He felt a brush of shame. That would be acting like the kind of nobleman she despised. He would not do it. He wanted to make her proud.
People were glancing at him as they passed, wondering why he was standing stock-still on the cobbles. Arthur started walking again. And thinking. Teresa was transfixed by this idea of ruin. She thought he would feel it as keenly as she had, when it came to him. But he wouldn’t. And it wouldn’t. How could he convince her of this?
His love was not a woman to be talked around. He knew that. So, it would have to be actions. He would have to show her. First, that he meant what he said; he didn’t care two pins about the opinion of society. And second, that their pointing fingers would not have the same effect on the Earl of Macklin.
But how to show her? What could he do? He was ready for anything. She’d made a tremendous sacrifice when she suggested being his mistress. He could do no less. He was ready to offer up his dignity, his social prominence, for her. Arthur walked faster and racked his brain.
The silly pranks of society’s young bloods would not do. If he began boxing the watch or downing tumblers of blue ruin or racing his curricle through the London streets, society would merely think he was growing senile. And those sorts of antics were not enough. Most laughed at them. They certainly did not rise to the level of ruin as Teresa would see it. At the other end of the spectrum, the behavior of scum like Lord Simon Farange was out of the question, obviously. What lay between these two? And had he actually never tried to plan a bit of public mischief before?
After further contemplation, and more disappointment in his own inventiveness, a possibility occurred to him. That might do. If it was properly managed. Yes, he thought he could make it fit very nicely indeed.
Practically at his own front door, he turned his footsteps toward another address not far away and prepared to pay a social call.
The object of his visit would be quite surprised to receive him, since he had never called upon her before. All the more, as the accepted time for morning calls was well past. So here he was, already embarking on his life of social crime.
Fifteen
“Macklin,” Miss Julia Grandison said as she sailed into her drawing room some minutes later. “How very unusual. Not to say unprecedented.”
Arthur rose from the seat where he had been waiting and greeted her in turn. They sat down. He made a few opening remarks.
“Yes, yes, the weather has been most clement,” Miss Grandison said after a few minutes. “And Lady Jelleby’s rout party was quite amusing. To what do I owe the…curiosity of your visit, Macklin? Is it not the done thing, you know, for a lone gentlemen to call on a single lady in the afternoon. Not for any…acceptable purpose. But of course, you do know that.”
He acknowledged this with a nod and started to speak.
“Unless they have clandestine dalliance in mind,” added Miss Grandison with a thin smile. “Which I am confident you do not.”
His reputation for solid, upright reliability would have to be demolished. Oddly, Arthur found he was looking forward to it.
“If you are seeking a donation to your curious new…charitable endeavor, Miss Finch has already approached me. I declined.” The lady’s tone was dry and disapproving.
Arthur jumped in before she could continue. “You had asked me, once, to aid you in your…endeavors with your brother.”
His formidable hostess eyed him as if he had suddenly turned into a completely different creature. “More than once, if memory serves,” she replied. “Which it always does. And you were slippery, but immovable, in your refusals.”
“Well, I have changed my mind. I wish to help. I am here at your service.”
Miss Grandison’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, as if he’d offered to steal the ornaments from the mantel shelf rather than assist her. “Indeed?” she replied, drawing out the word. “Why?”
“You did ask.”
“And you did say no. Repeatedly, as we have observed. What has changed?”
“Perhaps I have come to see that you deserve my aid.”
“Perhaps. I suppose stranger things have happened. Although none immediately spring to mind.”
“Do the reasons matter?”
She stared at him a moment longer and then shrugged. “I suppose not. It’s very odd, though, and I’m not fond of the odd. I like knowing what’s what. It has something to do with Señora Alvarez, I suppose.”
Arthur was too surprised to reply.
“Most things you do lately seem to,” Miss Grandison added.
He hadn’t realized it was so obvious. He should have. All the better, he decided. He would declaim his love from the rooftops if that would make a difference. But words were not enough.
“And many of them are odd,” his hostess added. “Your recent houseguests, for example!” Her gaze grew speculative. “Señora Alvarez is an…unorthodox connection for you. People are wondering just where she came from.”
This was the sort of insinuation Teresa dreaded. “Spain,” said Arthur.
“Well, yes, but that is hopelessly vague, you must admit.”
“No,” said Arthur.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t have to admit anything at all.” He discovered that there was an almost joyous freedom in throwing society’s rule book overboard. But Teresa would want him to do it kindly. So best to change the subject. “I believe your retaliation should be very public,” he said. “As was the original incident.”
This diverted Miss Grandison. “Indeed. I agree. But I have not been able to think of a scheme that satisfies me. I had thought to expose John’s opera dancer. But it seems that most gentlemen see her as an…accomplishment of some sort rather than a failing.” She scowled at him.
“Not I,” Arthur said. And then remembered he was supposed to be demolishing his sterling reputation.
“Now that Ada is married and gone, no one cares much about the hussy,” continued Miss Grandison. “Except Gertrude, I suppose. And I don’t really wish to humiliate her.”
Gertrude was her brother’s wife, Arthur remembered, relieved that the dancer was to be left out of this. Teresa would not have liked involving her. “What if you were to subject your brother to the same fate that befell you? And dowse him with a bowl of punch?”
Miss Grandison blinked, startled.
“Before a large crowd, of course,” added Arthur. “At a great society squeeze. I had thought the Overton ball? Next week. That is one of the last big events of the season.”
His hostess appeared dazed by this flow of detail.