Chapter 21 #2
“Well, it was really only your wedding that Ellen asked about, I suppose. It seemed natural enough at the time, considering the coincidence with the newspaper article and meeting me.”
“What exactly did she want to know?” Ambrose inquired.
“Why you married again, having previously foresworn to do so. I do remember wondering how she knew that, but given Annabelle Sinclair’s interest in you, it makes more sense.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Tell her? Tell her what?” Colin asked blankly.
“Did you tell her of the terms of my father’s will that forced me to marry again or lose my mother’s fortune rather than see it go to Winifred?”
“I did,” admitted Colin, his expression now grown serious. “Was I wrong to do so? It seemed a trivial detail at the time.”
“Do you still think that your meeting or Ellen’s interest in you was accidental?”
The Duke of Redford shook his head slowly.
“I do not. I am only sure we both enjoyed the night, however contrived it may have been. I am sorry if I have been the means of causing you trouble.”
“It is Frances I worry for, more than myself,” confessed Ambrose, “and I do not blame you. Annabelle Sinclair is a most manipulative woman. Sending her maid to my best friend’s bed to gather information is audacious and repellent.
Your story does at least explain some of the insinuations in Miss Sinclair’s letters.
She believes that I married Frances only to secure that inheritance. ”
“It isn’t entirely untrue, is it?”
“No,” Ambrose said with a firmness that took him by surprise. “I married for that reason, but it was not why I chose Frances. That was…something else.”
“Anyway, I think Miss Annabelle Sinclair still wants you,” Colin advised, reaching again for the crumpled letter and dropping his voice lower, even though they were already talking quietly.
“But if I am married already, that can neither be undone, nor would I want to undo it,” pointed out Ambrose with a frown. “How can Miss Sinclair, or any other respectable woman, have expectations of me? Unless she is out of her mind.”
“Has it occurred to you, Ambrose,” Colin asked, tapping his fingers on the table in thought, “that Miss Sinclair might not be an entirely respectable woman?”
“What are you implying?”
In response, the Duke of Redford raised a knowing eyebrow and glanced about the sparsely filled room.
“Not all women are seeking marriage, Ambrose. No more than all men. Come now, we both know that well enough.”
It was true that older, more experienced and more financially independent women might discreetly choose their own bed partners, as might the denizens of the demimonde. But an unmarried young lady from a good family? This suggestion was too incredible for Ambrose and he shook his head.
“You think Miss Sinclair would risk ruin for passing desire? I cannot believe that. Her behavior seems more likely a failure of reason to me. No, I’m minded to pass this note to her family and let them deal with it. I have more pressing matters to attend to this afternoon.”
After consulting his watch, Ambrose called for sealing wax, paper and pen. Refolding and sealing Annabelle’s letter from the prying eyes of club servants, he addressed it to Dowager Countess Delingford at Delingford House.
“Let us hope that Lady Delingford is as fearsome and indomitable as Lady Levene,” remarked Colin. “But where are you rushing off to now?”
“There’s a man I must meet at Whites at five o’clock.”
“You cannot possibly have any friend who is better company than me, or a club that is preferable to our own,” huffed Colin in mock offense.
“You are right. The man I am meeting is no friend and I would rather stay here with you, or go home. However, needs must when the devil drives.”
“Anyone I know? No? No name either? You really are a man of mystery today.”
Ambrose gave a short, humorless laugh and shrugged after declining to answer Colin’s previous questions.
“I shall tell you what I can another time, but it is a delicate matter concerning a lady. Let us hope that one conversation will suffice to put matters right.”
“I expected this to be a private conversation, Lord Mulford,” objected the Duke of Westall, stopping dead in the doorway of a small private room at Whites.
What game was Oswald Keeton playing? He had agreed to meet Ambrose for a personal conversation but inside the room, a vaguely familiar young man with wine-heated cheeks and nose was already sitting on one on of the comfortable sofas.
At the duke’s words, he rose and immediately began to look apologetic.
“I can go, of course,” the youth slurred slightly. “No need for me.”
Lord Mulford, took greater exception. His attitude had been mildly uncooperative since the moment Ambrose declined to shake his hand on introduction downstairs, or to dine with him that evening.
“There is no need for you to go anywhere, Hubert,” maintained Lord Mulford. “I may need a witness.”
“A witness?” repeated the young man uncomfortably. “What kind of witness? I thought we were having drinks with your friend, Lord Mulford.”
“This is a private conversation, Mulford,” Ambrose insisted at the same time, an warning edge to his voice. “You cannot draw random acquaintances into it.”
“Hubert is another old friend of your wife’s family, Your Grace,” responded Oswald Keeton. “He is hardly a stranger. While you have not told me exactly why you requested this meeting, I can guess that it concerns Lady Frances and…”
“Enough,” snapped Ambrose, not liking to hear his wife’s name bandied about in a gentleman’s club, especially by this man.
“Lord Baxworth and I already know one another from the dinner Lord and Lady Scovell were kind enough to arrange before the wedding. Neither he nor I see any reason for his presence now. Let that be an end to it.”
At this reference to his evening of drunkenness and well-witnessed humiliation, young Lord Baxworth fled, Lord Mulford no longer attempting to stop him. Something in Ambrose’s words had an effect on him too.
Indeed, Oswald Keeton’s attitude appeared to have undergone another swift change as he glared after Lord Baxworth, muttering about the youth’s unfortunate drinking habits, weak character and general unfitness to be included in dinner parties at Scovell Hall.
“I have no interest in Lord Baxworth,” the duke stated coldly, now entering the small sitting room and taking up position beside the mantelpiece. “I learned all I needed to know at the Scovell Hall dinner.”
Falling silent and closing the door, Oswald Keeton followed him into the room and took a seat on the sofa.
“Well, then, here we are, just the two of us,” he with a smile, as though the last few minutes had been perfectly pleasant or had not occurred at all. “Won’t you sit down? Shall I ring for sherry and cake, Your Grace? Or perhaps you would prefer tea at this hour?”
These swings between one mood and another accorded well with the dual personality Ambrose had heard Frances describing to her sister.
Lord Mulford seemed quite the kind of man who would make pleasant conversation with Lord and Lady Scovell one minute and have Frances fleeing his presence in distress the next.
“There is no need for refreshments on my account, Lord Mulford. I came here today only to deliver a simple message. You are never to contact my wife again in any way, shape or form. Do you understand?”
“Contact her?” said the blond-haired young earl with feigned puzzlement. “I have no idea what you mean. Frances and I have been friends since childhood and I know she is a very sensitive personality…”
“Do not insult my intelligence, Mulford,” growled Ambrose. “I know everything and I have excellent lawyers.”
Likely he did not know absolutely everything, but Ambrose believed he knew enough. Briefly, Lord Mulford looked minded to protest his innocence in some way but wisely decided not to. Or maybe not wisely, given the tack he took instead.
“I pity you, Your Grace,” Oswald Keeton said with a weird attempt at dignity, rising from his seat as he gathered that Ambrose was determined to remain standing as well as to reject every friendly overture. “You will never really know her. Not as I do.”
“Stay away from us,” Ambrose told Lord Mulford bluntly. “You will face consequences if you cross me. That is all I have to say to you and there will be no second warning.”
Turning on his heel, the Duke of Westall strode out of the room and out of the club, glad to emerge into the sunlight and warmth of the summer evening.