Sylvester ran a hand through his crisp curls and over the back of his neck. "One day I hope that you'll feel you've gained much more than you've lost," he said finally.
Theo, her hand on the key in the lock, paused as if she would say something; then quietly she unlocked the door and left.
A heavy silence fell like a pall at her departure. Sylvester poured himself a glass of madeira and sat in a chair beside the hearth, where a copper jug of golden chrysanthemums blazed in the place of a fire. He'd won a victory, but it was hardly conclusive, and he'd used a weapon he'd promised himself he wouldn't use against Theo again. He'd sworn he would use her passion only for their shared pleasure. But surely there was a greater good to be served here…
"Lady Belmont, my lord." Foster spoke from the library door, and Elinor entered, her face shaded by the wide brim of her straw hat.
"This is an unexpected pleasure, ma'am." Stoneridge moved forward, hand outstretched in welcome, wondering what would have happened if his mother-in-law had arrived half an hour earlier to find her daughter behind a locked door in the throes of passion on the library floor. Knowing Elinor, she'd have slipped quietly away, and they'd have been none the wiser. The thought brought a flicker of amusement, lightening his somber mood.
"I trust I'm not intruding," Elinor said pleasantly, taking his hand.
"Not at all," he said. "Theo is upstairs, I believe. Foster will let her know you're here. May I offer you a glass of madeira?"
"Thank you." Elinor turned to the butler. "I'll go up and see Lady Theo in a minute, Foster. There's no need to disturb her. I wish to have a word with Lord Stoneridge first."
Sylvester raised an eyebrow as he turned to the decanter, wondering what could be behind this tete-a-tete. "Ma'am." He placed a glass on the small table beside the chair where Elinor had seated herself.
"Thank you." She drew off her gloves in a businesslike fashion. "I'll come straight to the point. I have it in mind to go to London for the coming Season. Thanks to your generosity…" She inclined her head as she sipped her madeira. "Thanks to your generosity over the girls' dowries, I am well able to afford a come-out for Emily and Clarissa. Emily should have been presented two years ago, but with her grandfather's illness it wasn't possible."
"No, of course not," Sylvester murmured, taking a seat opposite her, wincing at this reference to his generosity. At least Theo wasn't around to hear it. "Would you wish to open Belmont House? I should be delighted to put it at your disposal, of course…"
"Good heavens, no," Elinor said. "I wouldn't dream of expecting to be a charge on you, Stoneridge. I shall hire a suitable house for myself and the girls. Lawyer Crighton shall see to it for me. But it's Theo I wish to discuss with you."
He frowned. "You wish her to accompany you?"
Elinor replaced her glass on the table. "I was hoping to persuade you to take her yourself. She should be presented at court, and while, of course, I'll sponsor her, it would be more appropriate if she were under her husband's roof." She sat back, watching his reaction, her expression hidden by her hat brim.
Sylvester's mind whirled. To go to London. To face the turned shoulders, the raised eyebrows, the whispers.
To face them and face them down. Either that or he must hide out in this backwater for the rest of his life, waiting in dread for his dishonor to catch up with him. Waiting in dread for his dishonor to be revealed to his wife. Without a wife… without such a wife as Theo… he could have lived with his private shame, as he had done for the last year. But now it was different.
Neil Gerard's face, as it had been at the court-martial, rose in his mind's eye. Neil had averted his gaze, and Sylvester had assumed it was his friend's embarrassment. Gerard couldn't in honesty clear his old friend's name, so he was evasive. And Sylvester had read his own guilt in that evasion and had turned his own head aside to spare Neil further discomfort.
He'd avoided Neil after the court-martial. The one occasion they'd met, his erstwhile friend had given him the cut direct in public, and he hadn't been prepared to court a repetition of that mortification. Like the coward he'd been labeled, he'd fled the scene of his shame. But how long was he to go on in this fashion?
"Lord Stoneridge?" Elinor's soft voice broke into his reverie. She was looking puzzled, and he realized he'd been silent for a long time.
He rose to his feet, crossing to the sideboard to refill his glass. "It wouldn't hurt that ramshackle hoyden to acquire a little town bronze, ma'am," he said with a smile.
Elinor laughed. "My thinking exactly. So you'll open Belmont House for the Season."
"I bow to your judgment, Lady Belmont. But I think I'll leave you to persuade Theo. I don't see her embracing the idea with enthusiasm – she's too wedded to Stoneridge and its affairs."
"Very true," Elinor said briskly. "But her sisters will be most persuasive, and as long as we have your support…" She stood up, drawing on her gloves again.
"You have it for what it's worth," he said wryly.
"Then I'll go and tackle her at once."
Sylvester bowed his mother-in-law from the library and then stood in frowning thought, wondering what he'd let himself in for. Theo would wonder why her husband was a social pariah. She would hear the rumors…
If only he could remember what had happened that day at Vimiera, if only he could prove the rumors false once and for all. There had to be another explanation for what had happened. And there had to be a way to discover the truth.
Chapter Seventeen
"Launching three gals in one Season is quite an undertaking," Countess Lieven observed as the barouche drew up before a tall house on Brook Street.
"But only one of them requires a husband," Sally Jersey pointed out, gathering her parasol and reticule together.
"Well, it's to be hoped they're not farouche," the countess declared with a lift of her narrow nose as she stepped out onto the pavement. "Living in the country all these years."
"I can't imagine any daughter of Elinor's being in the least objectionable," Lady Jersey said with her usual good nature. "I'd be quite happy to supply vouchers for Almack's without meeting them."
"Yes, well you do have an unfortunate tendency to take things on trust," her companion said sharply. "We have standards to maintain, must I remind you?" She ascended the short flight of steps to the house behind her footman, who ran up from the barouche to knock on the door. "And what do we know about this young Fairfax?"
"Perfectly unexceptionable Dorsetshire family," Sally told her. "It's not a great match but an eminently respectable one… a love match, as I understand it."
"I don't know what gets into gals' heads these days," Countess Lieven sniffed. "Marrying for love, indeed. At least the younger one did the sensible thing, marrying Stoneridge."
The door opened, and Lady Belmont's butler bowed deeply at the august visitors. The footman returned to the barouche as the ladies were admitted.
Countess Lieven looked around the square hall with a critical eye before pronouncing, "Remarkably tasteful for a hired house."
She moved in stately fashion to the wide, shallow staircase, her companion bustling somewhat less elegantly on her heels. "Why do I have a feeling there was some scandal attached to Stoneridge?"
"Oh, it was nothing," Sally said. "Some military matter… no one gives such things a thought."
"I feel sure Lieven said something," the countess muttered.
"Yes, men are much more concerned with such matters," Sally declared. "Quite unnecessarily so, I would have said."
"I've never cared for Lavinia Gilbraith… an overbearing woman," the countess pronounced. Sally privately reflected that when it came to overbearing, her fellow patroness of Almack's had few rivals; however, she merely said pacifically, "I don't think that should affect our view of the Belmont girls."