Page 13 of A Tale of Two Dukes

The Duchess, eager to change the subject, enquired about her sisters and their suitors – there would surely be suitors – and after that, took her leave.

The fact that her mama had merely questioned her with her habitual incisiveness, and had not expressed her inevitable disapproval anywhere nearly as forcefully as she might have done, had not made the interview anything close to pleasant.

But at least she had not been obliged to share her own vague suspicions of Tarquin Armstrong.

Mrs Constantine had no time for vagueness.

After the meeting with Ventris and the lawyers, which went smoothly enough from her point of view, she set off in her carriage to the school.

She’d written to the headmaster and explained that she had some important news for her boys that she must deliver in person; mindful of Mr Muncaster’s warning, she had arranged for them to be brought to meet her at a respectable local inn rather than appearing on the premises.

This was apparently quite a usual sort of thing to do – at any rate, if one was a duchess.

It was a slow and rather anxious journey across London’s bustling centre and out the other side, but eventually, she arrived, and sent one of her attendants to the school, which was just around the corner from the substantial old half-timbered inn that had been recommended to her.

A little while later, her sons were ushered into the spacious private parlour she had reserved for the afternoon.

It had hardly been more than two weeks since she had seen them, and already it seemed to her that they had grown.

She rushed across the room to embrace them, and this time, they suffered it with good grace, and clung to her for a precious moment.

It seemed they secretly wanted that contact too.

They might even have missed her, a little.

Once she had reassured them that she had no bad news for them – that no person nor animal they cared for was ill – they fell hungrily on the substantial meal she had had sent up for them from the inn kitchens.

An inexperienced person might have assumed that the school was starving them, but Viola knew better.

She also knew it was useless to attempt to ask them anything or tell them anything and expect them to pay heed to it until they had satisfied their hunger.

While they ate prodigious quantities of meat pie and potatoes, followed by great slabs of fruitcake, they told her, indistinctly, fragments of detail of their new life, their new companions, and, as an afterthought, their lessons and those strange creatures, their masters.

It seemed they liked school well enough – Robin more than Ned, perhaps, since he had always been more easy-going.

She listened intently, watching them, looking out for changes and for things they did not say.

Though they were twins, they weren’t identical; far from it.

They were both dark, as all the Armstrongs were and as she was herself, but Ned was smaller and slighter, his face less symmetrical, habitually serious until it was lit up by one of his swift, beguiling smiles.

Robin was bigger, more solid, more of an athlete, less of a worrier.

They complemented each other in their skills and qualities, and were a formidable force for mischief when combined.

They asked politely after Miss Naismith – now Mrs Muncaster – and about how things went at Winterflood.

It was plain that they missed their dogs and horses above almost everything else.

At last, their rate of consumption slowed, and she said resolutely, ‘I am very happy to see you, my loves, but I would not have come and taken you away from your studies and your friends if I had not had something important to tell you.’ She paused for a moment.

There was only one way to say it – straight out.

‘A gentleman has offered for me, and I have accepted. I have come to tell you that I am to be married.’

They looked quickly at each other, but said nothing.

‘He is Lord Ventris,’ she told them. ‘You do not know the name, because he has only recently inherited the title, but he is your father’s cousin, Richard Armstrong, whom perhaps you have heard spoken of. He was very close to your father when he was younger.’

‘We’ve never met him,’ Ned said. ‘Or I don’t remember if we have.’ He was understandably wary.

‘He saw you when you were very small, but you could not possibly recall it. He has not visited Winterflood recently; his business has taken him abroad a great deal.’

‘If Papa liked him, I am sure we will too,’ said Robin stoutly.

‘Do you like him, Mama?’ That was, inevitably, Ned.

‘I do,’ she said, not even sure if she was lying.

Her feelings towards Richard Armstrong were far too complicated to explain to a child, especially since she wasn’t positive that she fully understood them herself.

‘And I know that your father would be happy, not least because he would trust Lord Ventris to have every care for you.’

‘I suppose that is good,’ Robin said. ‘Though we don’t need care all that much. We are not babies. He could take us shooting, perhaps. Or teach us how to drive a bang-up pair in a high-perch phaeton, if he’s a whip. That would be good.’

‘Fishing,’ said Ned absently. ‘Papa was going to teach me fishing.’ His brow was furrowed. ‘You aren’t marrying him just for our sakes, are you, Mama? Because you know that other fellows have fathers and we do not?’

‘No,’ she told him, blinking away a fugitive tear.

‘No, of course not. I could have remarried long before this if that was all I cared for. But it is not so easy to find a good man – not every gentleman would want to have another man’s children around, perhaps, when newly married.

I promise you that Ventris will never make you feel unwanted.

You will not be unwanted, not for a second.

He will love you for your father’s sake, and for your own. That is important, I think.’

‘Is he very old?’ Edward would have been close on sixty if he had lived, as old as many boys’ grandparents; it was a natural question.

‘No, Robin, he is three and thirty. Only a few years older than me. Not old at all, and he has no other children, since he has never been married before.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Yes, I suppose so, but I expect he will want a son of his own, then,’ Ned contributed.

‘Well, Lord Ventris’s title and estate can pass through the female line – it came to him through his aunt. So he would like to have a child, yes, quite naturally, but it need not be a boy. A girl could inherit.’

Robin’s face reflected his horror at this new idea. ‘Not just a nasty, smelly baby, but a girl!’ He made a noise suggestive of profound masculine disgust.

‘Mama would like that,’ Ned said unexpectedly. ‘I expect she has been lonely, especially now we are away at school, and Miss Naismith has left to marry Mr Muncaster. Is that why?’

‘Partly,’ she said resolutely. ‘And I admit, I would like a baby, now you are both grown so big.’

‘A puppy would be just as good,’ grumbled Robin. ‘And much more fun. Dogs can do things, even when they’re quite young. Babies just…’ He waved a hand to encompass all the chaos of which babies were capable, and knocked over a cream jug.

When order was restored, it was plain that the boys – or Robin, at least – had tired of the subject.

They went outside together and walked about a little, chatting of this and that, and then it was time to return them to school and set out on the long drive back to Armstrong House.

Viola embraced them, when they were certain nobody was looking, and watched as they went inside, heads close together as always.

They had taken it as well as she could have hoped; Robin would be won over if no baby was immediately forthcoming and if Richard involved him in suitably masculine pursuits, and Ned…

Ned knew she had been lonely, wanted her to be happy, and would be to a large extent placated if he saw she was.

His own relationship with Ventris would have to be built more slowly and cautiously.

But would she be happy in her new marriage, even if her boys were? How could she possibly know?