“She came with me to London in order to present me to the queen. To see me launched into Society, and to visit old friends she has not seen in a long time.” Mary stilled, chewing her lip again and clutching her hands together in her lap. “I am about to tell you something about me that you would find out sooner or later, and I would rather you hear it from me.”
Behind them, Raleigh made a choking noise, and Thad glanced backward, dread making his muscles tense. “What would that be?”
She swallowed. “There are . . . rumors . . . gossip floating about me. That I am not virtuous.”
Is that all? No, man, this is serious to her. Listen!“Why would such rumors start?”
“The three of us—the duke and duchess and I—have had a somewhat eventful year. Last year about this time, my brother courted Lady Elizabeth Ashton, but they parted company, and she associated with another man. Then her brother’s scandal broke—”
“Lord Robert Ashton and Campion’s Gentlemen’s Club.” Thad had heard about how Lord Robert had come to own Campion’s and the resulting folderol.
Lady Mary nodded. “She went north to avoid it and wound up staying with some friends of ours. I had gone to visit them as well, and Beth—Lady Elizabeth, um, Lady Kirkstone—and I became friends. When my brother came to collect me, they resumed their acquaintance. While we were there, another mutual acquaintance, Charlotte, delivered a child, but perished in the aftermath. She left behind that child and an older one, Mattie, whom our friends could not keep.”
Thad swallowed, trying to keep up. “What happened next?”
“Kit and Beth decided to marry, to bring the two children back to Kirkstone Abbey and become their guardians.” She hesitated, twisting her fingers into her skirt. “Then Mina came along. So within a year, Kit and Beth acquired three children, two of them infants.”
Thad nodded. “Three children. One year. Two infants.”
Lady Mary waited, watching him.
He watched her in return, turning her words over in his head. He knew he was supposed to respond, to understand something about what she had said...ah! Two infants. One year.
He growled. “How cruel. The rumor is that one of the infants is yours, not your friend’s.”
Lady Mary gave a single nod. “It does not help that I adore them all, and I started coming to the park with Nanny, especially on the sunny days when she brings the children to the Serpentine to see the birds.” She stretched her fingers in front of her, as if trying to rid herself of the thought. “I had been unaware, I’m afraid, that members of the elite were not supposed to look at their children with affection.”
Thad tried to ignore the memories that statement stirred. “Most of them consider children in the same way they wouldtheir foot or hand. A useful appendage that, while one could do without it, one really should not. Having children has a great more to do with continuing the lineage—and thus money and ties to the crown—than it does with affection. When a child is no longer needed for the lineage, then the child is a useless bit of flotsam.”
Lady Mary looked up at him. “That is a bit harsh, do you not think?”
He shrugged. “Harsh, perhaps, but truth sometimes is.”
“That would make you rather cynical.”
Thad’s heart leapt again. “Cynical.” He stood. “Let us walk again so that you can tell me why you use words so foreign to many young ladies of a similar age.”
Her eyebrows arched, but she stood. “Such as? And why should we walk?”
His grin turned mischievous. “Because the longer I sit next to you, the more I wish to do things that would make Raleigh fearfully unhappy.”
Lady Mary’s cheeks pinked. “Well, we cannot allow that to happen. What words?”
“Oh, a few that have peppered our conversation. Cynical. Paradox. The lines from a favored poet. And I truly want to hear about those Highland Ponies.” He wagged a finger at her. “Do not think I have forgotten.”
She laughed, a soft sound just under her breath. “I would never. Your enthusiasm regarding that discovery is memorable.” She fell silent a moment, then continued. “I admired my brother a great deal as I grew up. Older. So much more accomplished. Of course, I mostly saw him summers and between terms. Our parents sent him off to school—Harrow and Cambridge—and he would come home with a head full of knowledge and a trunk of new books, some of which he left behind when he returned in the new term. Shortly after I turned eight, my parents hired agoverness to teach me to read—English and French—as well as manners, dancing, sewing, and the pianoforte. I loved reading and the pianoforte—still do—the other three... not as well. And when those lessons became screaming fits, I hid in Kit’s room to read.”
“Autodidact.”
Lady Mary stopped, looking up at him. “How do you know that—”
Thad placed a hand on his chest. “Oxford. Four years during which I learned a vast number of words and an even vaster number of ways to lose money through gambling. A most extensive and expensive education.”
“Your parents must be proud.”
Thad resumed walking. “Hardly. Their primary interest in my education was in me meeting a wide circle of wealthy friends with equally wealthy sisters. The sooner I am out from under their roof the better. They knew I would be a disaster on the Marriage Mart—and I was—but also equally inept as a vicar or soldier. Also correct.”
“How so?”
