All I Ever Needed (11 page)

"Mother?" Eastlyn said.

She did not quite catch his eye, preferring to study the pattern of dainty blue flowers on her teacup. "Hmm?"

"You are biting your tongue, I can tell. You may as well say what is on your mind. It will save you from going to Father and putting him up to broaching the subject with me."

Franny placed the teacup on the silver tray at her side and fussed for a moment with a loose thread on the fringe of her shawl. "I can think of only one person who would want to cause you this sort of discomfort among your peers, Gabriel. It
is
Mrs. Sawyer that you intend to visit, is it not?"

Eastlyn had no one but himself to blame for the turn in this conversation. What other mother, even prompted to speak freely, would accept the invitation to discuss her son's mistress? He would wager Southerton had never had this dialogue with Lady Redding, and Celia Worth Hampton, for all that she was unafraid to speak her mind on a variety of subjects, quite possibly drew the line at the topic of North's paramour. West was spared the ignominy on two counts: one, because his mother had
been
someone's mistress; and two, because she was dead. True, none of them were keeping a mistress at the moment, but the same could also be said of him.

"You are distressed, are you not, that I have mentioned her?" Franny said. "It is not the done thing, to be sure, but it cannot be avoided. She is an evil woman."

This genie was not going to return to the bottle, so Eastlyn resigned himself to the inevitable. "She is hardly evil, Mother. It is truer to say that she is unhappy."

"She is a woman scorned."

Although his mother made this announcement in a tone that brooked no argument, Eastlyn could not let it pass. "I did not turn her out. Mrs. Sawyer chose to look elsewhere for protection."

"Because you would not come up to snuff."

There was an inkling of an ache behind his left eye that Eastlyn thought he would do well to suppress. He massaged his temple with his fingertips and said calmly, "You seem to know rather a lot about it."

"One hears things."

"You will never tell me how. Promise me you will never reveal how you come by your intelligence. I am certain it would be lowering to know that my life is grist for the mill."

"We discuss South and Northam, too."

Eastlyn groaned softly, both amused and resigned, and the ache behind his eye became a throb.

Franny saw the flicker of pain in her son's eyes and understood what was at the source of it. "Shall I ring for a compress?"

He shook his head. "It will pass." At least he wanted to believe it was so. He needed all his faculties when he confronted Annette. "More tea, perhaps." He said this not because he wanted any, but because he knew his mother would need to fuss. It was better to direct her in a fashion he could tolerate. His patience was not infinite by any means.

Franny poured and passed the cup and saucer. "There is one thing I do not understand," she said.

"Oh?"

"Why did Mrs. Sawyer choose Lady Sophia as your intended? It seems to me that this was most particularly done, not happenstance at all. But why? For all that there is some notoriety associated with her family name, there are no pariahs. Lady Sophia is not often about, at least as far as I know, but then she belongs to a younger set, and I might have missed her debut. How well were you acquainted with her before your names were linked?"

It had not taken his mother long to arrive precisely at the heart of the matter. "Barely of any acquaintance," Eastlyn said quietly. "There is no recounting that I can give that will improve myself in your eyes. I am not proud of my part in how the thing is likely to have come about." He set his cup in its saucer and regarded his mother over the rim. She was determined to be of an open mind, but he suspected she would ultimately defend him. This time her protection was unwelcome for he knew he was in the wrong of it.

"Mrs. Sawyer asked me about the sort of woman I would someday marry," he said. "You see, Mother, it is not a subject that is outside my thoughts."

"Nor hers, unless I miss my guess," Franny interrupted in wry tones. "Pray, go on."

"I had been introduced to Lady Sophia some hours earlier—a musicale at Lady Stafford's—and her name came to my mind when Mrs. Sawyer posed her question. You might well believe that this was because she made a favorable impression on me, and I suppose it is true in some regard, yet it is passing strange that I recalled my introduction to her at all. The encounter was so brief and with so little to recommend it as to be eminently forgettable. It was badly done of me, but I offered up Lady Sophia as the opposite of all I should wish in a marriage partner."

"I see. It
was
badly done of you."

Eastlyn nodded. "Lady Sophia did not deserve my ridicule."

"True, but what Mrs. Sawyer has done with your thoughtless remarks is beyond the pale. Your mistress was angling for a proposal, Gabriel. That did not escape your notice, did it?"

"No. I knew what she was about. I saw the trap and thought I had neatly avoided it."

"What? By describing to her the sort of woman you would
not
marry? You cannot be serious. It merely made her more confident of her appeal. She would see herself as having nothing in common with someone like Lady Sophia."

"She doesn't."

"That is my point. The comparison gave her hope, Gabriel."

"It was not my intent."

"As if that matters. You are well rid of her."

Eastlyn was compelled to point out, "I did not put an end to the arrangement, Mother. She refused my protection."

"That is because she thought it would prompt your proposal. Thank God it did not. I should despair of your good judgment had she been able to bring the thing about. What will you say to her now? She
is
a woman scorned, you know. It is exactly as I said. It occurs to me that if mothers were more prepared to discuss situations of this nature with their sons, the sons might not make such a muddle of them. The Mrs. Sawyers of the world have a leg up on the rest of us because there is nothing they hold as sacred."

Eastlyn actually slid lower in his corner of the settee and put one hand to his head. Squinting slightly, he regarded his mother with the eye that did not have the ache behind it. "Never say you mean to share that view with your friends. You will ruin me, Mother. Every time a man is forced to listen to his mother's opinion of his mistress, my name will be invoked in the blackest way possible. I will probably be called out so often that I shall have to hire someone to manage the dawn appointments." It would be worse, he thought, than his first days at Hambrick Hall when he was regularly thrashing one or another of his classmates because of the steady arrival of all those cakes. "I cannot depend on Southerton or North to act as my seconds, for I suspect they will be at the forefront of those challenging me, and West will not want to choose sides."

Franny's mouth flattened, but it was only in aid of checking her laughter. She was not proof against his arguments when he used absurdity to make his point. "Oh, very well," she said. "I would not want to stand accused of challenging the tenets of the ton. You may depend on me to keep my opinions to myself, at least on the matter of what can be properly discussed with one's offspring."

East pushed himself out of his corner and gave his mother's hand an affectionate squeeze. "You are very good to me," he said, meaning it. "You will tell Father all, won't you? I really cannot remain longer."

Franny nodded. "And I shall write your sister directly. Cara did not think the rumor could possibly be true. She was certain you would have told us if you had made Lady Sophia an offer of marriage."

Before his mother spied something in his features that would give the truth away, East bounded to his feet. Cara was only marginally less his champion than his mother. If they learned he had proposed to Lady Sophia, neither of them would comprehend that he had also been refused. That information would not likely endear them to Sophie, and she was no more deserving of their misplaced censure than she was of Mrs. Sawyer's. "The colonel sends his best to you and Father," he said by way of taking his leave.

Lady Winslow did not miss a beat. "Ah, so you did pay him a visit before coming here. I cannot like being third on your list of duty calls behind Lady Sophia and Blackwood, but I suppose it is something to be ahead of Mrs. Sawyer."

Eastlyn's lips twitched. "You will never change, Mother, and I count that as a good thing indeed. Were you to pass on an opportunity to scold, I should probably expire from the shock of it." He kissed her cheek while she was still mustering a reply. "Do not trouble yourself to get up. I will see myself out."

Watching him go, Franny absently picked up her embroidery hoop and drew out the needle. Stitchery presented her with no distraction to her thoughts. She was perfectly able to consider what course she might take to make Lady Sophia's acquaintance without tangling a single thread.

* * *

"Your refusal is not to be countenanced." Tremont's complexion was florid, and one had to look no farther than Lady Sophia to find the cause of this condition. The earl's journey from Tremont Park to No. 14 Bowden Street had been remarkably without incident, and the heat of the late afternoon sun did not influence his coloring. The windows in the drawing room at the rear of the house were opened to the garden, and a pleasant enough breeze ruffled the curtains and occasionally the chitterlings on his shirtfront. No, it was Lady Sophia who had become the bane of his existence, a position heretofore held by his late cousin, her father.

Sophie sat perched on the edge of a damask-covered chair. She wished she had chosen something other than the apple green calico to wear this afternoon; something in ecru would have been a better choice, for it would have blended splendidly with the chair. She was not nearly as prepossessed as Tremont and Harold believed her to be. The earl had always cut an imposing figure, and it was difficult not to shrink from it. While Harold was trim and athletic, taking pleasure in gentlemanly pursuits like boxing and racing, his father looked as if he worked on the docks all day, hefting crates without benefit of nets or pulleys. Tremont had a robust voice and broad mannerisms. He often emphasized his speech with abrupt gestures, from time to time even shaking his mallet-sized fists.

It was an effective performance from the pulpit. Sophie remembered visiting the church where Tremont had his living when he was still the vicar at Nashwicke. She could not have been more than seven when her father had first taken her to hear his cousin preach. She sat in the very first pew and actually felt the bench tremble beneath her. Her father did not stop her from crawling onto his lap, and that was where she remained until the Reverend Richard Colley gave the benediction. She was no longer afraid of the fire and brimstone sermons that he was wont to deliver, even without benefit of a pulpit, but that experience was not easily forgotten. It would have been sufficient reason to be uncomfortable in his presence, but it was no part of the reason she despised him.

She waited him out and was rewarded for her patience when he focused his sharp attention on his son.

"I thought you said she could be brought around, Harold. Is that not what we discussed?" The earl's eyes did not absorb heat the way his complexion did. The look he had for his son was glacier blue. "This is not at all what I expected from you."

The tips of Viscount Dunsmore's ears turned red, but he held his ground. To give up even a fraction of the space he held would be interpreted as acknowledging his failure. "We knew at the outset that it was unlikely that Eastlyn would make a proposal, Father. It really was not incumbent upon him to do so."

"Then you promised that Sophie could be made to agree because you believed she would never have the opportunity to do so? Is that what you are telling me now? You were merely being patronizing?" As so often was the way with Tremont, the questions were strictly rhetorical. He had often challenged his congregation in a similar manner and would have been heartily surprised if anyone had considered speaking out. Questions of this nature were meant to stir self-reflection, and he saw that this was certainly the case with his son. "Well, he did propose," Tremont said, slapping the flat of his hand on the mantelpiece for emphasis. A pewter candlestick jumped in place, and the candle it supported was set askew. "And she has most churlishly refused."

"I was not churlish," Sophie said. The words were not meant to be spoken aloud, but when the attention of both men turned to her as one, she knew what she had done. Steadying herself for a reply that was neither tremulous nor impudent, Sophie added, "The marquess was acting contrary to his own judgment. He did not want to marry me, and I would have been most unkind to have preyed upon his honor."

"His honor?" Tremont said, his voice rising a notch. "Have you so much fine feeling, then, for his honor and none at all for your family's? Eastlyn is as rich as Croesus."

"Richer."

Tremont was so struck by Sophie's cheek that he actually gaped.

Sophie decided she might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. "The marquess said it himself when I remarked similarly on his fortune. I said he was rich as Croesus, and he said he was richer."

A muscle jumped in the earl's square jaw. He looked from Sophie to his son. "Do you permit her to say whatever comes to her mind? I am thinking now that she should have remained at Tremont Park with me and not had such free rein under your roof."