Chapter Six #2
“I find ‘biscuits’ to be a word of some confusion; attempting a rhyme might leave me with a contusion. And you, my dear loon, still owe me a sentence about your time at Raines House yesterday afternoon.”
“Fine. I painted a bird, and you’re a turd.”
“Master Edmund!”
Iris put her hand over her mouth and hurried down the hallway to the stairs.
Yes, it had been inexcusably rude, but Edmund and Mr. Fredericks had found a unique relationship that had allowed them to tolerate each other and their very different personalities over the past three years, and she wasn’t going to interfere with it.
Tollins stood at the foot of the stairs. “Lady Margaret is exceedingly annoyed at your sloth,” he reported, and marched to the drawing room door.
Hiding her frown, Iris fell in behind him.
Both Baverstocks were high-strung, and their staff tended to follow suit, but she needed them at the moment, far more than Aunt Margaret needed her.
Neither though did she intend to apologize for spending a delightful day, even if it had gone on for longer than she’d anticipated.
Tollins opened the drawing room door and stepped aside.
With a nod Iris moved past him, then had to take another quick step forward to avoid having her backside shut into the door behind her.
Take a breath, she reminded herself. “Good evening, Uncle Harold, Aunt Margaret,” she said, inclining her head as her gaze found a tall man with an upright shock of gray hair seated by the fire.
His cheeks were sunken in, making him look almost skeletal, his eyes dark holes bored into his skull.
“I didn’t realize you were entertaining. ”
The man stood as her aunt, Gerald pushing her, whipped her wheeled chair around. “There you are, dear! I keep telling her that her charities can wait for more convenient hours. Your Grace, Iris Silbern. Iris, John Howard, the Duke of Trent.”
Iris dipped a hurried curtsy. Charities? She was practically in need of charity herself. “Your Grace. A pleasure to meet you.”
“You’re younger than I thought,” he rumbled. “What is it, nine-and-twenty? And you don’t tower over everyone.”
Aunt Margaret tittered. “Isn’t that grand, Iris? His Grace thinks you young and of a good height.”
“I … Thank you, Your Grace.” The footman rolled her aunt’s chair around behind Iris, and she had to take another step forward to avoid being run down. “I can take credit for neither my age nor my height, I’m afraid.”
“And modest. Good. I’m a widower myself,” the duke commented. “Lost my last wife three years ago. I find myself wanting a companion, someone to make certain my penny-squeezing sons don’t try something nefarious while I’m in my dotage. I’m considering you, Mrs. Silbern.”
She stared at him. What the devil? “I have no intention of becoming a companion to a gentleman, Your Grace.”
“Ha. I don’t expect you to polish the silver, Mrs. Silbern. I’m speaking of marriage.”
Oh, that was even worse, somehow. “Nor do I intend to remarry, Your Grace. I don’t know what you and my aunt and uncle have been—”
“They said you’re stubborn. I don’t care.
I haven’t made up my mind yet, but you might suffice.
And your son, Edward, was it? I’d see him educated and with some seed money to do as he pleases.
Join the army or become a pastor. Purchase property and hire folk to tend it for him. That’s what the sons of gentlemen do.”
“Edmund,” she corrected faintly. Evidently she’d struck her head at some point, and was presently in a nonsensical stupor.
“Don’t care about that, either. I’ve a half dozen females on my list yet, so don’t get your hopes up.
It looks to be quite the contest. Still, you’ve experience with caring for your elders, since you’re seeing to your aunt now, and you’re pretty.
Very pretty.” He gazed at her for another moment, his eyes lowering to her bosom and remaining there long enough to make her uncomfortable, before he snapped his black gaze to her uncle.
“You said you had roasted beef for dinner. I’m fond of red meat. I won’t have it overcooked.”
“Ah,” Uncle Harold said, grinning expansively. “Tollins, have the wine and aperitifs brought in. And tell Mrs. Diffle to hurry the dinner along and not to overcook the beef.”
“At once, my lord.”
“Push me to the window, Iris,” Aunt Margaret said. “Gerald, go help with dinner.”
The footman bowed as he relinquished his hold on the back of the wheeled chair. “Yes, my lady.”
Perhaps she’d fallen asleep in her dressing chair, Iris mused, shutting her eyes. No doubt when she awoke she would be gazing at her reflection, late for dinner with Edmund and the Baverstocks.
“Iris!”
Iris opened her eyes again. The duke remained, along with Uncle Harold beaming and Aunt Margaret glaring at her from the wheeled chair. Damnation. “What?”
“Push me to the window. Come, girl, I won’t have the duke thinking you’re simple. Not after we’ve been telling him how capable you are.”
Still blinking, Iris moved behind the chair and pushed. “I told you I don’t mean to remarry,” she said, not certain her voice was low enough to escape the duke’s hearing, and not caring overmuch if he did hear her.
“I’m aware. I also know you don’t have anywhere else to live but with us, and that you’ve moved all your worldly possessions into my spare sitting room.”
“I asked for them to be put in the attic, Aunt Margaret.”
“Where they would be even easier to forget, and by and by it would be the four of us, you and Edmund and Harold and me, living together. Oh, Edmund wants to purchase a commission and join the army or the navy, you say? And who would pay for that, I wonder? Ah, Lord Harold and Lady Margaret, kind souls that they are. What’s a few more pounds here and there after supporting the Silberns for years and years? ”
“We have been here less than a week,” Iris snapped, coming to an abrupt stop in front of the largest window. “At your invitation, I might add.”
“Yes, because I’m a kind soul and in need of someone to roll me about. I won’t be in this chair forever, though. And while I’m happy to have you here while Suzette is away, frankly, Iris, how do you mean to earn your keep after my maid returns?”
“I’ve written you and Uncle Harold letters explaining my intention to open a boardinghouse. It’s only the initial purchase where I need some assistance, and I will repay you and Uncle Harold before I do anything else.”
“So you say. And I believe you intend to do precisely as you say.”
“Then what is th—”
“Intentions don’t keep off the rain. You are a widow.
You have no home. You have no means of income.
You have a son who needs all the things you need as well as tutoring, schooling, and a way to support himself.
Marriage to a duke would sweep all of those obstacles away, in addition to making you a duchess, of all things. ”
Iris scowled. This was too much. And too … all at once to make any sense at all. “I don’t care about b—”
“You don’t care about being a duchess. You should.
Having the pin money of a duchess, being the wife to a family’s patriarch.
You know how that could elevate you.” Her aunt twisted to look up over her shoulder at Iris.
“In the meantime, keep your mouth closed over your cynicism. Don’t ruin it for yourself.
You owe Edmund, and Harold and me, the courtesy of careful thought. ”
Careful thought. She did everything with careful thought, for the devil’s sake.
Well, everything that affected Edmund. Before him, she’d made some choices that had turned out to be questionable, at best. Her aunt’s advice made sense, at least until she had enough time to unknot her very large wad of tangled thoughts.
At dinner Uncle Harold and His Grace discussed trade with the Colonies, and she didn’t point out that the Colonies weren’t called that any longer, or that British prices would have to be fair or the Americans would simply take their business elsewhere.
The duke spent a good twenty minutes giving his opinion on why people who didn’t own land shouldn’t have any voice at all in the government, and she didn’t mention that farmers who didn’t own any of their land still paid taxes.
Finally the men called for brandy and cigars, and she wheeled her aunt out of the dining room and back into the drawing room. “I don’t think you’ve been this silent for this long in your entire life,” Aunt Margaret noted.
“I’m thinking, as you advised.” Iris settled her aunt beside the fire, fetched her a blanket and some Madeira, then walked to the door. “And now I’m going outside for a breath of air.”
“Good. We’ll be able to discuss you. Return in time to wish His Grace a good evening. And don’t demolish my plants.”
“I’m not going to … Oh, never mind.”
Yes, she had a temper, but she did not go about walloping plants simply because a better subject wasn’t to hand. In this instance she didn’t know who deserved a bloody nose, anyway. Her, probably. She’d clearly done something wrong at some point in her life, or none of this would be happening now.
She walked out the kitchen door and closed it behind her.
The night air had a chill to it, the scent of rain heavy and thick, but she continued deeper into the garden anyway.
At least it was quiet and not full of self-concerned men.
“Stupid dukes and their stupid dead wives,” she muttered, just refraining from taking a swipe at a blooming rose after all.
“That was very specific.”
Iris jumped, whipping around to face the garden wall.
A bottle of whiskey sat in one of the regular openings, fit neatly between a pair of wrought-iron bars.
Above the bottle, the Marquis of Hentrose gazed at her, one eyebrow raised.
“Oh, thank goodness it’s you,” she said, stalking up to the stone barricade.