An Ideal Duchess (23 page)

             
“Who was that dreadful woman?” Viola peered in the direction of Mrs. Irene Rosenthal Hesketh and slid her hand into the crook of his elbow.

             
“I wouldn’t call her ‘dreadful’,” Bim gave the woman a speculative glance. “She looks rather fetching from a distance. Is she as attractive as I hope, old chap?”

             
Bron turned to look after the trim, tailor-made clad figure of Mrs. Hesketh as she disappeared into the throng, most likely to pester another MP.

             
“This is absurd!” Viola tugged his attention back to her. “Be thankful she finally allowed you to go. I would have rescued you had Mr. Challoner not walked right into me.”

             
“I’ve apologized for my oafishness, dearest Vi,” Bim looked contrite. “Forgive me?”

             
“How can I forgive your normal manner? Bron, shall we leave?”

             
“Where to?” Bim asked, falling into step with them.

             
“No idea,” He replied. “I haven’t been in Town for ages.”

             
“Claridge’s has excellent tea—or so I’ve read in The Lady,”

             
“Tea?” Bim looked horrified. “You don’t come to London for tea. Simpson’s is more the thing in my mind.”

             
“I agree,”

             
“Simpson’s!” Vi looked between them, her expression highly indignant.

             
“Sorry Vi,” Bron grinned down at his cousin. “You’ve been overruled.”

*          *          *

             
They lunched at Simpson’s in the Strand on plain, well-cooked, quintessentially English food. Bron crumbled a soft wedge of Stilton between his fingers, having consumed most of the pungent cheese with a few watery stalks of celery to cleanse his palate after a meal of thick chops and boiled potatoes. The tankard at his elbow was empty, but he declined its refilling by one of the attentive, black-and-white clad waiters who milled about the ladies’ dining room, wanting a clear head for the remainder of his day. Bim, however, had no such compunction: he was currently drinking his third round of the cool English ale with assuredness of a man whose head is never worse for wear after strong drink. Viola, on the other hand, had preferred a strong pot of tea, and eschewed the typical masculine fare of chops and joints for boiled turbot in lobster sauce.

             
She noticed his glance and reached her hand to touch his arm. “I wish I didn’t have to return to Bledington.”

             
“I was going to ask how you managed to wheedle a trip to London out of the old duchess,” Bim set his tankard on the table. “I didn’t know companions could take holidays at will.”

             
“I’m not on holiday, Mr. Challoner. I wanted to see Bron make his maiden speech—and it was excellent, darling.” She pointedly turned away from Bim to give him a fond smile.

             
Bron wiped the crumbs of cheese from his fingers with his napkin, mildly amused by Vi and Bim’s consistent, persistent, and mutual animosity. Or perhaps animosity was not the proper word to use in Bim’s case—he appeared to enjoy the aspect of getting a rise out of Viola more so than actively despising her. Viola, curiously, did dislike his oldest friend, though she apparently attempted to conceal it, tolerating Bim for his sake.

             
“My apologies, Bron,” Bim turned from Viola. “Congratulations.”

             
“Thank you,” He grimaced slightly. “I don’t anticipate making any waves in the Lords, but I must carry out my duty.”

             
“Duty?” Bim looked appalled. “Is that all you feel your place in the House of Lords is worth?”

             
“In the realm of my title, yes. I have little interest in the workings of Parliament, and feel at ease leaving it to men more knowledgeable and more experienced than I.”

             
“What I wouldn’t give for a hereditary seat in Parliament,” Bim rolled his eyes.

             
“You’re doing alright in the Commons; you kept your seat in a large majority over that Liberal crackpot Gorse.”

             
“The Conservative Party has its share of crackpots; and I’ve only managed to keep my seat because of my Father’s hold on that seat for forty years—and my connection with the Dukes of Malvern.”

             
Bron glanced at Viola, having heard her mutter inaudibly. She looked flustered when she noticed his regard, and gave him a little noncommittal wave before turning back to her cup of tea.

             
“There’s nothing wrong with a safe seat. I wouldn’t trust any other person sitting in it but you.”

             
“You’d be content with a victory on a technicality?” Bim looked skeptical and irritated.

             
“It isn’t as though no one wants to vote for you,” Now Bron was irritated. “You act as though Rendcomb is a rotten borough.”

             
“Sometimes, I wonder,” Bim looked surly.

             
“Bloody Hughligans.”

             
“And what of them? They’re the only ones willing to prod Bloody Balfour away from his ladies and out of his peat-scented stupor. If you heard some of the inanity coming out of his mouth, you too would shout him down.”

             
“It’s in poor taste to criticize your party leader in public.”

             
“My God, Bron, you were never this priggish. I know this isn’t the fault of your beautiful duchess—and by the by, I’m sure she would have appreciated a holiday from Bledington as much as our dearest Vi.”

             
“I am not a prig.” Bron replied indignantly. “And the duchess is in a delicate condition—too delicate to risk travel and the hazards of London. Besides, where would she have been put up? In your bedroom while we cram into your sitting room?”

             
“The bloody Savoy, of course. You can afford it now.” Bim sneered.

             
Bron pushed his chair away from the table and rose to his feet. He reached into his coat pocket and scattered a few coins and pound notes over the table, staring coldly down at his oldest friend. “I can afford it.”

             
“Bron,” Bim rose, his expression chagrined.

             
He turned on his heel and walked out of the ladies’ dining room and down the stairs to the ground floor. He brushed past the smiling restaurant manager and stepped outside to the Strand, which, in the midday, was crowded with soberly clad, important looking men from the City, newsboys hawking their headlines, carriages, carts, and drays, and a few motorcars. Before he knew it, he walked in the direction of said Savoy Hotel, deciding at that moment that he was not going to spend another night under Bim’s roof, and that yes he could afford the bloody Savoy.

*          *          *

              Viola rose to follow after Bron, collecting her coat and handbag from where she’d hung them over the back of her seat, absolutely annoyed with Bim Challoner for his ungratefulness and worried over Bron’s destination. She intended to give him the cut direct, but he stalled her planned exit with a tight grip on her arm, forcing her to lower her eyes to stare at him down her nose.

             
“Let me go,”

             
“Why don’t you let Bron go?” He rose to his feet, forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him.

             
“I don’t know what you mean.”

             
“You know,” His blue eyes glittered with disgust and his mouth curved into a mocking smile.

             
“You’re making a scene, Mr. Challoner,” Viola gave the dining room a speaking glance.

             
“This is nothing compared to the scene I can make if, instead of taking a taxicab to Euston Station, you try to run after him.”

             
“How dare you?” She was too infuriated by his impudence to bother lowering her voice.

             
Anthony gave her a flinty look, his hand still trapping her arm, as he gestured to a passing waiter, who retraced his steps to stand attentively by their table.

             
“Fetch a hansom,”

             
“Yes, sir,” The waiter bowed and disappeared downstairs to fulfill Anthony’s order.

             
Viola resisted struggling against Anthony’s grip as he pushed her down the stairs towards the ground floor, feeling terribly embarrassed and upset by the idle attention they attracted as they stepped out of Simpson’s to the Strand.

             
“Your cab, sir,” The waiter bowed.

             
Anthony tipped him and then pushed her inside of the hansom. To her further humiliation, he did not close the door, but clambered inside of the vehicle and settled beside her.

             
“Euston Station,” Anthony informed the driver, who nodded and closed the slat on the roof.

             
“Now Miss Townsend,” Anthony said, half-turned in his seat to glare at her. “I am going to personally escort you to the railway station and see to it that you obtain your first class ticket—no return—and get your hide back to Bledington Park and stay put.”

             
“I don’t see how this is any of your concern, Mr. Challoner.” Viola whispered heatedly, aware of the driver as he pulled into the traffic. “You are behaving in a caddish manner unbecoming of a gentleman.”

             
“I shall behave in any manner I like to protect my friends.”

             
“Protect from whom, Mr. Challoner? I don’t consider myself to be a menace to anyone. Perhaps you should turn your sights to another source of danger.”

             
“You truly believe yourself to be the injured party?” He looked incredulous.

             
“I am the injured party,” Viola replied bitterly. “Bron and I had an understanding—”

             
“You cannot base your existence on a childish promise!”

             
His gaze, far from retaining the cold disdain, now thawed with sympathy, a sympathy Viola did not need or ask for. She pointedly turned away to stare at the road ahead, not knowing until she realized her eyes lingered over the hats and figures of young men, that she held hope she would see Bron in the throng of pedestrians. And then what? Leap out of the moving hansom and into his arms? Arms that, admittedly, had not embraced her in the friendly, familiar squeeze of affection since he had returned to Bledington with her. Viola made a moue of distaste when her thoughts brushed against the image of Bron’s wife, but her hands moved involuntarily to her flat abdomen, and then curled in anguish that an upstart American should be the one to bear his children.

             
It should be her. It would have been her had not Alex’s selfishness forced Bron into a position he never wanted, and into a marriage she knew of a certainty he did not want.

             
But what
did
he want?
The uncomfortable thought slid into her brain. It was almost as though there were two Brons—the dispassionate and dutiful duke, and the mercurial and sensitive twenty-four year old Bron, her friend and lover—and she sometimes feared she understood neither sides of the boy with whom she’d loved all of her life.

             
No, Viola thought fiercely to herself, she did understand him, and would always be the only one to understand him and know instinctively what it was he wanted. His precious duchess knew nothing about his passion for flight, or that grief-filled, reckless night after he had discovered Alex’s unfortunate hunting accident in the forest. She held the memory close to her heart as Bron’s unspoken pledge of honor, even after he had written her from America to inform her of his impending marriage to Miss Amanda Vandewater.

             
She held it to her now, as the hansom cab crossed London to reach Euston Station, passing the soaring, austere Greek Doric columns of its entrance before stopping outside of the train sheds. She continued to ignore Anthony Challoner as he paid the driver, helped her from the hansom cab, and then marched her into Euston. The wide white staircase of the Great Hall split in two directions, meeting at the base of the colossal marble statue of George Stephenson after which the multitudes of passengers arriving and departing from the trains milled through the hall purchasing tickets, reading newspapers on leather benches, holding conversations, and searching for friends.

             
Viola tightened her hold on her handbag, as she was half-pushed by Anthony towards the platform of the train that would take her to Bledington, grateful that this would hopefully be the last she would see of him (for she hoped fervently that Bron’s reaction to Anthony’s insults spelled the demise of their friendship).