Two hours later, Prue returned from the meeting with Tolliver. Allen opened the door to her knock.
“There is a visitor, Miss Virtue. He asked for Mr. Wakefield. I told him the master was out of town, but he said he would leave a note, and then Mrs. Smith came downstairs, and…” Allen ran out of words, and just looked at Prue, pleading.
She opened the parlour door and recognised him immediately. The Marquis of Aldridge was bending over Charity, his whole posture confiding and seductive.
“You would love the London I could show you, Mrs. Smith,” he was saying. “You have no idea how much London has to offer until you see it with me.”
“I see you have met the Marquis of Aldridge, Charity,” Prue said, dryly, satisfied with the naked shock on the man’s face when he whipped around at her voice.
“Prudence? Prudence Virtue?” He turned from one sister to the other, his eyes narrowed.
“I understand a little better now, I think,” Charity told Prue. “He is very persistent, is he not?”
“Very,” Prue agreed. “Persistent but not, as you will recall, constant.”
“Oh, I remember. I recognised him, of course. He looks just like…”
“Gren,” Prue interrupted. She was not going to mention the child he had denied before its birth. Let him ask what became of the baby, if he would. “Yes, very like. And a little like David too.”
The colour on Aldridge’s cheeks, the tightening of his lips, showed his displeasure at being discussed as if he were not there.
“What are you doing here, Prudence? And with, I take it, your sister?”
“Miss Virtue to you, Lord Aldridge. And my business is my own. I take it you came to visit David? He is from home, but I will see he receives your note.”
His eyes narrowed and he thought for a moment, then nodded decisively. “Mrs. Smith, would you be kind enough to give us a moment? I have something I need to say to Miss Virtue.”
Prue responded to Charity’s questioning frown with a short nod. Whatever Aldridge wanted, talking to him alone might be the fastest way to get rid of him.
Charity gathered up the materials she had been using to trim a small house cap, and stopped on her way out the door to whisper to Prue, “Do you wish me to remain within earshot?”
Remembering the man’s keen ears, she whispered back, “Lord Aldridge will not hurt me, Charity. Besides, I have a gun in my reticule.”
His eyes widened at that, but Charity just nodded. “I shall be in the next-door parlour, Prue,” she said. She gave Aldridge a frigid nod, not even a curtsey. “Lord Aldridge.”
He crossed the room and closed the door behind her, then stood with his back to it.
“Do you really have a gun in your reticule?”
“Yes. Do you wish to see it?”
“I will take your word. You have changed, Prudence.”
“I would hope so. And I do not make you free of my name, Lord Aldridge.”
“I have been free with more than… No. That is not why I asked to speak with you. Miss Virtue, I lost my temper last time we met and said some things that were untrue and unfair. I have wished to apologise ever since I had time to consider my behaviour.”
That was unexpected. She had expected threats, or warnings, or an attempted seduction, or even an enquiry after the baby about whom she had written to Aldridge when her condition became clear. But not an apology. Yet he seemed sincere.
Prue found she was seeing him through several lenses.
As her long-ago lover, he had changed. The stripling boy had grown into a man, and the man’s muscles were well defined under the jacket and pantaloons that lovingly hugged his shoulders, biceps, torso, and thighs.
Through David’s stories, she saw the lonely heir, kept separate from other children, indulged as long as he met his father’s arbitrary rules, severely punished if he fell short.
And Gren gave her a different Aldridge altogether. To him, his older brother was the hard-working manager of the Haverford estates, and a fond, if over-protective, mentor to Gren.
By contrast to all of these, persistent gossip in society cast him as a heartless, predatory rake, a despoiler of maidens—though no one could name a maiden he had despoiled. Prudence could, but she was willing to share the blame for her fall. She was not much Aldridge’s junior, after all, and if his seduction was persistent, he had told her no lies. He had not needed to. She had told herself all the lies required.
He was waiting for her response.
“Very well. I accept your apology. We were both angry, and it was a long time ago.”
Aldridge looked up into one corner of the room, the only sign of tension one finger tapping relentlessly at his thigh. “I… I also owe you an apology for not making my position clear. I should not have assumed you understood what I was offering.”
“Are you apologising for seducing me, Lord Aldridge?”
He shrugged and flashed that gorgeous smile, and it had no effect on her, perhaps because she had learned to watch people’s eyes. His were watching for her reaction. “If that is what you need to hear.”
“Thank you, Lord Aldridge. If that is all, Allen will see you out.”
“It is you, not your sister. I am right, am I not? You are Wakefield’s mistress?”
“I am David’s friend, Lord Aldridge. Good evening.”
“I have never forgotten you, you know. Could we… perhaps…? I do not blame you for your pride, but now that you know what the world is like, well, my offer is still open. It will always be open for you.”
Prue, who was about to open the door, stopped with her hand on the latch, absorbing the sheer crassness of Aldridge’s outrageous statement. He clearly took her silence as encouragement.
“I am a wealthy man, Prudence, and not a Puritan like Wakefield. I can gown you in silks and shower you with jewels, take you to the theatre and the opera and entertainments, the like of which you could not dream. What say you? Do you not remember how good we were together? I cannot imagine your later protectors—”
“Enough.” Her tone was so fierce that he took a step back. “How dare you? Quite apart from the insult to me… Is this how things are done in your circles? Coming into a man’s house and trying to steal the woman you assume to be under his protection? First my sister and now me? And wrong in both cases. What a sad life you lead, where everyone has a price and none have value.”
