Barbara Metzger (7 page)

“Wild?” Graydon sputtered on the crumbs in his mouth.

“He’s a good, reliable, steady man, for your information, Uncle Albert.”

Graydon cleared his throat, but both Albert and Lord Hollister exclaimed, “Howell?”

While the major glared at his father, Daphne answered, “No, Miles Pomeroy, of course.”

“Faugh, with a husband like that, you’d be taking lovers in a month.”

It was Daphne’s turn to glare, at her uncle and at the choking sounds behind her.

“No,” Uncle Albert was going on, “you’d do a parcel better with Howell.” He ogled her from under his bushy eyebrows, looking her up and down—and inside and out, it felt. “Didn’t turn out half bad, for a filly from a weak stable. Too bad you’re so prim and proper; you’d make some man a cozy armful. As it is, you’d send him”—with a nod toward Graydon—“back to his mistresses afore the cat can scratch her ear. That little protégée of Harry Wilson’s as good as she looked?” he asked the younger man. “Or are you saving your shot for that Bowles widow, like a regular mooncalf?” He slapped his thigh at the witticism, and almost knocked himself out of his seat. “She’ll be more expensive in the long run, mark me, boy. And if she does get her claws into you for the gold band, that’s the last you’ll see of her panting to get between your sheets.”

Mama gasped, and Lord Hollister said, “I must protest this frightful conversation, Baron.”

“Protest all you want, from the other side of the door. You don’t like it here, get out. It’s my house, remember. Besides, where the boy makes his bed wouldn’t matter if you weren’t marrying an old biddy like my sister-in-law, Hollister. Man like you ought to be getting himself a young wife who can give him more sons. The one whelp you’ve got’s bound to get his head blown off; did you think of that? Then where’ll you be? Even I’ve got two boys, the heir and a spare.”

“Enough, Baron,” Graydon said with enough force to rattle the teacups in their saucers. “We’ve heard enough of your filth. Now, what did you really come here for? You must have known you couldn’t stop the wedding, and I doubt you want to give the happy couple your blessings.”

Lord Whilton took a piece of crumpled paper out of his pocket and tossed it on the table in front of him. “This is what I want, my brother’s widow’s signature. It’s a waiver of her widow’s benefits, is all.”

Daphne and Graydon looked at each other. “But Mama’s annuity will cease when she remarries, of course.”

“Oh, but m’brother had a crackbrained notion of seeing her married again. She’s to get twenty thousand pounds.”

“Is that true, Mama?”

“Yes, John didn’t want me to stay a widow, and he wanted me to be able to marry a man of modest means, if I wished, without having to live in a cottage.”

Uncle Albert grunted. “That’s so sweet, I could puke. But you ain’t marrying a poor man. You’re marrying a regular Golden Ball, so you don’t need the blunt. I do, and I aim to have it. I’ll sit right here, in m’own parlor, until you sign the thing.”

“That’s outrageous,” Lord Hollister fumed as he waved a vinaigrette under his fiancée’s nose. “It’s blackmail.”

“But you can’t do a thing about it, can you? Can’t throw a chap out of his own house, Earl.”

Graydon was clenching his fists as if he wanted to, very much.

“Try it and I’ll gather up those two brats of mine you females dote on and sell them to a chimney sweep. Then you’ll have no excuse to be here with your noses in my business.”

Daphne spoke up, horrified: “They’re your own flesh and blood! Besides, they’re too big for sweeps. That’s how much attention you’ve paid them, you awful man, not even to know how big they’ve grown.”

“Awful, eh, missy? Then mayhaps you’d rather I sent them to a flash house. Do you know what they pay for clean young boys, gel, do you? It’s not a bad idea, now I think on it. The brats disappear, there’s no entail. I get rid of you harpies and I can unload this millstone. Not a bad idea at all.”

“Why, you despicable—” Daphne felt a firm hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sure Lady Whilton will think about your suggestions, Baron,” Graydon said in a reasonable tone, quite at odds with the grim look on his face. “Why don’t you retire after your adventurous day and let her and my father discuss things in private?” He opened the door to find the efficient butler waiting on the other side with two footmen for just such a call. “The baron is going to bed, Ohlman. He might need some assistance up the stairs.”

Then again, if he fell and broke his scrawny neck, no one would mind.

Chapter Seven

“Oh, why did that dreadful man have to come here now?” Mama wept in Lord Hollister’s arms. Daphne hovered nearby with fresh tea, sherry, and the smelling salts, but the earl seemed to be managing. Daphne looked at the tea, then drank the sherry. Graydon nodded approvingly. He was pouring himself a glass of cognac from the new decanter Ohlman had brought, Uncle Albert having taken the other one with him.

Lady Whilton sat up and dabbed at her eyes. “I cannot imagine how he found out so soon, with the banns just being read last Sunday and no notice in the newspapers yet. I made sure none of my particular friends would gossip, not that they travel in the same circles as Albert.” She shuddered to think of those noisome circles, one of whose denizens was right this moment upstairs in the bedchamber adjoining hers. She’d make sure Ohlman checked the locks before she put one foot inside her room. Otherwise she’d sleep with Daphne, or Lord Hollister—and propriety be damned! “Oh, why did he have to find out before the wedding?” she lamented anew.

The earl cleared his throat. “I’m, ah, afraid I told him, my dear. I called on him at Whilton House before we left. The place is like a stable, Cleo. You’d be embarrassed to own it.”

“Well, I don’t own it, so the wretch can use the Chippendales for kindling for all I care, as long as he stays away from Hampshire and the boys. But, John, why the dev—uh, whyever did you call on Albert in the first place?”

“Yes, Father,” Graydon put in. “Why the deuce did you have to give him notice of the nuptials?”

Lord Hollister wasn’t pleased to be the recipient of three sets of condemning stares. “My duty, don’t you know,” he blustered. The stares did not abate one whit. “I didn’t want him thinking we were doing anything havey-cavey. He
is
head of your family, Cleo.”

Daphne groaned. Here was another misguided male whose sense of honor outweighed his sense. Couldn’t they see that Uncle Albert was a headache, not head of anything?

“Furthermore,” Lord Hollister continued, “I wanted to discuss the settlements with him.”

“What was there to discuss?” Mama asked. “My widow’s pension ends, and I get the twenty thousand pounds dear Whilton set aside for me. He was thinking of my happiness.”

“Yes, well, so was I. I felt it wouldn’t be right to take your first husband’s money along to your second. You wouldn’t be comfortable.”

“I? I’d be perfectly comfortable taking what’s mine, and keeping every shilling I could away from that old goat. He’d only gamble it away, or spend it on other evils too depraved to mention. Why, the monies I’ve spent on his children and his home alone entitle me to my bequest.”

“Well then,
I
wouldn’t be comfortable. Dash it, Cleo, a man wants to support his own wife. And I told Whilton that.”

“You what? You discussed my income with that gallows-bait, without talking to me first?” Lady Whilton was rigid now, not the limp, weepy female who not a minute before was clinging to the earl for support. “How dare you? That money was not yours to dispose of!”

“Now, now, Cleo,” the earl tried to soothe, “you know that a wife’s assets become her husband’s on marriage anyway. And it’s not as if you cannot have anything you want. All of my wealth is at your fingertips.”

“Yes, for you to dole out in pin money or paid bills. What if I wanted to do something special with my own money?”

“Like what, dearest? Name it and it’s yours.”

Lady Whilton was not mollified. “Like give it to Daphne, for one thing.”

“But Daphne already has a handsome dowry. It’s all in trust where Albert cannot touch it.”

“But her husband can. He can gamble or invest unwisely; he can even spend it on his mistresses.” She fixed a basilisk eye on Graydon, who was trying to fade into the upholstery, wondering how he got dragged into this domestic quarrel.

“Mama, you know I wouldn’t marry a man like that,” Daphne put in. “If I wouldn’t have Gray…”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” that gentleman started, only to be interrupted by Lady Whilton again.

“No, but you might marry Miles Pomeroy, and the money would be handy so you didn’t have to live with Squire and play nursemaid to him all the time, under his wife’s high-handed direction. The woman is a shrew,” she said of one of her oldest friends.

“Daffy is not going to marry that prig Pomeroy!” Graydon exploded.

To which Daphne shouted back, “I’ll marry whomever I please, Graydon Howell. And Miles is not a prig! He is a fine, upstanding man who doesn’t consort with fallen women or fast widows.”

“He’s a pompous windbag, and you know it! Wasn’t it you who dared me to put glue on his seat at church?”

“I was seven years old!”

“And he was fifteen going on forty-five!”

“And you were ten, and a hellion even then. Reckless and foolish and—”

“Children!” Lord Hollister shouted, to be heard above the bickering. “You are acting like infants. Daphne, you may marry where you choose, of course, although I had hoped… At any rate, you have a fine enough dowry that you can pick for yourself, without needing your mama’s twenty thousand.”

Daphne had her arms crossed over her chest. “Perhaps I’ll choose not to marry anyone at all. I cannot see where there’s much joy in it for a woman. Perhaps I’d do better to set up housekeeping in a cottage and take care of Dart and Torry, to keep them out of Uncle Albert’s way.”

“You
see?” Lady Whilton cried. “Now she’s talking of never getting wed! And without the marriage, she cannot touch the dowry, no matter how fine it is sitting in the bank. You can be sure Albert will never release it to her even when she turns thirty. Thirty!” she wailed. “My precious girl will dwindle into a down-at-heels old spinster because you gave away my twenty thousand!”

“Gammon, she’ll be snapped up within a year, if that prig, ah, Pomeroy doesn’t come up to scratch. Besides, she’ll always have a home with us, you know, and I’ll always support her.”

Mama wasn’t listening. “My baby will end up on the shelf, and I’ll never have grandchildren, all because your wretched son broke her heart!”

“Mama, he didn’t!” Daphne shrieked in mortification while Graydon had another glass of wine.

“Balderdash!” Lord Hollister exclaimed. “If Daphne wasn’t such a stubborn little prude, they’d be married by now and starting their nursery, and my son wouldn’t be off trying to get himself killed.”

Mama was sobbing hysterically. She paused to howl, “That’s right, tell her she’s welcome in your home one minute and call her names the next! Why would Daphne want to live with me, her own mother, when you’ll be counting out her allowance and inviting disreputable characters like Albert into our house? Cousin Harriet is right: Men have too much power. That’s not what I want for my darling girl, and it’s not what I want for me! I don’t want to live in your stuffy old house either, so you and your rakehell son can have all the orgies you want!”

While Lord Hollister was shouting that he’d never let Albert cross his doorstep, that he’d always loved Daphne like a daughter, Lady Whilton struggled to pry his engagement ring off her finger.

“No, Mama,” Daphne cried, and Lord Hollister yelled, “Don’t be a fool, Cleo,” at her.

“Fool, is it? You’re right! I was a fool to be so blind. Daphne saw it years ago. I was a fool to trust a Howell.” The ring was so thick with diamonds and emeralds, she couldn’t get a good grip on it. “Even your blasted ring is trying to choke me.”

She finally got the ring off and threw it at the earl. Then she grabbed Daphne’s arm and dragged her from the room, where Lady Whilton collapsed into Ohlman’s waiting arms, to be led upstairs.

Graydon handed the earl a glass of wine. “Orgies, Father? What orgies?”

*

Graydon proceeded to help his father get drunk. There was not much else to do. Not only hadn’t Graydon killed any dragons for Daphne, he’d managed to let slime get all over everyone. Blast his reputation! His case was worse than ever.

“Think she’ll see things differently in the morning?” his father asked, staring at the ring in his hand.

Why should she? Her daughter hadn’t, not in the morning, not two years later. “Strong-minded woman,” was all he could offer.

“Aren’t they all?” the powerful Earl of Hollister humbly noted, and his son drank to that.

Graydon wished he could offer his father a smidgen of hope. Oh, how he wished it, both for the governor’s sake and his. Deuce take it, Daffy’d never forgive him for contributing to the jeopardy to her mother’s happiness. Somehow she’d fix all the blame on him, he just knew it. Besides, if the wedding were off, he and his father would have to leave Woodhill. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if Ohlman scratched on the door any minute to announce that their bags were packed and their carriage was waiting outside. Daffy must have mellowed some after all, or else she was too busy calming her mother to worry about ejecting the rejected, dejected suitors in the parlor.

If they did have to leave, though, Graydon believed he’d never have another chance. He’d be leaving the pigheaded chit at the mercy of that Pomeroy flat. With Uncle Albert making threatening noises, Daphne might think she needed to marry for protection, for her and her mother and those young cousins. She never listened to reason before; he doubted she’d start now. He could only pray her mother wasn’t cut from the same bolt.

“Perhaps an apology is in order?” Graydon suggested.

“Even though I still think I was right, if I thought she’d see me, I’d beg her forgiveness. Me, the Earl of Hollister. Can you believe it?”

“Easily. I’ve seen stranger things in the name of love. And you did insult her pride and her intelligence, don’t you know, by negotiating away her portion without a by-your-leave. If I were you, I’d grovel.”