“No one will wed us anyway.” Alexandra waved a hand as if to dash away his concern. “We haven’t any dowries and our brother is the Earl of Ravenscroft.”
His mood grew more dire by the moment. “While I’m afraid I cannot change the fact that I’m your brother, a dowry you both shall have. Upon my marriage, I’ll be a very wealthy man, and I intend to use a generous portion of that wealth to see that the two of you are happy for the rest of your lives.”
Josephine and Alexandra exchanged a prolonged glance of incredulity.
Julian tapped his fingers on his desk, irritation needling him. Was it truly that difficult to believe he was marrying? “Dear sisters,” he drawled, “never say my reputation is so black that you don’t believe me.”
“You’re not…you wouldn’t force a girl to marry you, would you, Julian?”
“Good Christ.” The tenuous thread of Julian’s remaining patience snapped. He bestowed his most rebuking glare upon Alexandra, who had asked the question. “Do the two of you take me for a monster? Precisely what is it you’ve heard about me?”
Josephine wrinkled her nose. “I daresay you may not want to know.”
One of the benefits of being regularly inebriated was that he hadn’t a clue just how irredeemable the world apparently believed him. Even his own flesh and blood, Chrissakes. Meanwhile, here he was, about to sacrifice himself at the matrimonial altar for their futures. “I’m falling upon the sword for you two incorrigible minxes. I expect, at the very least, a modicum of gratitude in return. From this moment forward, I’ll thank you to hold your tongues if you haven’t anything civil to say.”
Alexandra’s brows shot up practically to her hairline. “But—”
“Silence,” he bellowed. “I’ll not hear another word about my reputation. Ever again. Are we understood?”
If he expected his sisters to meekly comply, it would appear he’d forgotten they shared at least half of a family tree. Josephine blinked. “A bit of a sensitive subject, is it?”
He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached. What the hell had he been thinking, to saddle himself with the vexing scraps of petticoats before him? He should have allowed them to continue moldering with Great Aunt Lydia and retained his sanity.
Julian took a breath, calmly studied the threadbare patches in his carpet, and counted to five before responding. “Each future instance of insolence will cost you dearly. One less dress. One hundred less pounds for your dowry. That goes for each of you. Am I understood now, you ill-mannered imps?”
His sisters stared in unison. Apparently his generosity had robbed them of speech. A rarity, that. His generosity and their lack of verbosity both.
And then Josephine ruined it utterly. “Do you mean to suggest we shall truly have a trousseau and dowry?”
“Yes of course.” Damn it, his benevolence was fast being depleted by the trying nature of his madcap sisters. “You were always meant to have the both. It was merely a pittance before, but now it shall be handsome. Very handsome indeed.”
“What paragon of riches are you marrying to allow such a generous amount to be settled upon us both?” Alexandra demanded, apparently having heard none of his stern admonitions of the past half hour.
“One Miss Clara Whitney.” Damn if the name didn’t feel odd on the tongue. Foreign. But it was a name she wouldn’t possess for much longer, for soon she would be the Countess of Ravenscroft. His lady. And damn if that title didn’t feel equally odd. A slip of a girl, an American at that, would be his bride.
She was a beauty, his little dove. Clara of the golden hair, winsome smile, lilting drawl, and intoxicating innocence. It was a damn shame to spoil that innocence, but spoil it he would. The sisters before him, the servants belowstairs, the roof over his head—all depended upon that very spoiling now. The darkness in him would thoroughly enjoy every second of it.
* * *
Clara faced her father not without some wilt in her posture, which, she reckoned, was only understandable. For she loved her father, despite the fact that she hadn’t known him in her formative years. She didn’t want to hurt or disappoint him. But it seemed she was forever doomed to do both. He was as immovable as a boulder, stubborn as the cornerstone in the foundation of a grand old manor house.
His expression was as eerie as a death mask. No hint of smile. No hint of the laughing, teasing father she had come to know. “You’ve finally managed to mire yourself in a situation from which I cannot save you, Clara,” he said in somber tones reminiscent of the reverend who had presided over her mother’s funeral several years before. Her father had been at her side then, and he sat opposite her now, on the other end of an imposing and ornate desk.
It was, she thought for a silly moment, as though they were two nations at war. Much like their country had been not so long ago. She felt like a stranger, almost, brokering a treaty. An armistice? Or was it her terms of surrender? She didn’t rightly know. “I neither want nor need saving, Father.”
He made a moue of supreme displeasure. “You mean to suggest you wish to marry this…waste of flesh lord who has never earned a cent in his life without taking some bored society wife to bed?”
She shifted subtly on her uncomfortable chair, attempting to ease the pressure of her corset and her nerves. Her cheeks were hot and red, she was sure. This was not the sort of conversation one wanted or expected to engage in with one’s stern and protective father. It didn’t matter that she’d had days to prepare. “I’m sure I don’t know what you speak of, nor would I wish to. Lord Ravenscroft is a good man.”
Ha! Even to her own ears, her words rang horribly false. In truth, she didn’t know the earl. Not at all. But Father didn’t need to become aware of that pathetic fact, did he? Of course not.
“Good is not a word to be spoken in the same sentence with that son-of-a-bitch.”
When Father was angry, his drawl was a great deal more pronounced. And the thickness of his drawl suggested he was very, very angry indeed. “I love him.”
Another lie. Guilt struck her heart. She was a bad daughter, a rotten daughter, to prevaricate. He left her with no choice, however. He thought he knew better than she what she wanted, what she ought to do with her life. But she knew. She had a heart and a mind of her own, and that heart and that mind longed for Virginia.
Virginia was where she belonged, fighting for her cause. She’d had her taste of the gilded world of English aristocracy. It was flimsy as her silk stockings. No limbs of its own, if you asked her. Not that anyone ever did.
“Perhaps you foolishly think yourself in love,” her father scoffed at such a notion, as though it were as ridiculous as an apple woman being presented to Queen Victoria at court. “But I can assure you that your lovesick swain has a different perspective entirely. He already had a settlement in mind, Clara. It is not you he is in love with, regardless of whatever nonsense he may fill your ears and innocent heart with. It is your wealth.”
Of course it was. Gold was one of the oldest and surest lures in the world. And it had gotten her what she wanted, hadn’t it? She held her head high. “Am I to be shocked to learn his coffers have nearly run dry? I’m given to understand that many noblemen find themselves in similarly unfortunate predicaments. Surely that makes him no different than most of his peers?”
“What makes him different is his reputation, Clara.” Her father’s eyes bored into hers.
She dropped her gaze lest he read her too well, examining his clenched hands upon the desk. There were papers scattered about, some crumpled, some with entire sentences redacted by a bold strike of his pen. Marriage settlement documents, perhaps? She’d been told by her lady’s maid that her father’s redoubtable lawyer had made a long and solemn call upon him already that day.
What had Father said? Oh yes, Ravenscroft’s reputation. It would seem she must forever answer for his wicked ways. “I’m not as ignorant as you believe me to be. Indeed, I am a woman grown, completely possessed of excellent reasoning and logic.”
/> “You are aware that he has whored himself to half the ladies of the peerage?”
Clara flinched. Such an ugly insinuation. Ravenscroft himself had used the same word to describe himself. Even whores must set their price, my love. How low the earl’s self-worth must be. For some reason she didn’t care to examine, the thought disturbed her.
“Were every man or woman to be judged by his past misdeeds, no one would be welcome in any drawing room or ballroom,” she countered.
“Clara.” Her father turned his eyes heavenward for a moment, as though beseeching the Lord himself to intervene and strike some sense into her. “Clara, my darling daughter, I want so much more for you in a marriage than a hasty farce forced upon you by a rattler masquerading as an earl.”
He was aggrieved, his pain palpable. Her conscience prodded her to make one last attempt at winning her freedom. “Perhaps there is another way to salvage my reputation without marriage to the earl. You could send me back to Virginia, Father. My mother’s kinfolk would welcome me there.”
Her father cocked his head at her, studying her in that way of his that saw far more than she would have preferred. “Never tell me that this was all another one of your larks, Clara, that you somehow devised this madcap scheme in the hopes that I would send you back to Virginia rather than marry you off to a scoundrel.”
Well, not precisely. But he was too close to the mark for her liking. She didn’t wish for him to unravel all her careful plans, not when she was so near to achieving her goal. “Of course not. As I said, Lord Ravenscroft is the man I wish to wed. I’m sorry for the manner in which it need occur. I was foolish to go to him as I did, and for any shame or distress I’ve brought upon you and Lady Bella both, I apologize.”
Unfortunately, her mentioning of her indiscretion with Ravenscroft hardly blunted her father’s ire. Rage fairly emanated from him, overtaking him with a force so strong he could no longer remain seated and shot to his feet to pace the length of his study.
“What he did to you…ruining you…your stepmother has spared me the excruciating specifics of the nature of your encounter. But Clara, I need to be certain that he didn’t force you or otherwise ill use you. Tell me the truth.”
“He did not force or hurt me,” she answered, one of the few honest statements she’d made since their interview had begun, much to her shame.
All the fight seemed to drain out of her father then. He stopped, appearing far less omnipotent than he always had to her. Far more human. Far more weary. “Then I will accept his offer for your hand. You’ll wed him as expediently as possible. I’ll grant him the two hundred thousand pounds he’s asked for, but he’s only getting fifty thousand in North Atlantic Electric stock. As for you, I will give you ten thousand a year and the other fifty thousand of North Atlantic Electric stock your husband requested for himself. You’ll be a wealthy woman in your own right, and that is the best I can hope to do for you now. Under the law, you’ll maintain control over anything you bring to the marriage aside from what is directly settled upon your husband.”
Two hundred thousand pounds.
Clara had only offered Ravenscroft one hundred thousand to marry her and then annul the marriage. Dread settled over her. She had to know for certain. “He asked for the two hundred thousand directly?”
“You’re damn right he did,” her father gritted, his voice grim as ever. “Don’t fool yourself into believing this is a love match, Clara. The son-of-a-bitch wants your dowry.”
The same sense of foreboding she’d been feeling ever since returning home crept over her now, stronger than ever. If only asking her father to settle all the funds on her would not arouse his suspicion. No, she couldn’t afford to chance he would change his mind. The web she’d spun about herself grew more tangled by the moment. Perhaps she’d been outmaneuvered in her own game.
Checkmate.
“You needn’t worry over me. I know how to look after myself,” she told her father. She’d been raised in the shadowy aftermath of America’s deadliest war, and her upbringing had hardened her in a way none of her fellow society misses would ever understand. She could hold her own in a battle of wits and wills with an English earl whose only recommendation was his face. If he thought to best her, he’d never met a girl from Virginia.
Chapter 4
Ravenscroft stared at Jesse Whitney with disbelief. The man had gumption, he’d give him that. “You wish for me to court your daughter,” he repeated slowly, doing a poor job of masking his irritation. Now that he’d settled on his course, he wanted his prize: his little dove and her tremendous American dowry. In truth, he wanted her almost as much as he wanted the vast amounts of coin that would accompany her. Certainly more than he cared to examine.
“Those are the terms I’m willing to offer you,” Whitney affirmed. “Either you court her for a fortnight, well-chaperoned and without further ruining her, or you can’t wed her.”
To the devil with it. Now the man wanted him to bow and scrape and come sniffing about his future wife’s skirts like some lovelorn swain when he’d all but secured her hand. To dance at balls. To attend dinner parties and the theater. To seriously pretend to be smitten by her, in public, and most certainly to manage all this while maintaining a façade of respectability and abstaining from drink. Why, he hadn’t been sober long and he already found it deadly dull.
“I ruined her, you daft man,” Ravenscroft grumbled, not feeling even a pinch of guilt at the lie. Well truly, he’d done some damage, put his hands and mouth where they didn’t belong, but he hadn’t bloody well swived her as he’d implied. No, that would come later. If she still truly believed there wouldn’t be a wedding night, he would thoroughly enjoy changing her mind. With his tongue.
“Few are aware of what transpired.” Whitney’s rebuttal was smooth, calculated.
Well played. But no one could do brazen better than he. No one. “There is the matter of possible issue from what transpired,” he reminded his father-in-law-to-be, also without a hint of guilt. “If I refuse to court her and you won’t allow her to wed me, what shall happen when her belly grows? For then, it will be too late for doing the pretty at balls and dinners.”
Whitney went ruddy, presumably from pent-up rage. The poor fellow didn’t appear to enjoy reminders that his precious daughter could perhaps sire a bastard. “Do you want me to kill you after all, Ravenscroft?”
Julian made an elaborate show of scrutinizing his future father-in-law’s person as though looking for the telltale silhouette of a pistol beneath his trappings of finery. “I don’t see a weapon today, Mr. Whitney. Or shall I call you Papa? No? A bit too soon, perhaps.”
His opponent apparently wasn’t given to being blithe. He slammed his hands down on the admittedly battered study desk. “Listen to me, you son-of-a-bitch, this—my daughter’s future—is not a laughing matter.”
No, it wasn’t. Poor girl, about to be shackled to him forever. Little levity in that, unfortunately for her. But Julian couldn’t help himself. He rather enjoyed goading people. It was a trait he’d always possessed. Most damning in the eyes of others, no doubt. “Dear me, old fellow. I don’t recall laughing, but if I did I’m sure I ought to offer you an apology.”
Whitney’s hands snapped closed into tight fists, the knuckles showing white. Those knuckles bore the signs of his past. Mayhap he’d engaged in hand-to-hand combat during the war. Very likely Julian ought to tone down his bombast, but the man irked him.
“The next time you call me ‘old fellow,’ I’ll knock out your teeth. You owe me at least a dozen apologies by now, none of which you seem willing to give.” Whitney pounded the desk for emphasis. “Most importantly, you owe an apology to my daughter. Clara is an impulsive girl but a good girl nonetheless. You aren’t fit to tidy up after her horse, let alone wed her. Give her a proper courting for a fortnight. The wedding will still be rushed, and tongues will still flay us alive, but at least we can build a case for love rather than necessity.”
Julian to
ok exception to all threats against his teeth. As it happened, they were even and straight, quite white, and one of his vanities. “I fail to see how a fortnight of courting will cause any less damage to her in the eyes of society than a simple, immediate marriage will.”
Moreover, it had occurred to him that perhaps Whitney was attempting to use this fortnight to prove that Clara was not, in fact, enceinte, and that their nuptials would no longer be necessary. After all, depending upon where she was in her monthly courses, she could make a liar of him tomorrow. Or this very afternoon. Of course, it wouldn’t be in her interest to do so, but Julian couldn’t be sure just how far the wild-looking former soldier before him would go to protect his daughter. Examination by physician? He doubted it, but then again, if he’d learned anything in his life it was that the actions of most people couldn’t be either trusted or predicted.
“I don’t give a damn what you do or don’t see, Ravenscroft,” growled Whitney. “These are my terms. Court her for a fortnight. Act the part of lovesick swain. It must all be quite proper. And in return, I will give my reluctant blessing upon the marriage, along with the dowry you requested with one exception. Half the North Atlantic Electric stocks will go to you and the other half to Clara, hers by law, along with whatever settlement I choose to bestow upon her, also entirely hers.”
Strange that Julian didn’t care to quibble over the division of the stocks but he did want to argue about a fortnight of waiting to make his little dove into his countess. Fifty thousand here or fifty thousand there, what was it when one had the expectation of nothing? He’d be a far wealthier man than he’d ever fancied possible either way. But he wanted the wedding, damn it, and he wanted it now.
Because he wanted her. Somehow, inexplicably, the plucky Virginia girl who’d shown up in his study unannounced had woken up a part of him he’d thought he no longer had. Desire. He hadn’t truly longed for a woman since Lottie.
Heart’s Temptation Series Books 4-6 Page 31