In some bewilderment, Daphne allowed herself to be led from the house and handed up into the carriage by Sir Ethan himself. Alas, her intention of telling Theo of the night’s adventures, and hearing an account of his own doings, suffered a severe check.
For when she returned to the boardinghouse, she was met with the news that Mr. Tisdale had paid his shot, packed his bags, and taken his leave.
18
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 116
IT HAD BEEN THEO’S intention to return to London only long enough to provide himself with a suitable wardrobe and arrange for a barber to cut his hair before returning to make Daphne an offer in form. Alas, he had failed to take into account the effect his sudden disappearance, protracted absence, and unexpected return would have upon his cronies. He was obliged to agree to not one, but several evenings spent at White’s in the company of these sprigs of the nobility, where he stunned his audience by giving an account of his employment at the mill. He attributed this to a wager, as his brother-in-law had suggested, but could not help thinking, even as he did so, how shallow and contemptible it sounded. His friends were so skeptical of this claim that he was obliged to remove his gloves and offer up his hands as proof—although these were, in fact, much improved over the state in which Daphne had found them, his valet having subjected them to a strict regimen of Warren’s Milk of Roses, aloe, and Denmark Lotion.
He had then taken the time to write to his steward, authorizing Alfred to see to the re-thatching of any of his tenants’ cottages whose roofs might stand in need of it before the winter set in, as well as putting in motion any advance preparations necessary for the draining of the south field the following spring. He also asked, as a personal favor (and one which, although he could not know it, caused the longsuffering steward to shed tears of joy), if Alfred would oblige him by looking in on the men who worked his tin mines and addressing any issues which, in the steward’s opinion, might be considered urgent, until such time as the duke could visit these holdings for himself.
He then went to his bank, where most of the good jewelry had been kept in a safety-deposit box since the death of his mother, for the Reddington betrothal ring. Mr. George Dorrien (the same man who, not so very long ago, had denied Theo’s request for an advance on his inheritance) was on this occasion all eagerness to serve him, even going so far as to retrieve the desired piece with his own hands and to deliver it to his noble client in person, all in the futile hope of gleaning some clue as to the identity of the lady upon whom it was to be bestowed.
The ring, Theo knew, was a band of chased gold set with a single pear-shaped peridot, designed early in the previous century by a romantically-minded duke as a tribute to the leaf-green eyes of his chosen bride, a lady who had then demonstrated her gratitude by bequeathing this striking physical characteristic to several generations of descendants. In fact, this tidbit of family history had been recounted to Theo numerous times over the years, and all the more so after he had reached the age at which he might begin to look about for a bride of his own; what he had not been told was that, having been locked away for almost twenty years, the piece was now sadly in need of cleaning. This being the case, he was obliged to bestow it first upon Mr. John Bridge of the fashionable jewelers Rundell and Bridge, thus delaying his return to Lancashire still further.
What with one thing and another, fully two weeks had passed before Theo knocked once more on the door of the boardinghouse and requested a private audience with Mrs. Drinkard. His former landlady—who, in truth, had not been at all sorry to see him go—received him in her husband’s study with a marked lack of enthusiasm, having suspected (quite correctly) that her daughter’s failure to bring Sir Valerian up to scratch might be laid at his door. Some quarter of an hour later, she emerged from the interview stunned and reeling, and commanded the kitchen boy to go in search of Daphne and tell her the Duke of Reddington was desirous of a word with her. This lad looked up at his mistress, saw her flushed countenance and the bewildered (and bewildering) look in her eyes, and set out at a run.
He found her at once, for the entire household knew that Miss Daphne had taken to spending her leisure hours standing solitary guard over the foot bridge, leaning against its stone parapet and dropping flower petals one by one into the water below. It was commonly supposed (by all except her fond parent) that Sir Valerian was responsible for Miss Daphne’s sudden inertia, his abrupt departure from the vicinity having destroyed the poor girl’s last hope of matrimony.
In fact, the rare occasions when Sir Valerian crossed Daphne’s mind were the only thoughts capable of bringing a smile to her face. For she could not help picturing the aspiring Member of Parliament as she had last seen him, cowering on his knees and turning purple in the face, all because of the swift and simple
