“Not too fast for you?” Sinclair mocked her with a savage smile.
“M-maybe just a—a little,” she agreed.
He thumped his fist on the wall again, roaring at his coachman. There was a sharp crack and the wooden paneling under his hand broke off, leaving a gap between the inside of the coach and the cold air outside. He could see the folds of Robert’s coat and then Georgie’s face appeared in the gap, cheeks pink, eyes shining, grinning at them.
“You’ve broken it, Duke,” he said.
“Slow down, will you,” Sinclair ordered through gritted teeth.
“Robert was just showing me how fast we can go. If we ever needed to outrun highwaymen.”
“I’m glad we’ve got that sorted. Now slow down.”
Georgie sighed, as if Sinclair had spoiled his fun, and his face disappeared. But at least the coach had begun to slow to a more reasonable pace.
“When we reach Framlingbury I am going to make a bonfire of this pile of rubbish,” Sinclair announced. “And I will probably dance around it.”
Eugenie wasn’t amused. “This is exactly like the Belmont coach. In fact it is probably nicer. Just because you have always had the very best does not give you the right to whine when you are forced to make do. It shows a distinct lack of character, Sinclair.”
Whine! He had never whined in his life. But her words gave him pause. Was he such a snob? He hadn’t thought so but perhaps he was a little bit spoiled by everything always being exactly as he wanted it. He remembered seeing the Belmont coach but apart from noting it was rather shabby he hadn’t given it much thought. He hadn’t had to ride in it, of course—if he had then things might have been different. Would he have complained? Probably. Eugenie was right, he was used to the best, but that was hardly his fault, was it?
“Am I supposed to go about in rags just to show my compassion for others less fortunate?” he asked gruffly. “I can’t help being a duke. That’s what I am.”
Her mouth twitched, as if she might be about to smile. “I know that’s what you are, but you could spare a thought now and again for those of us who aren’t dukes and are never likely to be.”
“I’m sorry,” he said stiffly.
“Apology accepted.”
A silence fell and it remained for most of the journey. The pleasures and terrors of the woods now seemed a long way behind them, even if they were not forgotten. Not by Sinclair, anyway.
“She sounds very like your mother.” Lord Ridley’s voice interrupted his memories and brought him back to the comforts of Framlingbury.
“Eugenie?”
His uncle raised his eyebrows. “Lord, no! I meant Annabelle. She sounds very like your mother when she was that age. Did you know she rebelled against marrying your father?”
Sinclair felt uncomfortable, remembering his mother’s anger and her tears after Annabelle ran off, and her confidences when she feared he might be going to make his own misalliance.
“Our father had more or less run through the family fortune. I was supposed to find an heiress but there never seemed to be one about when I wanted one. Thing is I always went for the disreputable sort of girl, just like our father. He was a Bohemian, Sinclair, which is why your mother is so down on them. He was only a gentleman by name; at heart he was a ruffian and didn’t care who knew it. Anyway, the time came when we were about to be evicted from Framlingbury and the family clubbed together and told your mother she had to marry your father, the duke. He was the only one who’d come up to the mark at that point, though there was another chap she was keen on. Handsome and penniless, that sort of thing, no good at all in the circumstances.”
“I didn’t realize,” Sinclair said quietly. “Poor mother.”
“Yes, well,” his uncle looked uncomfortable, “she didn’t like being forced into marriage. Your father was a lot older than her, very staid in his ways, but he was a duke, damn it. There was no other solution to our problems and your mother knew it.”
“So she was the sacrificial lamb.”
“I suppose she was. The experience made her bitter, though, Sinclair. She never forgave us, and especially not our father. If he hadn’t spent all his money on his own pleasures, running with the Bohemian set, she might have married for love. You know she still has a horror of such things? Well, of course you do. Remember the way she went after you when you took to painting your ladies?”
“I remember.”
“You don’t know the half of it, though. She came up here, so cross there was no reasoning with her. I tried to explain you were nothing like our father but she wouldn’t have it. And it was my fault, of course, for leading you astray.” He s
hook his head. “She had changed, Sinclair, and not for the better. We might have saved Framlingbury but I lost my sister.”
It was horrible to think his mother could lose all warmth and humanity, could turn from being as warmhearted and reckless as Annabelle into a woman who no longer cared for anything but appearances. But at least Sinclair could understand why she was as she was, even if he didn’t agree with her.
“I like your lady friend.”