Chapter Seventeen #2
A commiserate smile curved her mouth as amusement and relief and an intoxicating sense of knowing and being known flooded her.
After several seconds, Gideon’s smile faded. His gaze drifted over her face, lingered at her lips, and her heart fluttered like a bird’s wings before taking flight.
A moment later, he removed his arm from around her shoulders and took a long sip of champagne.
The duke, wearing a broad, happy smile eyed her. “Gwen—you do not mind if I call you by your Christian name?”
“Of course not, Your Grace.”
“Bah, let us conclude with this Your Grace business. We are family. Now then, Gwen, rumor has it you are in process of purchasing a publishing house, which now begins to make some semblance of sense.”
“Indeed, my lord, my purchase of Bell & Company is imminent. The contract negotiation has proven somewhat tedious, but I believe the stakeholders and I have finally reached an agreement.”
Lord Ashwood’s graying brows furrowed. “These stakeholders know you are married to my son?”
“They do,” she admitted.
“Yet, they have chosen to make your purchase onerous.” He sounded nonplussed.
“I believe they merely wish to know I will make a good showing.”
“Make a good showing?” he burst out. “What do you intend to do with this business?” He looked at Gideon, blinking as if trying to work out a conundrum. “Gideon, I fail to understand how owning a publishing house benefits your trade.”
One corner of Gideon’s mouth crooked upward. “It does not, as far as I’m aware. The business is solely my wife’s pursuit.”
“To what end?” the duke asked, clearly bemused.
Gwen thought it best she answer for herself. “I wish to run it. To choose what I will publish and what I won’t, and continue editing manuscripts and such, of course.”
The duchess set her champagne flute down with a distinct click. “Editing, you say?”
She smiled at the duchess then the duke. “Editing books is a passion of mine.”
A pucker formed between Lady Ashwood’s well-shaped brows.
“Tell me more about this passion of yours, Gwen.” The duke’s effort at affability spoke volumes about his affection for Gideon.
Still. She wished the conversation would cease revolving around her. “What would you like to know, Lord Ashwood?”
“I wish to understand. I was under the impression my son makes a”—he blew air out of his cheeks—“reasonable living and can afford to keep you moderately well clothed with food on the table and a roof over your head.” His mouth quirked in a half grin.
Beside her, Gideon snorted.
The duke sent him a wink, then went on. “Yet you, his wife, desire to work.” He spoke the word as if it were a foreign concept.
The duchess’s audible sniff said she was not impressed, not that her husband paid her any heed.
As Gideon had so aptly depicted, he was larger-than-life, self-assured, and blithely unconcerned with what others thought—save for Gideon. He cared about Gideon, period.
Grayson spoke next. “If there is, by chance, anything I can do to aid you in dealing with these stakeholders, you have only to say the word.”
His sincerity was unmistakable. He, too, cared about Gideon, but then, she had known that from the start.
“I suppose, first and foremost, I have always been a voracious reader,” Gwen began. “No doubt I got that trait from my father. As a child, I recall him never being without a book, or tract, or newspaper or scientific journal before him.
“In my late teens, when his eyes began to fail, I volunteered to assist him in his work. I developed a love for the business, for bringing the best out of authors, for finding new voices, and exposing the public to greater schools of thought.”
“Greater schools of thought. I see.” The duke drummed his fingers on his knee. “So, it’s not about the money.”
She considered briefly. “It’s not all about the money.”
After a beat of silence, the duke’s robust laughter filled the chamber.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gideon’s white teeth flash.
Without a word, the duchess rose to her feet.
Taking his time, the duke reined in his humor and unfolded from his armchair. “Gideon, you do not mind if I escort Gwen into dinner, hm?”
Several hours later, having survived predinner cocktails and five elaborate dining courses, Gwen followed a stoic Lady Ashwood from the dining hall following her pronouncement that the ladies would adjourn.
There was nothing unusual about the practice of the women parting briefly from the men after the evening meal.
Still. Gwen could not imagine what she and the duchess might have to discuss.
Lady Ashwood paused before an open door, indicating Gwen should precede her into the chamber.
She crossed the threshold into a breathtakingly beautiful library.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with leather bound books in all sizes lined the walls.
The ceilings rose so high no one could have any hope of reading the titles on the upper shelves, much less of reaching them without the ornate, scrolling ladders affixed to each wall section.
Someone had stoked the fire in the grate and it crackled merrily, giving off an ambient golden glow.
Brass oil lamps, strategically placed, lit up inviting seating areas for every mood.
A plush, velvet-covered chaise called to the reader who wished to while away an afternoon.
A mahogany writing desk and matching chairs afforded a place to study and write.
“If a library exists in heaven, I imagine it looks exactly like this one,” Gwen murmured.
“I thought you might be comfortable in this setting,” the duchess said. For a chat, she might as well have added.
In the room’s center was a seating area, consisting of a sturdy, claw-foot sofa, two wingback armchairs, and accompanying tables. The duchess chose the sofa, taking a moment to arrange her skirts as Gwen perched atop one of the armchairs.
“I’ll be honest. You are not what I expected,” Lady Ashwood said, forthright.
“No?”
“No.” The duchess gazed at her in a considering manner.
“Not his usual…” She rubbed her fingertips together in a vague gesture and sniffed as if something in the air smelled repugnant before continuing.
“But then, he has always had a care for his father’s reputation.
I saw to that. I suppose he would not dare marry one of those women. ”
Those women? Gwen had no notion what Lady Ashwood meant, even afforded the benefit of her friends’ schooling earlier.
Her palms were beginning to sweat. She prided herself on her intelligence, but she was sadly out of her depth conversing with Lady Ashwood.
It was as if the two spoke alternate languages.
“I’m afraid I am at a loss, Your Grace. Whatever do you mean?”
The duchess tapped a finger on her chin as if reasoning something out.
“To be frank, I had not expected him to wed again following the loss of his first wife. I suppose I can guess what you see in him. I have witnessed the phenomenon in ballrooms and drawing rooms often enough over the years. I wouldn’t have expected a woman of your ilk to marry for such a temporary affliction, however. ”
“My ilk? What affliction?”
A look of impatience crossed Lady Ashwood’s face. “Your father may have been a second son, but he is still of the aristocracy. Your mother was, as well, I presume?”
Gwen nodded with reluctance. “I do not see what my pedigree has to do with anything. Gideon’s father is the Duke of Ashwood.”
She gave Gwen a pitying smile.
Gwen’s own patience was nearing its end. “My lady, forgive me, but I still haven’t a clue what it is you are implying. I can assure you there was no phenomenon needed for me to accept Gideon’s proposal. He is intelligent, discerning, introspective, generous, and a highly talented writer.”
As she rattled off the long list of attributes, the duchess’s cool mask of civility slipped and Gwen glimpsed a fathomless well of dark emotion in her caramel-colored eyes. It vanished in an instant. A practiced ennui took its place. “I see. All those pretty traits.”
Gwen barely resisted the urge to grit her teeth. “All those and more. He is slow to trust, loyal to a fault, adores his father and brother, and holds you in the utmost regard.”
Only the flare of the duchess’s nostrils hinted that she felt anything more than her expression indicated.
“He has a good understanding of his responsibilities, I’ll grant you that.
Even as a boy, he knew not to step out of line, especially not after all his father did for him, the sacrifices we all made on his behalf. ”
His responsibilities. The sacrifices they’d all made.
Gwen’s heart ached for the little boy he had been as the duchess’s words painted an all-too-clear picture of Gideon’s childhood.
At a tender age, he’d lost his mother and found himself whisked across the globe in the arms of a previously unknown father, who, to his credit, clearly adored him, only to then be subjected to the duchess’s bias against him—a woman whom, as far as Gwen could tell, Gideon never condemned for her acerbic treatment of him.
Somehow, even as a toddler, he had recognized her suffering, and taken it on himself to lessen it.
Her respect for Gideon rose a hundred-fold. She had the sudden, overwhelming desire to go to him and wrap him in a tight embrace.
“How dreadful it must have been for you,” Gwen said in a soft voice. “Forced to take in a babe, all alone in the world, having lost his mother to a tragic illness before landing on your doorstep, bereft, and needing things from you, the most important of which you could never give.”
The duchess blinked as if she could not decide how to take Gwen’s statement, as if she could not fathom anyone calling her out for her villainy.
“I did the best I could,” she finally said, bitterness underscoring every word.
“Of course.” Gwen glanced at the closed library door, wondering how much longer before the visit concluded.
“Has Gideon broached the subject of his first wife with you?” Lady Ashwood asked, her mask of cool civility back in place.
“Of course, my lady,” Gwen lied.
The duchess arched a disbelieving brow. “She was two years younger than him—Grayson’s age—and the daughter of a high nobleman. Well-mannered, pale-complected, pretty—like you.” The duchess smiled, as if briefly amused. “She would not ever have dreamt of working, however.”
“It would seem she and I are not all that much alike, then.”
She shrugged that off. “Gideon had a terrible tendre for her from the moment they met. Did he tell you that? I warned him not to get his hopes up that she might return his affections. Women like her do not choose men like him—to marry, at any rate.”
“Men like him?”
She gave her a come-now look. “Of mixed descent, among…other things.”
Other things—like his illegitimacy. “And yet, marry him she did.”
“So she did. Then she died, she and her babe, taking to her grave her reasons for the sacrifice she made, I’m afraid.”
Sacrifice. If she never heard that word again, it would be too soon. “Perhaps she loved him.”
“Love? No.”
Gwen stared at her, horrified, though why she should be.
Members of the upper crust rarely married for love.
Still. Something about the way the duchess answered told her she could not fathom a possibility where Gideon’s late wife might have loved him.
Worse was the poison the lady had fed Gideon—that he was unworthy of the woman.
“My lady, may I ask what your aim is in telling me these things?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I wish to know your reason for marrying the duke’s son, for I know there must be one.” Her eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth as if preparing to say more, but the library door swung open.
“Here they are, Gideon.” The duke’s hand gripped the doorjamb as he leaned back and raised his voice to echo down the corridor. A moment later, he strode toward them. The look he sent the duchess had a predatory edge. “The conversation grew tedious without the ladies present. So, here we are.”