Page 35 of Never a Duke
More serious.
“I don’t generally bruit my past about,” Mr. Wentworth said. “I did spend time in Newgate and left the place only on the coattails of His Grace’s pardon. His Grace was eventually exonerated of all wrongdoing, but Rosalind, I subsisted on thievery and begging for several years. The gossip in my case is based on facts.”
He was being all noble and decent, dealing in the truth when he thought it redounded to his discredit.
The gudgeon.“Listen to me, Ned Wentworth. I amgladyou begged, stole, and scrapped,gladyou survived any way you could. A lesser person would have given up, would have died of grief or shame or some useless saintly emotion. But you didn’t. You survived against all odds, and I am so proud of you I could…”
He regarded her, the faint smile again in evidence. “Kiss me?”
She nodded. “I want tocelebrateyou. When is your birthday?”
His smile became bashful. “I have no idea. Late spring, I think. My mother said the birds were singing as I was born, and that’s why I like music. You are a very unusual woman, Lady Rosalind. I would like to celebrate you too.”
I’d settle for a kiss.Rosalind nearly told him that, but with Ned Wentworth, maybe she didn’t have to settle. As she pulled off her gloves and hauled him closer, her last rational thought was that maybe with Ned Wentworth, she could have more of celebration, and much, much less of settling.
Chapter Seven
I want to celebrate you.
Two days later—two days filled with bank meetings, ledgers, and more bank meetings—and Ned could still hear Lady Rosalind making that announcement, could still taste a kiss that had been full of both rejoicing and desire.
In defense of his wits, Ned had kept their indulgence brief. The instant the coach had rocked to a halt, he’d opened the door and handed the lady down. Her deportment up the steps to her home had been graceful and dignified, but as Ned had bowed his good night, she had winked at him.
And he had winked back.
Ridiculous, schoolboy, churchyard, puerile nonsense. Ned could not, in years of recollections, remember a Wentworth winking, ever.
“Lady Rosalind’s coach is pulling up as I speak,” Lord Stephen said. “You can stop pacing a hole in Abigail’s carpets.”
“And where is your dear Abigail? I wanted the ladies in particular to become acquainted.”
“She’s with our son. She will join us as soon as the demands of motherhood allow.” Lord Stephen nearly preened at the wordsour son, so proud was he of two stone of darling boy.
On Ned’s last visit to the nursery, the lad had already been babbling about the-pony-goes-trot-trot-trot, and that had made Ned feel old and wistful.
“So, Uncle Dee-Dee,” Lord Stephen said, joining Ned at the hearth, “will you let Lady Rosalind get away after you’ve solved the riddle of the missing maids?”
“Bad enough you call me Neddy. Are you an infant now, to appropriate your son’s nursery name for me?” A name Ned felt honored to have.
“You dodge the question, an encouraging sign. Abigail has consulted Jane on the topic of Lady Rosalind Kinwood. Her ladyship did nottake, another encouraging sign.”
Ned heard soft, female voices at the front door.
“How do you derive encouragement from polite society’s failure to appreciate Lady Rosalind’s many fine qualities?”
“Simple. Polite society tries its best not to appreciate the Wentworths as a family. Lady Rosalind already has the necessary originality and independence of spirit to join our ranks. Oh, my. You are giving me that somebody-ought-to-wallop-Stephen-with-a-pall-mall-mallet look. Haven’t seen it for years. I feared Quinn had bankered that temper right out of you.”
Jane had explained to a very young Ned that Stephen, often confined to a Bath chair, created drama for the sake of fixing attention anywhere but on his lameness. Stephen’s temper earlier in life had made Ned look like the soul of decorum by comparison, which had fueled Ned’s determination to acquire airs and graces that much faster.
“Abigail has earned the right to wield any and all pall-mall mallets where you are concerned,” Ned said mildly. “We wish her the joy of that thankless office.”
“You used to be fun, Neddy. You used to make Her Grace laugh and His Grace seize up with coughing fits that fooled no one. Now you are like a badger new to his livery, full of business and determined that everybody know it. That’s not a very effective approach to lovemaking, if you want my opinion on the matter.”
“Which no sane man would.”
“Abigail finds my—”
The door opened and Constance, Her Grace of Rothhaven, swept into the room, Lady Rosalind trailing, and a resigned butler bringing up the rear.
