Chapter 19
Frances
Once in the dining room, James pulled out a chair for her. He had never shown her such courtesy before.
She sat as he slipped into the seat beside her.
“You impressed me when you spoke to Morrison,” he admitted. “You handled yourself admirably.”
“I did not seek to impress you,” she said. “I was making sure that Mr. Sweeting was not hurt. And the farmers.”
“I expected no less from you. You are a country girl, after all. A true daughter of the soil.”
“Do you suppose he’s going to implement the suggestions we made?”
“He is going to because I have instructed him to,” James said with absolute confidence.
“He has to consult with Mr. Sweeting on everything, and before he makes major decisions, I want to be involved in them. Our previous steward was a little too high-handed. I will make sure that things go better with this one.”
“Are you afraid for your head?”
He looked at her, frowning. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “It is something that Lord Blatt said to me. He said that if commoners ever realized that they far outnumber the nobility, all of our heads would be in danger of going the same way as Marie Antoinette’s. To the guillotine, heads in baskets and all.”
He rolled his eyes. “Wentworth would say such utter fustian.”
“Is it silly because the idea is silly, or is it silly because you do not like the man?”
He looked at her and let out a sound that was between a laugh and a sigh.
“I suppose both. I do not care for Wentworth, but his statement is wrong, even if I dislike him. They know that they outnumber us. But we have such a tight grip on them, and we control the economy. Even if they wanted to rise up, it would all come to nothing. Revolutions never do. Think of it this way—what happened after the French Revolution? Not much, not until there was another revolution.”
She nodded. “Why do you not like Wentworth?”
“He is a babbling fool, and I—”
The butler appeared, interrupting him.
“Excuse me, Your Grace, but your friend has arrived.”
“James!” a cheerful voice boomed, filling the room.
A tall, dark-haired gentleman entered. James didn’t even have a chance to get up before the man wrapped his arms around him.
“Good to see you, old friend.”
“This is my friend, Gideon,” James explained.
Without waiting for him to answer, the man slipped into the empty chair and spread a napkin over his lap.
“Late as always, I see,” James said after a glance at his watch.
“Fashionably late. You know what they say, to be on time is to be early. Better late than never.”
“Not in this house.”
“Of course not. It is my fault for not remembering that you have your… peculiarities, shall we say. Your rigid adherence to schedules and such.”
James rolled his eyes and turned to Frances. “Frances, allow me to introduce my friend, Gideon Marsh. The Viscount Ashford, if I have to be formal. Though he never stands on ceremony.”
Frances looked up. Gideon smirked at her as a servant started bringing in bowls of soup.
“So this is the mysterious bride,” he said, looking her up and down appraisingly. “James, you sly dog. You’ve done well for yourself. You must be the Duchess I have heard so little about.”
Frances raised her eyebrows at James. “You did not tell your dear friend about our wedding?”
“About the wedding, yes. Clearly, he knows—he just referred to you as the Duchess. But no, I have not had a chance to tell him much else.”
“You see, I have been overseas,” Gideon explained.
“I had business to attend to in Spain, and I have just returned. I received news of your marriage, of course, and I must say that I am most surprised. Pleasantly so.” He shifted in his seat and crossed one leg over the other.
“I have to apologize for interrupting your conversation. I caught the tail end of it, and it sounded most intriguing. Were you talking about Wentworth?”
“Indeed, we were,” Frances confirmed.
“No, we were not,” James said.
“I shall go with your wife on this, dear friend. Pray, have you had a run-in with that insufferable prig?”
“He was a guest at my godmother’s tea party a few weeks ago, and he goes by Blatt these days.”
“Does he now? His old man cocked up his toes at last? Well, it was about time. The man was almost seventy years old. And is he as delightful as ever?”
Frances gathered from Gideon’s tone that he did not think Lord Blatt had ever been delightful in any capacity. He had always been an insufferable prig, even as a lad.
“Frances found him most charming,” James said, jealousy lacing his voice.
How dare he act jealous when he had barely given her the time of day? In fact, this was the most she had heard him speak in weeks.
“Did you now?” Gideon asked.
“I found him pleasant enough,” Frances said. “But a few of his opinions did not sit right with me.”
“Wentworth posited the idea that we might have our heads chopped off once the common folk discovered that they outnumber us,” James scoffed.
Gideon roared with laughter. “Did he now? He was always a silly fellow who did not understand anything about his environment. Commoners are well aware that they outnumber us, and there were many times in history where they could’ve overtaken us quite easily, but they never will.
Not by force, anyway. I imagine the time of the great houses will eventually come to an end, but it will not be through a violent uprising. ”
“That is exactly what I told her.” James smiled at Frances, seeming most pleased with himself.
“How do the two of you know him?” she asked.
Gideon looked at James and smirked, before grabbing a loaf of bread that had just been placed down and ripping it in half. “We all went to Eton together. What a horrid creature he was, even back then. Made James’s life a perfect misery.”
Hadn’t Marianne said something like that? Frances remembered her cousin mentioning it.
“In what way?” she asked.
“We need not rehash the past,” James said, before taking a spoonful of soup.
“Well, you see,” Gideon went on, ignoring him entirely.
“James here was somewhat of a pariah. He was never selected first for any game, not even second, usually toward the end. Always the last man standing, poor devil. Unless I was the captain, then he was always first.” He winked at his friend.
“Then there were people like Wentworth, who liked to pick on people who they thought were beneath them.”
“Beneath them?” Frances frowned in confusion. “But James is a duke’s son.”
“A second son,” James corrected her. “A spare, not an heir. In titled circles, that does not mean much. After all, how often does tragedy befall both the title holder and his heir? I was quite the exception. In any case, Wentworth delighted in finding ways to torment poor James here. There was, of course, the incident where they pushed him face-first into some cold soup, sending him to the infirmary—”
“I thought it was scalding hot,” Frances cut in.
“They had placed a pot of steaming hot tea right beside it so it looked like steam was blowing up into the air,” James explained. “Dunked me like a biscuit in tea.”
“Yes. Another time, they emptied a chamber pot’s worth of night soil into his bed, and he had to scrub the bedsheets and the floor, and everyone in our dormitory knew. The vilest prank imaginable.”
Frances cringed. “That is terrible.”
“I was a child,” he said. “A foolish child.”
“Yes, but this went on for many years,” Gideon reminded him. “I was only around for the first year. After that, I was moved to a different school—Harrow, if you must know. I always thought it most unkind of your brother not to defend you. Quite shabby treatment from one’s own kin.”
“Your brother was at Eton at the same time and did not help you?” Frances asked, aghast.
She did not care for her sister, but if someone was making her life hell, she would most certainly step in to stop it.
“Your brother should have been horsewhipped for allowing it.”
James looked at her, something warm flickering in his eyes. “You are fierce in your defense of me.”
“Someone ought to be,” she said quietly.
“My brother and I were not close then. We grew closer later on. Besides, he thought that I ought to stand up for myself. Sink or swim, as it were. He left me to fend for myself. And we were only at Eton together for two years before he graduated.”
As he spoke, she heard the hurt in his voice. He, too, had been disappointed by his beloved brother.
“It made me want to plant him a facer every day,” he admitted.
“And eventually, you did!” Gideon said with glee.
“Eventually, I did,” James agreed with a satisfied smile. “In any case, must we regale Frances with stories about Wretched Wentworth?”
“I declare we do not,” Gideon replied. “Perhaps we should delight her with some stories of our time in the militia? Perhaps the time you stole our captain’s horse so that we could ride to Brighton early in the morning to go to that fishing pond?”
“Borrowed, I prefer to say,” James emphasized. “We always meant to return it.” Then, to Frances’s surprise, he let out a loud laugh. “I also remember we were put through the wringer for it.”
“Not as severely as we might have been, had you not offered up some of our trout to our captain.”
“Yes.” James snapped his fingers. “I did. After I had recovered from running several miles in the heat—nearly run into the ground, I was—he made me grill them, and I remember being surprised when he allowed me a few bites.”
“You were better off than I. I was in a deep sleep, entirely exhausted. I didn’t even get a single bite.”
“Now, now, I did bring you a few potatoes.”
“Potatoes,” Gideon scoffed, “when there was the most succulent fish you ever tasted to be had?”
“They had your portion of the trout, too,” James fired back.
Frances giggled, placing one hand in front of her mouth.
For the rest of the evening, the two men delighted in telling each other tales of their time in the militia, and Frances delighted in hearing them.
James was an entirely different person with his friend. All the stiffness and formality melted away. He was the real James, the one he kept hidden. Someone she would have liked. He was almost like he had been the night of the terrible shooting.
By the time they had finished with their flummery, they had drunk two and a half bottles of wine, and James was entirely red-faced.
Quite foxed, if you ask me.
“If you will excuse me,” Frances said, “I think I am going to lie down in the drawing room for a little while. I believe you’ve had quite enough, darling.”
“Nonsense,” James said. “I am perfectly… perfectly…” He couldn’t seem to find the word.
“Foxed?” Gideon supplied helpfully.
“That’s the one.”
Gideon let out a chuckle. “James, I have not forgotten that you owe me a round of billiards,” he said.
“Oh yes, I have not forgotten either, and I will thoroughly beat you again as I did last time.” James grinned at his friend.
“You did not beat me. You played fast and loose with the rules! You were sharp, I tell you!”
“I most certainly did not cheat, and I will prove it to you by thoroughly beating you again this time around.” James wagged his finger as he spoke for emphasis.
“Perhaps your wife could serve as referee, although I would worry that she would be too much on your side.”
“I, my dear sir,” Frances interjected, “am not on anyone’s side but the side of justice and fairness.”
“Oh,” Gideon said. “You’ve picked yourself one with a backbone. Not some milk-and-water miss. Very nice to see. Perhaps while our dear friend rests and recovers from drinking a little too much wine, the two of us could play a game of cards. What do you say?”
She nodded, and he offered his arm. When she took it, she cast a glance at James out of the corner of her eye and found him looking none too pleased. His lips were pursed slightly, and his head was tilted to the side.
Was he jealous again? Of his friend?
It was most silly. But then his face relaxed, and he stumbled out of the room, and a moment later she heard a groan as he lay down on the chaise in the parlor.
As she and Gideon made their way into the drawing room to play cards, he leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “I daresay, I never thought that James would pick a woman with a backbone. It is most delightful to see.”
“Does he get jealous often?” Frances asked quietly as they settled at the card table.
“Only when it comes to things he values,” Gideon answered with a knowing smile. “Make of that what you will.”
Frances smiled up at him, finding herself more grateful than she thought possible that he had arrived on their doorstep.
This mysterious man might be just what they needed.