Page 10 of The Etiquette of Love (The Academy of Love #7)

F reddie turned on the cot and bit back a groan at the soreness radiating out from her lower back. Even before she opened her eyes she remembered where she was: in Wareham’s chambers, sleeping on that blasted truckle bed.

She had been too agitated to sleep, so she had come to check on Wareham. Betsy had been in the chair, nodding off, so she’d dismissed the girl and laid down on the bed. Why not? She could toss and turn just as easily in a truckle as in her bed.

And she had. All. Night. Long.

Freddie yawned. Before she could even blink the sleep out of her eyes a voice above her said, “Good morning, sleepyhead!”

Freddie turned onto her back and immediately encountered a pair of familiar hazel eyes peering over the edge of the bed.

“You are awake,” she croaked stupidly.

“I’ve been awake for ages.” Wareham smiled, irksomely bright eyed and brushy tailed. He frowned at the truckle. “I did not think you would sleep here again. You really needn’t, you know. I do not require anyone to watch over me while I sleep.”

Freddie grunted, not wishing to explain the true reason why she was there. “What time is it?”

“Not quite six.”

This time she didn’t hold back her groan. “Are you certain you will not go back to sleep?”

Wareham laughed. So, there was her answer.

“Are you hungry? Should I ring for breakfast?” she asked, sitting up and swinging her feet the short distance to the floor.

“No, not yet.”

“Do you need me to summon Jacob to—”

“He already came and helped me. You slept right through it.”

“Some nurse I am.”

“You were exhausted from everything you have been doing. Sleeping on that truckle is not helping.”

Freddie did not correct him and tell him she was actually exhausted from all the anger that had coursed through her for hours and hours. Instead, she stood and straightened her dressing gown—which she had fallen asleep in—while fighting back a yawn and failing.

“Winny?”

“Yes?” She glanced in the mirror and recoiled at her reflection. That would teach her for falling asleep without plaiting her hair. She had spun in her cot like a child’s top, over and over trying and failing to find sleep after her confrontation with the duke.

Over the long hours of the night the anger that had fueled her had been spent, leaving only smoking embers.

She did not think that what he had done was right, of course, but she knew why the duke had wanted his brother to marry. Honey might have withheld the duke’s unethical method of pressuring her to marry, but she had shared many other details about her new brother-in-law, especially the devastation he had suffered over twenty years of marriage and the deaths of three children. When other people might have found solace in their spouse to help them bear such loss, the duke and duchess had withdrawn from each other.

To hear Honey tell it, the duchess had been the one responsible for their profound estrangement. But then Honey was only privy to one side of the story, and that side came from Lord Simon, who would not want to cast Plimpton in a poor light.

“Winny?”

She turned at her brother’s voice.

“Would you sit with me for a few minutes?” he asked, his tone no longer teasing.

“Yes, of course.”

“I will not keep you long, but there are some things I need to say.”

“I am at your disposal.”

“First—I wanted to thank you for—”

“Please do not thank me. If you thank anyone, it should be Plimpton. He all but dragged me down here.”

“Well, I am grateful you allowed yourself to be dragged. If you hadn’t, I daresay we would not be having this conversation right now and my mother-in-law would be planning my funeral.”

Freddie could not argue with his assessment.

Wareham held out his hand and, after a brief hesitation, Freddie took it.

He squeezed her fingers. “I have been a terrible brother to you. I have known that for a long time. But it was not until fourteen months ago that I realized just how much damage I have caused.”

“What happened fourteen months ago?”

“Piers came back.”

Freddie was still irked about Wareham forcing Piers to keep her in the dark, but now was not the time to bring that up. “How did that change your thinking?”

He bit his lip, chewing the chapped skin so hard she saw red splits appear.

She squeezed his hand. “Tell me what happened, Wareham.”

“Sophia found out that Piers had returned.” He snorted bitterly. “I say found out . In truth, she had her ear against my study door. Rather than be ashamed of eavesdropping she had the audacity to confront me about it, chiding me for not reporting him to the authorities.” He gave Freddie a look of disbelief. “She thought I should turn in my own brother! We had a bitter argument, and ugly things were said on both sides. I forbade her to speak to anyone about Piers.” His lips thinned. “Rather than obey me, she immediately—and anonymously—sent word to the local magistrate. Naturally the man paid me a visit, wanting to know if it was true that I was protecting a murderer; the same man I had insisted died years ago.” He scowled at the memory. “It was beyond unpleasant.”

Freddie waited silently for the rest.

Wareham inhaled deeply, winced, and then carefully exhaled. “Sophia’s excuse for betraying me was that she was trying to save me from my reckless, selfish family. She claimed I did not appreciate all that she had done on my behalf. And then she said something I could not believe.” Wareham met her gaze. “She admitted— proudly— that she’d had to pressure you to marry Sedgewick. When I demanded to know what she meant, she confessed that she had approached you after you’d refused Sedgewick’s first offer and she…convinced you. But that was all I could get out of her; she refused to tell me exactly what she said, not that I cannot guess. Will you tell me, Winny?”

The sick feeling in her belly, which had begun the moment Wareham spoke Sedgewick’s name, rapidly spread, filling her with nausea. “Why?”

“Please,” he said. “I need to know.”

“She said that you owed Sedgewick a great deal of money.”

Wareham slumped back against his pillows, looking as ill as she felt.

“We should not speak of this right now. It is upsetting you.”

“Please,” he said, pale but firm. “Please tell me the rest. This has been eating at me for more than a year. The only thing that will make it worse is allowing me to go on imagining and not know the truth. Tell me. ”

“She said that you had very little chance of repaying the debt unless I married Sedgewick. She said a Season would only add more to the burden you already labored und—”

“That lying bitch!”

Freddie flinched at the fury—and no small amount of hatred—in his gaze. “ Shhh, Dicky. I know now that it was Piers’s debt, not yours.”

“The debt did not matter—regardless of who’s it was. I was never so below the hatches that I could not cover Piers’s gambling obligations. And while it was true that paying Sedgewick back had required the sale of a small piece of acreage, I was not close to facing ruin, Winny.” His face hardened. “And I had already paid him the money he was due before your marriage. Sophia knew that. She deliberately lied to force you into marriage.”

Freddie did not argue.

Dicky swallowed hard. “When I accused Sophia of selling you to a monster she said that if you had been a more obedient, conformable wife you might have changed Sedgewick for the better.” He gave a snort of disbelief. “As if you—or anyone—could have done anything to fix such a man.” Wareham squeezed her fingers so hard it hurt. His cheeks were flushed, and his skin had become sheened with sweat. “I should have protected you, Winny. Christ! You were only seventeen! Can you ever forgive me?”

“I have already forgiven you, Dicky. I have been at fault, too. I never should have sent your letters back unopened.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “I should have gone directly to you and begged your forgiveness last year when I found out the truth, but I was ashamed. I always knew that Sophia often went beyond the bounds of what was acceptable to get her own way, but I never guessed she could be so dishonest and—and so vindictive—toward you for no reason.”

It was difficult for Freddie to believe her brother had not noticed how truly manipulative and unpleasant his wife had been, but there was no point in belaboring the issue now.

“She was your wife and you loved her, Dicky. There is no shame in that.”

“There is shame in what I allowed her to do, Winny.” Again he chewed his ravaged lower lip. “My love for her died after what she did to Piers. And—and when I learned what she had done to you, I actively hated her. The scales had dropped from my eyes and I saw how she had twisted and warped not only my relationship with you, but also my children. And how she was manipulating them for her purposes. I know it is an appalling thing to admit, but I cannot mourn her.”

Freddie’s eyes burned with unshed tears. She did not mourn the passing of the horrid woman he had married, but she mourned her brother’s loss of love.

“My dearest Winny—you know I would be honored if you consented to move back to Torrance Park.”

“I have my own life to live, Dicky. I do not want to give that up. But I will come and visit often.”

“If you won’t allow me to give you a home, at least accept your allowance. It is not nearly as much as you should have had from your marriage, but it is your money.”

A bitter smile curved her lips. “Is it really my money, Dicky? Could I pull it all out of the funds tomorrow if I wished?”

“That would be an exceedingly foolish act,” he said, completely missing the point.

“Perhaps, but if it was your money and you wished to do so, you could. And without consulting anyone else.”

“Yes, that is true. But I am a man and have had charge of such things all my life, my dear. Can you honestly say you would know how to go about managing your own investments? It is my duty and honor to care for the women in my family. And you know I would never hold the purse strings tightly.”

How could she explain to him that a purse held by somebody else was not hers. “I do not want to revisit this subject, Wareham.”

“You are still angry that Sedgewick appointed me your trustee, aren’t you?”

“I am not angry.” Indeed, she was enraged whenever she thought about the terms of her dead husband’s will, which had left her Wareham’s perpetual pensioner. Any disbursements must meet his approval and he was the one who would set her allowance. It was humiliating.

But she would not argue about that again.

“I gave up any claim to that money eight years ago. And I learned to live without it.” Not because she wanted to; because she’d had to.

“I know you could not accept the money then because I required that you lived under my roof and—and I understand how that would have been impossible. But I had hoped now that—” He broke off, but Freddie did not need him to finish to know that he meant now that Sophia was gone.

The pain that shone from his eyes dulled the edge of her anger “Rest assured that if I need that money, I will ask for it. But I cannot move back, and not because of any estrangement; I have friends who love me, and I have a purpose in my life.” She smiled wryly. “I know chaperoning young ladies is not everyone’s notion of a dream, but it supports me well enough.” That was not the truth, but to share the truth would be the ultimate unkindness. It was not Dicky who stood in the way of that money, but Freddie’s own pride.

He sighed and she suspected it was his turn to force a smile. “Plimpton says you have agreed to help him with Rebecca?”

Freddie considered that arrangement from the perspective of what she had learned the night before. But the spark of anger she expected failed to materialize. “Yes, that is true.”

“I am pleased to hear it. Have you met her?”

“Not yet.”

“She is a delightful girl.” He pulled a face. “It is perhaps unfortunate that she resembles Plimpton more than her beautiful mother, but I believe her temperament is sweet and conformable.” He laughed. “In other words, utterly unlike either of her parents.”

“You knew his wife?” Why had she asked him that? Why was she so eaten up with curiosity about a dead woman?

Distaste flickered across Wareham’s face. “To be brutally honest, I do not believe there was much to know beyond her beautiful facade. She was the diamond of that Season, and we were all a little in love with her. But everyone knew she would choose Plimpton. Not because she valued him for who he is, of course, but because her father was ambitious.” Wareham shook his head. “I never envied him Cecily. I foolishly believed that although my wife was not as beautiful, at least she cared for me.” He gave a dispirited snort. “Amazing one’s capacity for self-delusion, isn’t it?”

“Sophia loved you, Dicky. And I am sure she loved her children.”

“I do not believe that sort of love—cloaked as it was in the need to control—is worth having.” He sighed. “But none of that matters now.”

There was a knock on the door before it opened and the duke paused on the threshold, his gaze going from Freddie to Wareham to their joined hands, and then back to Wareham. “I apologize for interrupting.”

“You are not interrupting,” Wareham said, squeezing Freddie’s hand. “My sister and I were just talking.”

Freddie suddenly recalled what a fright she looked. His Grace, naturally, was as impeccable as ever.

And he was looking at her. “I wondered if you would care to join me for a ride?”

Freddie stared. Had she completely imagined their argument last night?

No, you argued. He just sat there and listened.

“What a capital idea,” Dicky said, sounding so excited one would have thought that he had been invited. “You should go, Freddie—I was about summon Jacob and your presence will be distinctly de trop .”

Freddie wrenched her gaze away from the duke and turned to her brother, who was grinning at her with an almost unsettling enthusiasm. “But you said Jacob had already—”

“Yes, yes,” he hastily cut in. “But now I need his assistance again. ” He cleared his throat and gave her a speaking look.

“Oh,” she said, feeling foolish. “Er, of course. I will leave you to it.” She turned to the duke. “I am afraid I did not bring a habit with—”

“Take one of Sophia’s,” Wareham said.

Freddie eyed her brother. “Her clothing is still here?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I did not know what to do with it,” he admitted. “Take a habit. There must be a dozen of them. It will be loose on you, but you are similar enough in height.”

Freddie narrowed her gaze. Why was he smiling so dementedly?

Dicky, mistaking her hesitation for an unwillingness to borrow his dead wife’s clothing, clucked his tongue and said, “Take a habit, Winny—lord, take any of her clothing you want. It is all just hanging there going to waste. Go on,” he urged. “I will keep Plimpton amused while you dress. He can meet you down at the stables in, say, three-quarters of an hour? Is that good for you, Your Grace?” he asked his friend without taking his eyes from Freddie.

“Take as long as you need,” the duke said, looking at Dicky with a wry glint in his cold eyes.

He shifted his gaze to Freddie when he felt her attention and their eyes locked. Freddie could not look away and the staring match seemed to last forever, although it could not have been more than a few seconds before her brother spoke, shattering the unsettling bond.

“Hurry along, Winny, the day is wasting.”

Freddie opened her mouth to reject the duke’s offer, but then realized they would have to discuss what had happened last night eventually. Going for a ride would be an excellent opportunity to speak with the man without being overheard or interrupted. What exactly she would say to the duke, Freddie was not yet sure.