Miss Phryne Milbourne, the only other woman he’d considered marrying—for all of a few brief hours—had espied him. Given the determined look on her lovely face, she again intended to broach his crying off.
London’s perpetually foggy and sooty skies would rain jewels and flowers before he ever took up with the likes of that vixen again, no matter how beautiful, blue-blooded, or perfectly suited to the position of duchess others—namely, Mother and The Uncles—believed she might be.
Within mere hours of his uncles and his mother taking it upon themselves to broach a possible match between Miss Milbourne and him, which she’d bandied about with the recklessness of a farmwife tossing chickens table scraps—Jules had observed her true character, quite by chance.
And thank God, he had, or she might well be his duchess by now.
The notion curdled the two servings of crème br?lée he’d indulged in at luncheon.
Truth to tell, he would’ve been hard put to decide which rankled more: Miss Milbourne’s callousness or her promiscuousness. Or perhaps, her ceaseless, nigh on to obsessive, pursuit of him was what abraded worse than boots three sizes too small. In any event, he had neither the time nor the inclination to discuss the issue with her tonight.
Or ever, for that matter.
Familiar with the manor’s architecture, he ducked into the nearest doorway and sidled into an elegant, unlit parlor situated between dual sets of ornate double doors. Doors which provided him with another, less obvious, route from the house through an adjacent passageway.
Unaccustomed to the room’s darkness, he blindly groped until he found what he searched for. With the merest scrape of metal, he turned the key, and chuckled softly, if perhaps a mite wickedly, to himself.
He truly was a social misfit, and that he rather liked the peculiarity made him more so.
Staid, abrupt, off-putting, somber, reticent, taciturn, reserved...
He knew full well what others thought of him and, for the most part, their descriptions were accurate. What they didn’t know was why.
Jemmah Dament knew.
As timid, overlooked children, they’d sought refuge in each other’s company and whispered their secret fears to one another, too.
Peculiar that twice in a matter of minutes Jemmah had popped to mind. Must’ve been encountering her bothersome family that caused the dual intrusions.
Feminine footsteps accompanied by a heavier, uneven tread echoed on the corridor’s Arenberg parquet floor as Miss Milbourne neared.
“I’m positive I saw Dandridge a moment ago, Papa.” A hint of petulance flavored her words. “He’s still avoiding me, though I’ve repeatedly explained that he misunderstood what he thought he saw and heard.”
The devil I did.
Keaton’s arm had been elbow deep inside her bodice, and his tongue halfway that distance down her throat too.
Far worse, in Jules estimation, was Miss Milbourne’s treatment of sweet, crippled Sabrina. Whorish behavior was repugnant, but cruelty to an unfortunate, doubly so.
Intolerable and unforgivable in his view.
There and then, he’d told Miss Milbourne as much and that she’d best cease entertaining notions of a match between them. His ire raised, he may have suggested he’d welcome starved chartreuse tigers at the dining table with more enthusiasm than continuing their acquaintance.
“Why, the stubborn man dared return the perfumed note I sent him last week, Papa. Unopened too, the obstinate wretch,” she fumed, her footsteps taking on a distinct stomping rhythm. “How many times must I apologize before Dandridge forgives me?”
“Tut, m’dear. I wish you’d let me sue the knave for breaking the betrothal,” Milbourne wheezed, great gasping rattles that threatened to dislodge the artwork displayed above the passage’s mahogany raised panel wainscoting.
If wishes were food, beggars would eat cake, old chap.
There’d have to have been an actual proposal and a formal agreement, including a signed contract.
Not a mere wishful suggestion in passing, which Miss Milbourne latched onto like a barnacle to rock.
She’d led her father on a deuced merry chase the past two years, setting her cap for, and then tossing aside, one peer after another, each ranking higher and with fuller coffers than the last. Served him and the late Mrs. Milbourne right for naming her Phryne after a Greek courtesan.
Dotty business, that.
Whatever could they have been thinking?
Breathing heavily, Milbourne grumbled from what must be directly outside the door, “Would do the arrogant whelp good to be taken down a peg. He’d be lucky to have you, my pet, he would. I can pull some strings—”
“No, Papa! That would only anger Dandridge further. He must be made to see reason. I’m confident he’ll come ’round in time. His uncles and her grace are easily enough manipulated, and they want me at his side. I shan’t be denied my duchy because of a prudish misunderstanding. I’d remain faithful to him until an heir was produced. Perhaps even a spare. Surely, he must know that.”
How very obliging.
The door handle rattled, kicking Jules’s pulse into a gallop.
An unladylike snort carried through the walnut.
“Locked. I suppose Lady Lockhart, the pretentious tabby, is afraid the guests will make off with her vulgar oddities.”
Jules drew in a prolonged, grateful breath. By discovering Miss Milbourne’s vices early on, he’d been spared a lifetime of misery.
“Papa, did you see her expression when we entered with the Wakefields tonight? Looked like she’d swallowed newly-sharpened needles.” Miss Milbourne’s scornful laugh faded as she and her father explored the rest of the passageway.
Jules remained still, listening as doors swished open and clicked close as they snooped in room after room in their search for him.
And here he cowered, like an errant child, his temper growing blacker by the minute. However, an ugly confrontation was the last thing Theo warranted at her birthday celebration. Hence her decision, no doubt, not to send the Milbournes packing when they showed up uninvited on the Wakefields’ coat strings.
Zounds, Jules loathed manipulators.
A stunning beauty—a diamond of the first water according to the haut ton’s standards— Miss Milbourne was intelligent, accomplished, versed in politics, a gracious hostess, and popular among the social set. In short, she possessed all the trivial qualifications Mother and The Uncles deemed necessary for the next Duchess of Dandridge, and of as much value and importance to Jules as a hangnail or pernicious boil on his bum.
Naturally, his mother would approve of Miss Milbourne.
She was cut from the same calculating, mercenary fabric, after all.
Plato had it right, by Jove. Like does indeed attract like.
Jules didn’t much care one way or the other who the next duchess was. Or, for that matter, if there was another while he lived. Young and smitten, he’d dared gamble on love once, and when Annabel—always petite and frail—died from influenza a mere month prior to their wedding, his ability to love must’ve been buried with her. For no sentiment stronger than warm regard or affection ever stirred him again.
Except for where Sabrina was concerned.