Page 33 of A Delicate Deception
“People do tend to inherit things after the death of a loved one. I’m intimately familiar with the process,” Lex said dryly.
“And Andrew only owned the place because of antiquated property laws. It ought to have remained in your sister’s possession after the marriage, for her to dispose of as she wished.”
“Everything I own is mine due to antiquated property laws and the death of loved ones. I’m not seeing your objection to Pelham Hall. This is more of your guilt, isn’t it?”
“You make it sound irrelevant.”
“It’s not irrelevant, but irrational. It was never your fault that your brother accidentally blew up the stables and killed himself in the process.”
“I know that,” Sydney snapped. “I don’t blame myself for his death. I blame myself for being alive.”
The room fell silent. “Very grim,” Lex finally said. “Typical of you, frankly.”
“I’m well aware,” Sydney said dryly. It was true, though, even though it was a truth he hadn’t let himself realize until Amelia had mentioned feeling much the same thing after her father’s death. “What I mean is that he was a better man than I.”
“I beg your pardon,” Lex said in tones of outrage. “If we were sentencing people to death based on merit I would have been on the chopping block decades ago. How revolutionary. Disgusting of you. Also, it’s very absurd of you to think Andrew was better than you. He was more fun. Infinitely more sympathetic. Better looking, too.”
“You have such a soothing way,” Sydney said.
“My point is that you have your own qualities. You’re dependable. I have total confidence that whatever bridge or canals you’re building—”
“Railways, damn it.”
“I have total confidence they won’t plunge people to a watery death or flood a town of innocent peasants or what have you. That may not be a quality one values overmuch at the dinner table or a house party but it’s very boring of you to make me explain how building things that don’t kill people is an admirable quality. Please never make me pay you compliments again. Can we go back to talking about Leontine?”
“I did miss you, Lex.”
“You disgust me. Now, I’m here to solve your problems. You have a house you don’t want and a penniless ward. You give the house to the ward and raise the ward in the house.”
“Except for howmy work is in Manchester,” Sydney said.
“Do they not have work in Derbyshire? Do they not build things here?”
“I cannot walk away from my career.”
“So don’t. Let me raise Leontine. Well, me and my army of servants. You’ve said yourself that you work long days. Here, she’d at least have me.”
Sydney pinched the bridge of his nose, realizing that there was going to be no arguing with Lex at the moment, and also suspecting that there was more than a germ of truth in what Lex had said. “Please tell me that you don’t expect this Russell woman to raise Leontine.”
“God no. She’s one of the Somerset Russells,” Lex said. “A cadet branch of the family, and very poor, but with a pedigree that would satisfy anyone. She and I talked about it last night. Her father was a few years ahead of me at Eton. Incidentally, as for the Allenby girl, she’s one of the Marquess of Pembroke’s daughters,” Lex said. “All you have to do is look at her and you’ll see the resemblance. Red hair, freckles, general tendency toenbon point.”
“Now, how can you know that?” Sydney asked, exasperated. “You can’t tell me you got that from her voice.”
“Don’t need to see. I have my sources. Besides, it turns out you don’t need to see to know what people look like. I wish you’d worn something a bit less demoralizing, for example. A pair of trousers from five years ago and a coat of unspeakable origin. Quite depressing. Did you shave?”
“No,” Sydney said. He rubbed a thumb over his chin.
“Ugh. Next time you’re to appear at my table, try to make an effort,” Lex said genially.
“Yourtable,” Sydney began, then broke off. “Wait. A marquess’s daughter uses a title, doesn’t she?”
“Not when she’s born on the wrong side of the blanket, as our Miss Allenby was. Her mother was a woman of some notoriety about twenty-five years ago. She appeared from nowhere, then not only wound up in Pembroke’s bed, but got the old rascal to buy her a house in Mayfair. She must have been especially quick on her feet to get her brood accepted as something more than Pembroke’s other by-blows. I don’t think anybody’s ever tried counting how many children he had. In any event, Miss Allenby vanished from society about a year ago after leaving a ball right in the middle of a dance. She simply picked up her skirts and left her dancing partner standing stupidly in the middle of the floor, according to my informants. It caused a slight ruckus, as the man she was dancing with was the Russian ambassador.”
He had known abstractly that Amelia was a part of this world of balls and ambassadors. He had known as much from the first time she opened her mouth. But more distressing was that he could see it—he could see her freezing in the middle of a ballroom and deciding that she was done with it. And, what was worse, he could imagine how returning to a similar situation—a duke, a drawing room—might engender the same response. It was no wonder she hadn’t managed to treat him cordially. He could have spared them both a good deal of turmoil if he had simply gone to her instead of assuming the worst. But at the time it had seemed impossible that she could want him, let alone need him.
When he rose from the table, he nearly tripped over Leontine’s pup. “You again,” he said accusingly as he scooped her up. “You don’t belong here.” She swiped her tongue over his cheek. “You’re supposed to be withLeontine,” he said, as if that could mean anything to this wriggling ball of fur. In fact, he was unsure why he was bothering to talk to her in the first place. “You are not a Francine,” he told her. She thumped her tail. By the time he stepped outdoors, the animal was already asleep.
That dinner party had not been the most unpleasant Amelia had endured. There was the usual skin-crawling horror of sitting in a drawing room, combined with the fervent wish to be safe at home. But the crumbling, fairy-story charm of Pelham Hall was nothing like a London drawing room, and the Duke of Hereford was as far removed as London society as one could get while still being a duke. Amelia was familiar with, if not precisely comfortable with, the vicar and Mrs. Trevelyan. Everyone seemed content to ignore her, and she spent the hour after dinner with a gangly terrier puppy asleep in her lap. She strongly suspected that Sydney had said something to the duke to make him focus his attention on Georgiana, and meanwhile Sydney seemed intent on occupying Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan.
