Chapter 17
The Terms of Happiness
Gideon flung the mangled cravat down with a curse, striding to the door. Who the devil was calling upon him here, at this time of day? He wrenched the door open to find Damian standing there. To his surprise, he experienced a rush of relief at seeing him.
“Oh, thank God!” he said, the words so fervent Damian looked suspicious, as if sensing a trap.
“Just Rivington will do. God and I are barely on speaking terms,” he drawled.
“Stop being an arse and get in here,” Gideon said, not in the mood for Damian cynical humour. “I need help.”
The suspicion in Damian’s eyes only increased, and he hesitated with his hand on the doorknob, leaving it open an inch in case he needed to make a quick exit. “What kind of help?”
“Oh, don’t look so appalled. The only sort you are good at, sartorial, obviously. I’m meeting the Dowager Duchess of Langley for tea this afternoon and I need to look… well, that’s the trouble. What do I need to look like?” he demanded, feeling his patience fraying.
“Well, preferably not like you’ve slept in a hedge,” Damian replied bluntly. “I do believe you’d be satisfied wearing a potato sack if there were enough pockets for your pencils. Where is your cravat?”
Gideon indicated the sadly rumpled cloth on the bed, and Damian blanched.
“It appears I have arrived in the nick of time,” he said, regarding Gideon with a pained expression. “Come with me, little brother. I believe you are finally ready to receive the wisdom I have been longing to impart this age.”
“Oh, don’t lark about, Damian, I’ve not got the time. I must be at the hall by four pm.”
Damian turned, glaring at him. “I never lark about where fashion is concerned. Honestly, Deon, you have the sartorial imagination of a turnip—any colour so long as it’s black.”
“This is charcoal,” he retorted, stung by the accusation.
Damian looked increasingly pained. “Do you wish to make a good impression or do you not?”
Gideon hesitated, rather impressed by the severity of Damian’s expression. “I do,” he admitted.
Damian gave a taut nod. “Then come along. There is no time to lose.”
Twenty minutes later and Gideon stood before the full-length looking glass in Damian’s elegant rooms. He had to admit, Damian had wrought a spectacular change, except, “Is it not a little—”
“No.” Damian’s voice held a note of impatience, but Gideon had to admit he had never known Damian hold on to his temper so admirably. He hadn’t cursed him above three times so far.
All the same.
“Yes, but don’t you think I—”
“No! For the love of everything holy, Deon! I know you think me a witless fribble with nothing in his head but gaming and debauchery, but I do know a thing or two about how a man ought to look, whether that occasion be duelling at dawn, meeting a mistress, or taking tea with a dowager duchess. I have been accused of many things, brother mine, but never of being poorly dressed.”
“Fine,” Gideon said meekly, having to concede that his brother always looked immaculate and turned heads wherever he went.
“Not fine.” Damian folded his arms, looking rather put out.
“You have just benefited from many years of experience, and you look splendid. You look like a young man on the up, one with breeding and refinement, who may not have as much blunt as he would wish to provide for his prospective bride, but one who will succeed come what may.”
Gideon looked doubtfully at his reflection.
His cravat was so impeccably tied he feared moving his head in case he damaged it, and his usually black, grey or charcoal waistcoat had been swapped for one of deep blue, embroidered all over with little black swallows.
Damian had even lent him one of his precious coats, and it hugged his shoulders, making him look…
well, rather fine, actually. “This outfit says all that?”
“It does not merely say it, but proclaims it,” Damian replied pompously.
Gideon snorted and saw the answering gleam in his brother’s eye. “Arse.”
“Philistine.”
Gideon laughed. “I fear you are right, but I must make haste, whatever the truth of it.”
Damian nodded as Gideon gathered his hat and gloves. “Have you asked her to marry you?”
There was a somewhat diffident note to the question that made Gideon pause, regarding his brother with more scrutiny that he might otherwise have done. “Not in so many words, but we have spoken of the future.”
Damian nodded, perching on the edge of the window seat in his bedroom, and giving a brusque wave. “Run along then, Deon, slay the dragon and win the fair lady.”
“I’m not sure the dowager would approve of such a comparison, but I’ll do my best. Oh, Damian,” he added, suddenly remembering he’d not had the chance to ask about Cilly, and whatever had passed between them on the terrace.
Damian looked up expectantly.
Gideon hesitated. He was on good terms with Damian for the first time in an age and he did not want to damage their delicate entente, but he’d promised Hetty.
“Spit it out,” Damian said dryly, apparently expecting the worst.
“Lady Cecilia.” Gideon watched him carefully, to his surprise noting the slight stiffening of Damian’s shoulders.
“What of her?”
“I don’t precisely know,” Gideon admitted. “Only she appeared a trifle… discombobulated after you left her on the terrace. Hetty was worried.”
“She need not be. Is that all?” he demanded, the frigid reply making Gideon’s eyebrows go up.
Hetty had been correct, he realised. Something must have happened. “Damian, I have no desire whatsoever to interfere in your life—”
“Oh, good,” Damian muttered darkly.
Taking a breath, Gideon soldiered on. “But I hope to make Hetty my wife, which means Cilly will be my sister. Don’t… don’t trifle with her.”
“Say what you mean, Deon,” Damian said, surging to his feet, a dangerous glint in his eyes.
Gideon sighed. “Very well. Don’t ruin Lady Cecilia. I should hate to have to call you to account for it.”
Damian looked directly at him; some emotion Gideon could not decipher flickered behind his eyes. “I give you my word; I will not ruin Lady Cecilia. Does that suffice, Gideon, or would you like it in writing? In blood, perhaps?”
Gideon smiled, aware of the prickling sensation tiptoeing down his back that suggested Damian was on the edge of a spectacular outburst. Knowing this was never a good thing, he kept his voice neutral.
“Thank you, Damian. To be truthful, I never thought it, but I promised Hetty I would speak with you.”
“And now you have,” Damian replied pleasantly, returning his smile with one that showed too many teeth.
“And now I have. Thank you for—” He swept a hand over his elegant ensemble.
Damian snorted. “You’re welcome. Good luck, Deon.”
Gideon smiled at him and then saw himself out.
Checking his watch, he hurried back through the town and up the hill towards the Hall, eager to see Hetty again, if not precisely keen to meet her grandmother.
In the past week they’d only met briefly, unsatisfying visits with Hetty’s sister or her maid accompanying them.
When Hetty had suggested he come to tea with her grandmother—well, he’d not known quite what to make of it, except that he’d better not mess it up.
Hetty didn’t care a button for her father’s opinion, but her grandmother, he had surmised, was another thing entirely.
According to Hetty, she was a formidable woman who did not suffer fools, but one who would be his ally if she liked him.
Knowing he must impress the old lady was making him sweat, but he’d do his best for Hetty’s sake and hope the Dowager Duchess of Langley wasn’t up to date with his brother’s scandals.
“Hetty, do sit still,” Grandmama complained as she got up and went to the window for the third time. “It’s like sitting next to a grasshopper with you constantly bobbing up and down.”
“I’m not constantly bobbing,” Hetty reproached her.
“No, but when you’re not bobbing, you’re twitching,” Cilly chimed in with a smirk.
Hetty glared at her sister and returned to her seat, making a show of sitting down and smoothing out her skirts, placing her hands in her lap and not fidgeting. “Well, I am a little nervous, it’s true.”
“Why?” Grandmama Langley demanded, narrowing her eyes. “If this fellow is as fine as you think he is, why are you sat upon thorns?”
“I’m not sat upon thorns. I just know that he’ll want to make a good impression, and that will make him anxious and so… I just want you to like him,” she said with a sigh.
Grandmama’s rather austere features softened a degree, and she smiled.
“Child, I will not go out of my way to dislike him. If he is everything you say he is, I am sure he’s a decent fellow.
It’s just his brother—” she lamented with a pained expression.
“I do not care that he is an architect, it is a perfectly respectable profession for a younger son. Of course, that he is working for Mr King is regrettable, but a young man must make his name. More illustrious clients will come.”
“Precisely,” Hetty said, cheering a little.
“Yes, dear, but his brother,” Grandmama said again, shaking her head.
Hetty exchanged a worried glance with Cilly, who rallied to help.
“You know, Grandmama, I think perhaps Viscount Rivington has turned over a new leaf. After all, he’s been here for much of the summer and there’s not been so much as a whisper of scandal about him.”
Grandmama gave Cilly a shrewd look and snorted. “One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day,” she quoted. “It will take a good deal more than a few weeks of not creating scandal for me to believe that young man has turned over a new leaf.”
Cilly turned back to Hetty and pulled a face.
Hetty sighed.
Finally, the door opened, and Howard preceded their guest. “Mr Bramwell for you, your grace.”
“Thank you, Howard. You may bring the tea tray,” Grandmama said, nodding regally.
Hetty prayed she would not play the autocratic duchess, a role she was more than adept at, but when she turned to see Gideon approaching, thought of any kind ceased to exist.