A strangled rasp burst from his chest. Damn it, this was unacceptable.
He had hurt Eugenia. Cut her to the bone. He ran an unsteady hand through his hair and forced himself to continue walking toward the staircase.
None of the things he’d thought to be important truly mattered. He had thought he wanted a demure wife, but he didn’t. Eugenia broke all the rules.
He had wooed Mia, asked for her hand in marriage, and now he understood that she had been right to leave him: he hadn’t felt enough for her.
The honest truth was that he had been mildly irritated when he discovered that Mia had married a duke in his absence. He had congratulated himself on comporting himself like a gentleman, and relinquishing his fiancée without violence.
Yet the mere thought of Eugenia with another man made rage course through him. He would never be able to marshal civility if he saw her with a new husband.
He reached the top of the flight of stairs and started down. Beauty, laughter, intelligence like a flame, the berry scent that was hers alone, the way Eugenia screamed when he gave her pleasure . . .
Anguish, he discovered, was not unlike a case of pneumonia he’d had as a child. His limbs throbbed in tandem with the pain in his chest.
With an effort of will, he forced himself to nod to the footman standing by the door to the drawing room. He would see the duchess and then he would repair this. Somehow.
There had to be a way by which he could be with the woman he loved and still win guardianship.
His grandmother was perched on the edge of a chair, her eyes fixed on the mantelpiece clock. He bowed. “Please forgive me for not attending you immediately, Your Grace.”
“I have been waiting for an hour and forty-three minutes,” the lady said in a voice that could have kept frozen one of Gunter’s ices.
“I apologize,” Ward said, seating himself without being asked, because he had the feeling that the duchess would prefer he stand in front of her like a schoolboy being reprimanded.
“Where are the children?” she demanded, clamping her hands around the knob handle of her cane.
“Their nursery maid will bring them down shortly.”
She pounced on that. “Nursery maid! Hadn’t you engaged a Snowe’s governess?”
“Miss Midge left, but we are expecting a new governess tomorrow.”
“When did the governess leave?”
Her eyes had a distinct resemblance to Jarvis’s, though Otis would not like the comparison. “A fortnight ago,” Ward said.
“So you—”
“Miss Midge left her position without giving notice, and Mrs. Snowe very generously agreed to take her place until a substitute could be arranged. She only left us yesterday. I believe you’ll see a remarkable difference in the children’s behavior.”
“If Mrs. Snowe managed to teach Otis to bow, I shall be astonished,” the duchess said acidly. “She acts as a governess on occasion, does she? The Countess of Sefton will be interested to hear it.” Her tone turned from disdain to satisfaction, which struck Ward as ominous. “I suppose you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“I confess I do not,” Ward answered. The duchess smiled toothily, like a shark wearing a pearl necklace.
“Lady Sefton, one of the patronesses of Almack’s, did not revoke Mrs. Snowe’s voucher after the woman opened her registry, although obviously she ought to have done so. It hardly need be said that those who engage in trade are not welcome at Almack’s.”
She opened her reticule, took out a handkerchief, and dabbed her nose with it.
Lizzie and Otis entered the room before Ward could fashion an answer that didn’t include a threat of violence. Well, not violence, since she was an elderly woman and his own grandmother—but he would defend Eugenia and her choice to open Snowe’s Registry with his last breath.
He went to greet the children, which gave him time to rein in his temper. Lizzie was not wearing her veil, and Otis was not carrying Jarvis’s bag.
They were both dressed in black, of course, but Lizzie’s pale blond hair gleamed and her face appeared healthier than he remembered. To Ward’s eyes, the children looked shiny, well-mannered, and a trifle boring. Perfectly conventional, in other words.
“Miss Darcy and Lord Darcy,” their grandmother said, nodding. “It appears that Mrs. Snowe is a satisfactory governess; your bow was nearly graceful, Lord Darcy.”
“Mrs. Snowe is not a governess,” Lizzie said.
The duchess’s thin lips grew thinner.
“She is a lady,” Lizzie clarified.
“A lady acts as such,” their grandmother replied, with a sniff. “A governess teaches girls to curtsy, and a lady does not. Equally important, children do not speak until they are spoken to.”
“Mrs. Snowe was our guest,” Otis said, ignoring that rule.
“Indeed? How do you define guest? Would a guest teach you how to bow?”
Otis’s brows knit together. “It doesn’t matter what a lady does. She is still a lady.”
Ward grinned at that. Otis was right.
“I beg to differ,” Her Grace stated.
“Mrs. Snowe’s father is a marquis, and that means she’s a lady,” Otis said defiantly.
Wait.
The word rattled around in Ward’s head.
“Marquis?” he echoed.
“What’s more, she gave me a box for Jarvis to sleep in,” Otis said, “and governesses don’t give gifts.”
The dowager duchess looked at Ward. “I don’t blame you for your incredulity. One rarely finds peers plummeting down the social ladder in such a definitive fashion. Mrs. Snowe’s late husband would be aghast. And his father, the viscount? Turning in his grave, without a doubt.”
“I’ll show you the box!” Otis exclaimed. He turned toward the door, stopped, spun around, and bowed, before he dashed out.
“No governess can perform miracles in two weeks, but Mrs. Snowe must be competent,” Her Grace pronounced. “Perhaps if I offer her three times her customary salary, she would agree to join my household.”
Ward barely registered that Otis had left the room, because he was still trying to make sense of the conversation. Eugenia was the daughter of a marquis, and had been married to a viscount. Or the son of a viscount? Wouldn’t that make her Lady Snowe? Maybe not. Maybe she was just the Honorable Eugenia Snowe.
Damned if he knew. He’d never paid much attention to the governesses who tried to drill such things into his memory.
Besides, her title was irrelevant; clearly she chose not to use it, if she had one. More importantly, why in hell hadn’t she told him? It would have been a good opportunity when he’d told her that she wasn’t ladylike enough, for example.
He suddenly remembered Eugenia asking him if he knew she was a lady.
He’d said yes; what else could he possibly have said?
Bloody hell, why hadn’t he gone to a few soirees over the last seven years? He might have met Eugenia in the proper setting. He would have known her status, instead of making a fool of himself by assuming she had been a governess.
“I do not agree,” Lizzie said, in reply to something he’d completely missed.
He wrenched his attention back to the venomous old woman, who still had not invited his sister to take a seat. The woman was trying to intimidate Lizzie, but he had a shrewd idea that she would fail. Nothing frightened his sister.
Other than dead fish.
The duchess’s own characteristics had bred true, and Lizzie was more than a match for her grandmother.
“It is not your place to agree or disagree,” Her Grace stated. “You are a child, and as such, you ought to be quiet and obedient.” She raised her clasped hands and thumped her cane onto the ground.
Lizzie’s eyes narrowed. “I recognize you!”
“I should hope so,” her grandmother said acidly.
The little girl dropped into the chair opposite the duchess. Her slim figure went rigid and a glare settled on her face. Her han
ds extended before her, clasping the invisible brass knob on top of an invisible cane.
Before anyone could say a word, she rasped, in a fair approximation of the duchess’s aristocratic drawl, “Look like the innocent flower, my lord, but be the serpent under it.”
Lizzie was a far better actress than Ward had recognized, not that it was relevant. Shock, and perhaps pain, creased the old woman’s face.
“I know how tender ’tis to love my babe,” Lizzie went on. “I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked—”
Ward suddenly knew which play—and which character—Lizzie was performing. Those were Lady Macbeth’s lines when she was about to say that she’d murder her own child in order to become queen. “That will do,” he said hastily. “Lizzie, you have been extremely rude. Apologize to Her Grace at once.”
Lizzie hopped to her feet and curtsied. “I apologize, Grandmama.”
“Are you saying that Lisette portrayed me on the stage?” the duchess said, her voice strained. “Her own mother?”
Happily, Otis trotted back into the room before Lizzie could confirm the uncomfortable truth.
“My mother was a troubled woman,” Ward found himself saying. “I know from my own experience that Lady Lisette was prone to unkindnesses she later regretted.”
The duchess met his eyes and then looked away, turning from a desolate mother to a haughty, disdainful aristocrat.
“Here’s the box!” Otis said, taking advantage of the momentary silence to thrust Jarvis’s bed toward his grandmother.
She recoiled, her gloved hands flying into the air. “Do you think to give me an object touched by a rat?”
“You can see how nice it is,” Otis said, opening the lid. “This box was given to Mrs. Snowe by her father, the marquis, and she gave it to me. No governess would do that.”
Had everyone in the house known of Eugenia’s pedigree? Yet Ward had no one to be angry with except himself. He had jumped to a conclusion about Eugenia’s upbringing rather than trust the evidence of his ears and eyes.
Then, like a kick to the belly, he grasped the significance of Eugenia’s status.
They could marry. She was an aristocrat, for God’s sake. That marquis, her father, was probably sitting in the House of Lords: how could they possibly object to her as the children’s mother in front of him?
His heart leapt, and he only just managed to keep a sober expression on his face.
“That box is revolting,” the duchess was telling Otis. “The lining is tattered, and the wood appears to have been chewed. A stable boy might have given you a gift of this value.”
“It’s only because Jarvis likes to sharpen his teeth,” Otis said, looking uncertain.
“What is that?” Her Grace demanded, her tone deepening as she pointed a thin finger at the inside of the lid. “Is that a painting?” She plucked the box from Otis’s hands and tugged at the tattered green velvet lining.
“You’re tearing off the velvet,” Otis cried. “That’s what makes Jarvis feel safe and warm!”
The duchess dropped a shred of cloth to the floor and hissed. “Mrs. Snowe gave this box to you? This is an obscenity! ”
Ward only just managed to pull Otis back before he could assault his grandmother in order to retrieve Jarvis’s bed.
“Not even a rat should sleep within sight of this depravity. I’ll say this much for you, Mr. Reeve,” his grandmother said, handing the box to Ward. “You had no idea just whom you were entertaining under your roof. It seems that Mrs. Snowe is considerably more sophisticated than most think her to be.” There was a grim satisfaction about her that made Ward’s eyes narrow.
He glanced under the lid of the box, quickly closed it again, and turned to the children. “Lizzie and Otis, say farewell to your grandmother, if you please. Otis, I shall find a new bed for Jarvis.”
“Good afternoon, Grandmother,” Lizzie said with a curtsy. Otis bowed, his entire body rigid with reproach.
They had turned to go when the duchess stopped them, her voice chilly. “Children must say farewell to every adult in a room, which in this case includes Mr. Reeve.”
Otis turned around, grabbed Ward’s hand, and gave it a kiss before he ran for the door. Lizzie curtsied. “Good afternoon, dearest brother.” Her lisp made an appearance again, accompanied by a roll of her eyes.
“Go on, you little donkey,” Ward said.
When Lizzie was safely out the door, he opened the lid of the box again. Inside was an exquisite depiction of a wildly erotic scene—and he’d seen his fair share. A nude man was kissing a naked lady’s nether parts, while she pleasured herself. The lady’s luxuriant curves were as painstakingly detailed as her lover’s enormous and rampant phallus.
Eugenia would be horrified at the idea she’d unwittingly given it to Otis. In fact, it was lucky that Jarvis hadn’t shredded the velvet already, giving his little brother an early education in erotic art.
“Utterly revolting,” the duchess snapped, rising to her feet with the help of her cane. “I feel quite faint.”
He couldn’t let her leave, not before ensuring that she would not ruin Eugenia’s reputation by talk of the box.
“Clearly Mrs. Snowe had no idea that the painting existed,” Ward said. “I would ask that you keep its existence a secret, Your Grace.”
“You dare defend—”
“I will always defend my brother and sister to the best of my ability. Knowledge of this image would attract the worst sort of attention. I would not be surprised if gossip about the box attached to your daughter, rather than Mrs. Snowe.”
“Nonsense! The proof is in your hands!”
“A painting depicting an erotic act found in the possession of a very young man,” Ward said, looking hard at his grandmother. “Do you follow what I’m saying, Your Grace? Neither of us wishes to remind the world of Lady Lisette’s amorous proclivities. My own father was her junior, as you may know—although not nearly as young as the late Lord Darcy.”
The dowager duchess abruptly sat again. In the silence that followed, the sharp lines around her mouth tightened. “No one would dare accuse my daughter of the debauchery you imply. Otis is her son.”
“One would hope you are correct.” He let the silence grow because, frankly? The world wouldn’t hesitate to accuse Lady Lisette of any manner of depravity.
“There is absolutely no need to discuss this appalling incident again,” the duchess announced. “The fact that Mrs. Snowe has been acting as a governess is enough to banish her from polite society, as should have happened long ago.”
“No.” The word shot from Ward’s mouth, hard and implacable. “You may not use Mrs. Snowe’s kindness to your orphaned grandchildren to tarnish her standing at Almack’s or any other place.”
She sniffed. “How do you propose to stop me, Mr. Reeve?”
Ward gave his grandmother a smile that he’d honed inside Britain’s most dangerous prison. “When I was fourteen years old, I paid a visit to your daughter. Perhaps Lady Lisette did not share the details . . . in particular why I abruptly returned to my father’s residence?”
She flinched. It was a small movement, but he caught it. “No.”
He used silence as a weapon again. Then: “I will say nothing to the House of Lords. But if I ever learn that you have spread gossip about my mother’s occupation, my siblings’ childhood, or Mrs. Snowe’s inestimable aid, I will share the details of that visit.”
He paused. The duchess tightened her bony hands on her cane, but said nothing.
“Allow me to review the facts,” he went on. “My siblings have been raised in France. Since the tragic deaths of their parents, the children have been under the care of a Snowe’s governess here at Fawkes House. If the court comes to the conclusion that they would be better raised by their maternal grandmother, thereby overturning the late Lord Darcy’s explicit wishes, so be it.”
The drawing room was so silent that the creak of the duchess’s knees as she once again rose sounded li
ke pistol shots.
“I shall take my leave.”
“May I take that as your agreement?”
“I never lower myself to gossip,” she said, all evidence to the contrary.
Ward bowed; like it or not—and she certainly did not—the lady was his grandmother.
“I shall next see you in the House of Lords, Mr. Reeve.”
He bowed again.
The duchess stopped at the door and looked back at him, her face drawn. For a moment, he thought she was about to relinquish her fight for custody.
“She loved you,” Her Grace said instead.
Eugenia? How did she know how Eugenia felt?
“My daughter was not in control of her better self.” Torment ran beneath his grandmother’s well-bred syllables. “But Lisette loved you. She never forgave me for taking you as a baby and giving you to your father.”
He stood very still, surprised by the stab of pain that he felt at her words. He didn’t meet his mother until he was fourteen, and she had been alternately charming and violent. “I see,” he said at length.
“Believe it or not, I wanted to save your life.”
She waited a moment for a response, before she set her chin and walked from the room.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Thursday, June 18, 1801
Fonthill
The country residence of Jem Strange,
Marquis of Broadham,
and Harriet Strange, Lady Broadham,
former Duchess of Berrow
Eugenia occupied herself on the way to her father’s estate by sending letters to Susan, dispatching them from market towns she passed through. The first letter told Susan that she was the new owner of Snowe’s. The second laid out Susan’s objections and countered every one. They had been friends so long that Eugenia had no problem imagining her protests. A third suggested that the new training course for governesses include swimming lessons.
She wasn’t busy all the time; tears had a terrible way of smearing ink. At night she lay awake, staring at the rough wooden ceilings of staging inns, hollow-eyed and hollow-hearted.
In the late afternoon on the third day, she finally arrived at Fonthill, only to discover that her father was hosting a number of guests. There was nothing unusual in that; she’d grown up in the middle of a never-ending house party.