The Wyndham Legacy (Legacy 1)

“You are nothing but a slut. I won’t heed you.”

The Duchess blinked hard. “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“I said that you’re in a rut and if I must plead to stay here, why then, so I shall. I won’t leave you, Josephina, you would be ever so lonely. You don’t mean to say that we are not welcome here?”

“Naturally you are welcome, ma’am, I just told you you were, but Chase Park is not your home. As Mr. Wicks told you last evening, there is no inheritance now that his lordship and I have wed.”

“I think you’re a conniving bitch.”

The Duchess heard her well enough this time, but she was so utterly taken aback that she couldn’t think of a thing to say. She just looked at her, waiting to hear what she would say now, but Wilhelmina merely shrugged and walked toward the grand double doors. “Yes,” she said now, “it must be nice to be very rich.”

“Indeed.”

Wilhelmina smiled and said gaily, “What do you think of my boys?”

Boys? Trevor was all of twenty-four, Marcus’s age, and James was twenty. “They are very charming, ma’am. Ursula is also very nice.”

“Ursula is a girl and thus of no worth, of no more worth than you are, damn you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said that Ursula is a girl of excellent birth, certainly of as good a birth as you are, you sweet lamb, you. I believe she will make a brilliant marriage, don’t you think?”

She had a pounding headache. She merely nodded, thankful that her aunt Wilhelmina was willingly taking herself off. She quickly went out the eastern side door and hoped to lose herself in the Chase gardens, beautiful now in midsummer, all the roses blooming wildly, hyacinth with their bell-shaped flowers scenting the air, mixing with the perfume of the roses and the daisies and the huge-blossomed hydrangeas. Lilac trees with their lavender clusters were so sweet now that they clogged the senses. She walked to an ancient oak tree, so twisted and bent that it could be a meeting place for witches on All Hallows’ Eve. She seated herself on the wooden bench beneath its lush green canopy of branches, leaned back against the trunk of the tree, and closed her eyes. It seemed as if she’d endured Aunt Wilhelmina for more than a decade and not just a day. Well, actually, a morning and an evening. Not even a full day.

Mr. Wicks was in a state of retreat, for Aunt Wilhelmina had all but attacked him the previous night.

When they’d arrived the previous afternoon, Aunt Wilhelmina had greeted her and Mr. Wicks as her guests. It was the strangest feeling to see Aunt Gweneth standing back, clearly deferring to the woman with the aging but still beautiful face with her head of hair so blond it was nearly white in the sunlight. Aunt Wilhelmina was unexpected, but then again, so was Trevor, the effete sod, the damnable pederast, the lisping dandy, according to Marcus. She smiled remembering Marcus’s contempt. Trevor! By God, a pederast, a mincing fop!

She supposed she’d expected to see a pretty young man with his mother’s fair complexion and blond hair. She supposed she had even expected him to lisp and wear his cravat so high it touched his ears. Well, Marcus would be in for a surprise. No, there would be no surprise, for Marcus wouldn’t come to Chase Park, not as long as she was here.

She wondered if he had returned to London.

The Twins and Ursula found her ten minutes later. At least her headache was reduced to a dull throbbing.

Antonia announced, “I have decided to marry Trevor, Duchess. He is much to my liking.”

Ursula, a small fourteen-year-old girl with her mother’s fair coloring, a sweet girl with pretty features that surely would mold into beauty in four or five years, said, “Trevor is unhappy. He won’t want to marry you yet, Antonia. Besides, you’re only fifteen. At least for three more months. Trevor is quite old now.”

“Old! Trevor is quite a young man!” Antonia was flushed with the heat and with the audacity of such a statement about her newly appointed idol.

Ever practical, Fanny asked, “Why is he unhappy?” She took a big bite of the apple she held in her hand, the loud munching the only sound for at least a minute. At least it wasn’t a sweetmeat, the Duchess thought. It seemed to her that Fanny’s face had thinned out over the past months. She and Antonia were growing up. She felt ancient at the moment.

“His wife died,” Ursula said.

Her mouth fell open in surprise. “He was married, Ursula?”

“Yes, Duchess. Her name was Helen and she was very nice, quite the prettiest girl in Baltimore, only she was sickly, Trevor said. She died in childbed, after a bad fall from her mare, the babe passing away with her. It happened only four months ago. They were only married for a year and a half. Trevor went away to New York, I think. He came back to escort us here to England because Mother wrote him a letter and begged him. James didn’t like it because he wanted to take Father’s place and see to our welfare. He didn’t speak to Trevor for at least a week. I don’t think Trevor even noticed. He was with us in body, but he was still away, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes,” the Duchess said. “I know exactly what you mean, Ursula.” Goodness, she thought, overwhelmed, you simply never knew anyone, their secrets, what they’d endured, what they were really like.

“By the time I am eighteen,” Antonia said with all the confidence of a girl who was rich, had an immense dowry, and who had been deferred to all her life, “Trevor will be over his unhappiness. Then he will marry me and I won’t die in childbirth because I ride a horse quite nicely and I’m healthy as a stoat. Aunt Gweneth says so.”

Fanny took the last bite from her apple and flung it into the pond that lay just beyond the huge old oak tree, sending several ducks flapping away, quacking loudly in surprise. “Perhaps I will take James. I just wish he were a bit older. Boys are so callow. They need to ripen, like wine, at least that’s what Papa used to say. Remember, Antonia? Papa used to tease Charlie and Mark whenever they remarked upon a pretty girl. He told them they were still vinegar, that it would take some years to make them vintage port.”

Ursula laughed. Antonia looked stricken. The Duchess said easily, “I can see him teasing the boys, Fanny. It’s good to remember your brothers with pleasure and laughter.”

Ursula said, “That’s why the earl is an upstart, isn’t it? Since my cousins died—”