Page 7 of The Lyon Whisperer
“Where were we?” Fallsgate asked after she’d gone.
“You were lamenting your daughter’s many transgressions.”
He scowled. “She has no desire to be a proper lady, nor any understanding of what it means to manage a household—properly. She had the best tutors and governesses money could buy. There’s been no shortage of instruction. The problem appears to be a certain unwillingness to comply with the social order of things.”
“All this grousing because the girl likes puppies?”
“And rabbits. And cats. But no, it’s not just the damned animals. She’s meant to manage the household staff. Instead, she’s befriended the lot of them. She’s meant to hold teas and dinners and attend functions. She’s meant to marry, damn it. Do you know she’s nearly three-and-twenty, and not a husband in sight?”
Culver cracked a grin. “As old as all that? You could always request Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s services.”
He fixed Culver with a steely eye.
Culver chuckled, unrepentant. “You worry too much. She’s a pretty little thing, as I recall, much like your wife.”
At the mention of his late wife, Letty, a shaft of pain—and guilt—cut through him. “She is,” he agreed, suddenly weary to his bones.
“Surely she’s attracted a decent candidate or two since her come out.”
“She has. She had suitors aplenty during her seasons on the marriage mart, but only two I deemed worthy to marry into our bloodline.”
“Oh. Worthy of your bloodline? That’s saying something.”
Fallsgate thought he detected a trace of sarcasm. He chose to ignore it in favor of continuing his rant. Now that he’d begun, he couldn’t seem to stem the tide. “Both times, she allowed the courtship, all seemed well, then as the season reached its end, she ran them off.”
Culver slapped his leg and cackled with glee, the new hand of cards on the table before him all but forgotten. “Pray tell, how?”
“My daughter can be overly outspoken, especially as concerns topics not suitable for a lady.”
Culver’s eyes danced with merriment. Clearly he did not grasp the momentousness of the problem. “Give me an example.”
“She asked Lord Taylor, the first man I consented to, if he frequented brothels—and let him know she disapproved.”
Culver’s eyebrows rose. “I see. I s’pose it didn’t help matters that he does.”
Fallsgate hadn’t known that little fact. It wasn’t as ifhevisited the establishments. “Yes, well, that’s as may be, and, true enough, I wouldn’t want her saddled with any of the consequences as can occur when husbands make a habit of…” He waved a hand in lieu of spelling out the sordid details. “The following year she drew the attention of Lord Hamilton. We were set to announce a betrothal when she informed him—in front of onlookers—she opposed the slave trade and the use of slaves. Worse, she said she would not tolerate having Madagascan sugar in her household.”
“I take it she don’t approve of how they harvest sugar in Madagascar?”
“She does not.”
“I don’t see why her opinion on the matter should be a problem big enough to discourage the man.”
“Probably because Hamilton had recently invested heavily in a Madagascan sugar plantation.”
Culver whistled softly. “How d’you s’pose she got wind of the brothels and plantation and all?”
“I haven’t the vaguest notion. Each time I took her pin money away for an entire week and couldn’t get a scrap of information out of her.”
Culver picked up his cards, rearranging their order. “You did all that, did you?”
Fallsgate grunted in assent and sorted his own hand.A very good hand. Very. He kept his expression carefully neutral, anticipating another hefty win.
“I say, Fallsgate. You can’t fault the girl for her ethics. Unless…do you support the slave trade?”
He eyed the plastered ceiling in exasperation. Culver seemed incapable of grasping his point. “No, and we dealt with it on our shores. But what has that to do with my daughter? She has no business worrying over the matter. It’s political. The House of Lords will deal with the problem should we deem it one. Meanwhile, Lord Hamilton’s blood is nearly as blue as ours, he has a conservative bent which I approve of heartily, and he has the means to provide for my daughter and my grandchildren.” He sighed. “Not that any of that matters now. With two unsuccessful seasons under her belt and two courtships publicly dashed, Amelia’s probably well and truly on the shelf. Leticia will never forgive me for botching this up,” he finished on a mutter, and slogged the rest of his port.
“I say, buck up, Fallsgate. You’re being a mite overdramatic. Your girl’s a looker—the spitting image of Leticia. She has a head on her shoulders, is all, and ain’t afraid to let people know it—again, like Leticia.”
