Page 56 of Weave me a Rope
The speculations are too varied to repeat without making this letter unnecessarily long, but the enclosed newspapers and caricatures will give you some idea of their content.
If the matter of Lady Daphne’s inheritance has been settled, as one might hope, this might be an opportune moment for your own announcement. Meanwhile, to avoid the newspaper reporters and other scandalmongers, your doting uncle is joining your dependents in the town about which you know, where, it is to be hoped, they can safely stay until the dust of your revelation has settled.
There is no need for concern about the two lords. They may react impulsively in the heat of the moment, but they will be best served by an assumption of pleasure. Measures are underway to point that out to them. A report is included.
To other news, my dear children…”
Uncle Josh dropped the formal tone and gave them a chatty update about both John and Daphne. Aunt Eliza and Miss Faversham were keeping house for the two young people in a town near London, where John was attending school as a day pupil. The remainder of Uncle’s letter was full of things the four residents of the house had said and done on his last visit.
Spenhurst, your brother has a mind for things mechanical, he had written.I will have a position for him in a few years if he can be dissuaded from this damn fool idea of going for a soldier.
As for Daphne, Uncle Josh said she had made many friends at a local charity school for the daughters of fallen officers—men who had died leaving their families in poverty. The school gave board and keep to the girls and taught them skills a gentlewoman might utilize to earn a living.
Both Aunt Eliza and Miss Faversham had volunteered their services as teachers. Aunt Eliza took a weekly class in fine needlework, and Miss Faversham taught a decorum class. Meanwhile, Uncle Josh said, Daphne played with the youngest girls—those who were not yet considered old enough for formal lessons.
It was clear Uncle Josh had taken all three to his heart. As so often happened, Spen echoed her thoughts, a chuckle warming his voice as he said, “I’m not sure we’re going to get Daphne or John back, wife of mine. Your uncle has adopted them.”
“He will keep them safe,” Cordelia said.
Spen sighed. “We had better take a look and see what is being said. I should have hit Stocke harder.”
He picked up the first of the caricatures and snarled, “I should have hit him much harder.” His glance at Cordelia was somewhat abashed. “My first instinct is to keep these from you, my love. I suppose you will not allow me to protect you from seeing such filth?”
“You suppose correctly,” Cordelia said. After all, how bad could it be? The answer was pretty bad, but after all, Cordelia had been attacked before for her low birth and supposed high ambitions, even if not in such crude terms and with such salacious illustrations.
Still, her main emotion was irritation, which ripened to anger as she read some of the articles. Not so much on her own account, but on Spen’s. “Truly, dear heart, can they not make up their minds? In one sentence they accuse you of being too weak and stupid to resist my evil wiles, and in the next, you seduced not one, buttwopoor innocents, and have us both in your thrall, becoming the worst rakehell of your generation. Really? Have they never heard of the Duke of Richport?”
Spen gave her a leering grin. “I am only a rakehell with you, light of my life,” he assured her. “Remember…” and he whispered in her ear something he’d suggested two nights ago, the memory of which set her flushing.
She did her best to sound dignified when she told him, “I am your wife. Some would say it is your duty to… keep company with me.”
His bark of laughter was accompanied by a squeezing hug. “Keeping company? Is that what we are calling it?”
“You are trying to distract me from the dreadful things they are saying about you,” she accused him, with narrowed eyes.
“I am trying to distract you from the dreadful things they are saying aboutyou,” he admitted. “We will circulate the truth, my love—or, at least, the version of the truth we have agreed. Most of this will die down, after that. And if some people continue to believe it, they can do so. We won’t care.”
Cordelia nodded. She was not as confident their scandal would be forgiven, but she and Spen had gone into this knowing the possible cost of their subterfuge. If the price was the high-sticklers would shun them, she could do without their companyand hope a score of years and a lofty title—along with Cordelia’s and Spen’s wealth, which as of now promised to be considerable thanks to the business senses of them both—would be enough for the mud not to stick to their children.
“Let us finish our letters and send them,” she proposed. “It is our turn to give our side of the story.”
*
Once he andCordelia had finished that chore, Spen sent a groom to Uncle Josh telling him what they had done, and enclosing copies of the letters, which were mostly the truth but contained what Cordelia bluntly called a lie and Spen insisted was honest at its core, for both she and he counted their marriage as starting when they said it did.
They were wed, according to their version, one day in July, while Spen was confined by his father and Cordelia was visiting him. They kept their marriage a secret to protect Cordelia while Spen was still a minor. Then Spen was taken away and put under cruel pressure to marry Lady Daphne.
So, they came up with a strategy that would safeguard both them and the two minors being threatened to force Spen’s compliance.
The rest of the story was exactly as it happened, and if they implied a second marriage in Scotland while they were there on the marquess’s business, it was close enough to the truth even Cordelia’s tender conscience did not suffer more than a slight twinge.
Spen was sure they would receive a compassionate hearing from the Duchess of Haverford. Also, Lady Georgiana Winderfield, the daughter of the Duke of Winshire. He was less certain about Lady Sefton, whose role as a patroness of Almack’s gave her opinions considerable weight, but with whom he wasnot well-acquainted. Lady Corven he thought, would be furious about their deception, but would rally behind them for the sake of the Deerhaven reputation, as would his own father once he had calmed down.
What Yarverton would do when he heard was a mystery. As it turned out, one that was destined to be solved, for Yarverton arrived two days later, still believing the false reports put about by Viscount Stocke.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cordelia was relaxingin the morning room. Spen had received a note from a neighbor about a breach in a fence through which his sheep had invaded a field of mangelwurzels. He had ridden out in the light rain to mend metaphorical fences with the neighbor while his shepherds mended the physical barrier.
