Page 32 of My Own True Duchess
“The marriage grew troubled,” she said. “Archimedes expected to inherit the title and all the wealth that went with it, though the previous viscount was vigorous in old age. My husband wanted more children, thinking that an heir would be expected of us, but if one cannot support a wife and daughter, how can one expect to support a son, or the next daughter and a son? Three daughters?”
“Don’t dwell on the difficulties,” Jonathan said, patting her wrist. “Every match has troubles, every family has troubles. I don’t like to see you looking daunted.”
Hated it, in fact.
“My head feels better.”
She did not look as if she felt better. “You have some means now,” Jonathan said. “Think about that, and if you’d like help choosing an investment, I can make a few suggestions.”
“The cent-per-cents will do for me. Predictable growth on a modest scale is preferable to any wild venture, no matter how lucrative.”
She sounded like His Grace of Quimbey, whose stewardship of the dukedom was conservative to the point of backwardness. Quimbey likely suspected Jonathan’s involvement with The Coventry Club, but the old boy didn’t pry.
“I’m sorry your marriage was difficult,” Jonathan said, “but because your husband was a disappointment, you’ll be cautious about choosing my duchess.”
“You will choose her.” Mrs. Haviland was very clear on that point. “I will merely suggest. Lady Antonia Mainwaring belongs on your probable list. She’s kind, intelligent, pretty, and wealthy.”
Theodosia Haviland was kind in a drill-sergeant sort of way, intelligent, and pretty. “As long as she doesn’t fashion her hair into snakes or pop out of hidden stairways into the arms of unsuspecting bachelors, put her on the list.”
Jonathan spent the next hour learning exactly how many well-born young women were in search of a wealthy, titled spouse. Mrs. Haviland considered everything—fortune, pedigree, location of the family seat, age, and the situations of any siblings or parents.
She knew all the secrets, which were relevant because they could become scandals. They were also bargaining points in the marriage settlements, as in the case of Dora Louise’s older sister.
Mrs. Haviland had further troubled herself to learn the dispositions of the young ladies, sending two to the impossible list because they were—the eighth deadly sin again—frivolous.
“Are you perhaps being too cautious?” Jonathan asked when she’d consigned a marquess’s daughters to impossibility for silliness. “A touch of lightheartedness in a duchess isn’t the same as financial irresponsibility in a man.”
The possible list was disconcertingly short. One widowed duchess, three ladies by birth, and two heiresses to old wealth.
Mrs. Haviland set her pencil aside. “The more a problem wanted solving, the more inane my husband’s jokes became. I grew to dread his tread on the stair. He’d invest in idiot schemes and wager sums we could not afford on imbecilic bets at the clubs. If he was particularly cheerful, I knew he’d been especially stupid at cards and was hoping I’d never learn of his foolishness. A frivolous woman will be an endless liability, Mr. Tresham.”
Jonathan had viewed admitting his dislikes, habits, and quirks as necessary, the same as a patient set aside dignity to discuss symptoms with a diagnosing physician. The greater awkwardness was these admissions by Mrs. Haviland.
The one man upon whom she should have been able to rely had betrayed her trust.
“Is there nothing about the married state that you miss?” Jonathan asked. “Nothing you’d like to have back, if you could have it without the disappointment?”
She glanced around at the parlor, as if she suspected the pantry mouser had sneaked into forbidden territory. “You will think me ridiculous.”
“If I had to swear to one eternal verity, it’s that you are not about to be ridiculous.” Nonetheless, she needed some joy, even silliness. She needed flirtatious banter, mad gallops, and French chocolates.
“Sometimes, when we were courting, Archie would take me in his arms.”
Jonathan waited, expecting a recitation of stolen kisses, and—heaven forefend—silly private endearments.
“He would hold me,” she went on. “Just that. Stop the conversation, cease his flattery and grand pronouncements, lay aside his memorized verses, and take me in his arms. I thought it the most precious gift he could have given me.” She twiddled the fringe on an embroidered pillow. “I believed his embraces when I ought to have paid attention to my own doubts. I gambled and I lost. I know better than to toss the dice again.”
She had been content with so little—an embrace—and given her whole future for it. No wonder she undertook matchmaking with the solemnity of a questing knight.
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said. “I don’t know what else to say.” Didn’t know what to think, say, or do. She’d given her heart to a bounder, which doubtless happened all over Mayfair annually, but the result had never before struck Jonathan as a tragedy.
“Say you will find the right duchess, Mr. Tresham, and that you will be the best duke to her you can be.”
“I make you that promise.” Though, of course, Jonathan was the one who would benefit most from such a vow. “Shall I see you at the Gillinghams’ musicale tonight?”
“Yes, unless my headache returns. I will arrange for Lady Canmore to introduce you to Lady Antonia.” She tidied the stack of papers on the low table and rose.
“Lady Antonia is the Earl of Waverly’s heiress,” Jonathan said, holding the door.
