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“Hmm,” was Father’s reply. “Very well. I shall wait.”
“Good.”
“Not good. May I remind you both that blackguard jilted her and left her open to the ridicule of the whole ton.” I would sooner applaud her betrothal to Lord Wyndham’s second, untitled son than sit by and see her with that detestable man. “I beg of you, Mother, do not be biased in his favor due to your past friendship with his mother.”
“Do you think that you are more concerned for your sister’s well-being than I am, her own mother?” she retorted.
At that moment, my answer would have been yes. However, I could not say as much. My father might hurl a book at the back of my head. “All I mean, Mother, is the talk of him is not pleasant. They say he drove his wife mad and had her confined, their child is being raised without any care or compassion. To my understanding, he is more like his father than his mother. Cruel. Such a man is not worthy of my sister.”
“I do not believe a word of that.” She was truly unrelenting. “I all but raised that boy alongside you, Damon. I know him as well as I know you.”
“Mother—”
“When all the ton spoke of your affairs and proclaimed you would never be serious, I laughed, for I knew your time would come, and so it did. Now when they look upon you, they see what I saw first, an upstanding—though a bit severe—earl with a respectable wife. I was correct about you. I am correct about him. I shall not be deterred. And that is that. So if you will excuse me, I must tend to my preparations,” she declared and left the room just as she had entered, head high.
“Is it not unreasonable for her to bring my past into this?” I asked, looking to my father, who had already returned his attention to his books.
“Your first mistake was to argue at all.” He moved the paper closer to examine the page. “One would think, being a married man yourself now, that you would have learned that already.”
I frowned. “Father, it is not my desire to argue. I am merely concerned and am lost as to why you are not. Is Aphrodite not your favorite?”
“A father has no favorites among his children.”
“What a load of bollocks.”
He chuckled and glanced at me. “But should there be such a ranking of my children, I would have you know that you are at the bottom.”
“However shall I survive?” I mocked, resting back into my chair. “Father, honestly, I fear Mother might push too far. Aphrodite is still fragile.”
“You said you all came upon the duke on the road?”
“Yes, of all times, can you imagine? What are the odds of his wheel getting caught in a rut at the same time we are passing?”
“The roads have been poor due to the heavy rains this year, so accidents are bound to happen. It is unfortunate your sister came across him so soon. How did she react?”
“She did not see him, though she stiffened like a young fawn lost in the wilderness at the mere sound of his voice. It was clear to all who had eyes that she sought to gather her wits.”
“So, your mother is correct then. She may still feel for him?”
“Father, it was never her feelings that were in question. The question has always been his feelings, and he has expressed them quite clearly. If it is a matter of making her a duchess, Evander Eagleman is not the only duke in the land. You need not support him.”
“I support only this family,” he said sternly. “Status or title is less important than the happiness and safety of all my children, Damon, as you know. I will not allow your sister to fall into distress again, least of all with the duke, but there is little reason to pick a fight now as it is the nature of women to dream and flutter, especially about marriage. There is no need for us to speak until we must. And we must only when one of your sisters has been given an offer. It may very well be that your mother’s efforts will be in vain, or Aphrodite could become enamored of another gentleman. It is our duty as men of the house to watch over them as shepherds do sheep.”
“And should a wolf arrive in disguise as we are waiting?”
“If you had read the progymnasmata by the twelfth-century Greek rhetorician Nikephoros Basilakes as I instructed you, you would know the answer to that question,” he replied, rising to his feet. He rummaged through a stack of books behind him, selected one, and held it out. “Fill your mind with this instead of the silly talk of women.”
If there was a problem, my father had a book for it.
I never thought myself foolish or dimwitted until I spoke with my father. The breadth of his knowledge seemed ever-expanding.
“How is it you are so keenly able to cut me to size but are powerless against Mother?”
“A few more weeks of marriage, and you, too, Damon, will understand. That I promise.”
I feared such a time, for if my father in all his wisdom never stood a chance, what would be my fate?
“I shall go find my wife,” I said and rose to leave.
