A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Toby had been an infant when his father died. He had no memory of the man, nor any recollection of his mother in her year of mourning. When she referred to Sir James Aldridge she did so in respectful, dispassionate tones—and always in past tense. By all appearances, the dowager Lady Aldridge maintained a cordial relationship with her late husband’s memory.

“Cordial” had never described her relationship with Mr. Yorke. The two had argued over one thing or another—and yet another—for as long as Toby could remember. They made cutting remarks to one another’s faces and said worse behind each other’s backs. By all appearances, they were equally matched in only one respect—mutual dislike.

And never, until this day, had Toby realized the obvious.

They had been in love.

How had he missed it? Toby prided himself on his keen understanding of women, but as it turned out, he had a blind spot of mother-sized proportions. But then, she’d never been “a woman” to him, because she was his mother and he’d never looked for her vulnerabilities. He hadn’t wanted to see them. She was his only parent, the rock of their family, the strongest person he knew.

But not today. Today, she was a pale, teary shambles.

“Mother, why did you never tell me?” Toby sat at her side, holding one of her hands while she pressed a handkerchief to her eyes with the other. The two of them were tucked away in the corner of Mr. Yorke’s parlor. The room was filled with visitors, come to pay their respects before his body was taken to Surrey. People came and went, seemingly at a loss as to where to direct their condolences, considering the deceased’s lack of immediate family. His mother wiped her eyes and whispered, “Should I have told you about my lover? Really, Toby, I know we are close. But there are some conversations a mother does not wish to have with her son.”

She had a point there. “How long had you been …”

“A very long time.”

“Years, then?”

“Decades.”

Decades. Toby frowned at the carpet, trying to decide whether he wished to know how many.

“Not for that long,” she said, reading his thoughts. “I was never unfaithful to your father.”

“I’ve no memory of my father,” he said. He glanced up, toward the bedchamber above-stairs where Yorke’s body lay. “All my memories are of him.”

“He loved you, Toby. He told me he would have left his estate to you, were it not entailed. I know he thought of you as the son he never had.”

“Why not the son he did have? Why did the two of you never marry?”

His mother shook her head. “We would have killed each other, had we lived under the same roof. No, I was accustomed to my independence, and we were both simply too stubborn.” She released Toby’s hand and blew her nose. “His health had been failing for some time. The doctors told him to slow down. For years, I begged him to resign his seat in Parliament, but the mule-headed man wouldn’t hear of it.”

“That’s why you’ve been after me to run against him?”

She nodded.

“Mother, you should have just told me the truth. I would have—” Toby clapped his mouth shut. There was no way to complete that sentence without indicting himself as a complete and total fraud. I would have kept the spirit of my promises. I would have accepted the duty that accompanies my fortunate birth. I would have put someone else’s needs above my own, for a change. All things he should have done, regardless.

“Perhaps I should have told you,” his mother said. “But again, there’s that uncomfortable matter of discussing one’s lover with one’s son. At any rate, he came around in the end. He told me just last week, he’d decided to let you win. You were ready now, he said. He thought you and Isabel made a good team … something about lambs.”

Toby felt a pinch in his chest. So that was why the polls remained so close, and why Yorke had been in Town the other day. Toby had been right—the old man hadn’t been campaigning at all.

Just then, Jeremy entered the room, accompanied by Miss Osborne. Toby stood to greet them.

“Jem, Miss Osborne. Good of you to come.”

“We just received the news,” Jeremy said. “Lucy wanted to join us, but—”

“No, of course she couldn’t,” Toby replied. “Not with a week-old infant at home. How is little Thomas Henry Trescott, the fifth Viscount Warrington?”

“Living up to his aristocratic lineage,” Miss Osborne answered. “He has the whole house hold at his beck and call already.”

“I can’t claim to be surprised,” Toby said with a smile. He indicated chairs nearby and invited them to sit. “You’ll remember my mother.”

“Had Mr. Yorke no family?” Miss Osborne asked, scanning the room, presumably for black armbands or mourning gowns.