Page 26 of The Duke's Price
“She was not that then. She was Lady Charlotte Winderfield, niece of the Duke of Winshire and well-known bluestocking and spinster. I quite liked her. She is intelligent, kind, passionate about her causes, full of integrity, highly moral—much like you, in fact, though you have the edge on her in looks.”
Despite herself, Ruth was flattered. The Duchess of Haverford was a pretty woman.
“I had for some time been wondering if I should marry. Various friends had done so, and seemed happy. Even Aldridge—the Marquis of Aldridge, who became the Duke of Haverford—even Aldridge was courting. Lady Charlotte, as it happened, but any fool could see that she wasn’t going to have him.”
“So, you decided to do so.”
“I thought if she refused Aldridge, who was at least still welcome attonevents, I should not give her the choice. She would come round, I assumed, and I did intend to marry her, after all.” He sighed. “It was not one of my better moments.”
“The kidnapping failed?”
“It did. And I left London just ahead of a visit from my former friend, breathing fire and swearing vengeance. Just as well, as it turned out. I heard later that she married Aldridge—Haverford, because his father had just died. They are a love match.”
Ruth nodded. Haverford was a cousin of the Earl of Chirbury, so she knew him a little, and Anne had written about how happy they were. “Did you love her, Perry?”
Perry shrugged. “I did not. I thought she was a suitable bride. And I liked her, what I knew of her. That was all.” He flashed her his cheekiest grin. “Haverford and his wife might be the mostembarrassing part of going back to England. If we are married, Ruth, he is less likely to geld me.”
Refusing to be goaded, Ruth said, “You owe them both an apology, but I imagine that, if you truly are determined to turn over a new leaf, they will accept it.”
The story was interesting though. If he really had been thinking of making a change in his lifestyle even six years ago, perhaps she could have more faith in his ability to be faithful. It didn’t change her unsuitability, though.
“So, have you been travelling since then?” she asked. What she really wondered was whether he had continued to be a rake. Certainly, apart from his friendship with Carlos and his proposition to her, he had not behaved badly during his visit to Las Estrellas.
“I have. And, before you ask, I have not been celibate, but I haven’t attended or thrown any orgies, either. I’ve had the occasional pleasant interlude with a neglected wife or a willing widow. Nothing for months. Even the most casual of connections can suddenly turn sour and full of drama. There are other, more convenient, ways to deal with one’s physical impulses. Not that they are as urgent as they used to be when I was young.”
“Brothels do you mean?” Ruth didn’t like the thought of that.
He grinned and nudged her shoulder with his arm. “Not brothels, sweet innocent. Mother Palmer and her five nimble daughters.”
She frowned at him wondering what he meant, and then blushed when he held up a hand, palm towards her, wiggling his thumb and four fingers.
They had hada stroke of luck with finding horses when they stumbled across an encampment of Roma. After a few tense moments, defused when Perry proved to be able to make himself understood in their language, the impudent man negotiated for the use of two riding horses and a pack horse. And the services of a man called Hanzi, who would ride with them and take the borrowed horses back.
From their gestures, Ruth gathered that the Roma would have accepted a straight swap for the four carriage horses, but Perry insisted on leaving them at an inn, where they would be rested and then put back into traces for a return journey with another carriage.
“When I pointed out it would become a matter for the police if I let them have our hired horses rather than sending them back to their owner, our Romani friends agreed that the animals must be returned,” Perry told Ruth, as they rode towards the village where they would leave the horses. “They have suggested we just slip them into the field the inn uses, so the inn knows nothing about where we came from or where we are going.”
“That is why you abandoned the carriage,” Ruth realised, and Perry nodded.
Goodness. The man spends money like water. Precisely how rich is he?
Even more reason that he couldn’t be—or, at least, shouldn’t be—serious about marrying her.
Perry set a swift pace, avoiding villages and houses wherever he could. Hanzi knew the area well, and took them down country lanes and sometimes across vineyards between the vines. Oncean elderly man chased them out of a vineyard, shaking his cane at them.
Ruth wanted to go back and apologise. Perry laughed.
They arrived in Agde, near the end of the canal, in the late afternoon. “We’ll stop and check to see whether Walter and Bella have arrived,” Perry said. “If so, we can take them up behind us, to Sète.”
They left the horses with Hanzi, and went into the town, to look for a tavern or whatever other such place that the boat people gathered.
Perry suddenly stopped, and called out, “Walter!”
His manservant was crossing the street just ahead of them, but he changed directly and loped towards them. “Your Gr—Mr. De-Ath, sir. Dear Lord, am I pleased to see you!”
“What is wrong?” Ruth asked. Something was. The man looked both exhausted and worried.
“I don’t know for sure, Miss, and that’s a fact. They are all sick, Miss Bella, too. And the doctor here won’t see canal people.”
