“And what is that, pray?”
“Your cousin must wed you before eighteen months have passed after your father’s death to undo what will come to pass. Indeed, the two of you marrying would cancel out everything I have told his lordship. Your father wanted your blood in future earls of Chase. He said it would help to dilute Marcus’s tainted blood.”
“Marcus’s blood tainted? That is utter nonsense. Do you so quickly forget that I am a bastard?”
“Nonetheless, it is what your father wanted above all things. He wanted your sons to succeed Marcus.” Mr. Wicks shrugged. “He felt that if you refused, then he didn’t care if the earldom fell into ruin. That’s what he said, ma’am, he didn’t care. This all happened after your mother’s death. He changed, an alarming change. He simply didn’t care anymore about anything. I was more than alarmed, but he simply didn’t care. I remember he said to me when it was all done, ‘Wicks, Bess is gone, my wife, the only woman I ever wanted, is gone. She never came to Chase Park where she always belonged, and she should have, if there’d been any justice. Let my nephew wallow in his own bile, I care not. Let him taste just a small bit of the injustice God meted out to me.’ ”
She sat perfectly still, saying nothing, not flinching, making no movement of any kind. She’d spoken forcefully, but always with that underlying control. She was, he thought, far too young for such control.
She said finally, her voice as pensive and calm as a dove’s song on a midsummer’s night, “My father died last January. This means that we must wed by June.”
“Yes, that is so. By June sixteenth, to be precise.”
“Why didn’t you tell Marcus of this—this way out of his difficulties?”
“I tried, but he walked out. He is shocked right now, unable to believe what his uncle has done to him. I will tell him this evening. However, my first concern is with you, my dear. If you have no desire to wed with your cousin, you must tell me now. Thus, it would be an academic exercise. It is entirely your decision.”
She rose slowly, every movement she made graceful and pure. She smoothed down her skirt, gently turned the bracelet on her right wrist.
“I lose everything if I don’t wed Marcus?”
“More accurately it is if you refuse to comply with the terms of his will. Regardless, you will receive fifty thousand pounds. As I said, my dear, regardless, you are a very rich young lady. But it won’t change the earl’s dilemma. Rather than you, all the rest will go to these Colonials. They will live here in England if they choose, rich and without a care, and he will have an allowance.”
“Marcus is a very poor young man if he and I do not wed by June sixteenth.”
“Yes, my dear.”
“Like Marcus, Mr. Wicks, I’m a bit overturned. I will see that you are shown to your bedchamber. We observe country hours here. Dinner is at six-thirty. If you would be so kind as to come to the drawing room at six.”
She smiled at him, a slight smile, more a shadow of an expression, but nonetheless, Mr. Wicks was drawn to that semblance of a smile, and smiled back at her.
“Until later, Mr. Wicks,” she said. “If there is anything you require, please inform Sampson.”
“Thank you,” he said and watched her walk gracefully from the library. He marveled yet again how a girl so very young could be so very composed and sedate in the face of what she obviously considered to be appalling news. He wondered how fond she was of her cousin. She had certainly defended him, had demanded that her father’s infamous in
structions be undone. That must denote at least some positive feelings on her part. He wondered further if the present earl of Chase liked the Duchess enough to marry her if she were willing, or if he disliked her so very much to tell her to go to the devil and take all her damned groats with her, or if he simply hated the situation so very much, felt so very humiliated by the complete destruction of his world, that he would tell her to go to the devil despite what he felt for her.
The earl appeared to be a proud young man. From the description given to him by the former earl, Mr. Wicks had initially been given to understand that Marcus Wyndham was a dissolute and disreputable young buck, bordering on malevolent. In short, a man worthy of no consideration whatsoever. He’d realized soon enough that it was spite on the former earl’s part, or even a mental sickness brought on by the Duchess’s mother’s death.
He played again and again in his mind the scene in which he would inform the earl he would have to wed the Duchess to save his hide.
She certainly wasn’t an affliction to the eye.
She was, however, born a bastard. Some people felt that nothing could ever change that.
Time would tell.
The earl appeared that evening promptly at six o’clock, dressed in severe black, his cravat simply but elegantly presented, his linen white as the young man’s teeth. He was remarkably handsome, Mr. Wicks thought, looking at him objectively. Also, he appeared to have learned a measure of the Duchess’s control. There was no hint in his expression, no clue in anything he said to anyone assembled, that everything he was growing used to had gone up in smoke. He was polite, nothing more, but then again, he was the earl of Chase, and wasn’t it proper that such a nobleman not be overly confiding or intimate?
Mr. Crittaker was present. Mr. Wicks realized within five minutes that the man was smitten with the Duchess. He tried to hide it, but there was such sloppy emotion in his brown eyes that Mr. Wicks wanted to kick him or shake him, or both. He wondered if the earl was aware of his secretary’s affliction.
Dinner passed smoothly. Lady Gweneth Wyndham, the late earl’s older sister, was the hostess, and was passing gracious even to a mere solicitor. She did say, however, during a course that included potted pigeons flavored too strongly with nutmeg and roast lamb with white beans seasoned with too much garlic, “Marcus, you really must do something about that blasted Esmee.”
Marcus looked up, a black eyebrow raised. “Excuse me, ma’am?”
“Your cat, Marcus. Mrs. Gooseberry said she stole a huge slab of broiled lamb. That is why, she said, that there were more white beans than necessary in this particular dish.”
“Esmee has always been remarkably agile,” Marcus said. “I assume she escaped with her booty?”