“Not just yet,” he said. “I find myself in no great hurry. I have only just arrived in London, after all. And besides you of all people will appreciate that my last venture in that direction did not end especially well. You helped me recover my spirits, after all.”
“I do recall indeed.”
Before they could venture further in this direction, a heavy footfall came down the hall and he looked up to find an all too familiar face looking at him.
“Gideon. Why did you not tell me you would be here tonight?”
“James,” he said and shook his friend’s hand. “I did not know Frances lets you out on your own anymore. Or is she here?”
His friend shook his head. “She is busy with her cousins, arranging some social event or other.”
“I should leave the two of you be,” Lady Clara said and curtsied before slipping out of the room, but not before winking at Gideon one last time.
“James,” he said, shaking his head, “look what you have done. I was in the midst of a conversation with that beautiful young lady, and you have gone and chased her away.”
“A young lady who is engaged to be married,” James reminded him.
Gideon waved his hand. “Semantics. We were having a lovely conversation.”
“Oh, Gideon.” James sighed. “I had hoped that becoming a Duke might have changed things somewhat.”
“Why in the world would it? I never asked to be a Duke, and I will most certainly not let it change me. I am who I am. The same delightful rogue you have always known.” To his surprise, his friend did not smile or chuckle. Instead, he narrowed his eyes.
“I was under the impression that you understood what it meant to be a Duke.”
“Apparently what it takes to become one,” Gideon replied, “is having a cousin thrice removed who does not know how tonavigate a curricle during an illegal curricle race, and who thus dispatches himself into whatever world comes after this one. That is all that is required.”
“To become one,” James said, “but to be a respected one — one who can forge alliances in the House of Lords and effect change in society?—”
He raised his hands. “You speak as though I wish to effect changes upon society. I merely wish to exist within it. That is all.”
“Well, I had hoped that you might be open to aligning yourself with myself and the others.”
“The Langley husbands,” he said, and chuckled. “I do not mean any offence to your lovely wife or her cousins, but I have no great desire to become known as one of the Langley husbands. I would rather remain myself. Of course, I will happily align with you if I feel strongly about a particular matter.”
Over the last few years, a small group of influential young gentlemen had formed, two of whom — James and Rhys — Gideon counted among his closest friends. They were an assortment of Dukes, Marquesses and Earls, and had formed a formidable alliance in the House of Lords.
Together they had affected genuine and positive change for society; Gideon could not deny that. He had not been part of it before, for the simple reason that a Viscount’s son had no seat in the Lords. Even after his father passed away last winterand he had inherited the Viscountcy, he had barely had time to take his seat before the news came about Howard’s accident and everything changed.
The quartet of gentlemen had been affectionately dubbed the Langley husbands in the scandal sheets, for they were each married to a member of the aristocratic Langley family.
He adored all four of them. They often had great fun together at Vauxhall Gardens or down at Tattersall’s, but he had never seriously entertained the notion of joining their ranks. It was an idea, certainly. Yet he wasn’t willing to make that sort of commitment — not here, standing in the refreshment room of yet another ballroom.
“Gideon,” James said. “I truly thought you had settled down. Did you not tell me yourself that you were a changed man when you found yourself in love with Miss Cassandra?”
Gideon’s jaw tightened at once. “I was foolish,” he said. “I thought myself in love and fully capable of change. And I was willing to change — God help me, I was. I married her after all.” He paused, letting that land.
“What I was not willing to do was pretend that a marriage was something other than what it was once it became plain that she did not feel the same. We parted ways. The marriage was dissolved.” He said it flatly, without elaboration. It was old ground and he had no desire to dig it up again.
The annulment had been quietly managed. Easier than it might have been, given that at the time he had been nobody in particular. A Viscount’s son. Not someone the scandal sheets usually bothered with. He had been grateful for his obscurity then, even if he had resented it at every other point in his life.
“I know,” James said, more gently. “I know it. And I am sorry for raising it.”
“Think nothing of it,” Gideon said, though his tone made clear he would prefer they did precisely that. “Now, you were in the middle of counselling me on my behaviour.”
James raised both hands. “Far be it from me to tell you what to do. But I do think that if you have any hope of being respected as a Duke, you ought to truly make some effort to cease being quite such a rake.”
“I detest that label. I am not, nor have I ever been, a rake. I am a man who appreciates beauty, high-spiritedness, and a sharp wit in a woman.”
