All About Passion (Cynster 7)

“Well, you are. If you don’t marry and beget an heir, he’ll be for it. And Osbert in charge of the earldom is entirely too depressing a thought to contemplate.” Horace drained his glass. “Still, I wouldn’t have thought you’d let old Millicent and Osbert jockey you into marrying to please them.”

“Perish the thought. But if you must know, and I’m sure Henni will want to, I intend to marry entirely to suit myself. I’m thirty-five, after all. Further denying the inevitable will only make the adjustment more painful-I’m set in my ways as it is.” He rose and held out his hand.

Horace grimaced and gave him his glass. “Devilish business, marriage-take my word for it. Sure it isn’t all these Cynsters marrying that’s niggled you into taking the plunge?”

“That’s where I was today-Somersham. There was a family gathering to show off all the new wives and infants. If I’d needed any demonstration of the validity of your thesis, today would have provided it.”

Refilling their glasses, Gyles pushed aside the prickling presentiment evoked by his old friend Devil Cynster’s latest infernal machination. “Devil and the others elected me an honorary Cynster.” Turning from the tantalus, he handed Horace his glass, then resumed his seat. “I pointed out that while we might share countless characteristics, I’m not, and never will be, a Cynster.”

He would not marry for love. That fate, as he’d assured Devil for years, would never be his.

Every Cynster male seemed unavoidably to succumb, jettisoning rakish careers of legendary proportions for love and the arms of one special lady. There’d been six in the group popularly known as the Bar Cynster, and now all were wed, all exclusively and unswervingly focused on their wives and growing families. If there was, within him, a spark of envy, he made sure it was buried deep. The price they’d paid was not one he could afford.

Horace snorted. “Love matches are the Cynsters’ forte. Seem to be all the rage these days, but take my word for it-an arranged marriage has a lot to recommend it.”

“My thoughts exactly. Earlier this summer I set Waring the task of investigating all the likely candidates to see which, if any, had dower properties that would materially add to the earldom.”

“Properties?”

“If one is not marrying for love, one may as well marry for something else.” And he’d wanted a reason for his choice, so whichever lady he ultimately offered for would entertain no illusions over what had made him drop his handkerchief in her lap. “My instructions were that my future countess had to be sufficiently well-bred, docile, and endowed with at least passable grace of form, deportment, and address.” A lady who could stand by his side and impinge on his consciousness not at all; a well-bred cypher who would bear his children and disrupt his lifestyle minimally.

Gyles sipped. “As it happened, I had also asked Waring to trace the current ownership of the Gatting property.”

Horace nodded his understanding. The Gatting property had at one time been part of the Lambourn estate. Without it, the earldom’s principal estate was like a pie with a slice missing; regaining the Gatting lands had been an ambition of Gyles’s father, and his father before him.

“In pursuing the owner, Waring discovered that the deed had passed to some distant Rawling

s, then, on his demise, into the dowry of his daughter, presently of marriageable age. The information Waring is apparently anxious to impart concerns the daughter.”

“She of marriageable age?”

Gyles inclined his head as the chime of the front door bell pealed through the house. A moment later, the library door opened.

“Mr. Waring, my lord.”

“Thank you, Irving.”

Waring, a heavy-set man in his early thirties, with a round face and close-cropped hair, entered. Gyles waved him to the armchair opposite. “You’ve met Lord Walpole. Can I offer you a drink?”

“Thank you, my lord, but no.” Waring nodded to Horace, then sat, laying a leather satchel across his knees. “I knew how keen you were to pursue this matter, so I took the liberty of leaving a message…”

“Indeed. I take it you have news?”

“I have.” Settling a pair of spectacles on his nose, Waring withdrew a sheaf of papers from his satchel. “As we’d heard, the gentleman and his household resided permanently in Italy. Apparently both parents, Gerrard Rawlings and his wife Katrina, perished together. Subsequently, the daughter, Francesca Hermione Rawlings, returned to England and joined the household of her uncle and guardian, Sir Charles Rawlings, in Hampshire.”

“I’ve been trying to recall…” Gyles swirled his glass. “Were they-Charles and Gerrard-the sons of Francis Rawlings?”

Waring shuffled his papers, then nodded. “Indeed. Francis Rawlings was the grandfather of the lady in question.”

“Francesca Hermione Rawlings.” Gyles considered the name. “And the lady herself?”

“That proved easier than I’d expected. The family entertained extensively-any member of the ton passing through northern Italy would have met them. I’ve descriptions from Lady Kenilworth, Mrs. Foxmartin, Lady Lucas, and the Countess of Morpleth.”

“What’s the verdict?”

“A delightful young lady. Pleasant. Well-favored. A most amusing creature-that was old Lady Kenilworth. A young gentlewoman of excellent breeding-so said the countess.”

“Who said ‘well-favored’?” Horace asked.