‘On a happier note, I understand congratulations are in order.’ Mrs Rathbone beamed as her son snored lightly.
‘Indeed they are. I’m about to join you and Mr Rathbone in wedded bliss.’ Although the idea he might not enjoy a union as happy as theirs taunted him. Hopefully, the force to be reckoned with he’d witnessed this morning wouldn’t turn into a haranguing fishwife once they were married. He could only tolerate one person calling him a failure at a time.
Mrs Rathbone tapped a finger to her chin. ‘I understand it was a most peculiar proposal.’
Justin matched her sideways smile with one of his own. ‘It wouldn’t be the first in this house now, would it?’
‘Certainly not.’ Mrs Rathbone laughed, the cheerful sound driving away the curses still ringing in his ears and making the baby let out a small cry before he settled back to sleep. ‘I only hope Jane doesn’t surprise us like that some day.’
‘If our examples are anything to judge by, I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.’ Jane, Philip’s fourteen-year-old sister whom he had raised since their mother’s death, was too precocious and sure of herself for her own good, just like her brother.
Philip stepped into the room, dressed in his redingote and carrying his walking stick. ‘Shall we be off?’
‘We shall.’ A vintner had fled back to France to avoid repaying a loan. They were going to seize his stock, the wine which Justin would purchase from Philip and use to establish the business his father and Helena had so callously dismissed.
‘Be careful,’ Mrs Rathbone cautioned, squeezing Philip’s arm.
‘I always am.’ Philip laid a kiss on his son’s little forehead. Then he pressed his lips to his wife’s, in no obligatory peck, but a deep meaningful kiss. Philip, the most rational man Justin knew, had raced headlong into his union and all had been well. Hopefully, Justin would enjoy the same luck in his hastily negotiated engagement.
Chesterton handed Justin his gloves and he tugged them on. He flexed his fingers beneath the supple leather and pushed away the memory of Miss Lambert’s hand in his. She’d transfixed him as much with her ability to bargain as with her presence and the faint catch of her breath when they’d touched. As much as he enjoyed the charms of women, they usually didn’t have such power to sway him. If they had, he’d have failed to seize half the collateral from Philip’s clients. Yet with a few glances from beneath her dark eyelashes, and a walk to mesmerise him, she’d wrangled him into one of the most binding contracts he’d ever entered into. He looked forward to discovering more of her hidden charms.
He tapped the pistol in the leather holster beneath his coat, the agitation biting at him fuelled by more than the task facing him and Philip. He didn’t usually relish the physical aspects of his position as Philip’s assistant, but today he wouldn’t mind if a man took a swing at him and he could swing back. It would take a row, or an hour at his pugilist club, to work off the frustration from his encounter with his father, and the more pleasant tension roused by Miss Lambert.
He followed Philip to the waiting carriage, ready to be done with business and enjoy his drive with Miss Lambert. He wished to discuss with her tonight the vintner’s inventory and his plans for it. She’d wrestled a duke for his support of Justin’s venture while his own father and previous paramour had dismissed it. If nothing else, it was a positive omen for what their future life together might entail. She’d share his success and he would succeed, despite what anyone else believed.
* * *
‘I think French silk would be beautiful for the dress,’ Mrs Fairley, the young modiste, suggested as she draped a sample of the fine cream-coloured fabric over Susanna’s shoulder.
‘English silk will do,’ Lady Rockland barked from her place on the sofa where she watched the fitting. Lady Rockland had grudgingly summoned the modiste at Lord Rockland’s command to discuss Susanna’s wedding dress and a suitable costume for the masked ball. If only he’d ordered her to be pleasant. ‘The future wife of a merchant won’t need such an expensive gown.’
‘Yes, Your Grace.’ Mrs Fairley folded the sample and laid it with the others in her case. Lady Rockland hired Mrs Fairley to dress Susanna while she and Edwina patronised a much more fashionable and expensive French modiste.
Susanna exchanged an awkward glance with the comely Mrs Fairley, who blushed on her behalf. It wasn’t the first time the kind young woman had witnessed this sort of conversation, but it would be the last. Even if Susanna’s desire for freedom had made her misjudge Mr Connor, surely the life of a merchant’s wife must be better than a duke’s unwanted bastard daughter.
‘I don’t see why you’re buying her a new dress for her marriage when one of her old ones will do for a wine merchant.’ Edwina, Susanna’s half-sister, selected another sweet from the box on her lap and popped it into her round mouth.
‘He won’t even be a merchant until he’s received your father’s money,’ Lady Rockland was kind enough to point out, looking down her nose at a man she hadn’t even met who probably had more honour in his right hand than she possessed in her entire stick-thin body.
‘Then why are they coming to the masque?’ Edwina whined, her exasperation as annoying as the way she chewed her sweet. ‘We’ve invited no other common people.’
‘It doesn’t matter if they come. Everyone will be wearing masks—no one will recognise them anyway,’ Lady Rockland explained, as though Susanna were not standing in her suddenly too-tight stays and chemise right in front of them.
‘I hear Cynthia Colchester is going to have the finest French silk gown and a ceremony in St George’s in Hanover Square.’ Edwina licked the tips of her fingers with a smacking noise before smiling smugly at Susanna.
‘She’s having it because her family can afford it, unlike her husband-to-be. Lord Howsham is up to his neck in gambling debts and on the verge of losing his estate.’ Susanna bit down on her irritation at her half-sister. It was she and not Lord Howsham who’d gained the most from him breaking his promise. He’d wanted her money; now he had someone else’s.
‘He still has his title, as does his wife, which is more than some people possess.’ Edwina smirked, her pudgy face squishing up with her arrogance.
‘Edwina, leave us,’ Lady Rockland commanded.
‘Whatever for?’ Edwina rubbed a bit of marchpane from her cheek.
‘Don’t question me,’ the duchess snapped.
Edwina, who was only one year younger than Susanna’s twenty, stomped from the room like a toddler.
Lady Rockland didn’t dismiss Mrs Fairley, who knelt on the floor packing up her box. The woman was too far beneath Lady Rockland’s notice for her to believe whatever she was about to say needed to be kept from her.
Susanna prepared herself, imagining this exchange would be no more pleasant than any of their previous encounters. Her expectations weren’t disappointed.
‘Given your behaviour with Lord Howsham, I assume I needn’t tell you what will pass between you and your husband on your wedding night,’ Lady Rockland blurted out with all the concern of a fish.
Mrs Fairley paused in her packing before returning to her work.
‘My mother was kind enough to explain it to me when I was thirteen, before she died,’ Susanna answered, the idea of this woman acting in any kind of motherly way as revolting as her haughty attitude.
‘Yet another of the many mistakes she made in regards to you, mistakes others are now forced to endure.’ Lady Rockland screwed up her face as if smelling something foul. ‘When you and Mr Connor are wed, and after the masque, don’t think you’ll be allowed back into this house. I’ve endured the shadow of Lord Rockland’s