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

Toby couldn’t recall ever seeing her so agitated. Was this some misdirected reaction to the day’s distressing events? The way she defended Montague so vigorously, one would think she had a personal reason to take offense.

Bloody hell. She did. Toby silently cursed his thoughtlessness.

“Isabel, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’d forgotten your mother’s illness.” Her fingers slipped in his grasp, but Toby tightened his grip. She wouldn’t get away from him that easily. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean—”

“How do you know about my mother’s illness?”

“Gray told me. Before we were married.”

“Truly?”

He nodded.

“And it didn’t disturb you at all?” she asked.

“Why should it disturb me, that your mother contracted brain fever?”

She gave him an incredulous look, as though the answer ought to be obvious. “Because she went mad. No one wants to marry into a family with a history of insanity.” Her eyes fell to the carpet of grasses and wildflowers. “I should have told you myself, but I was afraid you …”

“Afraid I would change my mind?”

She nodded.

Toby pulled her close and wrapped an arm about her waist. He wasn’t certain how to reassure her. He could tell her that of all the potentially objectionable things about her family—their precarious social standing, her connections in trade, her bastard half-brother Joss, her other half-brother Gray, who was his own brand of bastard … not to mention the fact that her sisterin-law was the woman who’d jilted him not one year ago—the information that her mother had narrowly survived a tropical fever would hardly have tipped the scales. But he suspected that little speech wouldn’t help.

“Darling, I can assure you—your mother’s condition never gave me a moment’s pause. Everyone’s family has some sort of madness in it. If you think there’s none in my own …

well, you simply haven’t spent enough time around my sister Fanny yet.”

She smiled. It wasn’t quite the girlish laugh he’d been trying for, but it was an improvement. Soon she grew thoughtful again. “Sometimes I wonder if my mother truly was touched in the head, as you call it. Perhaps she was simply heartbroken and angry. She loved my father, and he …”

Her voice trailed off. Curious as he was to hear the end of that sentence, Toby suspected prompting would not result in its completion. They covered a good bit of ground before she finally continued.

“Anyway, my mother disagreed with the doctors. She did not believe she was mad. Not from a fever, at any rate.”

“But mad people never know they’re mad. That’s part of their illness. Do you think Colonel Montague believes he’s mad?”

“I suppose not.” She frowned.

“Of course he doesn’t. He wouldn’t stand for election if he did. That’s the paradox of it—if you’re aware that you’re mad, then you’re not mad.”

“But that’s nonsensical.”

“Precisely.” He gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Montague’s nephews don’t accept the extent of his illness, either, or they wouldn’t have put on that display today. It’s only natural, for people to believe the best of their loved ones. Their affection blinds them to the truth. Love is its own form of madness.”

“Yes. My mother said that, too.”

She fell into a ponderous silence. They walked on together, joined at the hip.

“What will happen now?” she asked, as they entered a copse of beech trees. “With the election?”

“Colin Brooks—” He kicked a stone out of their path. “He’s the returning officer …”

“The one in the horrid yellow coat?”

“God, yes.” Toby laughed. “He’ll set a date for the polling to begin, probably a few days hence. There’ll be speeches at the hustings every day, and the accumulated votes tallied each afternoon. When one candidate has a clear majority, they’ll close the polls.”

“I don’t want to go back there,” she said, shuddering.

“I wouldn’t allow you to return, if you did. Even I don’t have to attend. Some candidates stay away from the hustings entirely, and let their supporters speak for them.”

“Oh, but you must attend! How else will you persuade the electors to give you their votes?

You never had a chance to address them today.” She looked up at him through her lashes.

“Though if your heroics with the horses did not convince them of your suitability, I don’t know what will. The way you leapt onto that moving horse …”

“Really, it was nothing,” Toby said, in a tone of false humility that he knew would draw him even more praise. Isabel’s admiration was perhaps a bit more than he deserved, but he wasn’t about to spurn it.

“It was wonderful. And terrifying. Oh, Toby. I was so certain you would be trampled.”

She nestled close to him, and he let his hand wander down the curve of her hip. Really—

shouldn’t a daring rescue like that entitle a man to a few liberties? Here he’d been wanting to slay a dragon for her, and Toby supposed subduing a panicked carriage horse was as close as he’d ever get.