“A weasel,” Joan stated.
He cast her a quick glance. “Not a loon or a fopdoodle?”
“Shakespeare’s insults run the gamut from gentle to fierce,” Joan told him, glad to see no sorrow in his eyes. She added, cautiously, “Do you wish to visit your father before he passes away?”
“His Grace has not issued an invitation,” Thaddeus said, a tick starting in his jaw. “In fact, my mother and I are explicitly not invited to pay him a call, not that she would care to see him.”
“So the letter was a notification?”
“An announcement.”
“I’ve never heard of announcing one’s death,” Joan said.
“He embraces the dramatic,” Thaddeus said, his dry tone making it clear that he abhorred histrionics.
Not that she had any illusion that he enjoyed the character trait. Unfortunately, she shared it. She was it. Dramatic, that is. Theatrical.
“My father has apparently written a letter declaring that he had married his mistress before he was forced to marry my mother,” Thaddeus continued. “He is leaving instructions for this ‘confession’ to be published in the Morning Post, and for a petition to be presented to Parliament, overturning the laws of primogeniture, in honor of his chosen family and his beloved son.”
“If he had a marriage certificate, he would publish it,” Joan said, coming to a halt. “Oh, Thaddeus, this means that your title is secure!”
“I always knew that,” Thaddeus said, his voice grating. “Just as I knew that my father is a discredit to his country and family, with no more conscience than a caterpillar.”
They reached the end of the room and turned about. From this vantage point, she could see the duchess laughing as she talked to Sir Reginald and Viola. “You must warn your mother,” Joan said.
“She’ll never leave home again,” Thaddeus said tonelessly. “She’s shy, and while another woman might have gained confidence upon marriage, my father did his best to tear her down on every occasion, so that she wouldn’t complain about his rampant infidelity.”
Joan bumped him with her shoulder. “I am sorry.”
He looked at her.
“Your father is a coward, an infinite liar, an hourly promise-breaker,” she said, quoting Shakespeare. “And an ass,” she added.
Outside the door, Prism rang the gong for the evening meal.
“If it was up to me,” Thaddeus said, “I’d burn the letter, laugh at the confession in the paper, and continue with my life. I agree with you: If he had a marriage certificate, he would have waved it about years ago. But my mother will be devastated. What am I going to do, Joan?” His voice grated.
If she had been able, she would have cupped his cheek and brushed a kiss on his lips. A kiss that said, You are a good man, no matter your father.
Which struck her as ironic, because she told herself that same thing daily.
The party was making its way out of the drawing room door.
“We can—we can figure it all out tomorrow afternoon,” she promised. “There’s a solution. We simply have to find it.”
He smiled faintly. “While we’re supposedly practicing fencing?”
“Exactly. Less kissing, more policy.”
Thaddeus sighed. “A plan for my life, I’m afraid.”
Chapter Twelve
Thaddeus watched the rehearsal the following morning through unseeing eyes. He hadn’t slept well, and in the middle of the night, he’d narrowed his choices to two: He could travel to the estate where his father lived with his mistress and children, and wrench the letter from his dying hands by force. Or he could warn his mother of the announcement without mentioning her husband’s imminent demise.
He was leaning toward the first choice. With an option for patricide, though he knew he’d never actually murder his father.
Didn’t even want to.
His father was an unkind, dishonorable man. But in a twisted way, Thaddeus respected the way his father had single-mindedly tried to turn over the English inheritance system in favor of the heir he preferred.
Unfortunately for the duke, the entire estate was entailed, from the country manor house and its surrounding lands to the townhouse. Thaddeus himself paid the bills associated with his father’s second establishment. He had never wanted his mother to see those details.
He looked back at the stage where Otis was throwing flowers around. Murgatroyd would never look like a woman, nor sound like one either, but he seemed to have the lines memorized, helped by the fact that Miss Wooty stood to the side and prompted him whenever he looked at her.
Which he did, frequently.
She was a very pretty young woman.
Not a lady.
Thaddeus was abruptly caught by a bolt of jealousy so intense that it felt as if it cut through his gut. Otis could choose the woman he wished to marry. He knew the man well enough to be certain that he wasn’t casting looks at a woman whom he wished to make into his mistress.
No, Otis Murgatroyd was contemplating a mésalliance. He planned to introduce Miss Madeline Wooty to Sir Reginald at dinner, which would take the question past contemplation into reality.
If only his own father had had the courage to marry his squire’s daughter when he first fell in love with her. Now the duke’s claims to have married his beloved before making a society marriage had the hysterical edge of a man whose entire life has been predicated by regret.
Act Five began, and Thaddeus was gratified to see that Joan’s fencing had improved. If it had been a real duel, Laertes would be in no danger, but she’d stopped wielding the sword like a battle-axe.
Thaddeus rose to his feet when the cast hopped up from their varied deaths and descended from the stage, milling about while they waited for afternoon orders.
“Dress rehearsal tomorrow morning; performance in the evening,” Mr. Wooty called. “Look sharp, all of you. Claudius, don’t forget to exit right rather than left from the prayer scene. Hamlet, you’re better on the fencing, but I’d like you to practice dying this afternoon.”
He looked to Thaddeus, who nodded.
“Ophelia, your grasp of the language has improved although I would suggest less simpering.” He looked at his niece. “This afternoon, let’s run Ophelia through his longer scenes. Here, where I can be of help.”
Thaddeus smiled faintly. He wasn’t the only one to have noticed that Miss Wooty had caught Otis’s eye.
“I can’t believe he wants me to work on dying!” Joan said indignantly, when they arrived at the island two hours later, having divested wigs, coats, waistcoats, stockings, and shoes on the bank. “I thought I died very well.”
This time Thaddeus hadn’t hesitated; he too had stripped down to his linen shirt and breeches. “Perhaps too much moaning?”
“Only a reasonable amount,” Joan protested. “Nothing like the exhibitions my brothers would put on in the nursery. They used to writhe all over the floor, after ‘dying’ in a duel.”
Thaddeus tried to imagine that, and failed. The Wilde men whom he knew showed no signs of dramatic ability, and in fact, tended toward the type of man whom one would think completely practical, if anything.
You could trust them, and their judgment, without question.