Whit frowned at her assessment. He didn’t want to lose control around the imp. He didn’t want to lose control at all. He’d worked to remedy the scandals his father had caused, and also the financial straits in which the man had left the family. Whit had worked too hard to ruin things with a rash temper.
The Thurston earldom was one of the oldest and least respected titles in the country. No one could even remember why the Cole family had gained an earldom, but anyone caring to do the least bit of research would find that not a single generation had done a thing to further the family name. The Thurston earls had been an assorted lot of cheats, rakes, and wastrels, with the family fortune ebbing and flowing dramatically while their reputation remained unerringly low. His late father had carried on the tradition with great fervor—drinking, sporting, throwing lavish parties, and finally dying in a duel over a woman who was not the Lady Thurston.
To the ton, however, the newest Earl of Thurston was everything a peer of the realm should be: honorable, charming, handsome, loyal, levelheaded and, thanks to a great deal of hard work and a little good luck, respectably wealthy. Whit cultivated that image diligently, encouraging his sister and cousin to do the same. He was determined that future generations would be proud of their name.
His resolve to be the perfect gentleman, however, was occasionally forgotten when he was in the company of Mirabelle Browning. He’d always known it to be the case, but he hadn’t realized people still paid any attention to their little disagreements. They’d been at it for years, and he’d never tossed her out of the house or ruined her good name (despite his threats), and she’d never cast aspersions on his honor or his status as a gentlemen (in public, at any rate.) The worst of their disagreements occurred in private, and the smaller public insults w ere no more dramatic than the usual barbs traded amongst the ton.
But if people were talking, then it needed to stop.
“Come to a decision, have you?”
Whit blinked as he came out of his musings. “My apologies, I was lost in thought.”
“No apology necessary, I am pleased you are giving serious consideration to what I have said.”
Whit nodded absently. “I’ll speak with the…with Miss Browning. I’m sure we can come to some understanding.”
“Excellent,” Lady Thurston replied. She stood to take her leave but was stopped short of the door by Whit’s question.
“Why bring this up now?”
She turned to give him her full attention. Never one to sit in the presence of a standing lady, Whit was on his feet behind the desk, his brow furrowed thoughtfully as he fiddled with a quill. “Why have you kept quiet all these years, only to speak up today?”
“She was wearing a new gown today. That small but significant change, along with several others, leads me to believe she may finally be looking to acquire a husband.”
Whit set the quill down and stared at her. “A husband? The imp?” he managed to choke out.
“Yes, a husband,” Lady Thurston replied. “She is a woman after all, not wealthy, and in case you have not noticed, there are very few options open to us when it comes to securing our means of support.”
“I always thought she’d choose to be a governess, or someone’s companion.”
That wasn’t really true. He hadn’t thought much on it at all, to be honest. He had always just assumed Mirabelle would remain unmarried, that she would forever be about the London town house and Haldon Hall. During one of his more fanciful moments he had imagined the two of them, old and grey, seated before the fire in the front parlor and taking swings at each other with their canes.
“Well, she won’t,” he heard his mother say, and it took him a minute to work out that she was speaking of Mirabelle’s possible career as a governess and not her aim with a walking stick.
Because he could think of nothing else to say, he settled for a simple, “Are you certain of this?”
“Not at all. It is merely a guess, but in the event that it is true, I will not have her chances ruined by hostility between the two of you. It is time she had a family and home of her own.”
She has a home and family here.
The thought was no less vehement for having come unbidden, and the force of it rendered him momentarily stunned. Uncomfortable, he set it aside. “I’ll not stand in her way.”
“Of course you won’t, dear.”
Whit nodded and watched his mother leave. A new dress. That was the difference he’d been unable to identify that morning. As a general rule, Mirabelle wore rather drab colors of indeterminate material and unremarkable cut. This morning she’d been wearing something light and flowing. Had it been purple? He couldn’t remember. What ever it had been, it had been unlike her.
As was the blue satin he’d seen in her box. Then again, perhaps such undergarments were the new rage in ladies’ trousseaus. How the devil should he know?
He turned the quill over with his fingers, unaware that he was scowling.
Was she really looking for a husband?