplace when discretion is necessary. I do have a suggestion.”
The biscuit was heavenly, light, buttery, sweet, rich. It begged to be dipped in a hot cup of morning chocolate, not that Theo had had chocolate in the past two years.
