And that’s when she told him about what had just happened and what she and Angelique planned to do.
He stood, shirt dangling in one hand, and listened. His jaw dropped. “Bloody hell, Delilah. It’s Valkirk. How can you even . . . I just . . . he must have been sorely provoked.”
“He was indeed a little provoked.”
“There you have it.”
“Even so.”
That “even so” contained “she’s just an opera singer on the rise and he’s a bloody national treasure and should know better.”
And Tristan knew it. He mulled this. “That man won a battle when he was wounded and had only two hundred men and the French had . . .”
“I know.”
“And he’s never asked for anything in return, and yet he . . .”
He trailed off at her limpidly sympathetic gaze. Of course. Everyone knew this about the duke.
He sighed heavily and dropped his chin to his chest. “Damnation. I think you and Angelique are right. I think he ought to apologize to Miss Wylde.”
“I’m sorry to have to scold a hero, Tristan.” Her husband was a hero to many, too. She knew the men he truly admired could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and he needed those.
He sat down on the edge of their bed. “Speaking as someone who transgressed here at The Grand Palace on the Thames and nearly paid the ultimate price . . . I am just so grateful I never have to leave. Perhaps he’ll feel the same way.”
“Ah, but you have incentives to behave,” she murmured, looping her arms around his neck.
He kissed her, and he spent the next two hours thoroughly appreciating those incentives.
Valkirk had regretted it at once. He’d felt as though he’d stood up in the parlor, pulled out a pistol, and gratuitously shot a sparrow from the sky.
For the remainder of the evening, the room had been silent, dense with reproach and wondering amazement. Some of that wondering amazement was his own, directed at himself. He knew what he’d done was beyond the pale. He’d won a certain quiet respite. And no one could truly argue he hadn’t been provoked.
But it didn’t justify what he’d done.
Miss Wylde was never to know it, but in so losing to him she had, in fact, done something that very few people would in a lifetime: bested him at something. Even if it was the stupidest contest of wills ever conducted.
Because it wasn’t so much the ridiculously competent little song that had somehow sprung from her brain while everyone sat there, misty-eyed in the throes of a ballad. He begrudgingly admitted that this was true talent.
It was the cumulative effects of every night walking into that pleasant, familial room and being told he was cold.
Nevertheless, he knew he was going to need to apologize.
The following morning, as he crossed the foyer intent on a brisk walk, he was stopped by Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand, who were standing together in the reception room.
“We’d like a brief word, if you would, Your Grace. If you would be so kind as to join us in here?”
He’d no compelling reason to say no.
“Please do have a seat,” Mrs. Durand said pleasantly.
Warily, he lowered himself to the settee opposite them.
There was a little silence. Then Mrs. Hardy took a breath. “As you’re a man who appreciates the value of time, we’ll come right to the point. We feel you have been . . .”
She turned to Mrs. Durand.
“Churlish,” Mrs. Durand said gently.
Mrs. Hardy nodded, her eyes soft with tender, yet unyielding, regret.
The duke was stunned.
“Churlish,” he mused, as though his tongue could scarcely shape the word.
“The rules of our establishment require our guests to be, at the minimum, civil to each other, if they cannot be kind. We value Miss Wylde’s custom every bit as much as we value yours. And while your objective may not have directly been to hurt Miss Wylde’s feelings, we do believe your objective was to win, whatever the cost. Which you did. The consequence was that you hurt her feelings. And embarrassed her.” This was Mrs. Durand.
“We are genuinely fond of our guests, including you, and so grateful for their custom that it pains us greatly when any of them do not take to each other. As our entire aim is to create a congenial, if not familial, environment for our guests,” Mrs. Hardy added.
He was speechless.
“But she . . .”
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t bring himself to say to these two women, But she led the room in a cheerful sing-along about my alleged impotence.
And they likely knew it.
They had him, and it was almost funny.
He pressed his lips together. He slowly leaned back and studied them.
“I can offer you no argument. Everything you’ve said is correct. It was unworthy of me.”
They were sympathetically quiet.
Mrs. Durand raised her eyebrows, as if she knew he could do even better.
He sighed. “One gets in the habit of ruthlessness, you see, when winning is a matter of life or death.”
“We’re familiar with that quality in men.” Little smiles here.
“I saw how to achieve my ends and so . . . I fear I did what I needed to do, reflexively.”
Their silence remained politely interested and gently, immovably damning.
“We can see how that would be a useful, even heroic, quality in . . . warfare,” Mrs. Hardy allowed. The telling pause intimated, But not in the parlor.
“It was not only an unworthy reflex,” he expounded. “Perhaps worse than that, it was ungentlemanly.” Hell’s teeth. It really was.
“And we strongly feel it is unlike you, as you are all that is graceful and genteel. Then again, one might be more irritable if, for instance, the writing of one’s memoirs wasn’t going well.”
He leveled a cool stare at her and admitted to nothing.
“Please accept my apology. And I shall of course apologize to Miss Wylde,” he said after a moment. “And to the other guests.”
“That would be most gracious of you. And we would be very grateful,” Mrs. Hardy said.
“She might not possess the kind of education or upbringing you’ve had the privilege to experience, but she’s clever and a delightful person, all in all, and we do believe she has been hard done by in the newspapers,” added Mrs. Durand.
He let this last bit lie. It was clearly not the time to debate that particular point.
There was a little silence.
“So what happens now? Am I to be ejected from my comfortable suite, then, like Lucifer from this heavenly realm?”
“Well, that depends.”
There was another silence.
“That . . . depends?”
Surely this wasn’t happening.
“We so hope you prefer to stay, Your Grace. We’ve loved having you here, and we enjoy making you comfortable. We think, however, in addition to your apology, you might offer to assist Miss Wylde in learning to speak Italian. She is clever and has expressed regret that she doesn’t speak it when she sings it so magnificently. She learned it by listening and mimicking, and we admire her pluck. Perhaps you can offer her a few hours of your time to tutor her in the language.”
“Give her more of my time? I’m to do penance as well?”