Page 110 of The Dangerous Lord

Ian’s uncle had certainly hit close to the truth, hadn’t he? Well, she wouldn’t let him succeed in this. Felicity looked at Lord Jameson and the others, who avoided her gaze. Then she burst into deliberate laughter. “It’s true, every word of it.”

She had their attention now. Shock was written on their faces. Lady Brumley, Emily, and Sara eyed her as if she’d gone mad.

She continued in a dramatic tone, though her knees were knocking beneath her gown. “Lord St. Clair found out I was Lord X, came to my house, and demanded that I stop writing about him. I refused, of course. So he gave me an ultimatum—either marry him or he would ruin me.” She paused for effect. “It was a very difficult decision. I mean, what woman wants to marry a rich viscount when she can be a poor nobody writing columns for the newspaper?”

When Sara smiled and Emily joined her, Felicity felt more confident. She tapped her finger against her chin. “I thought about it for ... oh ... nearly half a minute. And I decided that while being ruined by a man with such obvious assets could be enjoyable, I’d much prefer to be a wealthy viscountess. That way I could have all his assets, if you know what I mean.”

For a moment, when her audience continued to gaze at her as if she were mad, she thought she’d made a huge mistake. Please, God, she prayed, let them have a sense of humor.

Suddenly Lady Brumley chuckled, and a few others tittered as well.

Pressing her advantage, she sighed with great exaggeration. “So here I am, locked into marriage with an attractive and wealthy young man of rank. It’s awful, don’t you think? Now I can’t marry an old lecher or penniless barrister! And I did so have my heart set on that.”

There were laughs now. Loud ones.

“He’s such a troublesome husband, too,” she went on quickly while she had them on her side. “He insists that I buy things, and he knows I hate to shop. Who wants all that jewelry and silks and furs cluttering up one’s bedchamber? It’s really too vexing. And the way he treats my brothers—” She rolled her eyes. “I keep telling him not to spoil them, but he won’t listen! He’s sending my eldest brother off to a very expensive school, and he constantly buys presents for the other three. I swear, I won’t be able to do a thing with them if he doesn’t stop it!”

She’d gathered a crowd by now, most of whom were either laughing or asking their neighbors to recount what she was saying.

“What about in the bedroom?” one of the outrageously plain-spoken March sisters called out. “Has your husband proven ‘troublesome’ there as well?”

She didn’t have to fake her blush. “Very much so. I mean, would you want a man like that in your bed? So tall, virile, and well-built? Here I was, hoping for a short bald man with a paunch, and instead I got that!” She added with a wink, “And I must complain that when he demands his husbandly rights, he makes me want to behave most improperly ... ”

There wasn’t a soul left in the audience who wasn’t smiling, and most were laughing. Lady Brumley guffawed so hard she actually had tears in her eyes. And Sara and Emily beamed at her approvingly.

Felicity could even hear a few whispers of, “I knew it all along” and “Don’t they make an adorable couple?”

Suddenly all laughter died and all conversation halted. A woman with a haughty bearing came toward Felicity, the crowd parting before her in awed interest.

The Duchess of Pelham herself.

She stopped before Felicity and swept her with the contemptuous glance Felicity remembered all too well. “This is all very entertaining, Lady St. Clair.” She spoke Felicity’s title with a sneer. “But you don’t fool me with this talk of your husband’s good qualities. I’ve heard he has a history of forcing himself on helpless women. You mentioned one such woman in your column, as I recall. And his own uncle claims that the viscount fled England after abusing his aunt. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

A silence fell on the crowd. They knew, as did Felicity, that the duchess was being deliberately cruel. No woman with an ounce of feeling would mention such a terrible thing to a man’s wife.

For a second, she cringed, carried back to that awful day in the Pelham library when the duchess had put her in her place with the vilest accusations to Papa. Her humiliation was as complete now as it had been then.

But she thought of Ian and stiffened her spine. It was one thing for her to feel humiliated. It was another for him to feel it. The duchess sought to use Ian to degrade Felicity publicly. The bitter old witch hated all the women her husband had ever lusted after, whether those women had returned his lust or not.

Well, if the duchess thought she could use Ian’s pain in this horrible manner, she was much mistaken. Felicity would see the woman dead first.

She fixed the duchess with a cool gaze. “Ian’s uncle? You mean Mr. Lennard?”

“You know who I mean.”

Felicity pasted a sympathetic look on her face. “The poor man. Is he still repeating that tale after all these years? It’s so sad. He never recovered after his wife’s death, you know. I think he blames himself, although it was purely accidental. She fell and hit her head while in his bedchamber. They were arguing—or so his mistress told me.”

That took the duchess by surprise. “His mistress?”

“Why, yes.” She hoped Miss Greenaway would forgive her for this as long as all names were kept out of it. “That woman I mentioned in the paper, the one on Waltham Street? I was mistaken about her connection to my husband. He helped her because she’d been Mr. Lennard’s mistress for a time and was in dire straits. She’d left Mr. Lennard because she couldn’t endure his grief any longer. I talked to her about all of it myself.”

“Y-You talked to her?” the duchess stammered.

No woman ever talked to someone presumed to be her husband’s mistress, which Felicity prayed would lend credence to her claims. “Yes. I wanted to find out if I could do anything to help dear Mr. Lennard through his grief. He is family, after all. Ian and I are both concerned about him. The poor wretch’s mind seems to have snapped.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice as if to impart a great secret. “He has some notion he should have inherited Chesterley instead of my husband. Can you believe it, Your Grace?”

That started the whispers going, as she’d hoped it would. Such a “notion” offended firmly held beliefs in primogeniture. Besides, everyone assumed that the estate was entailed on Ian’s heir. Thus Edgar Lennard’s “notion” only proved his madness.

“That doesn’t explain why your husband fled England,” the duchess persisted.