Born to Scandal. Diane Gaston

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Anna repeated.

      Mr Tippen began the tour in the formal parlour where hung a portrait of the late marchioness, fair like her daughter, and beautiful, as Mr Parker had said. She looked regal and aloof, and also as if she could step out of the canvas and give them all a noble dressing down.

      The children, poor dears, barely looked at the portrait.

      Anna directed their attention to a portrait of their father on the opposite wall.

      ‘This looks very like your father!’ she exclaimed, mostly because their late mother’s image obviously upset them. Lord Brentmore’s portrait, though of him younger and leaner, perfectly conveyed his sternness, but there was also a sad yearning in his eyes that tugged at her heart. His son’s eyes carried that same sadness, she realised, but the boy looked as if he’d given up yearning for anything. Anna’s heart bled for the child. How could she help him? she wondered.

      Lord Brentmore’s voice came back to her. Provide my children what they need. Make them happy.

      How could she make them happy?

      As the tour continued Mr Tippen turned out to be a competent guide, able to explain the family connections in the myriad of portraits and other paintings all through the house. He proved knowledgeable about the furnishings and about the house’s history, when parts of it were built and by which Lord Brentmore.

      The children remained extraordinarily quiet, gaping at everything as if seeing it for the first time. How often had the children seen these rooms? Surely they had not been always confined to the nursery.

      Mr Tippen, opening a door that led to the garden, seemed to read her mind. ‘As you have seen, these rooms are filled with priceless family treasures, Miss Hill. They are not play areas. The children are not allowed in them—’

      Anna stood her ground. ‘If you are attempting to tell me how to manage the children, Mr Tippen, you would do better to be silent.’

      Dory was holding Anna’s hand. The little girl squeezed it and grinned up at her.

      Anna grinned back. She was being insolent again.

      She only hoped it did not make matters worse for all of them.

       Chapter Three

      Brent walked with his cousin up Bond Street, heading towards Somerset Street, where Baron Rolfe had taken rooms for the Season.

      ‘I do not know why I let you talk me into this, Peter.’

      Peter’s grandfather had been the old marquess’s younger brother, making Peter and Brent second cousins. The two of them were all that was left of the Caine family.

      Besides Brent’s children, that was.

      ‘All I am asking of you is to meet her,’ Peter responded.

      They were to dine with Lord and Lady Rolfe, and, more importantly, Miss Susan Rolfe, their daughter.

      Almost a month had gone by before Peter again broached the topic of Brent marrying again. Peter considered Miss Rolfe the perfect match for Brent.

      The Rolfe estate bordered Peter’s property and Peter had known this family his whole life, had practically lived in their pockets since his own parents passed away. Brent was slightly acquainted with Baron Rolfe, but he could not recall if he had ever met the man’s wife or the daughter.

      ‘You could not find a finer woman,’ Peter insisted.

      Yes. Yes. So Peter had said. Many times.

      His cousin went on. ‘You need marriage to a respectable woman. It will counteract the unfortunate scandal that surrounds you.’

      Brent averted his gaze. This was exactly what Brent had told himself before his first marriage. Eunice, he’d thought, had been the epitome of a good match.

      In the end she’d only compounded the scandal.

      Peter glanced around, as if a passer-by might overhear him. ‘There are those who still believe your blood is tainted because of your poor Irish mother. Some claim that is why Eunice was unfaithful.’

      Brent’s gaze snapped back.

      His grandfather had hammered it into him that his blood was tainted by his mother, the daughter of a poor Irish tenant farmer. Brent could still hear Eunice’s diatribe on the subject, which had indeed been her justification for blatant infidelity.

      Brent remembered only a smiling face, warm arms encircling him and a sweet voice singing a lullaby. He felt the ache of a loss that was over a quarter-century old.

      ‘Take care, Peter,’ he shot back, his voice turning dark and dangerous.

      His cousin merely returned a sympathetic look. ‘You know I do not credit such things, but your children are bound to hear this same gossip some day, as well as stories of their mother. These will be heavy burdens for them to bear. You need to do something to counter them or they will grow up suffering the same taunts and cuts that you have suffered.’

      Peter rarely talked so plainly.

      Brent held his cousin’s gaze. ‘My one marriage certainly did nothing to increase my respectability.’

      He’d stayed away from Eunice as much as possible for the children’s sake. There was no reason the poor babes should hear them constantly shouting at each other.

      He’d been completely besotted by Eunice from their first meeting. She’d been the Diamond of the Season, the daughter of a peer, the perfect match for a new marquess, and she’d accepted his suit.

      After marriage, however, Brent learned it was his title and wealth that had value to her. The day he’d held their newborn son in his arms, thinking himself the most fortunate man in the world, Eunice had told him how happy she was that her duty was done. Now they were free to pursue other interests. After that her interests—her infidelities, that is—kept tongues wagging.

      At least the war offered him ample opportunity to stay away from her.

      Unfortunately, it had also kept him away from his son.

      Brent consoled himself that most aristocrats had little to do with their children, instead hiring nurses, governesses and tutors, sending them away to schools and seeing them only at brief intervals until the children were old enough to be civilised, the way the old marquess had reared him. How he had spent his early years was considered strange—suckled by his own mother, cared for by his Irish grandfather in a one-room, windowless mud cabin.

      Brent and Peter reached Oxford Street, a lifetime away from the land of Brent’s birth.

      He turned his attention back to the present. ‘Peter, what makes you think another marriage would not make matters worse?’

      In no way would Brent allow his heart to again become engaged as it had done with Eunice. It had cut to the core that she’d married the title and scorned the man.

      Peter responded once they were on the other side of Oxford Street. ‘Marry a woman of high moral character this СКАЧАТЬ