Page 5 of The Bachelor
Then she added, “You’ve only ever seen me with my brothers and Mr. Malet. You know nothing of how I behave with other gentlemen. Yet you presume to know my character.” Steadying her shoulders, she walked on. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
He shook his head. The woman had the ability to use her tongue in flaying a man’s very flesh from his bones when she didn’t get her way. And he wasn’t about to rise to the bait.
When he didn’t answer that at once, she huffed out a breath. “I never understood why Bea got so frustrated with you all the time. I certainly donow.”
The remark about his sister pricked him as nothing else could. “Speaking of people presuming to know people, you don’t even know my sister well enough to realize she dislikes being called Bea.”
The profound silence provoked by his words stretched on so long that he looked over at Lady Gwyn, then wished he hadn’t. She wore an expression of such embarrassment that he wanted to take back his words.
“Is that true?” she asked in a mortified tone. “Or just . . . something you’re saying to vex me?”
He considered lying, if only to wipe that look off her face. “Forgive me, Lady Gwyn. Beatrice would throttle me for having told you that.”
“Why didshenot tell us? We would never purposely . . . That is, we all thought . . . No, there’s no excuse for it.” A frown creased her forehead. “Except that Mama called her that from the beginning because your Uncle Armie called her that in letters.”
Joshua could well imagine why. Their uncle, the previous holder of the title of Duke of Armitage, had belittled Beatrice in every way, even to the extent of giving her a nickname she didn’t care for. It was his perverse way of forcing her into doing what he wished. Fortunately, the bastard had died before he could succeed in the worst of his plans.
But Lady Gwyn couldn’t have known that. And despite everything, her mortification over not using the right name for Beatrice softened him toward her. Because clearly she did like his sister and regretted doing anything to hurt her.
“Still, we should have asked her what she wanted to be called. It was very wrong of us not to.” Lady Gwyn’s color receded a bit. “Although that does explain why Grey always calls her Beatrice. I’d assumed he was being his usual formal duke self, but she must have told him what she preferred. I can’t imagine why she didn’t tell the rest of us.”
He sighed. “She wanted to fit in, wanted to be liked by you and yours. So she wasn’t about to ruin that by informing you all—especially our aunt—that she didn’t like that version of her name.”
“Well, then,” she said softly, “I will apologize to her as soon as we go to London day after tomorrow. I realize that Bea . . .Beatrice. . . isn’t my blood relation, but I consider her as family all the same. And I want to make her feel welcome with the rest of our motley crew.”
Now he felt like shite for bringing up the matter in the first place. Especially because he actually liked his aunt and knew perfectly well she never intended to offend.
Joshua and Beatrice’s Aunt Lydia was also Lady Gwyn’s mother, having married into the Wolfe family after Lady Gwyn’s father died. Aunt Lydia had married Uncle Maurice, who had almost immediately taken up a position in the foreign service in Prussia and had eventually become ambassador.
That was why Joshua and Beatrice had only recently met Aunt Lydia and her two sons by Uncle Maurice. They’d returned to the estate after Uncle Armie had died, leaving Uncle Maurice to inherit.
Then Uncle Maurice had died, and their cousin Sheridan had become the new Duke of Armitage. Sheridan’s younger brother, Heywood, would be heir to the title if Sheridan didn’t spawn an heir himself.
Being the son of the youngest Wolfe brother, Joshua could only inherit the title if Sheridan and Heywood died without siring heirs. Because they were both young and healthy, that wasn’t likely to happen.
Not that he cared to be duke. Having seen Sheridan struggle to keep the estate from falling into arrears, Joshua wanted no part of it. What he wanted was to be taken off half-pay so he could return to the Royal Marines. Unfortunately, the state of his leg made that unlikely, especially when the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies wouldn’t even answer his letters.
Suddenly he realized that Lady Gwyn was speaking to him. “Hmm?” he asked.
“We’re here.”
He gazed up at the imposing Armitage Hall and sighed. “Right.” Time to have an uncomfortable conversation with her brother, the Duke of Thornstock, whom he barely knew.
They entered the hall and were told that the duke was in the writing room. Joshua wondered what use Thornstock was making of the cramped space fitted with only a writing desk and a bookshelf containing almanacs going back some years. Somehow, Joshua doubted that the man was doing any reading. Thornstock didn’t seem the type.
As it turned out, the duke had found the very excellent brandy that was kept there. He was also writing intently, and apparently not being too pleased with the result because balls of crumpled foolscap littered the floor.
“Don’t tell me—you’re writing a play like your namesake, Marlowe,” Lady Gwyn said. “Mother will be so proud.”
It was the only time Joshua had ever heard Thornstock’s Christian name, which, he must assume, had been chosen in homage to Christopher Marlowe, the playwright. One of Joshua’s favorites, in fact.
Thornstock’s head shot up, and he scowled at his twin. “Dukes don’t write plays, remember? But we do write a bloody great number of letters.”
Joshua didn’t miss how the duke slid the one he’d been writing into the top drawer of the writing table.
Smirking at her brother, Lady Gwyn gestured to the balls of paper. “It must be quite the important letter to require so many drafts.”
Lady Gwyn was clearly poking at Thornstock as usual. Those two had a contentious relationship, rather like the one between Joshua and Beatrice before she’d married so well. Except that his and Beatrice’s had been fueled by the desperation of their situation, whereas Lady Gwyn and her brother were both rich. So what was it that fueledtheiracrimony?
