Chapter Thirteen
Toby fought the urge to walk out of the house instead of in through the doors of Lord and Lady Manwaring’s.
How was Florence?
He knew, of course, it was late and she was no doubt sleeping. He’d spent the days since her arrival in his household standing outside the nursery door and listening a lot. It had mainly been Miss Haigh who was talking or singing. In fact, he’d not heard Florence speak in his presence yet.
He’d taken tea with her in the nursery. Walked outside with her and Miss Haigh, and the child had stayed pressed to her nanny’s leg as far from him as she could get. He didn’t know how to get her to trust him. How to get her to like him, and it bothered him deeply.
Toby thought he wasn’t fit company for a five-year-old girl, but the long dormant feelings she roused inside him made him want to try for her.
Time, Miss Haigh had said. It would take time. He’d not had his friends over in those days and only left the house when necessary. He’d simply walked the halls waiting until he got word of how Florence was doing. Waiting until he could take tea with her.
It was hell. She carried his blood, and wanted nothing to do with him. So tonight he’d made himself return to society.
After greeting the hosts, he entered the ballroom.
“Corbyn.”
The drawl had Toby’s back stiffening, but he turned with his usual social mask firmly in place.
“Lord Michael.” Toby bowed. He tried not to hate too many people in his life. This was one person he had no qualms about doing so.
This man had been a benefactor at Blackwood House. He’d known what was going on. Toby had once asked him to do something about it, and he’d laughed, saying it was just a rite of passage, and harmless fun.
Tall, elegant, with silver hair pomaded into the latest style, Michael was the epitome of a society gentleman. His clothes were expensive, and his friends rich. Toby, however, was richer and more titled, a fact Michael hated.
“I had heard you are interested in investing in the Hall Road consortium, Lord Michael?”
“I am.” Lord Michael frowned. “How is it you know that?” The man’s polite facade slipped.
“My friends are behind it. You know them of course, Lords Hamilton and Stafford.”
He visibly paled. “I had not realized they were involved.”
“Yes, we are involved, in fact it is our consortium,” Toby said holding the man’s gaze. Therefore, you will never be part of it.
“Tobias!”
He turned to see who had called him, and found Lady Petunia waving at him a few feet away.
“Michael, I am being summoned. Excuse me.” With a brief bow, he walked away, knowing he’d left the man seething, and feeling a great deal better for it.
“Ladies,” Toby said, bowing to Anthony’s three aunts. “May I be of assistance to you in some way?” They were all seated against the wall on a chaise.
“Draw a chair up before us, Tobias. We wish to discuss a matter with you,” Lady Petunia demanded. She was the one who usually gave the orders out of the three of them.
Toby wondered if Anthony had told them about Florence. He would be more than happy with these three in the child’s life as they would dote on her. In fact, when she had settled into life with him, he’d make sure it happened.
He located a seat, and placed it down before them, which was directly in the path of people wanting to skirt around the edges of the room, but he knew better than to argue.
“Now, we have decided…”—four words that never went well for anyone—“that it is time for you to marry.”
“Oh… ah.” Toby had been speaking for many years. Since he was one? Maybe earlier, he had no recollection, but right then everything he’d learned was suddenly a jumbled mess in his head.
“And to that end, we have drawn up a list, dear,” Agatha, who sat directly to Petunia’s right, said.
These three were creatures of habit. The way they dressed, how they sat, and how they planned their attacks. He’d seen it before. Petunia always started, and then the others joined her.
“Lovely ladies, all three of them,” Lavinia said.
“I don’t want to marry,” Toby said with as much force as his dry throat could muster. He should marry, now Florence would be in his care, but he was not doing so just for the child. When the time came, if the time came, it would be with someone he’d carefully chosen.
“And yet it is time,” Agatha said.
“Why now is it time?” he asked when he could have just said no, absolutely not.
The problem here was, these women had saved him and his two best friends, one of whom was their nephew, and because of that, he would always love and watch over them.
Toby would never be rude to them, but he’d not believed he’d have a need to until now.
“We have seen how happy our nephew is,” Petunia said. “It fills our hearts with joy.”
“Joy,” Lavinia parroted as if he’d not heard.
“And as we think of you like we do Anthony, we have decided that it is time to help you find joy.”
“Not Jamie?”
“We’re starting with you, as he is not ready,” Petunia said with a cat that has the cream smile on her face.
“Now, the three women on this list are here this evening.” Agatha held out a small square of paper, then waved it before him until he took it.
“Don’t read it now, save that until later, and we shall see you soon to get your thoughts. There are plenty more lovely young women we could have added to that list, but we had no wish to frighten you,” Lavinia said.
“Ah, well.” Toby looked at the paper in his hand. “I am, of course, honored you consider me as you do, and you are all very important to me also.” They beamed at that.
Sweet silver-haired assassins, he thought.
“But I have no wish to wed.”
“Anthony was the same, dear, and now look how happy he is,” Petunia said.
They all looked as one to the right. Toby followed their eyes and found Anthony and Evie standing together. He was smiling at something she was saying, or just at her. It was enough to make him feel nauseous.
“I can say with all confidence I never want to look at a woman like your nephew is looking at his wife, ladies,” Toby said.
“Oh, posh to that, of course you do, and we are going to ensure that happens.”
If there was one thing he’d learned in the years these women had been in his life it was that they did exactly as they wished, no matter how much protest you put up. He could tell them about Florence, but he didn’t want them turning up at his townhouse until she was ready to meet them.
“And now I must leave you as I am due to dance with Miss Levine.”
“Wonderful,” Petunia said. “But she is not on the list.”
He walked away vowing to have a chat with Anthony and get him to tell them he was not about to marry for love. When he did, it would be an arrangement born of mutual respect but no emotion.
“Where are you going with that scowl on your face?” Jamie asked intercepting him. “You look intent on murder.”
He thought about his next move. If he spoke to Anthony, Jamie would hear, and then he’d be angry that Toby hadn’t told him.
“You don’t think there is enough going on in my life to look like I am intent on murder?”
“Absolutely, and yet you have the best social face of anyone I know. Therefore, it must be dire indeed to have made you scowl like that in public. Is it Florence? Are you worried about her?”
“No, she will be sleeping by now.”
“I know this is hard on you, Toby,” Jamie said. “Give it time, my friend, and she will adjust to you.”
“She looks at me like I will hurt her. I hate it, and yet don’t know how to change that.”
“It will take time,” Jamie said again.
“I know, but it is hard to see fear in her eyes.”
His friend squeezed his shoulder.
“I was just given a list by the aunts.”
Jamie frowned. “What list?”
“A list.”
“Still none the wiser.”
“It has women’s names on it, Jamie,” Toby said patiently.
His friend’s eyes widened. He then looked left and right.
“What are you doing?” Toby asked.
“Looking for them. They may have a list for me.”
“Apparently you are not ready.”
“What? Why not?” Jamie demanded.
“You want a list? I can give you mine.”
“No. But why am I not ready?” His frown was fierce now. “Mind you, after my dance with that vixen Miss Alice Hamner I am inclined to agree.
Miss Hamner was Liberty’s friend.
“Don’t tell me she didn’t swoon with joy to be dancing with you—”
“Yes, thank you,” Jamie cut him off. “The woman had far too much to say for herself.”
“Perhaps the aunts think you are too immature to have a wife?” Toby annoyed his friend.
Jamie’s frown eased. “There is that. I’m heading to supper. Do you want something sweet to ease your foul mood like me?”
“Very much so.”
They walked, passing guests as they did so, and stopping occasionally to talk. Lady Tabitha gave Toby a shy smile. Was she on the list?
Everyone was primped and pampered for the ball, and this was a setting as familiar to Toby as any in his life. He and his friends had entered society together, and each had done what they needed to survive and outrun their past.
Anthony had taken that to excess in his own way.
Gambling, spending time with doxies, and other vices.
Jamie had his exercise and enjoyed beating people with his boxing gloves when things got bad for him.
Toby couldn’t confirm it completely, as his friend would not speak on the matter, but Anthony and Toby believed he also went to the streets late at night and participated in bare knuckle fighting.
They’d seen the evidence on his face sometimes, and the way he winced when he moved.
Toby had once been a man who lost himself in women, but that changed after Bidham—after seeing Liberty again—and especially since Florence had moved into his townhouse. He suspected life would never return to what it had been, and to his surprise, he didn’t mind that nearly as much as he should.