The Perfect Mistress (4 page)

“This is not substantially better,” he said. “What did you say her name was?”

“I didn’t. It’s Lady Julia Winterset.”

Harrison raised a brow. “The wife of Sir William Win-terset?”

“The widow of Sir William Winterset.”

“The barrister?”

“I believe so. Did you know him?”

“I knew of him. He had a fine legal mind and an excellent reputation. And he was of good family as well.” Harrison huffed. “No doubt this has him turning over in his grave.”

“If he had provided adequately for his widow, if his good family had not abandoned any responsibility toward his wife upon his death, there would be no need to turn over in his grave and he could rest in peace,” Veronica said sharply.

“Yes, I suppose.” Harrison drummed his fingers on his desk. “Obviously, I shall have to deal with this myself. I shall request a meeting with your friend and persuade her of the error of proceeding with this venture.”

“Such persuasion to consist of nothing more than your gallant manner and charming disposition?” Veronica said mildly.

Harrison glared at his sister-in-law. “I can be quite persuasive and most charming when the occasion calls for it.”

“Harrison.” Veronica rolled her gaze toward the ceiling. “Have you listened to a word I’ve said?”

“Each and every one.”

“Apparently not.” Veronica leaned forward and met his gaze. “Julia Winterset is badly in need of funds. If the state of her finances was acceptable, I daresay she would never think of selling her great-grandmother’s memoirs. She is very nearly as proper as you are.” Veronica shrugged. “Or at least she used to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you have lost a husband, when without warning you find yourself completely dependent on your own resources, you have very few choices other than to take your life in your own hands. If you wish to survive.” She shook her head in a long-suffering manner, as if he were entirely too stupid to understand. “I met Lady Winterset two years ago. I have watched her since then. She has changed, grown if you will. She has become quite independent and discovered a strength of character I suspect she ever knew she had.”

Harrison glared. “If you are trying to make a point, Veronica, you are not doing it well.”

“My point is that while Lady Winterset is a woman of intellect and grace and any number of other sterling qualities, she is also desperate. Desperate women do what they must do and they do not easily succumb to fine words and charming manners.”

“Still, if she is indeed intelligent, she shall surely be reasonable as well.” Even to his own ears, the assertion sounded absurd. Women, intelligent or not, were rarely reasonable. “I have no doubt that I can convince her that making this … this
rubbish
public will cause her and all involved irreparable damage.”

“Talk alone will not suffice. As I see her financial circumstances, she has only two recourses open to her. As she is not averse to marriage, she can wed a man of substantial fortune—”

“Excellent, then she should do so at once.”

Veronica stared as if he had grown another head. “It’s not as easy as that. One simply doesn’t snap one’s finger and a suitable husband appears. Marriageable men with wealth and position, men like yourself, are not easy to come by.”

Harrison gasped. “Surely, you’re not suggesting I marry her?”

“Don’t be absurd.” Veronica waved away the comment. “While I have no doubt Julia meets your absurdly high standards, and you could certainly do worse although she could certainly do better, you and she would never suit.”

“Excellent, as desperate is not something I am seeking in a wife,” he snapped, ignoring an odd twinge of annoyance. “And her other recourse?”

“She has no jewels to speak of, no property aside from her house, and nothing of any value whatsoever.” She shrugged. “Therefore there is nothing she can do but sell her great-grandmother’s memoirs. She already has one publisher interested.”

“Who?”

“A Mr. Cadwallender.”

“Cadwallender? The name sounds vaguely familiar.”

“Oh, if you had met Mr. Cadwallender you’d remember. Tall, blond hair, brownish eyes with a hint of green if I recall, most dashing in appearance.”

He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I don’t care.”

“I just thought it should be mentioned.” She shrugged. “You should know what’s involved. In terms of how much charm you need to expend.”

“Very amusing.” He again drummed his fingers on the desk. “If I cannot convince her not to publish them perhaps I could offer her a reasonable sum to simply eliminate all references to my father.”

“Reasonable?”

“Outrageous then.” He thought for a moment. “Better yet, I could buy them myself.”

“And they will never see the light of day?”

“Never,” he said grimly. Indeed, once the memoirs were in his possession, they would be destroyed.

Veronica narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know that she would like that.”

“Nonetheless, once they were mine she would have no say in the matter.”

“No, of course not.” Veronica sighed. “And I think her concern at the moment is more about her finances than preserving her ancestor’s adventures. That’s that then.” Veronica gathered her things, rose to her feet, and adjusted the tilt of her hat—a truly obnoxious concoction of indiscernible things that might have been alive at one time. Harrison stood to escort her to the door. “I have other matters to attend to today so I shall take my leave.”

“Veronica.” He circled the desk. “I am most grateful to you for coming to me with this.”

“Harrison, while our connection is tentative at best, you are still Charles’s brother and he was quite fond of you. And I am quite fond of your father. While I do think he would be rather amused by the public airing of an affair he had in his youth, I fear the outrage of his responsible son would cause him undue concern. I told you of this for him, not for you.”

“Regardless of your motives, you still have my gratitude.”

She studied him for a moment. “Will there ever come a day when you approve of me?”

“I don’t disapprove of you.” And indeed he didn’t disapprove of Veronica, only her manner.

“But you don’t like me.”

“Nonsense.” He scoffed. “I don’t dislike you. You are my late brother’s wife and you made him happier than I had ever seen him.” He forced a smile. “How could I possibly dislike you?”

“That is what I have always wondered. I am quite easy to like, you know.” She started for the door. “Many people do.”

He chuckled. “I have no doubt of that.”

She glanced back at him. “And now your smile is genuine. It’s a very nice smile, Harrison, when you mean it. You should mean it more often.”

“Veronica.”

She paused. “Yes?”

“I am curious. I have wealth and position and I am not unattractive. Indeed, I am considered something of a catch. Why do you think Lady Winterset and I would not suit?”

“Goodness, I thought it was obvious. While I suppose Julia might suit you—”

He snorted.

“—you would not suit her at all.” She shook her head. “You live in a world of right and wrong, proper and improper, black and white. There is no compromise in your life, no shades of gray if you will. Charles bemoaned that fact about you. He often said, ‘If Harry’”—Harrison winced at the name—“‘would try not to be so perfect all the time, perhaps he could find a little enjoyment in life.’”

Harrison frowned. “I find a great deal of enjoyment in life.”

She ignored him. “‘Perhaps he might even have a little fun.’”

“I frequently have fun.”

“‘Perhaps he might even find a wife. He is a handsome devil after all.’ Charles’s words, not mine,” she hastened to add.

“I am looking for a wife.”

“‘A wife,’ he would say, ‘who would bring joy to his days and not merely credit to his name.’” She cast him an overly sweet smile. “Like his brother did.”

“I know precisely what I want in a wife and the appropriate candidate would be as different from you as night is from day.”

“Would she?”

“Yes. She would have a sense of propriety, of her place and position in the world. She would be conscious at all times of her position as my wife, as the Countess of Mountdale and future Marchioness of Kingsbury. She would be an excellent hostess, a model of decorum. Well bred, perfect manners, and while beauty is not necessary, I would prefer she not be unattractive.”

“So you want a well-bred, well-trained monkey?” She shook her head. “You can’t choose a wife the same way you choose a financial investment.”

“A wife
is
a financial investment.”

Astonishment widened her eyes, then she laughed. “My God, you can be pompous, Harrison.”

He blew a frustrated breath. “You, Lady Smithson, are the most annoying woman I have ever met.”

“Thank you, Harry.” She grinned, no doubt amused by her use of his brother’s name for him. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I do hope your friend is not as annoying as you are.”

“Goodness, why on earth would I have a friend who wasn’t?” She nodded and, before he could respond, swept from the room.

No doubt all of her friends were annoying. Annoying women probably found each other through some sort of magnetic attraction that bound them together to create havoc for sane, rational men like himself. Not that it mattered.

Harrison was not about to allow a desperate, annoying woman—no matter how many sterling qualities Veronica alleged she had—to drag his family’s name through the muck and mud of scandal. If this Lady Winterset was indeed as desperate as Veronica had led him to believe, why, she would be putty in his hands. He had the finances to sway even the most stubborn negotiator. And regardless of Veronica’s assertions, he could indeed be quite charming and most persuasive. Any number of women he could name would agree. No, Lady Winterset had met her match. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind of his success.

Even if she was indeed as annoying as his sister-in-law.

… and indeed, there is an importance about the first meeting with a new gentleman that cannot be discounted.

When a man you have never met before takes your hand and raises it to his lips, his eyes never leaving yours, well, even at this very moment it makes me quiver simply to think about it. His eyes carry a promise of all sorts of things you dare not consider but enter your mind nonetheless. And you can no more break the spell than he.

However, more often, a first meeting is a tentative thing. With many gentlemen it is only after a long acquaintance that affection grows, that the fire flames.

And then there are those gentlemen whose very presence makes you want to throttle them thoroughly. Such a gentleman is either genuinely not to your liking and should be given no further thought. Or he can be very dangerous to your heart, and quite, quite delightful. Do remember, Dear Reader, there is a fine line between intense dislike and overwhelming desire …

p>.. from
The Perfect Mistress,
the Memoirs of Lady Hermione Middlebury

It scarcely mattered how long she stared or how many times she looked away and then looked back, the figures written in her fine hand on the pages of her account book did not change. The numbers indicating the small amount of money remaining did not grow larger, the sums of bills owed to merchants refused to shrink. Even the frugality which ruled her life these days made little difference. She leaned back in her chair behind the desk in the library and sighed. If only William had not died …

How many times had she thought that in the last three years? A hundred? A thousand? More? Not that it mattered. She could no more turn back the hands of the clock or the pages of the calendar and prevent him from falling under the wheels of a careening carriage than she could magically add a hundred or so pounds to her bank account. Utter nonsense to dwell on what might have been. From now on,
if only
was a game she would no longer play. She drew a deep breath, straightened, and continued her perusal of the accounts, with an eye toward determining if she could indeed accept Mr. Cadwallender’s offer.

There was nothing left to trim when it came to the expenses of the London house. She had already cut her staff back to Daniels, the housekeeper, the cook, and one maid. Not that the staff had been much larger when William was alive. She would not be in the predicament she was now in if William had had more of a head for finances. He had always been more concerned with causes that needed a champion, precisely why he had been awarded a knighthood, and with clients who needed his help, rather than those who could afford to pay him in a timely manner. His wealthy family had given them an allowance even though they were not pleased by his choice of profession or wife. Still, he was the brother of the current Baron Holridge, the youngest of four sons and a Winterset. As such, he could not be allowed to wallow in gentile poverty. Pity they felt no such responsibility toward his widow.

Within days after William’s demise, the family’s solicitor had called on her to inform her the allowance would cease. If she and William had had children, it would be a different story the solicitor had said, with a look that indicated their lack of offspring was entirely her fault. After all, William had three brothers and a sister, and as Julia was an only child, their childless state was obviously her fault. She had been both stunned and furious but had, as a proper lady did, held her tongue rather than tell the overbearing, pompous Winterset spokesman that she would rather beg on the streets than continue to take so much as a penny from William’s family. Still, at that moment, she had some savings and never imagined begging on the streets might well be her fate.

She turned the page of the account book and studied the expenses of her grandmother’s support in the country. Here too there was nothing to be trimmed. Her grandmother and Mrs. Philpot—as much a companion as house-keeper really—lived simply in a small cottage. Mrs. Phil-pot’s wages were scarcely more than the roof over her head and the food she ate. Even so, on her next visit, Julia would have to tell them the day was fast approaching when they would have no choice but to join her in London and make certain they understood.