Chapter 3
Several days later, Edward was exercising Tencendor in Hyde Park when he heard a commotion nearby.
“Ho there, sir!” called a somewhat familiar voice. “Lord Edward, is that you?”
“Oh, dear Lord in heaven,” he muttered, coaxing Tencendor away from their favorite path.
“And is that Tenny? The best boy?” the lady called loudly, causing the few fashionable people in the park at this hour to look over in alarm. Lord Peter Sidwin had the temerity to sneer while gazing through a quizzing glass, the macaroni!
Tencendor was most definitely not the best boy, at least not to Edward, because he happily trotted off towards that voice while ignoring all suggestions that they should make a leg.
“Oh, you poor darling,” said the lady from below. “Has your Papa not been feeding you properly? You look frightful, you poor child!”
This was really too much! Tencendor had the best diet of anyone in his household.
“My lady,” said Edward, tipping his hat to his nemesis, Lady Millicent Blatherwick. His former fiancée’s incredibly silly, meddling widowed aunt, who was apparently still alive, still meddling, and still extremely silly even after all of these years. Blatherwick, indeed!
“Oh, it’s you, Lord Edward,” she trilled distractedly. “I’m so pleased to see you on Tenny again. In the last few years, I’ve seen him carrying a number of other gentlemen.”
His heart pitched sideways, thinking of the years he’d been parted from his beloved horse when money had proved too tight to keep him. Edward raked a possessive hand through Tencendor’s mane.
“How do you fare, my lady?” he asked when he discovered that Lady Millicent had somehow whisked two apples from her reticule and was now feeding them to Tencendor. He couldn’t begrudge the boy a treat.
“Oh, you know my piles never cease to cause me trouble,” she sighed. “One wrong meal or movement with a heavy teapot in hand, and I’m incapacitated for a week. A week!”
A flock of birds rose nearby in protest at the volume of her exhortation. This woman was really talking about her arse troubles in a park!
“I do so hope you have some relief, my lady. Resting in bed might be in order.”
“Oh, no rest for me!” she cried, thumping a cane against the riding path and causing Tencendor to dance with agitation.
“Phily is now a duchess, you know, and requires my assistance daily. Managing so much necessitates a good deal of help. Besides the help. You cannot trust them the same way you can trust family.”
Like everyone else in the kingdom, he knew that Lady Philadelphia De Courcy had married the Duke of Chevaliermont.
Unlike everyone else in the kingdom, he’d gotten an early inkling that they might head to the altar when he spotted Lady Philadelphia full of the duke’s cock during a lull in the festivities at Edward’s engagement party.
The one celebrating his engagement to Lady Philadelphia.
From what he had observed, Lady Phily, now the Duchess of Chevaliermont, did a fairly good job at managing a good deal, but one did not tell her elderly relative that in Hyde Park on a Tuesday.
“You must be pleased to see her so favorably situated,” murmured Lord Edward, hoping that a few social niceties would allow him to exit the scene and begin drinking to forget this encounter ever happened.
“It was a shame you couldn’t marry dear Philadelphia,” mused Lady Millicent. “But a lady must set aside the wishes of her heart when a duke comes calling.”
Edward knew it was just an expression, but the notion that Phily had a heart was news to him. Perhaps she did — he just hadn’t encountered it.
And really, her flagrant infidelity, while a blow to his pride, had not touched his heart.
Nor had her looks or charm, of which she had plenty.
He was glad they had dissolved the whole engagement so neatly before he’d shipped out for the Continent over a decade ago, as it had been nothing more than an arranged betrothal. He wished her the best, really.
“Oh, there she is now! Riding alongside her eldest, Lord Mortimer!”
Edward looked up, only to see a lad in short pants on a pony that matched the mare on which his mother sat. The duchess’s riding habit was majestically arrayed, and her gloves snowy white.
“I must be off,” said Edward, turning Tencendor so rapidly he was facing the park entrance when he heard Lady Millicent squawk behind him.
Perhaps Philadelphia’s betrayal had touched more than his pride.
Hard to say.