Page 85 of My Own True Duchess
“Be off with you, Sycamore Erasmus.”
Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-spronnnng.
Sycamore left amid the earl’s soft curses. He did his older brother the courtesy of waiting until the door was closed before offering the empty corridor a quiet, long-suffering, “I told you so.”
Chapter Sixteen
* * *
Theo wanted to clamp her hands over her ears or demand that Jonathan unsay the words he’d spoken.
“You own The Coventry?” Her voice was steady, while her heart hammered with dread.
“I have for more than three years. I gather this is a problem.”
A problem he’d solve with patient good humor, apparently. “This is a disaster.” Theo needed the bannister of the spiral staircase for support. “You will please sell that… that establishment.”
Jonathan did not come to her, did not take her in his arms and offer soothing agreement. Instead, his posture shifted, becoming every inch ducal.
“The Coventry is the last hope the Quimbey estate has of avoiding bankruptcy. I’ll not be selling it.” He spoke gently, firmly, as one would to a fractious child. “In addition to the employees at the club and the Quimbey staff, others depend on The Coventry, and now of all times, I cannot step away from my responsibilities there.”
Theo cast around for any gesture that might hint of compromise or reconciliation. “Would you sell it if you could?”
He leaned back against the windowsill, an aristocrat in Bond Street finery, lord of all he cared to survey.
“Why should I liquidate an asset that generates substantial income? What I learned in that establishment has made me a wealthy man, the envy of my peers. I can offer Quimbey hope of solvency because of The Coventry. I offer polite society honest play, good food, good company, while I make a well-earned profit and employ dozens who’d otherwise have no work. I am proud of that, Theo. Why do you ask me to give it up?”
Because The Coventry killed my husband. How could Jonathan not see that?
Theo had grieved when Archimedes had been laid to rest. Nobody should die at such an age under such conditions. She’d also admitted to a guilty sliver of relief. With Archie for a father, Diana had been doomed to grow up cursed by scandal. His death had created the possibility of an upbringing amid genteel poverty rather than disgrace.
Not much of a silver lining, but Theo had seized it and dragged herself forward. Jonathan’s loyalty to his club held no silver lining.
“You should sell The Coventry because gaming hells ruin lives,” she said. “They aren’t even legal.”
Jonathan busied himself wrestling the window sash up a few inches. “The law is full of eccentricities, my dear. A Welshman who wanders into Chester after sundown commits an offense, while two hours of longbow practice for any lad over fourteen is still legally mandated. I can shoot a Scotsman in York with a bow and arrow on any day but Sunday, and a vast number of peers are engaged in selling illegal game to the better London restaurants. The law does not dictate moral absolutes, Theo.”
He was humoring her. Attempting rhetorical arguments. Theo’s despair edged toward rage.
“Gaming hells destroy lives, which fact—not moral conjecture, fact—I have had occasion to live firsthand, as have my daughter and sister.”
Jonathan ran a hand through his hair and offered a patient smile. “Must we argue, Theodosia? I own The Coventry, but I do not patronize similar venues. We are to be married. Your pin money will be ample. Your daughter and sister will be well provided for.”
Theo turned away, for she could not bear the sweet reason in his smile. “While my husband will be gone,” she said, “night after night, plighting his commercial troth to an operation that is little better than a turnpike on the road to ruin. You serve your patrons free champagne so they lose their judgment as play deepens. You lure them in with free food after midnight. Your dealers are all so pretty and friendly, they nearly flirt the money from the pockets of their customers.”
“Theo, it’s not like that.”
He was chiding her. Chiding her. “I haven’t seen you for nearly a week, Jonathan, and that’s your version of courtship when your club calls to you. You use beeswax candles because that is the scent of luxury rather than vice. You offer the gentlemen fine cigars for the same reason. Archie’s clothes bore the stink for the last year of his life. You allow no hint of a common nuisance about your establishment, not because trollops cheapen the place, but because this lessens the probability that the abbesses in your neighborhood will resent your presence.”
“Theo, please stop.”
With her back to the room, she was addressing a portrait of a youth who bore a strong resemblance to Jonathan—very likely his father, hidden away in this secret room.
“You avoid the trollops because brothels are also illegal,” she went on, “and the authorities delight in raiding them. I know so much more about running a successful gaming hell than any lady ever should.”
Footsteps sounded behind her. Jonathan’s hands landed softly on her shoulders.
“I do not own a gaming hell, Theo, and I will not quarrel with you about this. I grew up in the midst of pitched battle, and I refuse to allow my dealings with you to degenerate into endless conflict. We’ll simply not speak of the club. I don’t even gamble, and you must learn to distinguish between your first husband and me. I’ll put the club to rights, and you will never hear me mention it by name.”
