Page 2 of My Lord Rogue (Wicked Widows’ League #34)
Theo turned back to the mirror, considering her reflection. The idea took root, unfurling possibilities in her mind. “It would need to be someone believable. Someone respectable enough to satisfy Verity, yet conveniently absent…”
“It would allow you to attend the party without constant introductions to eligible gentlemen,” Annie pointed out, as she arranged Theo’s curls into a simple but elegant evening style.
The plan crystallized in Theo’s mind with surprising clarity.
She would invent a gentleman caller—someone who had begun to pay her attention but whose courtship was not yet official enough to announce.
It would explain her willingness to attend social functions again while simultaneously shielding her from unwanted advances.
“I suppose it wouldn’t be scandalous to stop wearing mourning garb. ”
The thought brought a twinge of guilt, as if removing the outward symbols of her grief somehow diminished Charles’s memory.
But beneath the guilt was something else—a whisper of relief.
The gray had become a prison of sorts, a visible reminder to everyone she encountered that she was damaged, broken, incomplete.
“The blue silk would be lovely for the house party,” Annie suggested carefully. “The one with the ivory lace at the sleeves. It always brought out your eyes.”
Theo nodded slowly. “Yes, I think perhaps it’s time.” Her gaze in the mirror grew distant, then sharpened with sudden calculation. “This fictional suitor will need a name, a history…”
Her fingers, which had been fidgeting with her wedding band, stilled. For the first time in months, her mind was engaged with something other than grief—a puzzle to solve, a character to create.
“My lady seems almost enthusiastic,” Annie observed, a note of pleased surprise in her voice.
Theo met her maid’s gaze in the mirror, her mood shifting from resignation to a hint of mischief. “Don’t mistake necessity for enthusiasm. This is merely self-preservation.”
But even as she said it, Theo felt a spark of something long dormant flickering to life within her. Not happiness exactly, but perhaps its distant cousin, purpose.
The candles on Theo’s desk cast a warm glow across the parchment before her, the blank expanse awaiting words that refused to come easily.
Supper had been a solitary affair, as usual, though tonight her mind had been unusually active, turning over the seeds of the plan she and Annie had discussed.
Now, seated at the small rosewood desk that had been her mother’s, Theo dipped her quill into the inkwell and held it suspended, watching as a single drop of ink fell back into the glass vessel.
How did one craft a man from nothing but imagination and necessity?
“My dearest Verity,” she wrote at last, the nib scratching softly against the parchment. The familiar salutation flowed easily enough, but she paused again when confronted with the body of the letter.
The house was utterly quiet around her. The servants had retired to their quarters, and the only sounds were the occasional settling of timber and the distant rattle of a carriage passing on the street outside.
She needed to accept the invitation, that much was clear.
But how to introduce her fictional admirer?
Too eager, and Verity would be suspicious, too vague, and her friend would still attempt to introduce her to eligible bachelors.
Leaning back in her chair, she set down the pen and thought aloud. “He must be believable. Respectable enough to satisfy Verity, yet distant enough to explain his absence.”
Her gaze drifted to the window, where the night pressed against the glass like black velvet.
Beyond lay London with its secrets and possibilities.
Somewhere in that darkness were gentlemen exactly like the one she needed to invent—men of title and means, of excellent reputation and measured charm.
Men who would, in reality, expect a young widow to surrender her grief and open herself to new attachments.
The thought made her stomach tighten. No real man could replace Charles. No flesh and blood suitor would understand that her heart had been buried along with her husband.
He should be titled, or perhaps not. Would Verity look him up? Oh, this plotting was more complicated than she’d imagined.
A memory surfaced—a village near her childhood home, a small, picturesque place where the river bent gently around willow trees and stone cottages.
Teddington. She had visited it only a handful of times, accompanying her father on parish business, but she remembered the name and the peaceful setting.
“Baron Teddington,” she said aloud, testing the sound of it. The title had a pleasant ring—aristocratic without being ostentatious, distinctive without drawing undue attention.
She picked up the quill again, this time with more purpose.
The man took shape in her mind—a dear friend of Charles from his university days, someone who had been abroad during their marriage but had recently returned to England.
Someone who had written to offer condolences upon learning of Charles’s death, and whose correspondence had gradually grown into something more meaningful.
“I am pleased to accept your kind invitation,” she wrote.
“The prospect of country air is indeed appealing after so long in town. I must warn you, however, if your hope is to have the correct number of ladies to gentlemen in attendance. I have recently been in correspondence with Baron Teddington, an old friend of Charles’ from his Oxford days.
He has been most attentive, and while nothing is formally arranged between us, I believe he may call upon me soon to discuss the possibility of a more permanent attachment.
So you see, your guests would only find disappointment if they wished for a dalliance with me. ”
The lie flowed from her pen with surprising ease. She paused, considering what physical attributes to give her fictional baron. He should be handsome enough to be plausible as a suitor, but not so striking as to invite too much curiosity.
“Baron Teddington, my dear Teddy, stands rather tall, with a slender build. His hair is brown—not the dull shade of bark, but the rich color of polished walnut—and his eyes are a most unusual hazel that appears almost amber in certain lights.”
A smile played at the corners of her lips as she crafted him further. “He possesses a quiet dignity that I find refreshing after the excessive gallantry of other gentlemen. His letters reveal a thoughtful mind and a surprising wit that emerges when one least expects it.”
She sat back, surveying her creation with a mixture of amusement and pride. The baron was taking shape nicely—a gentleman of good breeding but not ostentatious wealth, educated but not pedantic, attentive but not smothering. The perfect fictional suitor to keep real ones at bay.
Returning to her letter to Verity, she added, “I tell you this in confidence, dear friend, to explain why I might seem distracted at times during your lovely party. My heart, which I once thought permanently closed, has considered the possibility of opening once more. It is a frightening prospect, as I’m sure you remember. ”
That last part, at least, contained a grain of truth. The prospect of rejoining society, even under the protection of a fictional attachment, was indeed frightening.
She read over the letter, adding flourishes and details where needed, embellishing the baron’s recent return from the Continent, his estate in Northumberland, his fondness for literature, much like Charles.
With each stroke of her quill, Baron Teddington became more real, a shield fashioned from ink and imagination, designed to protect her vulnerable heart from those who might try to claim it.
Finally satisfied, she set the finished letter aside. Her gaze lifted to the portrait above the mantel. Charles looked down at her from the gilt frame, his expression serious but with that hint of warmth in his eyes that the artist had captured so perfectly.
“Forgive me this small deception, my love. It is only to keep others at bay, to preserve what we had.”
The portrait, of course, made no reply. But as she extinguished the candles, Theo could almost imagine that the subtle play of shadows across his painted features suggested understanding, perhaps even amusement at her clever ruse.