Chapter 3
DO YOU HAVE any idea what I think of you?
This is what Davenport had just asked her, and Tulip did not know the answer to his question. Until tonight, she had not realized he thought of her at all. And frankly, she was afraid to ask him and find out.
How could he possibly think her special in any way when she had never done anything noteworthy or admirable?
How could she ever come close to matching his accomplishments?
Davenport had made quite a name for himself as the London magistrate’s top investigator.
He had earned his good standing in Society.
“Care to give me a hint?” Tulip replied in jest. “I have done nothing of significance in all my life, yet you have solved hundreds of crimes and saved so many lives before ever reaching your thirtieth birthday. I am not counting your proposing to me as a noteworthy feat on my part because it was a matter of entrapment rather than anything to be considered a triumph.”
“I was the one who stepped forward,” he said with some impatience. “You did not make me do it. How old are you, Tulip?”
She laughed. “Twenty.”
“Then you have eight years to catch up to me. You are just coming into your own, and there is no telling what good you will do once you become my duchess.”
She almost stumbled while staring up at him. “You’ve said it again. Are you truly serious about our betrothal?”
He nodded. “Serious. Determined. Implacable.”
“Quite remarkable,” she muttered. “Why?”
Why choose her out of all the young ladies available to him in London?
The reason could not be something as simple as she was from Somerset.
She had a decent dowry, which was why Caruthers wanted her. But it was not an outrageously generous one and could only go so far in restoring the Davenport properties to their former grandeur.
If the general gossip was to be believed, generations of dissipated Davenport dukes had severely ruined many good assets, including Thornwycke Hall, the residence of every Davenport duke for the last five centuries or longer.
The manor house had originally been built as a fortress overlooking the Bristol Channel. It was attacked, partially destroyed, and rebuilt over the years. However, due to the neglect of too many dukes over this past century, Thornwycke Hall was once again in danger of falling into ruin.
Or so it was rumored.
She had never visited the place and did not know its exact condition.
A good friend of the family worked there and said it was no place suitable for a young lady, but that was because the dukes were libertines and held wild parties there.
She hoped it was habitable, merely needing fresh paint and polish to restore the manor house, since she and Davenport would likely take up residence there.
She continued to ponder the question…why marry her?
He was not seeking a union in order to improve his bloodlines, either. No one in her family held a noble title, and he was fully aware of this.
Not even the hint of blue blood could be found in the Farthingale ancestry.
Only in her generation had some of her cousins married well and gained noble titles through those marriages.
She found it hilarious that Marigold was now a marchioness and that Dillie, the youngest of John and Sophie’s daughters, was a duchess. Several cousins were now countesses, another a viscountess, and yet another a baroness.
“Still confused about why I might want you for my wife?”
She nodded.
“Here’s a clue. Look within yourself.”
“Haven’t I been doing that? Tell me more.”
But the waltz ended, and with it their conversation.
Davenport escorted her back to her aunt and uncle.
She spent the remainder of the rout staying close to her Aunt Sophie.
When Lady Fullerton’s affair ended, Davenport followed Tulip and her family home.
Since coming to London she had resided with John and Sophie, for they were the ones sponsoring her for the Season that had now drawn to its end. They lived on Chipping Way, a charming garden oasis within London.
There were only six homes on this tree-lined street and Farthingales resided in three of them. Lady Dayne, grandmother of Gabriel Dayne, the earl who had married John and Sophie’s daughter, Daisy, owned the fourth home.
John led Davenport into his study the moment they arrived home.
John’s brothers and Sophie followed him in.
Tulip thought Davenport might need an ally and attempted to follow after them, but Rupert held her back. “Be patient, Tulip. We will call you in shortly.”
She wound up standing in the entry hall with Pruitt, the faithful family butler. “Ah, what a surprise,” he remarked in his light, Scottish brogue as some of Tulip’s cousins made their way up the walk despite the lateness of the hour.
She sighed and greeted them at the front door. “Hello, Marigold. Violet. Holly. Dahlia.” Then some of John’s daughters marched in. “How nice to see you, Dillie. Daisy. Rose.”
Several had brought their husbands along.
Dillie was happily married to the Duke of Edgeware. Although her name was Daffodil, everyone knew her as Dillie. Perhaps it was because she had an identical twin called Lily, and those names rhymed.
Lily and Dillie.
Two peas in a pod.
“I see you have followed in the proud family tradition of making an utter wreck of your Season and necessitating a hasty marriage,” Dillie remarked with a trill of laughter and gave her a quick hug. “Well done.”
Tulip groaned. “Oh, we should not find this amusing at all. Poor Davenport. We hardly exchanged two words in all these months, and now he is forced to marry me.”
Marigold shook her head. “That man cannot be forced to do anything he does not wish to do.”
“That is what he told me, too,” Tulip admitted.
Marigold greeted Pruitt before turning her attention back to Tulip.
“I am not surprised. I thought my Leo was tough as old boots, but Davenport is just like him. Wild horses could not have dragged them to doing something they did not wish to do. You must stop worrying about him. Perhaps he has held a secret torch for you all the while.”
“Him? Desiring me?” She shook her head and laughed at the hilarity of it. “Not possible.”
“Stop belittling yourself, Tulip,” Rose insisted. “You are exceptionally pretty, so how could he resist?”
“No prettier than dozens of other young ladies who made their debut this year.”
Rose shrugged off her remark. “He might have seen you at some of the British Museum lectures or noticed you touring the Huntsford Academy exhibits and realized you had a brain. He might have overheard you talking to others at a dinner party and liked your cleverness and wit. Obviously, he has seen something worthy in you.”
She thought it was ironic that Rose, now a viscountess who was also a brilliant artist and ran a successful pottery and glassworks business, should be complimenting her.
“Hush,” Daisy said, bending down and putting her ear to the door. “I cannot hear a word of what they are saying. But Davenport sounds awfully calm.”
“And what about Papa?” Rose asked. “Mama must be numb by now, for she’s the one who has to do all the work to put these weddings together. We’ll help her out, of course. You needn’t worry about that, Tulip.”
Daisy glanced up, but kept her ear to the door. “Papa’s awfully calm, too. I think he has stopped being surprised by us. But how are any of us at fault when trouble seems to follow us around?”
“And always with a handsome bachelor ready to leap in to rescue us,” Holly said with a grin. “Perhaps there is something to this Chipping Way curse after all. Didn’t you knock down Davenport right here on Chipping Way when you first met him, Tulip?”
“Oh, that? I was across the street at Marigold’s house when Mallow, her imp of a dog, slipped through the gate and darted onto the street.
I had to chase after him. I didn’t actually knock Davenport down.
I ran into him, and then bounced off him because that man is built like a wall of granite.
He caught me before I fell. There was nothing more to it. ”
Her cousins laughed heartily.
“The Chipping Way curse,” Dillie insisted.
Perhaps, but how odd that this very thing should have happened again tonight. She refused to believe there was any significance to it at all.
The study door suddenly opened and Daisy toppled in.
John sighed and helped his daughter up, then frowned at the rest of them who had also been hovering by the door. “Tulip, come in. The rest of you, go home.”
Of course, no one was going home until they got all the scandalous details.
John shut the door to keep the rest of the family out.
Tulip took a seat beside her aunt.
However, she spoke up immediately because she wanted to get a word in before the elders started hurling questions. “I think what needs to be answered is, how do we quietly end this betrothal with the least harm done to me and Davenport?”
“Are you still going on about that?” Davenport was standing by her uncle’s desk and now folded his arms across his chest so that he looked quite big and massive, like a warrior guarding an impenetrable gate.
“There is no going back from this without irreparable harm to you, Tulip. The right question is, how soon do we marry?”
“Why are you still going on about that? Weren’t you supposed to leave for Somerset tomorrow? Well, since it is past midnight, you should be leaving this very morning. We can settle things when you return.”
He shook his head. “No, I have no idea when I will be returning and this needs to be addressed now. I cannot leave you here while Caruthers is still angry and bent on getting his revenge. You are at risk so long as you remain unmarried.”
He had a point, but were they not making too much of that lord’s animosity. “Surely, he will calm down in a day or two.”
Davenport arched an eyebrow. “Oh, you think so?”
She gulped. “Well, one can never be certain. I have no experience in such matters.”