Poring over the trusts with his man of business, Thomas discovered one oddity. And now that he was committed to marriage with a woman who brought him nothing but debts, he needed to explore it.
On reaching Castleton, he sent a servant to request an audience with his mother and attended the soon-to-be dowager in her sitting room. They’d never been on intimate terms. The duchess had very properly concerned herself with the education of her daughters, while Thomas was his father’s son.
“I am to be married, ma’am.”
“Miss Brotherton said yes, then? Your father would be pleased.” A stranger wouldn’t detect the edge of sarcasm in her voice. Nor would Thomas have, in the past. But a new sensitivity had arisen from thinking about marriage, his own and the institution in general. The Duchess of Castleton was not a woman given to much nuance of expression, or animation of any kind. The prettiness that had captivated his father had long since faded. Were it not for her fine clothing, she’d seem quite an ordinary woman. She still favored the silks and lace of a decade ago rather than simple muslins like Caro. Caro’s wardrobe expenses must be modest, Thomas thought with relief.
His mother also liked her jewelry, rarely appearing unadorned by precious stones from the Fitzcharles accumulations. That was why he needed to speak to her.
“In a sense,” he replied to her question. “Not Camber’s granddaughter. Her cousin. She was formerly a Miss Brotherton, but Caro is the widow of the man called Robert Townsend.”
“A widow is she?” Was that a flicker of knowledge in the impassive eyes? She could have heard gossip about the Townsends despite her long absence from London and the ton.
“Mrs. Townsend is a young woman, only twenty-four years old.”
The duchess nodded. “So I would suppose. I know of Townsend and his exploits. He was a member of a rather wild and notorious set in his youth. What happened to them?”
Thomas had no idea why his mother should be interested in a group of young men unconnected to the family. “One of them recently became Duke of Denford. Dreadful fellow. I did hear talk of others, but I don’t know them, unless you mean an artist named Bream.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I wish you happy.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’m sure I will be. Now I must consult you about my sisters. We haven’t spoken of this, but my father wasn’t always wise in the management of the family assets.” Loyalty prevented him speaking more strongly. “He made no provision for the twins. I cannot sell any land, so I must find at least ten thousand pounds apiece for them out of my reduced income.”
“Are you asking me to help?” she said with distinct bitterness. “I would do so, but my own settlement is modest, commensurate with the fortune I brought to the marriage. Your father had rigid notions of justice.”
“I am sorry for it. You may be assured I shall not let you go in want. More pressing is the necessity of providing for the girls. They’ll reach marriageable age in two or three years.”
The duchess looked at him blankly. A thought tickled the back of his mind, a notion he’d avoided exploring. Why do so when he never expected to mention the subject? Openness for its own sake wasn’t a valued trait in his upbringing.
“It’s strange the duke didn’t lay aside sums for the twins. Margaret was handsomely dowered. Why didn’t he do the same for Sarah and Maria?” He approached the crux of his inquiry carefully, hesitating to ask a question that could never be withdrawn. “My father was above all a correct man. Why did he behave in a manner so out of character?”
“I disagree,” she said. “His treatment of my daughters was very much in character.”
“Your daughters? Surely his too.” The duchess said nothing, and the horrifying suspicion hardened to certainty. There was a ten-year gap between the births of Margaret and the twins. His collar felt tight, his palms damp with fear. “Did you play him false?” He could scarcely believe he’d voiced such a terrible accusation.
His mother’s face was almost unrecognizable in its raw defiance. “And if I did? What if I sought affection elsewhere after he withdrew his? A woman cannot live without warmth.”
His mind reeled. He stood, towering over the seated adulteress, his fists clenched. He saw her expression turn to one of fear, and he struggled to control his anger and assimilate the significance of his knowledge calmly.
He thought about the girls. If the twins weren’t his father’s responsibility to dower, being no offspring of his, they were still Thomas’s sisters and as such he had a duty to them. Now, even more, they needed his protection. And his money. Ten thousand each wasn’t enough, he needed twice as much. Not a breath of scandal must touch them, no gossiping speculation that they had so much less than Margaret. He would never tell another soul about their disgrace.
“Madam,” he said. “We shall speak no more of this, ever. Your good name and that of the girls must be maintained.”
He would protect her reputation out of respect for the family, his sisters’ out of love.
His mother started to say something. “No more! The matter is forgotten.” Except that he would never be able to forget, or forgive.
His mother nodded, then looked surprised when he resumed his seat. Much as he’d like to withdraw from her polluting presence, he still had business to discuss.
“When is the wedding?” she asked.
His marriage that would bring nothing but added burdens to his purse. Had he known the truth, he’d never have been so irresponsible.
He thanked God he hadn’t known.
“Soon, I hope.” He wished he was in Caro’s arms now.
“I suppose you wish me to leave Castleton House.”
“The sooner the better. If the Grange or another local house is not to your taste, you may remove to one of the estates in another county.” His dignified reserve slipped, and he couldn’t help letting his disgust show. “I will not bring my bride to Castleton until you have left.”
He wasn’t sorry to see her flinch. “I shall take the girls with me.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. As their guardian, I must have my sisters under my roof.”
“I thought you might not care for them, now,” the duchess said.
“Sarah and Maria are my sisters and my responsibility.”
“I will not leave them behind.”
“In that case, you may stay in the vicinity.”
“I’ll move to the Grange. I would like my daughters to live with me. Since it’s less than a mile away, you can surely oversee their morals while they live with their mother.”
He most certainly would. It went against the grain to let the twins go, but having them live apart from their mother would cause the speculation he wanted to avoid.
This concession should make his next request fall on receptive ears. “What about the jewels?” he began. “Some are your personal property, but Caro must have the entailed pieces. She dresses simply, so I daresay she would be amenable to sharing them with you. She must have first choice.”
“As is her right,” said the duchess.
“There is yet one curious matter I must discuss with you, ma’am. The Stuart Twins. For some reason I can find no mention of them in the settlement papers, and it occurred to me I have not seen them in many years. I assume they are in your possession?”
Thomas held his breath. The so-called Stuart Twins were a pair of matching diamond pendants, given by Charles II to Mary Swinburne. The massive gems were the most valuable treasures held by the Fitzcharles family. Yet the settlements signed by Thomas and his father, so meticulous in protecting every piece of property, including many lesser jewels, contained no mention of these famous stones. In the opinion of his lawyer, Thomas had the right to sell them.
He hated to do so, and knew that it would appall his predecessors. But his father had left him no choice. The sale of the Twins would dower the twins.
“I don’t have them,” the duchess said. “I haven’t for years.”
“Where are they then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did my father sell them?” Damn it! He didn’t need this further evidence of the late duke’s mismanagement.
The duchess’s bland features lit with unmistakable malice. “I gave them away.”
“Gave them away! You had no right, ma’am, no right at all. How could my father have allowed such a thing?”
“I didn’t ask him. I gave them to the man I loved. A fair trade, don’t you think? A pair of twins for a pair of twins.”
“Did my father know? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Oh, he knew. He didn’t keep quiet to protect me, and certainly not to protect my daughters. He didn’t wish the world to know him for a cuckold. There was nothing he could do without revealing that he wore horns. I knew he’d feel like that. I knew him very well.”
Thomas’s brain reeled. The loss of the diamonds was a blow he’d face later. For now he could only consider what the revelation said about the state of relations between his parents. Plainly, his mother’s infidelity wasn’t merely an indiscretion resulting from them drifting apart. He’d had no idea of the level of his mother’s loathing and wondered if his father’s matched it. Given the duke’s legacy to the innocent twins, it probably did.
The knowledge depressed him. His father had broken family tradition, chosen his bride for love, not money, and Thomas was about to do the same. Would things between him and Caro turn out as badly?
He refused even to contemplate such an outcome. Caro, for all her wild ways, was true blue. He knew it instinctively.
Not surprisingly, news of the engagement leaked out. Oliver’s flapping tongue, Caro guessed, though she’d made no effort to keep it secret. The proximity of Bond Street to her house had been a geographical irrelevance, the fashionable merchants of that thoroughfare having closed their books to the widow Townsend. Now they were delighted to reopen their doors to a future duchess, and nothing so vulgar as a price or a bill was mentioned. The reckoning, it was understood, would be sent to her new husband once the alliance was formalized.
Caro saw nothing amiss. She didn’t come to Castleton penniless. Once the debts were paid, she reasoned, she’d still have her income, which wouldn’t be needed to pay living expenses. Perhaps she should have waited until she’d discussed pin money with Thomas. Pin money was something of a hazy concept, understood only from conversations with her few tonnish women friends. With her elopement, there had been no marriage settlement. Robert had never complained about her expenditures, and Caro didn’t regard herself as unduly extravagant. Certainly not by the standards of a duke. Nothing she’d seen suggested that Thomas was a poor man. She recalled the acres and acres of land he’d listed at their first meeting. His courting of Anne was motivated by the eternal ambition of the very rich to be even richer.
During an exhausting morning at the dressmaker, she ordered a dozen ensembles, including a red silk ball gown that plunged in a vee between her breasts. Her new husband would be quite shocked. She was resting in her drawing room, imagining the very enjoyable ways in which he might remove it, when Batten ushered in an unexpected and unwelcome pair of visitors.
“The Honorable Mrs. George Brotherton,” he intoned. Her mother always insisted on being announced with all possible pomp. “Mr. John Matthews.”
Caro rose and offered a superficial curtsey. “Mother. John. What a surprise to see you in London.”
Even more astonishing was that Elizabeth Brotherton embraced her and gave her a peck on the cheek. Caro thought it possible her mother had kissed her when she was an infant, but she didn’t remember it. What she did remember was the scent of lavender. Not the slightly astringent smell of the freshly dried flowers but a stale, sickly odor of the heavy face powder her mother always wore.
“My dearest child,” she said.
Caro stole a look at John to see how he was taking the demotion from his lifelong position as the apple of their mother’s eye. Without resentment. In fact, he regarded his sister with a look of approval.
As did her mother. She hadn’t changed much in the seven years since Caro had left the house to meet Robert and never returned. Mrs. Brotherton dressed with propriety, quality without fashion. Since she hadn’t adopted the higher waists, the old-fashioned cut of her gown made her seem older than her years. Conversely, although the hair was grayer, her face was relatively unlined, the smooth complexion of a lady who rarely allowed a smile, or any other emotion, to disturb her features. She was smiling now.
“What brings you here?” Caro asked, once they were all seated, her mother’s back ramrod straight on the most uncomfortable chair in the room. Caro took her customary spot on the sofa, next to Tish. The feel of the cat’s purring belly and soft fur was soothing under her stroking hand.
“How can you ask? As soon as I heard the news, I had to come at once.”
“What news?”
“Surely Cousin Eleanor is not wrong? You are to be a duchess!”
Damn Eleanor and her wagging pen. She’d always been far too faithful a correspondent.
“It is true I am betrothed to the Duke of Castleton. I do not see, however, why you should care. You washed your hands of me years ago.”
The broad smile sat uneasily on her mother’s face. With so little practice, she showed too many teeth. “Dearest child. All is now forgiven.”
“Indeed. I do not admit that you have anything to forgive.”
John, seeing his mother’s good-humored façade slipping, hastened to intervene. “We wish to congratulate you on making a marriage suitable to your birth, and to a man of sound reputation. When is it to be? Mother and I must make our plans to attend the ceremony. We wish to lend public countenance to the match.”
A slow burn crept up Caro’s nape as her mother nodded in agreement with John’s little speech, which he’d concluded with a smug bow. “We haven’t set a date. The wedding will be a private one.”
“All the better,” Mrs. Brotherton said. “So much more exclusive. I greatly look forward to meeting the duke. And his mother and sisters, too. Are you perhaps expecting him to call this afternoon? Would you ring for tea while we wait, Caroline?”
“I don’t expect him today. He has gone to Hampshire on business.”
“What a shame. When do you expect him? John must discuss settlements with him. And make arrangements for payment of your dowry.”
“My dowry?” The words emerged in a croak as Caro struggled to control herself. Tish yowled at the convulsive clutch of his mistress’s hand on his neck. He shook her off, jumped down onto the floor, and stalked out of the room, tail held high, leaving Caro without an ally. “I have a dowry?”
John took up the refrain. “Naturally, your fortune, left you by your father, will be delivered to the duke after the wedding.”
Caro’s fingernails dug into her palms. She stood and addressed Mrs. Brotherton. “Do you mean to say that last year, when I came to you in desperate straits, you withheld money that was rightfully mine?”
John continued to speak for their mother. “Mr. Brotherton set aside fifteen thousand pounds for you to receive on your marriage, if you wed with your mother’s consent, or when you reach the age of thirty. A very wise arrangement, may I say.”
Caro spun around to glare at her half brother. “No you may not. It’s none of your affair.”
“The late Mr. Brotherton thought it fit to leave things in my mother’s hands, but she relies on me, a man, in business matters, as is proper, and sanctioned by Holy Writ.”
“You speak pious nonsense, John, but refused to help me when I needed it. Fine Christian conduct for a brother!”
“Handing money to a rogue like Robert Townsend would be casting pearls before swine. And I had no reason to believe you any more prudent.”
“But now, when I don’t need it, you’ll let me have the money that my father left for me.”
John’s broad, flat face turned an unappealing shade of red. He’d always resented her super
ior birth and happily lorded over her father’s impressive house instead of living on the more modest estate inherited from his own. “Of course! His Grace is a man of the highest reputation for propriety and prudence. There isn’t the least need to withhold the money any longer.”
“I don’t want it,” Caro snapped.
“Don’t be absurd, sister,” John said. “You must have your dowry. What kind of marriage would it be without?”
“The kind of happy marriage I enjoyed for six years.”
“Your father left the fortune in my care,” Mrs. Brotherton said, her affability slipping, “because he knew what a headstrong creature you were.”
“I see. At the age of four he could tell I would elope.”
“From the moment you were born, you were difficult. Noisy and disobedient and ungrateful.”
“Good God, Mother!” Caro cried. “How could I be anything of the sort as an infant? Why did you always despise me so much?”
The smile had disappeared, to be replaced by an ugly grimace. “You were a girl. It was bad enough that you were a useless female. But then Camber’s son died, and he, too, had only a daughter. If you were a boy, you’d be the heir, and I would be mother to an earl.”
It was true, though Caro had never given it a thought. “My sex deprived me of a title and fortune,” she said. “I couldn’t help it, and there’s nothing to be done.”
“But now I will be mother to a duchess. It’s the least you can do to make up to me for your birth and for flouting me all your life.”
Caro forced herself to remain calm on the surface. “I wouldn’t wish to deprive you of the enjoyment of your resentment,” she said, each word carefully enunciated. “I do not invite you to the wedding, and I don’t want the dowry. If you so much as speak to Castleton about it before the wedding, I shall call off the match. And if you do so afterward, I shall make very sure you never see the duke, nor me, nor our children. Ever.”
The Importance of Being Wicked Page 17