by Olivia Drake
In spite of his resolve to stay calm, Thane felt a hot jab of anger. Since reaching his majority, he was now the head of the family, not his uncle. And after years abroad as the commander of a cavalry brigade, Thane didn’t appreciate being dressed down like a lowly recruit. “I can assure you, there’s been no hint of impropriety. Miss Jocelyn Nevingford does not reside in my town house, but rather, in the one beside mine.”
“But there is a connecting door.” Malice in his rheumy gaze, Hugo shook a knobby finger at Thane. “You needn’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. I wrote to Fisk, and she has sent me a full report.”
Mrs. Fisk had once been a nursemaid in this house. When Thane had come here as an orphaned boy of five, the widow had taken him under her wing, crooning him to sleep at bedtime and providing comfort in times of distress. She was one of the few people he trusted, which was why he’d asked her to come out of retirement and take on the role of companion to Jocelyn.
Thane couldn’t blame Fisk for supplying information; she was a kindly old soul who saw only the best in people. And she could scarcely have written of anything indecorous when nothing had occurred. The nasty details had been supplied solely by his uncle’s caustic imagination.
Gripping his glass, Thane stared down at Hugo. “A full report, do you say?” he said coolly. “Then I’m sure you’ll know Jocelyn is fifteen years of age. That her parents died last autumn when their carriage overturned during a rainstorm near Brussels. That she was riding with them and only by a miracle of God survived the accident herself. I hardly think those facts are the fodder of scandal.”
“It most certainly is a scandal for a bachelor to adopt a girl not of his own family,” his uncle stated. “There must be someone else who can take her in. It’s more fitting she go to a blood relative.”
Jocelyn had one elderly great-aunt in Lancashire who had exhibited such horror at the prospect of taking in a crippled girl that Thane had invented another relative so he wouldn’t be forced to abandon Jocelyn with the inhospitable old woman. Besides, there was the vow he’d made to her father, James, Thane’s best friend. Before the battle of Waterloo, James had wrested Thane’s promise to watch over Jocelyn in the event of his death. Ironically, James had survived a hail of bullets that day, only to lose his life a few months later in a carriage mishap.
His throat thick, Thane finished off his whiskey and set down the glass on a table. “There’s no one,” he said flatly. “Believe me, I’ve searched.”
“Then send her away to a cottage in the country. You’ve the means to hire all manner of servants to watch over the chit. That’s what any decent gentleman would have done.” Hugo’s suspicious gaze raked him up and down. “But since your return, you’ve no doubt become one of the fast crowd, the gamblers and the rakes. It would not surprise me to learn you have wicked designs on her person.”
Thane’s irritation took a sharp upward spike. “For God’s sake, she’s suffered a traumatic injury. Do you think so little of me that I would force myself on a mere girl, let alone a crippled one?”
Uncle Hugo looked unmoved. He nursed his whiskey and glowered over the rim of the glass. “I do indeed. You were always the wild one, a ne’er-do-well devil just like your father.”
Thane could see the tentacles of envy that had squeezed any benevolence out his uncle’s nature. Nevertheless, those words stirred an echo of the inadequacy Thane had fought against as a youth.
Abandoning his cool, he snapped, “So you still resent my father for being born three minutes ahead of you. If not for a quirk of fate, you would be the Earl of Mansfield.”
An angry flush darkened Hugo’s face. His fingers tightened around the glass in his hand. “By gad, you’re as disrespectful as ever. I don’t know why you can’t be more like Edward. He’s been married these past eight years. And he has sired two sons.”
Thane hadn’t known. But the news came as no great revelation. His cousin had always been a dull dog who followed convention. “Then you should rejoice,” Thane said. “If I die without issue, the title will go to you and then to Edward and his eldest. In truth, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that you’d prayed for my demise on the battlefield.”
Something flickered in Uncle Hugo’s eyes, something like shock. One of the logs popped, then fell in a shower of sparks. Thane had the discomfitting sense that he’d stepped over a line.
Hugo gave a disgusted shake of his head. “Think what you will. I summoned you here to warn you not to ruin that girl’s reputation. If you insist upon this foolish course, at least find yourself a wife, someone of suitably high birth who will lend you respectability. For once in your life, boy, do your duty.”
The disappointment in his uncle’s tone stung Thane worse than the blow of a willow switch. It was ridiculous to care what the man thought of him. This conversation had gone on long enough.
He made a stiff bow. “I’ll take your advice under consideration. Good day, Uncle.”
Pivoting, he strode out of the library. Find a wife? He’d sooner roast in Hell than conform to his uncle’s demands. He had far more important tasks to accomplish than to make idle chitchat with giggly debutantes in the ballrooms of London. Most pressing of all was his appointment with the chief magistrate at Bow Street.
Thane turned his mind to his secret mission. If all went as expected, in the coming weeks he would be very busy indeed.
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First published in the United States in 2009 by St Martins Press
Published in the UK in 2011 by Rouge, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
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Copyright © Olivia Drake
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