Chapter 4
GIDEON
Her voice carried from the back room, sweet and soothing as she spoke to her child.
Lavinia — he thought he had heard the maid use that name.
It was a very nice name for a baby, or so he supposed.
He had never really given much thought to children.
Even during his brief interlude with Cassandra he had not considered the subject.
Mostly because they had never once spoken of it — which, in hindsight, ought to have alarmed him considerably.
Most young women wished for children, and the fact that Cassandra had never so much as approached the subject should have given him pause.
He had simply assumed that eventually they would have them.
How foolish he had been. Green as grass, and twice as easily trampled.
He still remembered how he had declared, with a chest full of pride, that he had left his former ways behind and intended to settle down. And he had meant it at the time. He truly had. He had wanted to give up even looking at another woman. He had been entirely, embarrassingly devoted to Cassandra.
Only for her to slide a knife into his chest and twist it. He had been thoroughly bamboozled, and the worst of it was that he had seen none of it coming.
Footsteps in the hallway pulled him out of his self-pity.
Helena returned carrying a little girl on her hip.
The child was blonde, with curls and round, cheerful cheeks.
She looked perfectly content until she caught sight of him, at which point she immediately stretched both arms in his direction. “Pap!” she demanded.
“No, Lavinia,” Helena said. “He is our guest.” She looked at their guest. “She wants to be held by you. She takes to strangers with concerning ease.”
“I don’t mind,” he said. The words were out before he had fully decided to say them, because the truth was he had never held a child in his life.
Several of his friends were fathers now, and there had been ample opportunity, but he had never been particularly interested.
And yet here he was, rising from his chair and extending his arms to receive a child with whom he had no connection whatsoever, save through her grandfather.
Helena handed Lavinia over with visible reluctance, and he stood there holding her.
It was rather like holding a sack of potatoes — lighter, admittedly, and considerably better smelling than any potato sack he had ever encountered.
Still, he stared at her and had absolutely no idea what to do next.
Also, rather like a sack of potatoes. Helena watched him from across the room with the expression of a woman observing a queer fish that had somehow found its way into her drawing room and was now making itself at home.
“You could try bouncing her,” she suggested, with an unmistakable note of amusement in her voice.
“Right. Of course,” he said. He bounced the child tentatively.
She chuckled. She said something that sounded very much like “mo,” and assuming this meant more, he bounced her again.
The giggle grew louder, and she laughed and laughed until all of a sudden she stopped.
She looked at him. Her lips formed a perfect O.
Her eyes grew very wide indeed. And then she screamed directly into his ear.
“Good gracious,” he said. “What did I do? Did I hurt her?”
“You did not hurt her,” Helena said, taking Lavinia back from his arms with practiced ease. “That is simply how children are. They change their minds about what they enjoy at a moment’s notice.”
“Mary,” she called. The housekeeper appeared, they exchanged a few quiet words, and the baby was carried from the room.
The two of them stood facing one another across the drawing room. Now that the child was gone, the silence felt rather more pointed than before. He slipped a hand into his pocket and cleared his throat.
“Well. As I was saying, I would very much like to help you and your little girl.”
The truth was, he had been rather taken aback by her reluctance to accept his offer.
He had arrived at her door imagining that the prospect of a Duke appearing on her doorstep to act as matchmaker, connecting her with the most influential gentlemen in the country, would be the very thing to brighten her day.
He had even, in some dim corner of his imagination, pictured her accepting gratefully, perhaps with tears of relief in her eyes.
Instead she had looked at him as though he were attempting to sell her a dubious gout remedy from overseas. A great coxcomb, her expression had said, plain as anything. That is what you are.
He was beginning to think she might not be wrong.
“I truly do not think it is right,” she said.
“I do not know you. I am aware that you knew my father, but he is not here for me to consult on the matter. And, I am not comfortable in high society. And if you must know, my marriage to Lord Vale was not exactly a happy one.” She paused.
“I have no great desire to repeat the experience.”
So that was it. Vale had been a rotten husband, and she had no wish to burden herself with another.
He could understand that. And yet she had to see that she could not go on as she was.
The house did not yet look fallen into disrepair, but the bare patches on the walls where pictures had once hung told their own story.
Her gown, while not yet threadbare, was heading in that direction.
How she was even managing to keep a housekeeper he could not quite work out.
“I am perfectly happy to provide character references, if that is what you require,” he said.
“But truly, I am only here because of an old debt to your father. If you do not wish for my help, I will respect that. Only I would ask you to consider your daughter’s future.
” He glanced toward the stairs where Mary had taken Lavinia.
“Things are difficult enough for women in this world. More so for girls without fathers.”
She nodded. “I am very well aware of what it is to be without one’s father.”
“Of course you are. I do beg your pardon.” What on earth possessed him to say such things? Beef-witted, that was what he was. Utterly beef-witted.
She took a slow breath. Then, “Well. If I were to agree to this hare-brained venture of yours … how exactly would it work?”
Hope stirred in him immediately. She was not opposed to it.
He extracted his hand from his pocket. “I would compile a list of eligible gentlemen of my acquaintance, and then arrange a meeting with each.”
“And you would act as my chaperone?” She raised an eyebrow. “Is that not somewhat irregular? Is it not generally considered more proper for an elder female relative to perform such a role?”
“Do you have an elder female relative who would be suitable for the task?”
“I do not.”
“Your housekeeper, I think, is hardly the right choice. Someone must remain with your daughter, after all.” He watched her concede the point with a slight tilt of her head.
“And then,” he continued, “you simply determine whether you care for the gentleman. If you do not, we continue searching. We search until we find the right one.”
She shook her head slowly. “Has such a venture ever actually succeeded? One conducted by a gentleman with no experience in the matter whatsoever?”
He grinned. “As it happens, it has. My friend Nathaniel, the Duke of Sinclair, once undertook to find a husband for one of the Langley sisters after her first husband met an untimely end. The venture was a great success.”
“The Duke of Sinclair.” She studied him. “Did he not end up marrying the lady himself?”
He cleared his throat. “Well. Yes. But only after they had exhausted every other possibility and established that none of the other candidates were remotely as suitable as he was.”
She examined him carefully, and he had the distinct impression she was enjoying herself.
“So you are preparing me for the eventuality that we shall exhaust all other options, and I shall ultimately be obliged to marry you instead?”
“I assure you that will not happen,” he said. “I will become the King of Spain before I become your husband.”
She leaned forward slightly, smiling now. “I suspect you said much the same thing about the likelihood of one day becoming a Duke. And yet here you are.”
Here he was indeed. The woman was thoroughly infuriating in her ability to call him out at every turn. And he could not deny that he rather enjoyed it. It was not often that anyone challenged him in quite that way.
He was also, he realized with some chagrin, somewhat disappointed that she had already deduced that his idea was not original.
It was true, of course. The idea had not been wholly his own, he was prepared to admit that. And yet, even though Nathaniel had ended up marrying Evelyn himself, Gideon remained convinced that this was the right approach.
Nathaniel, upon learning that Gideon intended to replicate his matchmaking endeavor, had roared with laughter loud enough to turn every head in the gentlemen’s club.
Besides, after his disastrous business with Cassandra, there was not a chance in all the world that he was ever going to marry again of his own free will. Not a chance.