“No, my dear, they areexceptional. Neither I nor your sister would have settled for anything less than men who love us for what we are. I cannot tell you how liberating and empowering that heady feeling is. To share your life with someone who understands you. Who shares all your hopes and your dreams and strives for them beside you. Who is there through thick and thin, no matter what, just because you are you.” Olivia sighed in a dreamy fashion. “I have a feeling Giles might be exceptional, too, because for some inexplicable reason he seems to enjoy your sharp tongue and suspicious nature and I cannot imagine him wanting to change either for the earth. And you have a soft spot for that rapscallion. He’s a challenge who makes your eyes sparkle.”
“He’s a challenge, all right. An insufferable one.” Before Olivia could insinuate further, Diana decided to use the awkward topic to her benefit. “Although I must confess, since Shropshire, I have been intrigued by his background. Despite the physical resemblance, he doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of his ancestors, does he? I mean, he is nothing like his father in character at all.”
“Thank goodness. I couldn’t stand his father. The Sinclairs always looked down their noses at everyone else and strode around as if they owned the place. Even when we were younger and attended all the same soirees, I did my best to avoid him and his awful brother.”
And there was her way in. “I had a rummage in theTribunearchive for the Derbyshire scandal. You were right, it was shocking. The disowned, dissolute second son of a duke abducting a woman for her dowry must have made for compulsive reading. But I suppose you lived and breathed it, didn’t you?”
Solemnity instantly replaced the dreaminess in her eyes. “I remember it well, dear. I was a young bride at the time and had just found out I was expecting Hugh.” Always one for telling a good yarn, Olivia happily took the bait and settled in for the duration.
“I’d only met Gerald a handful of times before my marriage, as he tended to stay in Shropshire, learning the ropes I suppose, with his father. He was such a serious soul. Handsome, like Giles, but without any of his charm or effervescence. Even as a young man Gerald Sinclair was dour and pompous and obsessed with his status. We barely exchanged ten words in ten years growing up. But I knew Gervais well. He lived here in town with the duchess and because we were a similar age, and both were the offspring of dukes, we moved in the same circles. In fact, his mother and mine often took tea together before the scandal happened. Gervais was always a little wild, even as a boy. Spoiled rotten, my mother would often say when his tantrums raised a few eyebrows. His every whim indulged by the old duchess who could never see any fault in her flaxen-haired little angel.”
“You saw them, though?”
“We all did, dear. Right from the nursery Gervais’s many faults were glaringly obvious. He could be charming and there was no doubting he was handsome, but there was always an air about him that made me feel uncomfortable. And oh my goodness, did he have a temper! If he didn’t get his way, he lashed out with venomas both a boy and a man. I seem to recall there was a particularly nasty incident involving a maid at Sinclair House. I was only sixteen or so at the time and not yet out, so I was shielded from the worst of the gossip, but I did overhear my mother tell a friend that Gervais had allegedly been violent toward the poor girl.”
“He forced himself upon her?”
Olivia shrugged as she slotted a pin in the tumbled chignon she was creating. “One can only assume it was that, because my friends and I were supervised more vigilantly whenever Gervais was around afterward. Then, for whatever reason, he was no longer around and none of us saw him for years.”
“Where did he go?”
“Officially? Nobody ever said. The Sinclair family have always been a secretive lot.” Olivia was right on that score. “But rumors were rife of gambling debts and debaucheries, and of the duke cutting him off.”
“How old was he then?”
“He couldn’t have been more than three and twenty because it happened during my first season. After that, I do know he spent at least one stint in Fleet when his father refused to pay his creditors because that made the papers, but I doubt it was a one-off. He relied on his mother after that, or so we all assumed, and I know she and her husband fell out over it. Theirs had never been a happy marriage, but it deteriorated after Gervais’s disownment to such an extent she set up a separate household in a rented house on Curzon Street. I don’t think Giles’s grandparents ever exchanged another word again before he turned up his toes a few years later. They certainly always ignored each other at any public engagements they happened to collide at, which made things quite awkward forthe unfortunate hostesses. They even sat on opposite sides of the church when Gerald married.”
“And when Gerald inherited—did the tide change for his brother?”
“They were never close but I believe Gervais was tolerated initially when his brother became the duke, largely because the new duke remained in Shropshire even when his wife preferred to stay in town.” Olivia shook her head. “That was another unhappy Sinclair union, but as I can vouch, arranged marriages are rarely blissful. I was lucky with Hugh’s father, as he was a decent man through and through—but as you know, we had our ups and downs and it took us years to find some common ground.”
In case the conversation wandered farther down that meandering path, Diana pulled it back. “How did Gervais behave then?”
“Ah yes…” Olivia grinned at her reflection. “We were talking about Giles.”
“Actually, we were talking about Gervais.”
“Of course we were, dear, and I shall endeavor to maintain my focus, as it is perfectly understandable that you would wish to know what sort of family you will be marrying into.” She ignored Diana’s stony glare to laugh. “But I digress again… Gervais remained a scandal for the next few years. Enough to be excluded from all the good houses, though some of the lesser ones still tolerated him. He was the heir, after all, and a handsome and sometimes charming one at that. After Giles was born—and to much fanfare in the newspapers, I might add—Gerald Sinclair moved permanently to London, and once thetonrealized Gervais was never going to inherit his dukedom he was pushed to the periphery again. It was his shocking reputation, of course, but he wouldn’t have seen it likethat. He bad-mouthed his brother everywhere and constantly complained about his allowance. Knowing his penchant for reckless spending way beyond his means, Gervais must have been up to his neck in debt and trouble by then. Enough that even his blinkered mother’s handouts could not sustain him, especially after she fell out with her other son.”
“Over what?”
Olivia shrugged. “Who knows? Gervais probably. Around the same time he tried to court Lady Caroline Derbyshire. When she would have none of him, he abducted the poor thing. You already know the rest. Suffice to say, the spare Sinclair packed quite a lot of scandal in his first thirty years, I can tell you. Thankfully, his nephew, although a rapscallion, is nothing like him so you can rest easy on that score.”
“What became of Lady Caroline?”
“Another mystery. I did hear she went to a nunnery in Kent to recuperate from her ordeal, but then her father died and she didn’t return. My mother, who adored gossip—”
“The apple didn’t fall far from that tree.”
Olivia grinned but didn’t deny it. “My mother once said she believed poor Caroline remained in the sanctuary of that nunnery and took Holy Orders, but I have no idea if that was just her theory. She did like to speculate with little evidence to support it.”
“Like mother, like daughter.”
“We shall see.” She popped the final pin into Diana’s hair and stepped back to admire her creation. “You look ravishing, darling. Giles won’t be able to resist you—but for propriety’s sake, you should probably put on your gown before you go downstairs. No matter how charming the suitor is, a lady only sheds that on herwedding night… or thereabouts.” She winked as Diana rolled her eyes and bustled toward the bed to eye the dress critically. “This pink is lovely, but your turquoise is more seductive.” She cocked her eyebrow. “What say you I fetch that, as the mistletoe still works till Twelfth Night if you are tempted to loiter with him under it again?”
In answer, Diana snatched up the pink and shimmied into it. “It will be a cold day in hell before I kiss Giles Sinclair again!”
Olivia chuckled as she did up the laces. “If you say so, dear.”
