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He closed his eyes and sagged into the couch. “You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that,” he mumbled.
“I apologize for that. I should have told you sooner.”
He smiled softly at his mother. “How could you have known?”
He had made every effort to hide his suffering from his mother, thinking that she had already suffered too much married to his father.
“I am your mother, Daniel. We are supposed to know these things,” she pointed out with a wry smile.
He laughed hoarsely. “You already know too much.”
“Oh…not really. Some things I had to pry out of your cousin.”
“I do not think it would require that much effort, Mother,” he replied with a grudging smile. “No secret is safe with Melissa.”
“You would be surprised by her loyalty to you,” Joyce laughed softly. “If she did not thing it would help you to divulge your personal affairs, nothing I did could have made her tell me.”
Somehow, that description did not match with the version of his cousin that he knew. Melissa was a force to be reckoned with—one who would drive to insanity whoever was foolish enough to marry her.
“You will have your hands full with her,” he told his mother. “She seems to think that a husband will be a hindrance to the life she plans to live.”
His mother wrinkled her nose. “I did promise her dear departed parents that I would make sure she is suitably wed. You will have to help me on that account.”
He nodded.
“But first, you must tell me about this young lady of yours.” His mother turned her inquisitive gaze towards him. “What is she like?”
He tilted his head towards her and smiled mischievously. “Ah…wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Daniel Theodore Bolt!”
He laughed and leaned back into the couch with a soft, wistful smile. “She was painfully shy when I first met her with eyes like a skittish fawn,” he paused and nodded. “She would jump at loud noises, too.”
“Oh…that sounds quite sad.”
He nodded in agreement. “Her mother died when she was but an infant, and her father married not three years after. Her stepmother was not a kind woman.”
His mother nodded sagely. “I would presume that her father remains largely unaware of her maltreatment of his child.” When he voiced his agreement, she scoffed, “Men. Daniel Bolt, you must make me a promise that you will not be so negligent in your own home in the future!”
“I promise,” he reassured her solemnly.
“Good.” Appeased, the Dowager Duchess leaned back and urged him to carry on telling her about the young lady.
“This is already her second season,” he continued. “As you might have already guessed, no one took notice of her in her coming out because she was dreadfully shy. It did not help that she wore the ugliest dresses known to mankind.”
“All because of her stepmother? That woman is a disgrace to womankind!” Joyce exclaimed, aghast. She shook her head and pursed her lips. “Our society already thinks so little of women; must we fight amongst ourselves as well?”
Daniel smiled in amusement at his mother. She was right—even when his father flaunted his mistresses, and they humiliated his mother, she never maligned them or fought with them. She handled everything with as much dignity as she could, and even now, with her husband dead and gone, the Ton continued to regard her as one of its noblest and most elegant ladies in contrast to the women who dallied with his sire.
Society truly was cruel to women, but Daniel found it only fitting for those women to be judged harshly.
“I have known her since she was a child, so, as a joke, I tried to teach her how to flirt,” he told his mother, feeling an uncomfortable warmth creep up his neck. “I did not think anything much would come out of it.”
“Let me guess—it worked a little too well, didn’t it?”
He nodded painfully. “It worked too well. I decided to push the boat a little further and gave her a dress, hoping it would give her a better chance at finding a suitable enough match.”
His mother looked at him in surprise before laughter pealed from her throat. “Oh my! You certainly are a lot more romantic than your father. I have to give you that much credit!”
