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Torie managed a smile. “Thank you, Papa. It’s quite untrue, but I appreciate it.”
“Frivolous, the both of you,” her father said. “I’ve always said it, especially when governesses would complain that Torie couldn’t read. Why shouldn’t a lady be frivolous? Why should a woman read or write? It’s like asking a pig to sing opera.”
Torie didn’t flinch. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been compared to livestock before.
Leonora cut in. “What do you plan to do with the children, Lord Kelbourne? Perhaps an aunt or some such can raise them in the country. The boy might be sent to Eton—after all, he has inherited the title—but what of the girl? What’s to be done with her?”
“I am the twins’ only relative,” the viscount said flatly. “We have no aunts, living in the country or elsewhere. According to my brother-in-law’s will, I stand in loco parentis.”
“Nothing much to it when they’re this age,” Sir William said. “Put them under the care of a good woman, and you’re set. It’s when they’re older that they get to be a nuisance. Must be escorted to balls and such.”
“Yet we see you so rarely during the Season,” Leonora said, acid creeping into her voice.
Torie’s heart sank. Leonora was never her best when strong emotions were being bandied about, if “her best” could be described as maintaining an illusion of docile, ladylike perfection.
“Neither of you needs me to find eligible suitors,” Sir William pointed out. “I’m kept busy turning down men wanting to marry Torie.” He threw Kelbourne a manly grimace. “I don’t bother with balls, son, but you’ll see me at the wedding. And the first christening, provided it’s a child of Leonora’s, naturally . . . Better get on the stick. As you can see, I ended up with two girls. Should have married younger.”
Kelbourne appeared as horrified as a man with such strict control over his features could look. Torie wasn’t certain if his disdain resulted from being addressed as “son” or from the implication that he might father a child outside marriage.
“Even for you, Father, that suggestion is grossly improper,” Leonora observed. “Must I remind you that weddings are not conducted during mourning? Given Lord Kelbourne’s tragic loss, we shall not marry for another year.”
Her fiancé turned his head and looked at her beneath drawn brows. “Under the circumstances, I believe that polite society would forgive our breach of that rule.”
Torie managed not to roll her eyes. The viscount didn’t know Leonora if he thought she would contravene a social rule—any social rule.
Sure enough, her sister replied with undisguised distaste. “If you mean to suggest that I would overlook convention and marry you in order to act the part of a mother to two orphans, you are quite mistaken, Lord Kelbourne.”
There was an uncomfortable pause during which the only sound was Sir William gulping brandy.
Torie didn’t know Kelbourne well, having spoken to him no more than a handful of times over the two years of Leonora’s betrothal, but she didn’t like the look in his eyes. He’d gone from offended to enraged.
“I am certain that your insensate manner doesn’t reflect your true sensibilities,” he stated.
“To be blunt, Kelbourne, given the uncertainty surrounding their paternity, it would be kindest to raise your wards with modest expectations. In the country.”
The viscount’s eyes narrowed. “You surprise me, Miss Sutton. I’ll say again that Valentine and Florence are unquestionably the direct descendants of Lord Dorney.”
Did Leonora have to discard her docile demeanor today, of all days, when her fiancé had just buried his only sister? “I’m sure you’ll come to love the twins, Leonora,” Torie put in.
“My affection is not the question. Society’s stance cannot be overlooked. Valentine has a title and an estate, but given the late Lord Dorney’s public statements regarding his marital felicity, Florence’s chance of making a decent marriage is slim.”
Sadly, that was true. Lord Dorney had celebrated the birth of the twins by getting drunk and announcing in his club that he avoided his wife’s bed for fear of bumping into another fellow on the way out the door.
Leonora’s mouth firmed. “Questions about their parentage will dog their footsteps. Florence cannot be presented to the ton.”
Given the viscount’s frown, he finally suspected that his fiancée’s demure mannerisms were skin-deep. Leonora had spent the last two years agreeing with everything he said—while absolutely refusing to set a wedding date. That should have given him a clue about her malleability.
Torie’s heart thumped into a faster rhythm. Her sister prided herself on never having met a man whom she couldn’t manage—or bamboozle—but Torie had the feeling Leonora might have met her match.
“When Valentine and Florence are of age, my wife and I will introduce them to polite society as the noble members of the peerage who they are,” Kelbourne stated. “I seem to have neglected a signal question during my proposal two years ago: Do you plan to mother our children, Miss Sutton? Or are they to be discarded in the country like unwanted kittens?”
Leonora raised an eyebrow. “My understanding is that children are happiest and healthiest when they are not breathing the coal dust of London, but I am happy to consider differing opinions. In my answer to your proposal, I promised you two sons. I never hesitate to do my duty, Lord Kelbourne.”
Which was what?
Bear two children, or introduce said children to society? Torie was guiltily aware that Leonora considered bedding the viscount an unpleasant chore to be delayed as long as possible.
Her sister liked slender men with golden locks and winsome expressions. Viscount Kelbourne was black-haired, burly, and bad-tempered. And blunt. An alliterative plethora. Plethora was a word Torie had just learned in the funeral service, when the archbishop talked of a “plethora of grief and loss.”
