Page 9 of A Tale of Two Dukes
‘And heaven forbid that I or anyone else should try to interfere with that,’ he said piously. ‘Why did you come, though, Viola, and summon me to your side? You know we can’t talk here… or do anything else that we might wish to do.’
His voice was silky, deep, always teasing. Damn him. If only it were possible to control one’s blushes. ‘I wanted to see you,’ she answered flatly and honestly. Useless to lie to him. ‘Nothing more than that. In a public place.’
‘Well, there we differ; you should know. I’d much rather see you in private. All of you.’
He was smiling, and she wanted to hit him. ‘Don’t,’ she said involuntarily.
His smile grew broader, and his tone was that of tolerant understanding, which was unbearable.
‘Will you write to me again? I can’t help tormenting you a little, but I shouldn’t.
I’m sorry. Our situation is confoundedly awkward, and I have made it more so.
Write to me, and I will come and call on you at any time or in any place you choose to appoint.
We do need to talk in private, you must admit. You can always send me away… after.’
She didn’t like the significant little pause and the sly way he said after – after what?
But she nodded wordlessly, and he bowed over her hand and moved away from her.
She did not watch him go, or seek to see with whom he spoke next.
It was to be hoped that their little tête-à-tête had appeared to be nothing more than a conversation between cousins by marriage who had not met for a while, brief and now over, nothing to see.
Brummell knew better, of course. He might gossip about it to half of London, or he might keep silent.
He was famously quixotic, and she barely knew him; it was impossible to tell.
And here the Beau was, back at her side again, like a very stylish gadfly.
He said evenly, ‘Your face is calm – well done, Duchess, keep smiling just as you are – but a pulse is beating wildly in your throat. You’re wondering if you should appeal to me to keep silent about whatever it was I just witnessed, or if speaking of the matter openly will show how much you care, and encourage a worthless fellow such as myself to gossip all the harder.
And now you are wondering if I say all that merely to tempt you into further indiscretion. Do I have it right?’
Exactly right, but she need not tell him so. She had the headache suddenly, and wished she’d never come. ‘I have not heard that you were ever unkind to a woman without cause,’ she managed. ‘I do not know how many other men in this room that could be said of, if truth be known. Isn’t that shocking?’
‘Including our host, of course, and your recent companion, as you so elegantly imply? His reputation is such that cruelty in a drawing room is the very least of it, to be sure. But you have done me no harm, you mean, and there is no reason I should do you any.’
She must not make this a tragedy when it was only an inconvenience at worst. If she married Ventris, it would not matter afterwards if there should be whispers about them.
The marriage would soon confirm that that particular gossip at least was all too true.
‘You owe me nothing. If you could just wait a day or so before you make public any speculations…’
‘But scandal, unlike revenge, is only good if it’s served hot,’ he mourned.
‘Yesterday’s tittle-tattle is like yesterday’s fish.
No, I’ll tell you what I shall do, because I admire you as a brave and beautiful woman, and also because I am frankly terrified of your mother.
She and I are alike in many ways; we have invented ourselves out of nothing.
You and I shall spend the rest of the evening flirting elegantly with each other, gazing into each other’s eyes as if mutually bewitched, and then I shall put it about that I have offered for your hand, and you have refused me.
A tragedy – for me. It’s even true, if one should care about such quaintly moral matters.
And the bustle that will be stirred up by that will instantly swamp any mention of the awkward little encounter you had just now.
You shall have your day or so to do whatever it is you’re doing with the infamous Lord Ventris, and then I and the rest of the world will be enlightened by some startling news, I would wager.
But then perhaps I’m wrong, after all, because when I wager, I so often lose. What do you think, madam?’
She laughed in sheer relief. ‘I am very willing. And grateful, though I make no admissions. But I’m not sure I remember how to flirt.’
‘Which is not something one could say about your recent companion, who is now making Lady Caroline blush with his most marked attentions – surely a notable achievement in itself, given her history. I shall not conjecture as to why he chooses to make such a public display of himself, with one even more notorious than he; no doubt he has his reasons.’
Viola did not reply; she wasn’t sure if Ventris was punishing her somehow by going straight to Lady Caroline’s side from hers, or if he was being oddly considerate and making sure that when people spoke of this evening, they’d speak of him intriguing with London’s most flagrant adulteress, rather than Viola herself.
Brummell quirked a mobile eyebrow at her lack of response.
‘Oh, you are admirably discreet. What a wife you would have made me. There’s no denying that any woman who was unfortunate enough to marry me would have so much opportunity for the exercise of discretion – as no doubt will the future Lady Ventris, for that matter.
I expect if the Bow Street Runners came calling, you wouldn’t turn so much as a hair.
Well, if you do not know how to flirt, Duchess, I shall teach you.
It’ll be something to tell your grandchildren. ’
His confidence in his own enduring fame was extraordinary, but she wasn’t sure he was wrong.
He was a phenomenon, as well as being uncomfortably sharp and noticing.
And she was grateful – he had given her a precious breathing space from gossip, to come to terms with Ventris – or to reject him utterly.