The Infamous Rakes

by Amanda Scott

  “Does your father open his house to the public?” Gillian inquired sweetly. “You sound as if you’d had practice taking visitors around.”

  He shook his head, urging her into the stair hall, where the handsome staircase was found to be one in which the balustrade was composed of carved and pierced panels, ornamented with gilded scrollwork. Gillian said, “How very handsome, to be sure, but it must take a great deal of work to keep it so fine.”

  “I suppose it does,” he said, “but you needn’t concern yourself with the housekeeping here, you know.”

  There was a note in his voice that warned her not to take up the subject, so she remarked instead upon the beauty of the doorways leading off the stair landing, all topped with broken pediments framing busts of famous men of the past. Thorne and Gillian passed beneath Julius Caesar into a sunny apartment, where wide oriel windows hung with yellow velvet curtains provided a view of a broad green, flower-bordered lawn sweeping downhill to the river Thames.

  The duchess’s sitting room was furnished with an elaborately scrolled and gilded suite, consisting of a sofa and six chairs upholstered with yellow satin and decorated with couched red cord in a pattern repeated in the footstools and fire screen. The walls were painted to resemble ancient tapestries, and a number of brightly colored Turkey carpets overlapped one another to cover most of the highly polished oak floor.

  Gillian noted the furnishings in the brief instant before her attention was claimed by the room’s sole occupant, a little round lady wreathed in smiles who got up at once to greet them.

  “Josiah, my darling, how very nice!” she exclaimed, rushing forward to hug him. “Did I know you were coming? But I cannot have known, or I should have been standing at the gallery window watching for your arrival. And you must be Lady Gillian,” she added, emerging from her son’s hearty embrace to hold out a soft, plump little hand to Gillian.

  “I am,” Gillian said, taking the duchess’s hand and making her curtsy, wondering if she had dipped low enough. But this fascinating little lady didn’t seem to pay any heed at all.

  Instead she was already pressing them both to sit down, saying to Gillian as she did so, “I want to hear all about you, my dear. Josiah has told me that you never put that ridiculous notice in the paper at all, and I quite see that you are not at all the sort to have done any such thing, and—Oh, you needn’t look daggers at me, my love,” she said to her son with a chuckle, “for I promise I shan’t ask her who did do it. Josiah thinks you know, Gillian dear, but I quite agree that you must not tell him if you do not quite like to do so. And now that that is all settled, do tell me, what sort of things do you like, and what do you dislike? I do hope you like children.”

  “Mama!”

  The duchess turned a blandly innocent gaze upon him. “Yes, my dear? But why should she not like children?”

  Gillian, trying to suppress her amusement before the duchess’s hazel eyes turned her way again, encountered Thorne’s rueful gaze instead.

  “You can’t say I didn’t warn you about the misuses of candor,” he said.

  She looked him straight in the eye. “There can be nothing wrong with candor, sir, if it is acceptable to both sides.” Then, before he could reply to that statement, she turned to the duchess and said, “May I speak as plainly, ma’am?”

  “Yes, certainly, my dear, though I do hope you don’t mean to tell me you do dislike children. That would be a pity.”

  “No, ma’am, I like children very much and would like to have any number of them someday. However, I must know—since his lordship appears to have told you the truth about our ridiculous betrothal—why you have decided to give a ball in its honor. He must have told you that I mean to cry off just as soon as I can do so without creating too much of a stir.”

  “Nonsense,” the duchess said.

  “Nonsense?”

  “Certainly. You cannot do it.”

  Gillian began to feel a trifle dizzy. “I cannot cry off? But of course I can.” She looked at Thorne in bewilderment.

  But it was the duchess who responded with one of her delightful chuckles. “Not without making a stir. That simply cannot be done, my dear, not when you are betrothed to my son. You cannot have thought the matter through carefully, or you would see the difficulty for yourself. Everything he does provides grist for the gossip mills. It is what so frequently has set him at odds with his father, but as I often have to remind my husband, it is not fair to blame Josiah for the mere fact that he lives in the public eye. People must always be curious about dukes and their sons. And in truth, my dears, I am scarcely breaking any confidence to tell you that his grace had very much the same difficulty with his own papa.”

  “So he did, my love,” declared a voice not unlike Thorne’s from the doorway behind Gillian, “but I believe I would prefer that you not describe those difficulties to all and sundry.”

  Realizing who it must be, Gillian got to her feet and turned to face the Duke of Langshire, making a very deep curtsy at once, for there could be no confusion about what one ought to do in this instance. His grace was almost as tall as his son, and his bearing was as regal as she imagined the Prince of Wales’s must be, if not his majesty the king. When she looked up, Langshire was standing directly before her, holding out a long, thin hand.

  She put hers in it and arose to find him smiling at her. She saw at once that while the twinkle in Thorne’s eyes had come from his vivacious mama, the smile was exactly like his father’s.

  “Do you know,” the duke said, looking her up and down in a way that ought to have disturbed her but didn’t in the least, “I believe I can easily accustom myself to you as a daughter-in-law—if you can bring yourself to take my son in hand.”

  Seeing the flash of anger in Thorne’s eyes, Gillian said quietly, “It cannot be, sir. This whole charade is rapidly acquiring the characteristics of a farce, and I simply cannot be comfortable with it. It is not right that your son be forced to acknowledge me in this way.”

  “It is perfectly right,” the duke retorted, casting an oblique look at his son. “Reaping the harvest of one’s own sowing is always meet and right.”

  “But I do not want to be thought a consequence to anyone’s misbehavior, your grace,” Gillian protested.

  The duke smiled at her again. “Nor shall you, my dear, for to win your hand must be a reward rather than a consequence, and a far greater reward than that scapegrace deserves. You may tell your father to call upon me at his convenience.”

  Casting a swift glance at Thorne, Gillian saw that his face was flushed and knew he was containing his anger with difficulty. She said quietly, “Your grace, pray do not think me insolent, but my father will not force me to do what I dislike.”

  Langshire looked down his long nose at her. “Dear me, must you be forced to wed my son? I knew he was difficult, but not so intolerable as that. Surely, his rank alone must recommend him.”

  “He is not intolerable at all,” she said, fighting a sudden urge to burst into tears. “But what would people say?”

  “That Thorne has done very well to win the hand of the Vellacott heiress. Did you think it was such a secret, my dear? Your situation must soon be very well known here in London.”

  “Must it, Father?” Thorne snapped. “I promise you, I did not know it. In fact, I am not so sure, for once, that you do.”

  Langshire said, “Don’t be insolent, Josiah. I understand it well enough. There will be the settlements to arrange, of course, but your bride will bring you a very pretty fortune.”

  “You don’t understand, your grace,” Gillian said, forcing herself to look away from Thorne. “Even if we were to wed, there would be no need to settle money on me.”

  “Nonsense, my dear, I am certain that your father and your trustees will agree that you must have adequate pin money, and I can assure you that you will not find my son ungenerous.”

  Gillian fought to hold her tongue, knowing it was no proper business of hers to discuss the matter fur
ther. If the duke was determined to pursue it, he would soon discover the truth. But she could not bear the look of resentment in Thorne’s eyes.

  Thorne gave her no chance to recover. “You claim to admire plain speaking, my lady,” he said grimly. “Perhaps you will tell me, plainly, just how your fortune is fixed. No, no, don’t turn away. Answer me. If it will make it easier, I have concluded that you own the house in Park Street. Do you also own Carnaby Park? You seem to call most of the tunes there as well.”

  “Only a portion of the Park lands are mine,” Gillian said. She turned to the duke. “He is right, your grace. I must tell you at once that it is beyond the power of my trustees to do as you propose. My grandfather Vellacott arranged matters through a Court of Equity to ensure that my mother would retain control of her fortune when she married my father, including the right to bequeath it where she would. Thus, you see, though my trustees oversee matters, they are more answerable to me than I to them.”

  “I see,” the duke said. He turned to his son with a rueful smile. “I suppose that now you will be expecting me to make you an allowance commensurate with your wife’s independence.”

  “Your generosity has never come into question, sir,” Thorne said in that same tone of suppressed fury, “but I think you will agree now that we must allow Lady Gillian to do as she chooses.”

  There was little to be said after that, and Gillian soon found herself back in the carriage, heading for Park Street with a grim, silent driver. On the doorstep, Thorne said, “When I think that earlier today I came within ames ace of making a fool of myself, thinking your father gave you entirely too much say in his affairs and nearly telling you I’d not stand for the same sort of nonsense once we were married, I suppose I must look upon this turn of events in a rather more favorable light, mustn’t I?”

  “Had you not taken it upon yourself from the outset to make every decision without first discussing the details with those concerned,” she told him roundly, “many things might have been different. But I think, now that I have met your father, that you make a practice of making judgments without discovering all the facts.” With that Parthian shot, she took advantage of the fact that the door opened just then, and whisked herself inside.

  Thorne made no attempt to follow her, and she went upstairs feeling utterly miserable, certain she had lost something very special but not entirely certain why she should feel that way, since she had never had it in the first place. The next day, she sent a request to Mr. Squires to notify the Times that the Earl of Marrick was announcing, with regret, the termination of his daughter’s betrothal to the Marquess of Thorne.

  9

  BEFORE THE NOTICE COULD appear in the Times, Gillian wrote to the Duchess of Langshire. She did her best to apologize for ruining her grace’s ball but could think of nothing whatever to say to explain her action in a way that might be acceptable to Thorne’s mother. Indeed, she could think of nothing whatever to write that would explain her desire to put an end to her relationship with the marquess. As it was, she had to blot not only the ink on the page, but a number of her own tears as well.

  The fact was that she had no wish to thrust Thorne out of her life. He had come to mean a great deal to her. But it would not do. Perhaps if they had met in an ordinary way, it might have been different, but even then, she thought, he would have resented her unconventional fortune and her habit of authority. No doubt, she had made the right decision.

  Having dispatched her letter, Gillian braced herself for her family’s reaction, which was not long in coming. The following morning, as she was arranging new flowers in the crystal vase she had filled with her pretty pebbles from North Devon, the earl stormed into the morning room, waving his copy of the London Times. Gillian was alone in the room, for neither Dorinda nor Lady Marrick had come down to breakfast yet, and Clementina had already gone off on a new adventure with her governess.

  “What do you know about this, my girl?” Marrick demanded.

  Carefully setting down the knife with which she had been trimming the stems of her flowers, she said, “I did not know it would be in so soon, Papa. That is, if you are referring to the notice ending my so-called betrothal.”

  “I am, indeed. ‘The Earl of Marrick wishes to announce,’ it says right here. Damned odd I don’t remember announcing, ain’t it? But maybe not so odd at that, for I didn’t recall it before either. Can’t call my soul my own anymore, damme if I can!”

  “Papa—”

  “Don’t ‘Papa’ me, my girl,” he snapped. “It is time and more that you began to show proper respect, just as Estrid says you should. I’m your father, Gillian—by God, I am—and you must learn to heed my wishes or rue the consequences.”

  “Very well, sir. Pray, tell me what it is that you wish.”

  “If that ain’t just like you! Taking a fellow up on something when you know good and well what I meant.”

  “No, sir,” she said, “I do not. I know that you told me when you remarried that you would explain the details of my inheritance to your wife in your own good time and that it was no business of mine to speak about it. I obeyed your command. I have even accepted your excuses for putting off telling her, but I found myself in an embarrassing position yesterday as a result, because Lord Thorne was not aware of my circumstances, and when his father began to talk about settlements—”

  “No doubt planned to come down generous, too,” the earl declared, “but now what have you done, I should like to know, to cry off this way? Where have your wits gone begging, girl?”

  “Papa, you cannot think I would willingly accept any kind of settlement from the duke. My fortune is sufficient to anyone’s wants, and it is protected for me and for any children I might have. No one can change that, as you must know very well, for Mama once told me that you—or perhaps it was Grandpapa Carnaby—tried to challenge Grandfather Vellacott’s arrangement in a Court of Chancery and found that it could not be done. It was a matter of Equity, she said, rather than Common Law. I did not precisely understand it all, but she said that Mr. Squires would explain the matter more clearly to me one day if I desired him to do so.”

  “No doubt he will,” the earl growled, “but it is not for you to be explaining that business or any other to my wife or to the duke. I don’t suppose it occurred to you that at least a part of that settlement you scorned to discuss might have come my way.”

  “But you are very well to pass, sir,” she exclaimed. “You forget that, thanks to Mama’s training and Hollingston’s, I am as well acquainted with your income as with my own. You put me in an untenable position. I know I owe you filial duty, and I want to obey your wishes, but I cannot simply stand aside and pretend I have neither interest nor voice in the matter. Nor could I allow Thorne to believe for one minute longer that he would simply take control of my fortune if we married. It is horrid enough to think that he might have been amenable to the whole business merely on account of my money. But I suspect,” she added with a sigh, “that that was indeed the case. He told me once that I might have a wart on my nose and still be a great success.”

  “Good God, girl, he’s going to be a duke one day. You don’t suppose he would have considered your feelings for an instant without there being something to gain for himself in that mad betrothal if he risked acknowledging it. He’s a rake, for God’s sake, a gamester with an eye for a pretty female, but he ain’t stupid! You’re easy enough on the eyes, but if you think any man’s going to see you for dust once he’s got your fortune in his sights, you’re more of a peagoose than I thought you were.”

  “Then I would suggest, sir,” she said with icy calm, “that the sooner you make my true circumstances known to the entire world, the better it will be for everyone. I have no intention of marrying where I cannot find affection, or of allowing any man to marry me who thinks he will control my fortune.”

  “Which just goes to show,” the earl retorted, turning on his heel, “what a fool the law is to have allowed any female to control her ow
n money! Well, I just hope you don’t cut off your nose to spite your face, girl. You may take it from me that any man who accepts a woman who holds the purse strings is a fool.”

  “Did you never love my mother then, sir?” she asked sadly.

  “Of course I loved her. Don’t be nonsensical. But thanks to that fool arrangement of Vellacott’s, the Vellacott lands will never become part of Carnaby Park now, will they?”

  For the first time Gillian thought she understood him. He was an impulsive man who loved the chase and found excitement in the turn of a card, but he was not a man of foresight. Nor was he a particularly affectionate man, and it occurred to her now that he had undoubtedly married his present wife because he had wanted to possess her physically and could think of no other way to persuade her. But having married her and had a son with her, he had destroyed his chance to retain the prosperous Vellacott lands with his own. Only if Gillian inherited both Carnaby and Vellacott fortunes could the estate remain an entity. John’s birth made him instant heir to the Carnaby share. She could not doubt, seeing Marrick now, that proud though he was of his son, he was sorry for the loss of those acres that belonged to her.

  She was alone again with her flowers for several minutes, and then, to her astonishment, her uncle strolled into the room.

  “Uncle Marmaduke! I did not know you were in London.”

  “Did you not?” he asked, ringing for the footman before he took a seat at the table. “I’ve had to let my cook go. Dreadful dinner last night. I came to have breakfast, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not,” she said, sitting down opposite him, “but I must warn you that Estrid has not yet come down to breakfast.”

  “No matter,” he said, “not here, at all events.” When the footman entered he proceeded to discuss in detail his choices for a hearty breakfast, and when the man had gone again, he grinned at Gillian and said, “Found the Widow Torrance was getting to be a bit of a handful, if you can believe it, so I came along to town to look over the new crop on the Marriage Mart. They’ll be too young to have decent experience, of course, but a man likes to refresh his memory from time to time. Arrived last night for dinner, and went for a stroll afterward to the churchyard to pay my respects to Millicent and have a friendly chat. What a woman she was! Pity I married that Grace creature after her. Nearly spoiled my taste for feminine company. But Grace has been gone for years now, too, and things are looking up. Found a fine bit of muslin right there in the churchyard, if you can believe it.”