Julia Justiss – The Earl's Inconvenient Wife (страница 2)

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Chapter One

London—early April, 1833

‘You’re certain you won’t come with me?’ Temperance Lattimar’s twin sister asked as she looked up from the trunk into which she’d just laid the last tissue-wrapped gown. ‘I know Bath isn’t the centre of society it used to be, but there will be balls and musicales and soirées to attend. And, with luck, attend without whispers of Mama’s latest escapade following us everywhere.’

Temperance jumped up from the window seat overlooking the tiny garden of Lord Vraux’s Brook Street town house and walked over to give Prudence a hug. ‘Much as I will miss you, darling Pru, I have no intention of leaving London. I won’t let the rumour-mongers chase me away. But I do very much hope that Bath will treat you kindly—’ though I doubt it, London gossips being sure to keep their Bath counterparts updated about the latest scandal ʻ—and that you will find that gentleman to love you and give you the normal family you’ve always wanted.’ Letting her sister go, Temper laughed. ‘Although, growing up in this family, I’m not sure you’ll recognise “normal” even if you find it.’

‘You mean,’ Prudence asked, irony—and anger—in her voice, ‘not everyone grows up with a father who won’t touch them, a mother with lovers tripping up and down the stairs every day and rumours that only their oldest brother is really the son of their father?’

‘Remember when we were little—how much we enjoyed having all those handsome young men bring us hair ribbons and sweets?’ Temper said, trying to tease her sister out of her pique.

Pru stopped folding the tissue paper she was inserting to cushion the gowns and sent Temper a look her twin had no trouble interpreting.

‘I suppose it’s only us, the lucky “Vraux Miscellany”, who fit that sorry description,’ Temper said, changing tack, torn between sympathy for the distress of her twin and a smouldering anger for the way society had treated their mother. ‘Gregory, the anointed heir, then you and me and Christopher, the...add-ons. Heavens, what would Papa have done had Gregory not survived? He might have had to go near Mama again.’

‘Maybe if he had, they’d have reconciled, whatever difficulty lay between them, and we would have ended up being a normal family.’

Temper sighed. ‘Is there such a thing? Although, to be fair, you have to admit that Mama has fulfilled the promise she made to us on our sixteenth birthday. She’s conducted herself with much more restraint these last six years.’

‘Maybe so, but by then, the damage was already done,’ Pru said bitterly. ‘How wonderful, at your first event with your hair up and your skirts down, to walk into the drawing room and hear someone whisper, “There they are—the Scandal Sisters”. Besides, as this latest incident shows, Mama’s reputation is such that she doesn’t have to do anything now to create a furore.’

‘Not when there are always blockheaded men around to do it for her,’ Temper said acidly. ‘Well, nothing we can do about that.’

After helping her twin hold down the lid of the trunk and latch it, she gave Pru another hug. ‘Done, then! Aunt Gussie collects you this morning, doesn’t she? So take yourself off to Bath, find that worthy gentleman and create the warm, happy, normal family you so desire. No one could be more deserving of a happy ending than you, my sweet sister!’

‘Thank you, Temper,’ Pru said as her sister crossed to the door. ‘I shall certainly try my hardest to make it so. But...are you still so determined not to marry? I know you’ve insisted that practically since we were sixteen, but...

Shock, his suffocating weight, searing pain... Sucking in a breath, Temper forced the awful memories away, delaying her reply until she could be sure her voice was steady. ‘You really think I would give up my freedom, put myself legally and financially under the thumb of some man who can ignore me or beat me or spend my entire dowry without my being able to do a thing to prevent it?’

‘I know we haven’t been witness to a...very hopeful example, but not all marriages are disasters. Look at Christopher and Ellie.’

‘They are fortunate.’

‘Christopher’s friends seem to be equally fortunate—Lyndlington with his Maggie, David Smith with his duchess, Ben Tawny with Lady Alyssa,’ Pru pointed out.

Temper shifted uncomfortably. If she were truly honest, she had to admit a niggle of envy for the sort of radiant happiness her brother Christopher and his friends had found with the women they’d chosen as wives.

But the possibility of finding happiness in marriage wasn’t worth the certainty of having to face a trauma she’d never been able to master—or the cost of revealing it to anyone else.

‘Besides,’ Pru pressed her point, ‘it’s the character of the husband that will determine how fairly and kindly the wife is treated. And we both know there are fair, kind, admirable men in London. Look at Gregory—or Gifford!’

Gifford Newell. Her brother’s best friend and carousing buddy, who’d acted as another older brother, tease and friend since she was in leading strings. Although lately, something seemed to have shifted between them...some sort of wordless tension that telegraphed between them when they were together, edgy, exciting...and threatening.

She might be inexperienced, but, with a mother like theirs, Temper knew where that sort of tension led. And she wanted none of it.

‘Very well, I grant you that there are some upstanding gentlemen in England, and some of them actually find the happy unions they deserve. I... I just don’t think marriage is for me.’ Squeezing her sister’s hand, she crossed to the doorway. ‘Don’t forget to come say goodbye before you leave! Now, you’d better find where your maid has disappeared to with the rest of your bonnets before Aunt Gussie arrives. You know she hates to be kept waiting.’

Pru gave her a troubled look, but to Temper’s relief did not question her any further. She kept very few secrets from her sister, but this one she simply couldn’t share.

Tacitly accepting Temper’s change of subject, Pru said, ‘Of course I’ll bid everyone goodbye. And you’re correct, Aunt Gussie will be anxious to get started. Anyway, since you can’t be presented this year, what do you mean to do in London?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Temper replied, looking back at her from the doorway. ‘Maybe I’ll create some scandals of my own!’

* * *

Trying to dispel the forlorn feeling caused by the imminent departure of the twin who had been her constant companion and confidante her entire life, Temper closed the door to the chamber they shared, then hesitated.

Maybe she should gather her cloak, find her maid and drag the long-suffering girl with her for a brisk walk in Hyde Park. With it being already mid-morning, it was too late to indulge in riding at a gallop and, as restless and out of sorts as she was this morning, she wouldn’t be able to abide confining herself to a decorous trot. While she hesitated, considering, she heard the close of the hall door downstairs and a murmur of voices going into the front parlour.

One voice sounded like Christopher’s. Delighted that the younger of her two brothers might be paying them a visit, Temper ran lightly down the stairs and into the room.

‘Christopher, it is you!’ she cried, spying her brother. ‘But you didn’t bring Ellie?’

‘No, my wife’s at her school this morning,’ Christopher said, walking over to give her a hug. ‘Newell caught me as we were leaving Parliament and, learning I meant to visit you and Gregory, insisted on tagging along.’

Belatedly, Temper turned to curtsy to the gentleman lounging at the mantel beside her older brother Gregory. ‘Giff, sorry! I heard Christopher’s voice, but not yours. How are you?’

‘Very well, Temper. And you are looking beautiful, as always.’

The intensity of the appreciative look in the green eyes of her brother’s friend sent a little frisson of...something through her. Temper squelched the feeling. What was wrong with her? This was Giff, whom she’d known for ever.

‘Blonde, blue-eyed and wanton—the very image of Mama, right?’ she retorted, hiding, as she often did, vulnerability behind a mask of bravado. ‘I suppose you’ve heard all about the latest contretemps.’

‘That was the main reason I came,’ Christopher said, motioning her to a seat beside him on the sofa. ‘To see if there was anything I could do. And to apologise.’

‘Heavens, Christopher, you’ve nothing to apologise for! Ellie is a darling! We would have disowned you if you hadn’t married her.’

Her brother smiled warmly. ‘Of course I think so. I’ve been humbled and gratified by the support of my family and closest friends, but there’s no hope that society will ever receive us. And wedding a woman who spent ten years as a courtesan wasn’t very helpful to the marital prospects of my maiden twin sisters, who already had their mother’s reputation to deal with.’

‘Society’s loss if they refuse to receive Ellie,’ Temper said. ‘To punish for ever a girl who was virtually sold by her father... Well, that’s typical of our world, where gentlemen run everything! Which is why we need to elect women to Parliament!’ She gave her brother and Newell a challenging look.