Chapter 18 A Proposal Most Inconvenient #2
Eleanor’s eyes flashed with something that looked like annoyance and delight all at once. “I assume nothing. But I’ve noticed that men who frequent brothels rarely engage the women there in discussions of Wollstonecraft’s theories on female education.”
“How do you know? Have you conducted extensive interviews with such women?”
“I know as much as you presume to know me.”
“Is that so?” Damien grinned triumphantly. “You’re making assumptions about my presumptions. Rather unscientific for someone reading treatises on rational thinking.”
Eleanor regarded him with narrowed eyes. “You’re attempting to goad me into defending a position I haven’t actually taken.”
“Is it working?”
“Perhaps.” She leaned back against the plush upholstery, studying him with renewed interest. “Very well. What profound philosophical insights have you gleaned from London’s underworld?”
The gentle rocking motion of the carriage seemed to encourage more intimate conversation, and Damien found himself speaking more seriously than he’d intended.
“That desperation makes people remarkably honest about their motivations. Strip away social pretenses, remove financial security, and you discover what people truly value. It’s quite illuminating. ”
“And what do they value?”
“Survival, primarily. But also dignity, surprisingly often. I’ve seen women in the direst circumstances refuse certain clients because they maintained standards.
Men who could barely afford food sharing their last coins with someone worse off.
” He paused, studying her face as it was briefly illuminated by sunlight streaming through the window.
“It rather challenges one’s assumptions about moral behavior being the exclusive domain of the well-bred. ”
Eleanor was quiet for a moment, her mind clearly working through his words as the countryside continued to roll past. “You’re suggesting that virtue exists independent of social station, which I’ve always believed.”
“I’m suggesting that virtue might be more common among those who’ve actually been tested by hardship.”
“A dangerous philosophy for a duke to embrace,” Eleanor observed, shifting as the carriage took a turn. “It rather undermines the entire foundation of aristocratic privilege.”
“Does it? Or does it simply suggest privilege carries greater responsibility precisely because it hasn’t been tested?
” Damien leaned forward, careful not to touch her knees with his in the confined space.
“What do you think, Eleanor? In your charitable work, have you found the poor to be more or less moral than their betters?”
Eleanor considered this carefully, her fingers tracing the edge of her book. “I’ve found them to be more honest about their motivations, as you said. Less likely to dress selfishness in noble rhetoric.”
“An interesting distinction. Honest selfishness versus dishonest altruism.”
“Precisely.” Eleanor’s eyes lit up, and Damien noticed how her gaze intensified.
“Yet both acts serve a purpose,” Damien pointed out. “The children are fed, the charity receives funding. Does motivation matter if the outcome is beneficial?”
“Of course it matters,” Eleanor said, leaning forward slightly in her enthusiasm, bringing their knees even closer. “Actions taken from genuine compassion create lasting change. Actions taken from guilt or social pressure are merely… temporary performances.”
“So you believe in the purity of motive as well as deed?”
“I believe in understanding why people act as they do. It’s the only way to predict future behavior.” Eleanor paused, then added with a slight smile that transformed her face, “For instance, your current attempt to engage me in philosophical debate is clearly designed to distract me.”
Damien burst into delighted laughter, the sound filling the carriage’s intimate confines. “Brilliantly deduced. Though I prefer to think of it as demonstrating my intellectual worthiness as a companion.”
“Worthiness for what purpose?”
“Why, for the honor of conversing with a woman clever enough to read Wollstonecraft while simultaneously plotting her husband’s social destruction through strategic use of laundry techniques.”
Eleanor’s cheeks flushed, but her eyes danced with suppressed mirth. “Your Smugness deserved the pink shirts.”
“Completely,” Damien agreed cheerfully. “Though I maintain that my response was proportionate to the provocation.”
“Proportionate? You nearly gave me an apoplectic fit with that yellow and green ensemble.”
“Nearly?” Damien adopted a wounded expression. “I was aiming for complete aesthetic devastation. Clearly my fashion sense requires further refinement.”
“Your fashion sense requires burial in an unmarked grave,” Eleanor retorted.
“Such passion, Duchess. One might think you actually care about my sartorial choices… or what’s underneath.”
“I care about not being blinded by them,” Eleanor replied primly, her complexion turning rosy and her lips curving with a barely suppressed grin.
As the carriage continued its steady progress toward Ashford, Damien found himself profoundly proud of himself. The woman who usually treated him with arctic politeness had finally thawed enough to engage in genuine conversation.
“Tell me,” he said, assuming a more casual tone as he settled back against the carriage cushions.
“I realize I know remarkably little about the formidable woman I married. Where did this passion for independence originate? Were you always such a determined revolutionary, or did circumstances forge you into one?”
Eleanor’s expression grew more guarded, though not entirely closed off. “I was fortunate in my upbringing. My father believed girls should be educated as thoroughly as boys—a radical notion that scandalized most of his acquaintances.”
“And what was your father’s profession?”
“He was a cartographer,” Eleanor said, and Damien caught a note of pride in her voice.
“One of the finest in England. The Admiralty commissioned him to chart coastal waters, and private shipping companies paid handsomely for his precision. He said maps were about understanding the world as it truly was, not as people wished it to be.”
“How fascinating. That explains your analytical mind—and your appreciation for accurate information over comfortable assumptions.”
Eleanor smiled at that. “Father always said that wishful thinking was the fastest way to run aground, whether you were navigating waters or life. He taught me to chart my own course based on facts, not fantasies.”
“And your mother? Did she share his progressive views?”
“My mother died when I was twelve,” Eleanor said simply. “After that, it was just Father and me. He treated me more as an apprentice than a decorative daughter, teaching me mathematics, geography, even basic surveying techniques.”
Damien felt a pang of sympathy at the matter-of-fact way she delivered this information. “That must have been lonely.”
“Lonely?” Eleanor considered this with apparent surprise. “I suppose it might have been, but I was too busy learning to calculate longitude and studying coastal formations to notice. Father said if I was to inherit anything worthwhile, I needed to understand how to navigate the world myself.”
“Wise man. Did your interests deter or assist your social status?”
Eleanor’s smile turned slightly wry. “The local young ladies found my interests rather peculiar. I preferred reading navigation charts to practising watercolors, and I could discuss trade routes but couldn’t manage a conversation about the latest fashions.”
“I imagine your husband—your late husband—appreciated your unconventional education.”
“George was a shipping magnate who’d built his fortune importing spices and silk from the Orient,” Eleanor replied.
“He was twenty years my senior and looking for a practical wife rather than an ornamental one. He’d heard about Father’s work and come to commission charts for his new routes to India.
When he met me…” She shrugged elegantly.
“He said he’d rather marry a woman who could read his cargo manifests than one who could only embroider them. ”
“A practical arrangement, then?”
“George appreciated my mind, which was more than most men offered. We were… compatible.” The careful way she said compatible told Damien volumes about what that marriage had lacked.
“And after his death? You could have remarried conventionally.”
Eleanor’s chin lifted with familiar stubbornness.
“I’d tasted independence. The idea of surrendering it to another man’s whims, however well-intentioned, held no appeal.
George may have valued my opinions, but he still controlled where we traveled, which charities received our support, how our money was invested.
Though I’ll admit, there were moments when I wondered if I was being foolishly stubborn. ”
“And now? Do you regret the path you chose?”
Eleanor was quiet for a moment, watching the countryside roll past. When she spoke, her voice was thoughtful. “I regret the necessity of it. I regret living in a world where a woman’s intelligence is seen as threatening rather than valuable. But I don’t regret refusing to be diminished.”
“Diminished,” Damien repeated softly. “An interesting choice of words.”
“Most men prefer their wives decorative and compliant. Present company excepted, perhaps.” She studied his face with intensity. “You seem remarkably comfortable with… uncomfortable women.”
“Comfortable women are dull,” Damien replied with a grin. “I prefer the sort who challenge my assumptions and keep me guessing. Much more entertaining.”
“Is that what I am? Entertainment?”
The question carried an undercurrent Damien couldn’t quite identify. “You’re many things, Eleanor. Entertaining is certainly one of them, though it’s not the most important.”
“Oh? And what would you consider most important?”