Chapter Two
A loud shriek cut the air, almost knocking Jacob off his feet. Mrs Whitmore released her hold on Baron Edgeware and pushed the man away, sending him flying across the room and into the arms of a waiting chair. She then stepped towards Jacob, her arms outstretched as if to embrace him.
Jacob suspected that his face now bore the same look of terror he’d seen on Baron Edgeware a moment ago.
‘My darling, darling girl!’ Mrs Whitmore cried, and thankfully it was her daughter who was on the receiving end of the hug, along with much vigorous rocking from side to side.
‘I hoped and prayed you would find a husband this weekend, but never imagined it would be the Duke! And to think I was prepared to settle for a baron.’ She sent an accusatory look towards the door through which Edgeware had quietly slunk.
She released her daughter, who stepped backwards, looking as if the life had almost been squeezed out of her.
‘Mr Whitmore is going to have to eat his words,’ the woman said to Jacob. ‘He told me to leave well enough alone. That if Margaret didn’t wish to marry, I shouldn’t try to force matters. I can now tell him I managed to secure a marriage to a duke, no less.’
‘Yes, that was very enterprising of you, Mrs Whitmore,’ Jacob said, and sent Miss Whitmore a quick wink to let her know she had his complete sympathy.
He thought he’d at least get a smile in return. Instead, those lips once again pursed and the brows drew together. It was evident she would tolerate no insults from him towards her mother, no matter how frightful the woman was.
He shrugged that off. If she was loyal to her mother, that presumably was an admirable trait.
He wouldn’t know about such things. He could barely remember his own mother, but from what he’d been told she’d been a cold woman who had never wanted her only child and had no attributes that would illicit loyalty from anyone.
‘Mr Whitmore even tried to talk me out of accepting the Earl’s kind invitation to this weekend party, saying he was only doing so to appease my brother, the Earl of Ledbury,’ the mother twittered on.
‘He said that Margaret would have to suffer enough during the Season so I should refrain from inflicting further suffering on her with this party.’ She laughed loudly, a sound unfortunately reminiscent of a honking goose.
But her statement did explain their presence at this party.
Henry had only invited young women he was considering as a future bride, and Miss Whitmore did not fit any of his friend’s criteria for an ideal wife.
She was far too headstrong, intelligent and candid.
But Ledbury and Henry were both notorious gamblers.
No doubt Henry was in debt to Ledbury, and was indeed trying to appease him by helping his niece find a husband.
‘Suffer?’ I said to Mr Whitmore,’ the mother continued. ‘How could anyone describe the Social Season as suffering?’
If it had been possible to get a word in edgeways, Jacob could say that both he and Miss Whitmore would describe it thus, and the drawing in his pocket was proof of that.
‘I told him he was talking nonsense,’ she went on, oblivious to the fact that this was a one-sided conversation. ‘And I was right. Now my little girl is to become a duchess.’
She once again took her daughter in her arms and squeezed her tight. Despite this rather embarrassing display, it was apparent the mother did love her daughter and wished the best for her. A small part of him envied such affection from a parent. A very small part.
‘So, when do you intend to marry?’ the mother asked, turning to Jacob and this time waiting for him to reply.
‘We haven’t discussed—’
‘As a duke you can get a special licence,’ she interrupted. ‘There’s no need for a long, drawn-out engagement. You could be married by the end of the month. Even by the end of the week.’
‘Mother,’ Miss Whitmore said in a commanding tone, ‘for propriety’s sake I believe a long engagement would be more suitable, otherwise people might wonder at the rush. Tongues might wag.’
‘Nonsense,’ the mother shot back, her panicked gaze moving swiftly from her daughter to Jacob and back again. ‘Tongues won’t wag, and if they do it will probably be because they’re all envious. You may have had three disastrous Seasons but once you are a duchess you will be the toast of London.’
She leant towards her frowning daughter. ‘I really do advise you to marry the Duke as soon as possible, my dear.’ Her tone lowered a little, as if hoping Jacob would not hear, despite standing a few feet away. ‘You don’t want this one to slip through your fingers.’
Miss Whitmore’s posture stiffened and Jacob suspected there was a story behind that statement.
‘Mother, we either have a long engagement or we do not marry at all,’ Miss Whitmore stated slowly through clenched teeth.
Jacob looked at the mother, curious to see what the comeback would be.
There wasn’t one. The daughter’s insistence had seemingly taken the wind out of Mrs Whitmore’s sails and for once she was lost for words.
Miss Whitmore continued to glare at her mother, who quickly gathered herself and stared back at her daughter with narrowed eyes, in a silent battle of wills.
If Jacob had been a betting man he knew which one he would back.
Mrs Whitmore might be the one who made the most noise, but the daughter had such a defiant look in her eye he could not see her backing down.
‘Yes, perhaps a long engagement might be for the best,’ Mrs Whitmore finally said, albeit with an uncertain note in her voice.
‘Good, that’s settled,’ Jacob said, clapping his hands once with finality. ‘A long engagement so we have lots of time to really get to know each other,’ he added, threading his arm through Miss Whitmore’s, and drawing another reproachful look from the young lady.
‘Ye-es,’ the mother conceded reluctantly. ‘I believe three months would be long enough.’
‘Or three years,’ Miss Whitmore responded, removing her arm from his.
‘No,’ the mother gasped.
‘Yes,’ the defiant daughter insisted.
‘Ladies, shall we compromise?’ Jacob suggested, rather enjoying this sparring. ‘We’ll announce the engagement immediately, with the intention of marrying at the beginning of next Season. So, an engagement of one year.’
The two women held each other’s gaze as if waiting to see who would flinch first, then both nodded at the same time, accepting the compromise.
‘Oh, I must go and tell Lady Chedmore,’ Mrs Whitmore said, almost singing the words. ‘She will be green with envy. She was so smug when she told me her daughter was to marry a viscount. Hmph, a viscount is nothing compared to a duke.’
With that, the beaming Mrs Whitmore bustled off, leaving Jacob behind with his future bride.
The moment her mother left, Margaret turned to the Duke. ‘I assume you realise we will not actually be marrying. But a year’s engagement will get me out of the Season. Hopefully, by then I’ll have come up with a way to free myself from this charade.’
‘Your enthusiasm for this match is so flattering,’ he said with a wry smile.
‘As you said, it is a convenient arrangement that gets us both out of an unwanted situation. There is no point pretending it is anything else,’ she shot back with more sharpness than intended.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ That was followed by a facetious salute as if she was some sort of sergeant major.
‘And I am more than happy to save you from the tedium of the Season, but in exchange it would be advantageous to me if we are seen in public together on occasion.’ He gave a small laugh, as if this was all a jolly jest. ‘And it would help if you looked at me with a modicum of affection, rather than as if I were the devil incarnate.’
Margaret was unaware that she had been looking at him like that, but it was not an entirely inapt description of how she felt about him. He certainly had a devilish reputation, and she was undoubtedly not the first woman to see him as devilishly handsome.
‘You know the reason why I agreed to this arrangement,’ she said, hoping her words contained no affection, not even the modicum he had requested. ‘So, are you going to tell me the full story of why you suddenly decided it essential to be engaged to marry?’
He pulled the letter out of his pocket and looked down at it. ‘It’s a bit, shall we say…’ He sent her a sheepish look.
‘Sordid? Scandalous? Not fit for a young lady’s ears?’
‘Mmm,’ he added, rubbing his hand around the back of his neck.
‘Gossip is bound to reach me eventually, so I might as well hear it from you. And please, do not spare my blushes.’
‘Well, how can I phrase this? Baroness Winterborne and I have been involved in a certain dalliance.’
‘She is your lover?’
His eyebrows shot up his forehead at her frankness. That was, she hoped it was her frankness he was reacting to and not the slight quiver in her voice when she said the word ‘lover’. But it was hard not to quiver when thinking of the Duke in that way.
‘Yes, well, she was. It had all rather run its course when her husband, for some unfathomable reason, took umbrage about his wife straying.’
Margaret tried to keep her expression blank but found it hard not to frown at such a flippant attitude to the sanctity of marriage. ‘You find the husband’s objection difficult to understand?’
‘Mmm.’
She waited for him to continue. He did not.
‘There must be more to it than that. As I said, please do not try and spare my blushes. I wish to know exactly what I am getting myself into.’
And please do not blush, she said to herself. She had to focus on her abhorrence of this immorality, not on the ridiculous heat rising within her every time she thought of him being some woman’s lover.
‘If you insist.’
‘I do.’
‘Well, yes, Helena Winterborne was my lover, but I was certainly not her first and I doubt if I’ll be her last, which makes Baron Winterborne’s behaviour all the more difficult to understand.
He has not objected to his wife’s behaviour in the past, especially as he has been seeing the same mistress since before he married, continues to see her, and they have several children, all of whom he supports rather lavishly. ’
Margaret tried hard not to show what she thought regarding this appalling behaviour, but suspected it was written all over her face.
‘And what?’ she said, her voice carefully modulated. ‘You’re worried about your reputation if it gets out that the two of you were lovers?’ She smiled inwardly, pleased that this time she’d got the dreaded word out without any telltale signs.
‘I wish that was all it was. No, Baron Winterborne has threatened divorce proceedings. I’m sure you know what being dragged through the divorce courts is like for a woman, particularly a member of the aristocracy.’
Margaret nodded, knowing exactly what Baroness Winterborne would face.
The press loved nothing better than to report on every salacious detail of such goings-on among the aristocracy.
While the men got off relatively lightly, the women were depicted as wanton, immoral and debased.
If she had children, which Margaret believed the Baroness did, they would be taken away from her and it was unlikely she would ever see them again.
Even other members of her family, particularly the females, would be tainted by the scandal and they’d all be shunned by Society.
He passed her the letter so she could read the Baron’s threats for herself. His hand lightly touched hers as she took it from him. It was the merest brush, hardly any contact, but the annoying tingling that rippled from Margaret’s fingers, up her arm and to her chest was impossible to ignore.
‘I don’t know what Winterborne is thinking,’ the Duke continued, while Margaret tried to concentrate on reading the letter.
‘This is so unlike him. But hopefully, when he realises it is all over between me and his wife, and that I am a reformed man, he will drop all talk of dragging this through the courts and destroying his wife’s reputation. ’
Margaret nodded again, conceding that this was a valid reason for their engagement, although it would have been better if the Duke had not become involved with a married woman in the first place.
She owed Baroness Winterborne nothing, but no woman should have to go through the ordeal of the divorce court, particularly when men could behave in the same manner and never be held accountable.
Holding the letter by the edge, she handed it back to him, careful to ensure their hands did not touch.
‘All right,’ she said slowly. ‘This arrangement will be mutually beneficial, and hopefully, as you said, by the start of next Season Baron Winterborne will have settled down and forgotten all about this and our engagement can be terminated.’
And if Baron Winterborne went through with his threat, once it reached the divorce courts, Margaret would have the perfect excuse for ending the engagement. Either way, she could not lose.
She smiled to herself. What had started out as a bit of wilful mischief had turned out rather well, and she had to admit she had played this game rather skilfully.
Her smile faded. The only drawback to an otherwise ideal plan was that she would have to spend time with the Duke of Rosedale, a man who disconcerted her in ways she barely understood.