Page 60 of My Own True Duchess
“You can’t know how much your words mean to me,” Theo said, drawing back. “His lordship was scathing, though he’s since apologized by letter. I suspect Archie treated him to a version of our married life that was less than accurate.”
Jonathan took her hand and led her to the sofa by the fire. “Tell me the rest of it, for his lordship’s cruelty pains you still.”
Theo sank onto the cushions and removed her gloves. To Jonathan’s horror, she used them to dab at her eyes.
“Cruelty is the right word, the word I’ve been avoiding. Penweather was upset, he was grieving, he never expected to inherit… so many excuses for one man. But I’d lost my husband, and to be accused…”
Jonathan passed her his handkerchief. “I will ruin him, if you like. Wreck his social standing, go after his fortune. It might take years, and I might never succeed entirely, but I can leave him fretting over every groat, worried for his children. I would delight in laying his reputation at your feet, Theo.”
She tossed her gloves on the table and clutched the handkerchief into a ball. “You tempt me, but mostly you reassure me. I was concerned the enmity between his lordship and me would put you off.”
Jonathan put his gloves over hers. “You are not to blame for his swinish behavior, or for your husband’s death.”
Any more than I am to blame for my father’s behavior. The thought finished itself on a strange lift of emotion, despite the anger Theo’s disclosures caused.
Theo sat back and tucked herself against Jonathan’s side. “I told myself I hesitated to burden you with this story because a family rift would be distasteful to you. I think I knew better. You would not blame me for his lordship’s harsh words, but I could not trust that you would take my part.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I will always take your part, Theo. Even if you command me to stand up with every wallflower in Mayfair, I will take your part. You have taken my interests to heart, you scold me when I get above myself, you are courageous and dignified, and you kiss like my most fevered bachelor fantasies come to life.”
Oh, he should not have said that. The moment wasn’t right, not with Theo in a state over her idiot cousin-in-law’s nonsense.
“We’ll get to that part—about the kissing. I want to make very sure you know how it was when Archie died. He was drinking far more than was prudent. I suspect he was dabbling in opium and other intoxicants. He could not pass up a game of chance. He made ridiculous wagers.”
She seemed to grow smaller as she offered this recitation, while Jonathan’s anger expanded.
“He barely ate,” she went on. “He slept either for days at a time or not at all. He had stopped caring about the title, me, Diana, and himself. He was ruined in every sense. The current viscount admonished me by letter to exert some wifely control, to take whatever steps were necessary to make my husband happy.”
“And you did what you could,” Jonathan said, “but you also had to protect your daughter and sister, maintain a household, and keep your fool of a husband from debtors’ prison. Archie failed you, his daughter, and himself, Theo. The viscount was simply too ill-informed to see that.”
“Ill-informed.” She said the words as if tasting them and finding them disagreeable.
“People who have never been in the presence of rampant vice can’t fathom it,” Jonathan said. “If you’ve never seen a ragged child shivering on the steps of a great cathedral, then you can’t believe such hypocrisy exists. If you’ve never watched a duke’s son stumble from his coach and fall flat on his face amid the muck on the cobbles, then you don’t believe it happens. You are not responsible for a grown man throwing away his health, his life, his means, and his family. You aren’t.”
Jonathan would make sure the viscount understood the magnitude of the wrong he’d done with his accusations, for somebody had to.
“Penweather isn’t awful,” Theo said. “He’s principled in his way, just as Archie was unprincipled.”
“Put both of them from your mind, Theo. They have troubled you too much and for too long. Penweather in particular does not deserve your concern. Tell me why you danced with me tonight.”
As an attempt to change the subject, that gambit was clumsy, but Jonathan sensed Theo did not want to dwell on the past. Not now, not yet still more.
She slanted a considering look at him. “This takes us to the part about the kissing.”
Thank God. “Do go on, Mrs. Haviland. Anything you have to say on the subject of kisses has my devoted attention.”
“Enough talk,” Theo said, rising.
For one moment, Jonathan thought she was leaving the room, concluding the discussion, a confidence shared, and a buffet not to be missed. He could content himself with that, if he had to. He could be her confidant, her waltzing partner, and assure himself that he was making progress in the desired direction.
Then she gathered her skirts and settled onto his lap, straddling his thighs, and every rational thought flew from Jonathan’s mind.
* * *
“You are friends with Jonathan Tresham.” Sycamore Dorning was being a gentleman, the most tedious and thankless undertaking ever to befall a feckless younger son. The buffet line would take until his next birthday to wind past the food, so Sycamore was hanging back, letting others go first, while he cornered his oldest brother.
“I am acquainted with him,” Lord Casriel replied. “What is that knot you’ve put in your cravat?”
“I call it the Sycamore Cascade. It looks best on a tall man with broad shoulders.”
