Page 52 of How to Ruin a Duke
“Is this brother a wastrel like your father was?”
“No, he is not.Foster is a wastrel of a completely different stripe.He does not drink to excess, he’s not prone to wagers, but he had only a gentleman’s education.”She produced a key, which only made balancing the reticule and the sack of food more complicated.
“Allow me,” Thaddeus said, taking both items and leaving her with the key.“If you set that food down, yonder hound will abscond with the lot.”
“Galahad is fast asleep.”
“Galahad is doubtless fast as a bolting rabbit when it comes to snatching a meal.”
The lock squeaked and with some effort, Lady Edith pushed the door open.“I’ll take those,” she said, holding out her hands.
“This reticule weighs more than some cannonballs.Whatever do you have in here?”Thaddeus grasped the middle of the reticule, a quilted affair slightly worn at the bottom.“Is this a book?”
“Glenarvon,” she said, “for weight, and to keep the papers I brought with me from being crushed or wrinkled.”
“You have a bound copy ofGlenarvon?”Another fact that weighed against her innocence.
“Half of London has a copy of Lady Caroline’s tale and this was a gift from a friend who enjoys a good yarn.My brother was considering turning it into a play at one point.I’ll wish you good day, Your Grace.”She stood in the doorway, her faded millinery and pink cloak adding a poignant note to the dignity of her bearing.
“Might I come in?”
“That would be most improper.”
“No, it would not.I am your former employer, we are well acquainted, I won’t tarry long, and if you prefer, we can remain before your front window for all the world to gawk at.That said, I would rather not conclude this conversation where all the world can also hear our every word.”All the world being, at the moment, one somnolent dog.
“Then will you go away?”
“Do you know how rarely people tell me to go away?”They might wish him to the Shetland Islands, but they would never say that to his face.
“Not often enough, for you don’t appear to grasp the meaning of the words.”Lady Edith stepped back and held the door open.
Thaddeus’s first impulse was to peer about at the interior, to sniff the air, to generally behave with ill-bred curiosity.Lady Edith would pitch him through the window if he offered her that insult, so he stood just inside the door, where—indeed—he was visible from the street through the window.
“Why would this brother of yours be turningGlenarvoninto a stage play?”
“Because nobody has yet, and the book was wildly popular.”She set her packages on a rickety table with a cracked marble top.“Foster considers himself an amateur thespian and has a gentleman’s ability with letters.He abandoned the project because the work is quite long for a staged production.If that’s all you needed to—”
“He fancies himself a writer?”
“He’s eighteen years old, Your Grace.He fancies himself a writer one day, an explorer the next, a documenter of England’s vanishing folklore the day after that.”
“Be glad he’s not keen to buy an officer’s commission and ship out for the jungles of India.”Mama had emphatically forbidden Thaddeus to approve that course for Jeremiah, though his lordship longed to buy his colors—or have them purchased for him.
“We cannot afford to buy Foster new boots, much less a commission.When I left my post with your mother, Foster was homeless.He held a job as tutor to a stationer’s sons, but the boys accused him of teaching them naughty Latin verses.Foster was turned off without a character and not even given the wages he was owed.”
Most boys were born knowing a few naughty Latin verses.Jeremiah had them memorized by the score.“How long ago was this?”
“Six months.”
So why would she then also render herself unemployed?“Where is Foster now?”
Her chin came up.“Looking for work.”
Perhaps he was, or perhaps he was slumped over a bottle outside the nearest gin shop.A man prone to inebriation could run up all sorts of debts in no time at all, and even an author enjoying lucrative earnings could soon see her wealth dwindle to nothing.
“Your Grace, I do not mean to be rude, but I have been more than patient with your accusations.I did not write that blasted book, and if your interrogation is at an end, then you really should be going.”
He should.This was her abode, he was a guest, and he’d overstayed his welcome.He bowed.“Thank you for your time.Good day.”
