Page 21 of The Truth About Love and Dukes

She grimaced at his dry tone, for he made the words of her column sound like a penny dreadful. “Don’t you believe love is important to marriage?”

He didn’t reply at once, and the fact that her question seemed difficult to him when the answer was so obvious to her made Irene almost want to laugh.

“Perhaps it is,” he conceded at last. “But there are other things I believe matter more, if one’s marriage is to be happy. Things such as compatibility, like minds, similar station—the very things you would no doubt deem the ‘superficialities.’”

“You said you had a question to ask me,” she reminded. “That did not sound like a question.”

He tossed the newspaper onto her desk. “In all this so-called advice you offered my mother, couldn’t you have at least suggested she tie up her money?”

Irene stared at him in astonishment. “But I did. I advised her to have her solicitors draw up a marriage settlement.”

“That part of your advice did not figure in your column.”

“No, because prenuptial agreements are not very romantic, and readers want romance. They want to be swept away by a fantasy. In addition, we have limitations of space. A certain amount of the advice I dispense must invariably be edited out. But in our private correspondence, I was very clear.”

“And what of all those who read your column and see a similarity to their own life? What if they act upon what they’ve read without having had the benefit of a personal correspondence with you?”

“I cannot be held liable for what decisions mature adults make in their private lives as a result of what they read in my newspaper. As for the rest,” she went on before he could debate that point, “I advised your mother to give Foscarelli a token sum as a dowry, put him on a quarterly allowance, and keep full control of all her assets in her own hands. I worded my advice in the strongest possible terms.”

“And yet, those terms were not strong enough, Miss Deverill, for she has decided to have no marriage settlement at all and to hand over to Foscarelli half her personal capital.”

Irene was dismayed, for that was a very unwise proceeding in the circumstances. “Oh, I am sorry to hear it, for tying up the money was one of the points I stressed most strongly in my correspondence with her.” She paused, struck by a sudden thought. “But I can’t think why you volunteer this information to me, given my occupation. Aren’t you afraid it will appear in the pages of my paper?”

He smiled a little, a smile that only increased her uneasiness. “No.”

He did not expand on that point, and Irene swallowed, shoving down her apprehensions. “Your mother has the right to make her own decision whom to marry and how much of her own money to bestow upon him.”

“No, she does not, not entirely. She is the Duchess of Torquil, and her right to do as she pleases ends when it impinges upon her duty to her family, her good name, and her position. Because of you, she has chosen to cast aside those obligations.”

“I fail to see how following her heart prevents her from fulfilling familial obligations.”

“Then please allow me to enlighten you,” he said smoothly. “As you must already be aware, given your profession, Foscarelli is a lothario who has engaged in countless romantic liaisons, particularly with women of the upper classes. My mother is not his only conquest. He is also seventeen years her junior. He is not, by either birth or deed, a gentleman, and he has no means of his own.”

“And yet, your mother is fully aware of all these facts and loves him anyway. In addition, she assured me that there was a great deal more good in his character than anyone knew.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure he’s just tortured and misunderstood.”

Irene decided to ignore the scathing sarcasm. “Nonetheless, we are not discussing some green girl with no knowledge of the world. Your mother is a mature woman, perfectly capable of deciding Foscarelli’s character for herself. He may very well be a rake, but she has every right to wed a rake if she wants to do so.”

“You realize that by marrying him, she will be shunned by most of her acquaintances and friends.”

“I do. More importantly, so does she, but she seems to feel as I do, that losing such shallow friends as these is no great loss.”

“Her daughters, whose entire future rests upon making a good marriage, will share her disgrace by association, and will find their choice of desirable marriage partners much diminished. Their prospects were difficult enough before, given all the American heiresses invading our shores, waving obscene dowries in the faces of the eligible men of our acquaintance—”

“Hardly a testament to the character of those young men, that they would allow themselves to be bought with such ease. But I do see your point. It’s not the fact that Foscarelli is a fortune hunter that bothers you. It’s the fact that he’s a fortune hunter without a title.”

Those gray eyes Clara had deemed so beautiful narrowed a fraction. “Do not deliberately misunderstand the cause of my anger, Miss Deverill,” he said, his voice low and hard. “Whatever his station, he has chosen not to conduct his courtship in open and honorable fashion. Instead, he has employed concealment and subterfuge, because he knows his intentions are unsavory and the union unsuitable. For that alone, he ought to be tied behind a horse and dragged on his belly to John O’Groats and back.”

“A harsh punishment.”

“Yes. And one that any man, peer or no, would deserve in such circumstances. God knows, I—”

He broke off, and an expression crossed his hard, handsome countenance, something so stark and bleak that Irene stared in astonishment. This man seemed the last man on earth capable of naked emotion.

It was gone in an instant, however, and Irene could only conclude that what she’d seen was regret and self-recrimination for having not already administered the described punishment to the poor Italian.

“Suffice it to say,” he went on, “if Foscarelli were a peer, some restraints of good breeding would be expected of him, one of which would be to cast his eyes upon a woman of an age closer to his own.”

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