Chivalrous Rake, Scandalous Lady. Mary Brendan

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СКАЧАТЬ have liked to enjoy more of her début unattached with her friends and the gallants doing the rounds of the balls and parties. I don’t want to spoil her fun. A betrothal of about a year is quite acceptable to me if that’s what she wants.’

      ‘You sound besotted by your lady love,’ Solomon offered drily. ‘Cleveland did say he hoped you might find the time to turn up and join them at another of the grand functions soon.’

      Marcus smiled at the irony in his uncle’s weak voice. So the Viscount had made a little complaint after all—damn him!

      When his engagement had first been announced, Marcus had shown his commitment to it by accompanying Deborah and her family to several notable occasions. But once they had been properly established as a couple he’d discreetly withdrawn to the company of his friends and his mistress. He had little liking for the vacuous social whirl that was a part of the annual London Season. Usually he would not be seen dead in such a place as Almack’s ballroom, but this year it had proved its point even to a hardened cynic such as he. He had found his future bride there. With that in mind he realised he would be grateful if Deborah remained satisfied with the arrangement between them. He hoped never to again set foot in the place.

      About a month ago Dr Robertson had confided in him that the Earl would probably not see Michaelmas. Marcus had immediately set out to find himself a wife of whom he was confident his uncle would approve as the mother of future Gresham heirs. Deborah was the daughter of a gentleman Solomon liked and respected. His intention had been to content his uncle by starting the process of continuing the Gresham line with a lady of quality.

      ‘So you’re happy, then?’ The Earl casually swirled the amber liquid in his glass.

      ‘Do you think I’m not?’

      ‘I remember a time when you were not,’ Solomon said softly. ‘Strangely I was reminded of that time just this afternoon, by Aaron Walters.’ Again his uncle’s hooded gaze fixed on him. ‘Tell me, did you receive one of Wyndham’s strange letters that begged for marriage offers for his ward?’

      There was a slight pause before Marcus murmured an affirmative.

      ‘I sent a message that Dawkins was to look for you in Hanover Square if you were not at home,’ Solomon informed him. ‘I thought you might head straight off to Wyndham’s house to have it out with the chump.’

      ‘He’s always been an idiot.’ Marcus’s muttered contempt emerged through splayed fingers supporting his chin.

      ‘Maybe so…but he’d have been your kin had Jemma Bailey agreed to marry you.’

      ‘I recall I thanked my lucky stars she’d had the decency to refuse,’ Marcus said exceedingly drily.

      ‘Eventually you might have done that,’ Solomon gently reminded him. ‘But for a long time I think you considered the lass worth the burden of her strange family. I never gave you my opinion on that child, did I?’

      ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Marcus said mildly.

      ‘Maybe it does,’ the Earl differed in a hoarse whisper.

      Marcus could see his uncle again tiring as his bony head slumped back to be bolstered by plump pillows. ‘That’s all forgotten,’ he soothed, gripping at Solomon’s hand in emphasis. ‘I simply went to see Wyndham to tell him that I thought his impertinence and his timing atrocious. I wouldn’t want Deborah or her parents to be upset by ludicrous gossip. Wyndham claimed he’d not seen the engagement gazetted.’

      ‘Did you land him a facer?’ Solomon croaked, his eyes alight with mischief.

      ‘Nothing quite so severe—he’s smaller than me.’

      Again the Earl wheezed a laugh. ‘The gossip has it that Miss Bailey was in on it.’

      ‘The letter made it seem that way.’

      ‘Do you think she was?’

      ‘No,’ Marcus answered. ‘I think Wyndham lied about that too.’

      ‘He sent four, you know.’

      ‘Do you know who were the other recipients?’ Marcus immediately asked.

      Solomon gave him a look that bordered on being smug. ‘I do. And my guess is that one of those fellows will take up the offer. Walters tells me she’s still a beauty, if a bit stand-offish and getting on in years.’

      ‘She’s only twenty-two,’ Marcus mildly protested, making more brilliant a knowing glint in his uncle’s dying eyes. Marcus looked at the ceiling, casually repeated, ‘So which other gentlemen have been approached to take Wyndham’s ward off his hands?’

      ‘Matthew Hambling and Philip Duncan are contenders. Neither, so I hear, have a notion to take on a wife at present. But Stephen Crabbe has my money on getting past the post. I remember the two of you nearly came to blows over the girl.’

      Marcus glanced away to where the doctor was sitting in a chair, his head bowed towards the hands clasped in his lap as though he was dozing.

      ‘I don’t think she had a hand in it either,’ Solomon remarked. ‘Wyndham’s after her inheritance, you know. She’ll be penniless before the ink dries on the marriage lines. And if Crabbe thinks Wyndham’ll settle a dowry on her he’ll be disappointed.’

      ‘I know he only wants her money.’ A mirthless smiled moved Marcus’s mouth. ‘Yet Theo Wyndham is arrogant enough to think he’s concocted a convincing tale of onerous moral duty.’

      ‘I rather liked Miss Jemma Bailey.’ The earl’s quiet opinion drew Marcus’s eyes immediately to him. ‘I liked her mother too and never held with all that scandal-mongering talk about the Baileys years ago. Eccentric, indeed they were. But one cannot condemn a couple for wanting to escape the hell of a bad marriage.’ Solomon fingered the rim of his glass. ‘Do you recall when we visited Paris some years ago and spotted Veronica Bailey strolling by the Seine with her Count?’

      Marcus nodded.

      ‘It was the first occasion I’d seen the fellow close up. Handsome devil, wasn’t he?’

      Again Marcus gave a nod.

      ‘I thought he had a look of you about him,’ Solomon suggested. ‘Different colour eyes, of course.’

      ‘Are you saying you think he took an interest in my mother, too?’

      Solomon guffawed so abruptly it made him cough, but he flapped away the doctor who’d sprung, startled, from his chair.

      ‘You always did make me laugh, you know, m’boy.’ He sobered, took a deep breath. ‘I think you know what I mean so I’ll say no more on it. I recall that Veronica was a good-looking woman and still in her prime when she went off with him. I can understand why John Bailey felt so bitter.’

      ‘He was hardly in a position to moralise considering he’d kept Mrs Brannigan in comfort before and after his marriage to Veronica. The tragedy of it was for their daughters rather than for them. When Jemma Bailey made her début she was not always wanted everywhere because of the scandal they’d caused.’

      ‘I recall you tried to compensate for that by showing everybody СКАЧАТЬ