“I’ll tell my sister about this!” Theodore cried hotly. “Nell won’t stand for it!”
“When I left ’elen,” Sir Ethan recalled blandly, “she ’ad the fixed intention of introducing you to one or two females—not schoolroom misses, mind you, but sensible females ’oo might inspire you to settle down.”
“Oh, God!” groaned Theodore, clutching his golden locks in dismay.
“Come, Theodore, what ’ave you got to lose? It’s not as if there are that many entertainments to be found in Town this time of year, anyway. Besides, I thought you young bucks were up to any kind of lark. I’ll wager it would be something none of your cronies have done.”
“No, but everyone will think I’ve slunk back to Devon to nurse a broken heart for La Fantasia.”
“Not if you put it about that you’ve been obliged to leave Town and look into your estate. Your papa left several, and you need not say which one it is that demands your attention.”
“And what if something really does demand my attention?”
“You can give instructions that any letters are to be forwarded to me. No one will wonder at it, since I’m the executor of your father’s will, and I’ll know where to find you.”
Theodore gave a short laugh that was utterly devoid of humor. “You seem to have it all worked out, never mind the fact that I’ll stand out like a mustard pot in a coal scuttle.”
“Aye, you will if you dress like that,” Sir Ethan agreed, casting a critical eye over his young relation’s fashionable tailcoat of Bath superfine, buckskin breeches, and gleaming Hessian boots. “You’ll want some more suitable clothes.”
“I suppose I’ll just order them from Weston,” retorted Theodore.
“You might. Or you could ’ave your man buy you some things from the secondhand shops in Petticoat Lane.”
“And how, pray, am I to explain my sudden taste for castoff clothing?”
Sir Ethan gave Theodore the same sweet, disarming smile that had—eventually—won his sister’s fickle heart. “Can you wonder at it? Just tell ’im you lost a wager.”
“Touché,” Theodore acknowledged with a grin. “Now that you mention it, that would serve as an excuse for anyone who might wonder why I’m working at the mill, yet putting up at its owner’s house.”
Sir Ethan shook his head. “I’m sorry, Theodore, but I’m afraid that won’t do. No one at the mill is to know ’oo you are, for I won’t ’ave them giving you special treatment.”
“I suppose they would be bound to do so, if they knew I was a duke,” Theodore conceded generously.
“They would be bound to do so if they knew you were a relation of mine,” Sir Ethan corrected him gently. “But there’s a boarding’ouse not far from the mill, kept by a gentlewoman ’oo’s fallen on ’ard times. Not only would it give you a roof over your ’ead, but you’d ’ave someone to cook your dinner and do your washing. You’d also be doing a kindness for an unfortunate lady and ’er daughter.”
Theodore, listening to these plans for his future with a sense of fatal resignation, made no reply. At the moment, he could imagine no one more unfortunate than himself.
5
A simple maiden in her flower
Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, Lady Clara Vere de Vere
DAPHNE DRINKARD EMERGED from the back of the house with an armful of freshly laundered sheets destined for the second-best bedroom. This chamber, which had once been her own, was usually vacant these days, kept in readiness for anyone willing to pay half a crown per night for its use, while Daphne occupied a much smaller room at the opposite end of the hall. Not, she reminded herself, that she resented this; in fact, she much preferred it to her mama’s protestations that mother and daughter should share the bedroom which had once belonged to the late Mr. Drinkard. But Daphne, who had already lost so much in the three years since that gentleman’s death, had been determined not to add her privacy to that constantly growing list. Suppressing a sigh at the memory of the cheerful room with its flowered chintz curtains and thick Axminster carpet, she went in search of her mother to inform her that the laundry maid (who, along with the cook, represented all that remained of what had once been a sizeable staff) had said they were almost out of fuller’s earth.
She found Mrs. Drinkard in the front hall, deep in conversation with a man Daphne had never seen before. That the conversation was causing her mother considerable perturbation of spirits was quite clear, for her mother’s lace-mittened hands gestured in agitation.
“But here is my daughter now! Daphne, my love, come and make your curtsy to Sir Valerian Wadsworth.”
Thus adjured, Daphne dipped a curtsy, clutching the bedsheets against her chest lest they tip over and tumble onto the floor, undoing the laundry maid’s work as well as her own, since it was she to whom fell the task of folding.
“How do you do, sir?” she responded politely.
“The better for having made your acquaintance, Miss Drinkard, I’m sure,” he said, his smile exposing a mouthful of impossibly white teeth.
“Will you be staying with us, then?” She made a quick appraisal of his fashionable attire and stylishly disheveled chestnut locks, and determined that here was one who could well afford the second-best bedroom. Color rose to her face at the thought of this gentleman sleeping in the bed that had once been hers.
“Dear me, no,” her mother put in hastily. “Sir Valerian is putting up at one of the fashionable hotels in Manchester.”
“As I was telling your mother, I wish to hold a series of meetings—for the mill workers, you understand—and wondered if she might have a public room I could hire for the purpose.”
“Sir Valerian is standing for Parliament,” put in Mrs. Drinkard by way of explanation. “Only fancy! I told him he might use the dining room, once dinner has
