Chapter Ten #2
The duke’s eyes, so similar to his own, snapped up. In the next instant, he’d cast the paper aside and hefted to his feet. “Gideon, m’boy.”
Gideon found himself engulfed in his father’s hardy embrace.
An ear-splitting grin covered his own face and warmth flooded his chest. He had missed his father as the days wore on, especially as he began to worry he might never be able to return to England. “My lord, it is good to see you. I got your summons—”
“Invitation,” Ashford corrected with a mock frown.
Gideon snorted. “Your invitation, and came at once. Surprised to find you in town. I know how you prefer to rusticate in Surrey these days.”
His father sent him a speaking look. “As if you don’t know why I’ve come.” Dropping back into his armchair, he gestured to the one opposite his. “Sit. Coffee and something a bit stronger will arrive momentarily.”
As promised, a liveried servant arrived delivering a coffee service for two, and two crystal snifters filled with spirits the color of rich amber.
The duke swiped up one of the snifters, and Gideon did the same. The crystal felt pleasantly warm in his hand. He sipped. The duke’s private stock, of course. The brandy went down smooth as silk.
“About this arms’ business,” the duke began. “Utter nonsense. Idiots at the Home Office daring to investigate my eldest son.” His eyes heated. “An investigation based on conjecture and happenstance. Those plebeian upstarts.”
Gideon snorted. “May I remind you I am one of those plebeian upstarts?”
He waved that off. “Only technically.”
“Indeed.”
“You spoke to one of the undersecretaries, I understand.”
As Gideon had assumed, the duke had made inquiries. “My lord, you are nothing if not well-informed.”
His expression softened. “When it comes to you, there’s no stone I wouldn’t overturn, no boulder I wouldn’t blast to bits.”
Their eyes, so similar, met. Gideon nodded his thanks. No words could express how much his father’s support meant to him.
The duke steepled his aged fingers. “How did you leave it, then?”
“The undersecretary promised the Home Office would review all pertinent facts and someone would be in touch. He implied the matter would likely disappear, as far as concerns me.” Gideon swirled the brandy. “I believe my marriage played a significant role in undermining their case.”
His father’s mouth curved in a slow smile.
“Ah, yes. Your marriage—to a complete unknown. I would chastise you for not exercising patience so that your family could have taken part in the celebration, but as the date of the nuptials made it impossible for you to have been anchored off the Spanish coast some five months ago, I can hardly complain.”
“I appreciate that.” Gideon met the duke’s searching gaze, thankful for the thick skin he’d developed over the years that enabled him not to squirm now.
He could see his father had his doubts, but he would not disrespect Gideon with an outright accusation. Thank God. Gideon did not know if he had it in him to lie to the man’s face.
“Tell me about her.” His father poured coffee for both of them, his hand steady.
“Is she…” His pale complexion, so different from Gideon’s, and so like Grayson’s, went distinctly ruddy.
He kept his eyes on his tasks, setting the pot aside, dropping a sugar cube into his cup and stirring it long after it had dissolved. “Like your mother?”
Gideon’s mother was a topic rarely broached. He himself learned early on to avoid all mention of her, especially in hearing of the duchess.
He grasped the duchess’s aversion. Although the duke had married her and made her his duchess, he had loved only one woman—his Anglo-Indian mistress, an heiress in her own right, and Gideon’s mother.
He then rubbed salt in the duchess’s wound by asking her, nay, demanding of her, that she raise his dead mistress’s son.
As for the duke, he grew over-sentimental when reminded of her, leading Gideon to limit reflections of his mother to his journals.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking,” he said.
Ashwood’s jaw firmed. “Is she from the east, untainted by this land of superficial sycophants? Does she speak her mind, love you to distraction, frequent hovels and sick houses, spreading sunshine wherever she goes?”
“Ah. Sorry to disappoint. She’s as British as they come.”
“Another one?” he demanded darkly. “I thought you’d have learned your lesson after Frances.
How many times have I told you to celebrate your blessed lack of constraints, Gideon?
You have more money than Croesus and the power of my name behind you—minus the bloody title hanging like an albatross ’round your neck. ”
Gideon eyed the empty snifters, wondering if the duke had imbibed before he’d arrived. It wasn’t like him to go off half-cocked, spewing personal grievances—in public, at any rate.
His father sighed and sent him a lopsided grin. “Don’t mind me. I’ve grown maudlin in my old age, not to mention the duchess gave me hell for coming to London, ranting about a possible scandal.”
Gideon winced.
“I don’t give a damn. I told her to stay back and cower on her own, if she so chose.”
“And…?”
His grin broadened. “She’s got more spine than she likes to let on. She’s here, spending the day with Grayson.”
“I look forward to seeing her,” he said, for his father’s sake. He did not enjoy his stepmother’s company. He did endure it. He owed her that much.
“Excellent, for see her you shall, when you bring your bride to dinner tomorrow evening.”
Gideon nodded. “Of course.”
“Other than being British, what have I to look forward to when I meet the chit?”
Gideon picked up his coffee, inhaling the rich scent as he reflected for a moment on his blonde-haired, blue-eyed pretend wife.
The mind of a scholar and courage of a lion, a quirky sense of humor and an innate sensuality, undeniably independent, and yet somehow sweetly vulnerable.
“She is unlike any woman I’ve ever met,” he said, finally, then sipped his coffee.
When the duke made no reply, he glanced over the rim to see him studying Gideon, an unreadable expression on his face.
Gideon cleared his throat. “She’s impossible to describe. She’s an editor by trade,” he blurted. “There, now you know something tangible.”
“An editor? A woman editor?”
“And soon to own her very own publishing house, Bell & Company.”
Ashwood seemed to consider that, then shrugged in dismissal. “I really can’t wait to meet her, Gideon.”