“Oh yes, leaving Mrs. Gooseberry to holler and drive Sampson to the brink of overset nerves. He doesn’t like to hear anyone hollering, Marcus.”
“It’s true. Perhaps it is time for Badger to make his way to the kitchen. He’s a remarkable cook.”
“He makes an excellent roasted buttock of beef,” the Duchess said, looking at her fork that held some overcooked white beans. “The pastry he makes to wrap the roast beef in melts in one’s mouth. Also, Badger is a diplomat. Would you like him to prepare a meal for you, Marcus?”
He didn’t look at her, saying into his goblet of rich red wine, “I will tell Sampson that Mrs. Gooseberry needs a respite from the cat and all her machinations. Badger may prepare a buttock of beef for us tomorrow night. She may visit her sister in Scarborough.”
“She doesn’t have a sister in Scarborough,” Aunt Gweneth said.
“Then she could benefit from the fresh sea air all by herself,” Marcus said, then shrugged, obviously dismissing the problem. He was the earl, the master here, even though he currently believed himself to have been deposed, dispossessed. Mr. Wicks couldn’t wait to speak to him. He disliked leaving things, no matter for how short a time, in such a muddle.
The earl didn’t dally over port. Instead, joining the family in the huge drawing room, he continued civil. If he was more quiet, more aloof than he usually was, Mr. Wicks didn’t know it since he had just met the young man. He said finally, at nine o’clock, “My lord, if you and I could please meet for just a few minutes in your library? It is critical to your situation that you understand everything fully.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow, saying very quietly, so that only Mr. Wicks could hear him, “Ah, you mean, sir, that I had no right to send Mrs. Gooseberry to Scarborough? Must I ask permission from you, sir?”
“No. Please, my lord, come with me now.”
Marcus shrugged, said good night to the company, and led the way from the drawing room. He didn’t realize the Duchess had come also until he turned to face both her and Mr. Wicks in the library. He said, his voice harsh and raw with fury, “What the hell do you want, Duchess? Get out of here. Go count your bloody groats. Write a letter to the man who was keeping you and tell him to take his congé with Mrs. Gooseberry in Scarborough. Ah, I see, I can no longer afford to raise my voice or tell you what to do, can I? If I offend you, then I will find myself living in a ditch.”
“I ask you exercise just a bit of restraint. There is a solution. Please listen to Mr. Wicks, Marcus.”
“Damn you, can’t you ever—” He broke off, shook himself, and sat down behind his desk, his posture insolent. “All right, Mr. Wicks, what more wondrous news do you have for me? Am I to live in the dower house, or perhaps the tack room?”
7
“NO, MY LORD,” Mr. Wicks said, looking earnestly at the young earl. “Please, I beg you to listen to me with an open mind. I ask that you forget your anger, your sense of betrayal, at least for the moment. There is a solution, you see, one that perhaps you will not find onerous or distasteful.”
“A solution to this bloody mess? You mean my dear uncle destroys me then gives me a gun to shoot myself out of my misery?”
“No, my lord. It involves marriage.”
“Ah, the proverbial heiress, eh? That’s an interesting key to stick through the bars of my cage. Well, you mean my uncle didn’t forbid my marrying an heiress? How very poorly completed his revenge was, to be sure. So I merely hie myself to London, look over the Cits’ daughters currently up for sale, and make my selection. Then I have her, her blessed groats, and my gentleman’s allowance. It is a charming thought, Mr. Wicks, so charming a thought that I do believe I will shortly puke.”
“Marcus, please listen.”
“Duchess, I am very close to smashing that amazingly ugly Chinese vase over there on its damned pretentious pedestal. I understand my uncle was quite fond of it. Yes, I am nearly over the edge. I suggest you take yourself out of here. I wouldn’t want to bruise your—”
“Be quiet, Marcus. I can’t leave, for this involves me as much as it does you.”
She’d at last gotten his full attention. “What the hell does that mean?”
“She means, my lord, that your uncle allowed you a way out. Yes, you are to marry an heiress and he selected her for you. You need go to no trouble, my lord, you may simply wed with the Duchess.”
Marcus just stared at him. Mr. Wicks wet his lips, wanting to give more arguments, but the look on the young earl’s face held him quiet. There was blood in his eye. Yet he continued silent. The Duchess, however, as was her wont, was more silent. Absolutely unmoving, her eyes calm on his face. The stillness of her was amazing, and disconcerting. It occurred to him in that moment that her very composure, her unshakable calm in light of these extraordinary developments, was far from reassuring the earl. They were infuriating him.
Finally, after more minutes than Mr. Wicks ever wanted to live through again in his life, Marcus said with mocking insolence, “Marry her? Marry Josephina?” He looked her up and down, his eyes resting first on her bosom, then lower to the line of her thighs and hips. “Marry someone with such an ugly name? I can’t imagine whispering love words to her, whispering Josephina . . . Josephina. I daresay I would shrivel like last spring’s potatoes, that, or laugh myself silly. Surely it is all a jest, Mr. Wicks. There is a trick here, another blow from my uncle. Come, spit it out.”
“No, it is no jest, my lord. There is no more. Could you not simply continue calling her Duchess? Surely you don’t find that name ugly, you gave it to her, after all. Listen my lord, you must think carefully about this, there is so very much at stake, you must—”
“It isn’t just her damnable ugly name, Mr. Wicks. This same girl has ice water in her veins. Just look at her, sitting there as still as a bloody rock. She isn’t even here. She’s probably thinking about her bloody flowers if she’s thinking about anything at all. All us mere human mortals don’t interest her. Someone could come up and put a placard around her neck and still she wouldn’t stir. Birds could probably roost on her head and she still wouldn’t move, wouldn’t acknowledge that anything was even different.
“By God, she feels more for the roses in her garden than she ever would feel for another human being. I don’t believe so, Mr. Wicks. Not in my bloody lifetime.” Marcus stopped, struck a pose, then added, “Actually, I don’t think she feels a bloody thing for her roses either. It must be their beauty that draws her, their cold beauty, like velvet to the eye. But, by God, you touch the things and you’ve got yourself scarred from the thorns. Yes, I can understand that she would find roses of interest, but a man? Can you begin to imagine how distasteful she would find a man, Mr. Wicks? We aren’t nature’s most splendid specimens. All that hair, our very size, our endowments that—”
“My lord! Please, moderate yourself. I know all of this is something of a shock to you, but you must recognize that it is a solution, it is—”
She’d pressed herself ha
rd against the settee in shock, but it was on the inside, deep on the inside. She didn’t allow herself to move, she barely breathed. Ah, but she felt the bitter angry words wash over her and through her and it was too much, it was far too much. And poor Mr. Wicks, trying so vainly to moderate Marcus’s rage, an impossibility, she knew that. He was passionate—quick to joy and quick to anger. But still she hadn’t imagined that he would say such things. But she should have. He was a strong man, a proud man, and now he was a man pushed too far. She simply looked at him, at the ugly sneer that distorted his well-shaped mouth, at the utter fury that held him in its grip.