“Are you planning to follow suit?” Winslow accepted a fresh drink from the attendant.
Popping the cigar between his teeth, Robert firmly shook his head. “No reason to rush into captivity.”
His mother, however, had other ideas. Elizabeth Carlisle was beside herself with joy over having three of her four children happily married, two grandchildren already here and one more on the way—which meant she was determined to bring the same wedded bliss to Robert. Even if it killed him.
He dearly loved his mother. But while he would do anything to make her happy, he drew the line at proposing. Just as he would never enter into a bad business deal, he had no plans to enter into marriage. Especially since he’d come to believe that matrimony was simply another business arrangement, negotiated and bound by contract. Yet one a man could never escape when it went bad.
“Didn’t you court General Morgan’s daughter last season?” Winslow asked. Apparently, Robert wasn’t the only one who had done his research for this meeting.
“Yes,” he admitted, a touch ruefully. “But we mutually agreed to break off.”
And better for both that they did. Diana had gone on to be courted by the Duke of Wembley’s youngest son, and Robert had come to realize that he’d rather remain a bachelor. Their courtship had ended without rancor, the two remaining good acquaintances. A situation much to his relief, as he didn’t fancy having to face her brother Garrett over pistols at dawn.
“Be assured that marriage is not in my future and that I will give my full attention to the company.” Robert exchanged his empty glass for the full one held out by the attendant and explained, “After all, I had the great fortune to be born a second son.”
Winslow guffawed so loudly that he drew an irritated glance from Lord Daubney, who sat in the corner reading the Times.
“A second son with a happily married older brother—very happily married, you understand,” he clarified. That innuendo brought another laugh from Winslow. “I am a man in no danger of becoming an heir, so a man in no danger of needing a wife.”
But he was a man in desperate need of a partnership. And with this company, in particular. Winslow Shipping’s interests reached around the globe, with successful ventures in India, the Far East, and the Americas. Already the largest sole proprietorship in the empire, the company was poised to grow exponentially over the coming decades. Gaining a partnership with Winslow would be like finding the Golden Fleece. The best opportunity with the best business.
And the very best way to prove to his father’s memory that he was worthy of the Carlisle name. Anything less would be failure.
Which was one reason why he’d not disclosed his plans for the partnership with his family. They were already uneasy about his choice of making business his life’s path, rather than the usual posts available to second sons. But he couldn’t stomach the law or medicine, and he lacked the discipline necessary for the military and the moral fortitude for the church, with no desire to either end men’s lives or save their souls.
Of course, the other reason he hadn’t told them was that they still blamed him for Richard Carlisle’s death. He knew they did. Because he still blamed himself.
Pushing down the sickening guilt at the thought of that terrible night two years ago, he leaned forward, keen to nail down terms. “So you’re considering—”
A clatter went up outside. Angry shouts and jeers joined the loud rattle of running hooves approaching wildly down the cobblestone street.
“What on earth?” Winslow frowned and stepped toward the tall window.
Robert shoved himself out of his chair to join him, tossing the butt of his cigar into the fire. Lord Daubney dropped his newspaper as he finally gave up all hope of reading it and hurried over, joining the group of men gathered at the window, to stare down at the spectacle below.
Daubney uttered in disbelief, “A phaeton—driven by a woman?”
“On St James’s Street!” The club manager was appalled.
“That’s no woman,” another gentleman clarified with a disapproving shake of his head. “That’s the Hellion.”
Robert watched as the rig raced by. Oh, that was definitely the Hellion.
He’d never spoken to the woman, nor ever laid eyes on her before, knowing her only from idle gossip. But it had to be her. No lady would have dared such a thing except her, the notorious woman who delighted in outraging the staid old guard of the ton. And judging from the sight of her, she’d proven to be just as beautiful and brazen as the gossips claimed. Had she been at a ball, the dark beauty would have had gentlemen fighting among themselves like dogs to gain the favor of her attentions. But here, on the street that housed London’s most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs and where a respectable woman would never have dared to venture a slippered foot without a male companion, they openly jeered at her.
Robert couldn’t help but smile in admiration, despite knowing firsthand the kind of rumors such an outrageous act might rain down upon her.
“And that is why my daughter is in her seventh season,” Winslow muttered beneath his breath as the rest of the men returned to their seats, the excitement over.
“Pardon?”
“That, Carlisle,” he explained, his back straightening under the weight of humiliation as he turned away from the window, “is my daughter Mariah.”
“The Hellion?” Robert exclaimed before he could stop himself, flabbergasted. His mind ran wild searching for the woman’s name. Then it hit him—Mariah Winslow.
Winslow Shipping and Trade.
Christ.
Winslow’s mouth pressed tight, seemingly offended less by the epithet that the gossips had branded on her and more by his daughter herself. “And beside her sat her sister, Evelyn, who is just as determined to mire herself in scandal.”
That certainly explained all those seasons without proposals, and judging by this latest antic, none would be forthcoming this year, either. If the Carlisle brothers were the scourge of Mayfair, these two were its female equivalent. Two young ladies who somehow managed to thumb their noses at the quality yet creatively skirt ruining their reputations completely.
“I promised their mother on her deathbed that I would make proper ladies of them, but I’ve failed,” Winslow lamented with a deep frown. “Especially with Mariah. She has no interest in society events or housekeeping, in fashions or flowers…in none of the things that other young ladies enjoy.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Instead, she’d rather be working at the shipping offices, spending her time at the wharves with longshoremen and sailors, or wasting her allowance on urchins.”
Robert sympathized with the man, but he couldn’t help a touch of admiration for his daughters. They certainly weren’t part of the boring misses following the suffocating rules of the marriage market like lambs being led to slaughter. They should consider themselves lucky to have escaped the chains of domesticity that society shackled onto its young ladies, who were expected to do nothing more in life than host parties, birth heirs, and retire quietly into the countryside with their embroidery and watercolors.
“What Mariah needs is a husband to settle her into proper womanhood,” Winslow muttered, rubbing at the knot of tension at his nape. “But I’ve no female relatives in society to give her introductions, so no chance of gaining appropriate suitors for her.”
Robert raised his glass to his lips and murmured dryly, “That’s a shame.” It was hard to commiserate with the man when his daughters had practically glowed with freedom as they’d raced past.
Winslow faced Robert, his gaze hard. “But you do.”
He choked on his cognac. “What?”
“I need a partner with connections in the ton and the audacity to use them,” he said frankly, laying all his cards on the table. “Call on your relatives to guide Mariah through this season, and I’ll guarantee you a partnership. A twenty percent stake is yours if an offer is made from a respectable gentleman by the last day of Parliament.”