“Mama, please . . .”
“What? It’s true, and he knows it.” Her mother jutted out her chin. “But I’m sure the duke is doing everything in his power to improve his inheritance.”
Vanessa wanted to cry. Mama was about as subtle as the newspaper. She might as well have cried out to the world that she wanted to know if Sheridan needed money.
“I’m doing my best,” Sheridan said noncommittally, though a muscle worked in his jaw.
“Which is why you’re here, is it not?” her mother asked in a tone she obviously thought was coy.
A groan escaped Vanessa. How was she to make this madness stop? Mama never paid her any heed in such matters.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Sheridan said, his tone as duke-ish as she’d ever heard him be. “I’m here to call on you and your daughter. That should be obvious.”
At his cool rebuff, her mother switched tactics. “Of course. And it’s very kind of you. Especially since you have far more important things to do. Like selling off pieces of your estate to my nephew. Or so I heard, anyway.”
That turned Sheridan’s body to stone. “For a woman who claims not to be a gossip, you certainly spread a lot of it.” He leaned forward. “But I should warn you—I don’t like schemers of any kind. Which means I will not let you wheedle the details of my financial situation out of me for your own amusement. And if you’re hoping to shame me in front of your daughter, think again. Vanessa and I are friends, and that friendship isn’t likely to be broken by you.”
His words made her want to cry. Friends? He still saw her as merely a friend? She supposed that was better than being seen as an enemy, but she wanted a bit more from him than that. How was she to change the way he regarded her? Could she change that?
Then the rest of his words sank in. Oh, Lord, if he ever found out that her attempt to make Juncker jealous was really a “scheme” to gain his own hand in marriage, Sheridan would end their “friendship” without a backward glance. But she was in the thick of it now. She could hardly change horses midstream. Nor suitors, either.
The clock rang the hour in the hall, and Sheridan rose. “I do believe I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
Judging from the stiffness of his bearing, not to mention his words, Vanessa knew he was truly insulted.
Still, he managed to show them both common courtesy, for he bowed and said to Mama, “I hope you enjoy the perry, madam.” Then he turned to Vanessa with only the slightest softening in his demeanor and said, “Thank you for the conversation. Good day to you both.”
And he left the room.
Vanessa was not going to let him leave things like that. She headed right after him, ignoring Mama crying out after her, “You come back here this minute, girl! I will not have you running after Armitage like a common trull.”
Fortunately, Vanessa could outrun her mother any day. She caught up to him as the footman was handing him his hat and greatcoat. “Sheridan, please let me apologize for my mother. She—”
“You needn’t apologize for her. I know it was none of your doing.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry.” With a glance at the footman, he pulled her aside and lowered his voice. “I will still hold to our bargain concerning Juncker.”
That shocked her so much she could barely stammer the words, “A-All right. Thank you,” before he was out the door and down the steps.
A few moments later, she felt rather than saw her mother come up beside her.
“At least we know one thing now,” Mama said, a hint of self-satisfaction in her voice. “He’s definitely looking to marry a fortune. Otherwise, what I said wouldn’t have struck such a nerve.”
Still infuriated by her mother’s behavior, Vanessa faced her and said, “Fortunately, I have a rather generous dowry. So that won’t be a problem at all.”
“Good. If he means to pay court to you, it can only attract other, wealthier gentlemen. So I suppose I can tolerate his visits to you for a bit.”
“Now we can only hope he can tolerate you in the meantime,” Vanessa snapped.
Then she marched up the stairs, leaving her mother to come up with whatever tale she could to explain Vanessa’s lack of availability to other callers.
But Vanessa had lied to her mother. Although she did have a nice dowry, she didn’t want Sheridan marrying her for her money. She didn’t expect him to wed her for love—she wasn’t even sure she wanted love in her marriage. Having spent half her life trying to gain her mother’s love—or even affection—with no apparent success, she certainly didn’t mean to spend the rest of her life trying to gain a husband’s love. What she wanted was a husband with whom she could share her ideas, find comfort in hard times, live a peaceful existence.
With whom she could enjoy the physical part of marriage and have children. So the last thing she wanted was Sheridan forced into wedding her to save his estate, if her dowry was even enough to accomplish that. She at least wanted him to desire her for herself.
Because if she could only get him to marry her out of duty, what would be the point of it all?
Chapter Nine
Sheridan paced the drawing room at Armitage House with his blood still boiling. He was mostly mad at himself. He should have restrained his anger, found a way of getting Lady Eustace to reveal what he was trying to learn, instead of storming out like some . . . half-cocked lad with a hot temper.
“I can’t believe this has you so furious,” his half sister, Gwyn, said from her perch on Mother’s favorite settee. “All of this stomping about isn’t like you at all.”
“I’m not ‘stomping about’—I’m pacing. That’s what men do when they’re angry. Stomping about, indeed. You make me sound like a . . . a—” A half-cocked lad with a hot temper. He halted in front of her. “You should have seen Lady Eustace. I tell you, that woman was laughing at me. Laughing! She didn’t even bother to hide the fact that she’d once been in Sanforth. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn she murdered Uncle Armie and Father with her bare hands.”
“We both know that’s unlikely. Probably it was that Elias fellow, doing the bidding of an employer we have not yet uncovered. Besides, according to what I gleaned from your less-than-coherent tale of your visit to the Pryde house,” Gwyn said, “she might have been more confused than anything. I mean, it sounds to me as if she was trying to figure out where she’d learned of the bull running, and Vanessa was trying to help.”
Sheridan shook his head. “You don’t understand. Vanessa gave her mother a perfectly good reason for having heard of it, so if Lady Eustace was confused, she could have seized on that. Instead, the woman flat-out said that wasn’t where she’d heard about it! Without proposing an alternative explanation. She was taunting me, I swear.”
Gwyn smirked at him. “I notice you’re not claiming that Vanessa was trying to cover up her mother’s perfidy.”
“Because that would be absurd,” he said. Vanessa’s very name caused a different sort of agitation in him. “The poor woman was mortified by every word out of her mother’s mouth. I don’t know how she can endure such a mother. Now I see why Grey hates his aunt so. She’s a . . . a rude, pushy gossip who insisted on mocking me about the debts I inherited.”