Page 40 of The Lyon Returns
He could see his father had his doubts, but he would not disrespect Gideon with an outright accusation. Thank God. Gideon did not know if he had it in him to lie to the man’s face.
“Tell me about her.” His father poured coffee for both of them, his hand steady. “Is she…” His pale complexion, so different from Gideon’s, and so like Grayson’s, went distinctly ruddy. He kept his eyes on his tasks, setting the pot aside, dropping a sugar cube into his cup and stirring it long after it had dissolved. “Like your mother?”
Gideon’s mother was a topic rarely broached. He himself learned early on to avoid all mention of her, especially in hearing of the duchess.
He grasped the duchess’s aversion. Although the duke had married her and made her his duchess, he had loved only one woman—his Anglo-Indian mistress, an heiress in her own right, and Gideon’s mother. He then rubbed salt in the duchess’s wound by asking her, nay, demanding of her, that she raise his dead mistress’s son.
As for the duke, he grew over-sentimental when reminded of her, leading Gideon to limit reflections of his mother to his journals.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking,” he said.
Ashwood’s jaw firmed. “Is she from the east, untainted by this land of superficial sycophants? Does she speak her mind, love you to distraction, frequent hovels and sick houses, spreading sunshine wherever she goes?”
“Ah. Sorry to disappoint. She’s as British as they come.”
“Another one?” he demanded darkly. “I thought you’d have learned your lesson after Frances. How many times have I told you to celebrate your blessed lack of constraints, Gideon? You have more money than Croesus and the power of my name behind you—minus the bloody title hanging like an albatross ’round your neck.”
Gideon eyed the empty snifters, wondering if the duke had imbibed before he’d arrived. It wasn’t like him to go off half-cocked, spewing personal grievances—in public, at any rate.
His father sighed and sent him a lopsided grin. “Don’t mind me. I’ve grown maudlin in my old age, not to mention the duchess gave me hell for coming to London, ranting about a possible scandal.”
Gideon winced.
“I don’t give a damn. I told her to stay back and cower on her own, if she so chose.”
“And…?”
His grin broadened. “She’s got more spine than she likes to let on. She’s here, spending the day with Grayson.”
“I look forward to seeing her,” he said, for his father’s sake. He did not enjoy his stepmother’s company. He did endure it. He owed herthat much.
“Excellent, for see her you shall, when you bring your bride to dinner tomorrow evening.”
Gideon nodded. “Of course.”
“Other than being British, what have I to look forward to when I meet the chit?”
Gideon picked up his coffee, inhaling the rich scent as he reflected for a moment on his blonde-haired, blue-eyed pretend wife. The mind of a scholar and courage of a lion, a quirky sense of humor and an innate sensuality, undeniably independent, and yet somehow sweetly vulnerable. “She is unlike any woman I’ve ever met,” he said, finally, then sipped his coffee.
When the duke made no reply, he glanced over the rim to see him studying Gideon, an unreadable expression on his face.
Gideon cleared his throat. “She’s impossible to describe. She’s an editor by trade,” he blurted. “There, now you know something tangible.”
“An editor? A woman editor?”
“And soon to own her very own publishing house, Bell & Company.”
Ashwood seemed to consider that, then shrugged in dismissal. “I really can’t wait to meet her, Gideon.”
Chapter Eleven
No sooner hadGwen shared her predicament with Lady Harriet than the older woman whisked her from her Dove Street mansion to the home of Lady Amelia.
Upon learning of Gwen’s plight, the raven-haired beauty, a pillar of fashion herself, fairly vibrated with excitement. “You require a new wardrobe? By tomorrow?”
“A newgown, by tomorrow,” Gwen corrected. “And several others following that. Myhusband,” she said, stressing the word in case any servant lurked about hoping to pick up a vein of gossip, “seems to think I dress more in the way of a governess.”
An impoverished governess.
