How I Married a Marquess (39 page)

Meacham continued cautiously, “He requested that you become her guardian.”

“No.”

“If I may, sir, I think you should reconsider. Her mother is dead, and now with her father's situation—” A sharp glance from Edward made him censor himself.
Good.
Meacham and Thomas could both keep their bloody opinions about Benton to themselves. “You have your reputation to consid—”

“Damn my reputation,” he muttered.

Meacham stiffened. “Your Grace, I do not believe you mean that.”

Edward narrowed his eyes on him. This was as close as the man had ever come to overstepping between them, of being so familiar as to attempt to chastise. But Meacham wasn't wrong. Edward couldn't have cared less what happened to his own reputation, but now as the duke, he held the responsibility for the reputation of the Westover family and the title, whether he wanted it or not.

“Sir, you have made it so her father is no longer able to financially support her. Morally, she has become your responsibility. Best to make it legal as well.” The attorney added plainly, his expression as paternal as Edward had ever seen it, “If you do not provide for her, and her situation becomes common knowledge, you will become a social pariah.”

And Augusta right along with him. His aunt was his only family now, and he would never do anything to hurt her. “Fine.” He turned dismissively back to the fire. “Write the contract.”

“This is the right decision, sir,” Meacham assured him. “It would have been regrettable to you if an innocent had been hurt.”

Edward said nothing, not able to summon enough guilt to care. He'd seen hundreds of innocents hurt during the atrocities of war. What was one child's lack of ribbons compared to that?

“Someone should also travel to her home to ensure the suitability of her situation. I'll arrange for one of my assistants to leave next week—”

“No,” Edward interrupted. “I'll go.”

Meacham paused in surprise. “Pardon?”

“I'll go myself.” Not that he truly cared about the little girl's feelings, but a legal clerk swooping down on her and frightening her was the last complication he needed when he wanted everything settled with Benton's situation as quickly and easily as possible. Screaming children and angry nannies would only add to his headaches.

He had another reason for going as well. After the ordeals of the past year, it would do him good to spend a few days alone in the countryside, riding and hunting, far from the family seat at Hartsfield Park and all the memories there. He wanted to go someplace where he could forget, if only for a few days, and where he wouldn't have the constant reminder of Stephen and Jane.

So he would meet the child, determine her living situation was satisfactory, then be on his way. Most likely, he'd be gone by teatime.

“If there's anything else,” Edward instructed, “see me in the morning. Good night, Meacham.”

“Your Grace.” With a shallow bow, Meacham retreated from the study.

Edward refilled his glass and swirled the golden liquid thoughtfully.
So Benton has a daughter.

Had.

She belonged to him now, as close to being his own daughter as possible without sharing his blood, and she'd become his responsibility to raise, educate, and eventually marry off when she came of age. Rather, that is, she'd become Meacham's responsibility, as he planned on never directly concerning himself with the child again after his visit to her.

He hadn't planned on this, but now that she was part of the battle's aftermath, the guardianship would only make his revenge that much sweeter. She was a spoil of war he had no intention of ever letting Benton see again.

A daughter's life for a brother's. Fair retribution.

“Strathmore?”

Aunt Augusta appeared in the doorway. Despite the late hour, she held her head regally, every inch of her a countess.

He returned his tired gaze to the fire.
Good God
, he was exhausted…“No, just Edward.”

“
Just
Edward?”

He rolled his eyes at the oncoming onslaught from Augusta and her fierce dedication to social position. Childless herself, his widowed aunt raised him and Stephen after their mother died when they were just boys, her duty as the duke's sister to keep them in line and away from scandal. They'd been a handful for her, but she'd corralled them with a stern command and a sharp glance. One of the few people in the world able to reprimand him, she still possessed the ability to shake him with a single look.

Such as the one she now leveled at him. “You are the Duke—”

“It is what I desire tonight.” Forced decorum was the last thing he wanted to deal with, all those reminders of how much his life had changed. Tonight, he wanted to be just Edward again. “Please, for tonight, let it be.”

She drew up her shoulders in that posture of grudging surrender she assumed when she knew she'd pressed as far as possible but wouldn't win.

“I apologize for waking you,” Edward offered, hoping to mollify her and avoid further argument.

“I heard the door.”

“It was Meacham,” he told her gently. “You should go back to bed and get a good night's rest. I'll join you for breakfast.”

“Do you need anything? Should I call for Huddleston?”

He shook his head. Huddleston was a good valet, always eager to assist and please, but Edward found the attention cloying. He preferred to dress himself, just as he had in Spain despite having an aide-de-camp at his disposal, preferring his privacy. He would gladly do without a man completely if he could, but as a duke, that was impossible, and because Huddleston had been Stephen's valet, Edward kept him on.

“Sleep well, then.” As she turned to leave, she rested a hand against his arm.

But he shifted away. He didn't want her motherly concern tonight, preferring to be left alone in his misery. Or it would have been misery, had he been able to feel even that.

Her face softened. “The title does not rest easy on you, does it, Edward?”

With a sag of his shoulders, he looked away, not wanting her to see the grief in his eyes. “It was Stephen's burden to bear, not mine.”

“Your brother never considered it a burden. He saw it as his heritage.”

“I'm a soldier.” He shook his head. “This life was not meant for me.”

“But it
is
your life now. Dear boy, you can spend all your time trying to convince yourself that you are still an army colonel, but you are not.” A deep sigh escaped her, not of pity or mourning, but one borne of a wish that he could accept his new place as she had. “And you will never be
just
Edward.”

With a soft kiss to his cheek, she left the room.

For several moments, Edward simply stared after her, unable to gather enough emotion inside him to be angry or hurt at her words. But he felt nothing. He leaned a tired arm across the mantel, too apathetic even to refill his glass and drink himself into oblivion.

As the second son, he was raised to make his own way in the world, and he had gladly done just that by purchasing an officer's commission when he finished university. On the battlefield, it mattered nothing that his family was one of the most powerful in England. What signified was character. His ability to carry out orders with an unfailing dedication to his men set him apart. And he excelled at it, earning himself four field promotions.

Then, in a cruel twist, fate stripped away all he'd worked so hard to achieve. The moment he inherited, his life as Colonel Westover disappeared, as if he had also died that day in the carriage accident that killed his brother and sister-in-law. He had been forced to step into his brother's life and carry on. As if his own existence up to that point hadn't mattered.

Legally, he was now Duke of Strathmore with titles and properties scattered across England, but he deserved none of it. By rights, he should still be fighting on the Continent, and Stephen should still be alive.

With Jane.

Even now, his chest tightened at the thought of her. The night Edward met her, when she'd entered the ballroom for her debut, he'd been mesmerized. With her dark hair and brown eyes, she wasn't a typical English beauty, but she had a vitality that drew him, a charm that the stiff rules of English society hadn't yet forced from her. He'd somehow managed to secure a waltz, and by the time the orchestra sent up its final flourishes and he whirled her to a stop, laughing in his arms, he was lost, despite knowing she wasn't meant for him.

The daughter of an earl, she was born to be the wife of a peer, and her future—and choice in husbands—had never been her own. And in truth, she'd never made any commitment to him.

Still, he pursued her in that reckless manner he possessed when he was younger, with the devil and his consequences both be damned. But he'd been too young, too inexperienced with women and the world, and far too arrogant to realize there were some things he'd never be able to have. No matter how much he wanted them. And he'd wanted her, not just for an affair but for the rest of his life, yet he never suspected she didn't share the same desires for a future together. So one warm afternoon as they lay tangled in the sheets of an unused guestroom at Hartsfield Park, he told her he loved her.

His eyes pressed shut against the memory. From ten years away, he could hear the sound of her nervous laughter and stunned voice as clearly as if she were still in the room with him…

Love?
At least she'd had the decency to cover her mouth with her hand in apologetic shame as she murmured,
Surely, you cannot seriously think that I could ever marry an army officer—oh, Edward, no…
Her wide-eyed disbelief melted into a soft expression of pity.
I thought you understood…

Apparently, he hadn't understood at all.

One week after that, he left for war, to put as many miles as possible between them, with no intention of ever returning.

And two months later, his brother Stephen, Duke of Strathmore, announced his engagement. To Jane.

Despite the fires of war and his anger at her betrayal in marrying his brother, it took several years to purge her from his mind. He'd led reckless charges into battle and offered to take the place of men of lesser rank in dangerous missions, not because he had a death wish but simply because he no longer cared what became of him, if he lived or died. Eventually, he purged her from his body, too, with a string of nameless women.

All of this he kept from his brother, who had once been his best friend and closest confidant. At first, he was too ashamed to share with Stephen how he'd fallen for a woman he should have realized all along could never be his. Then, when he learned of the engagement, this second, deeper humiliation by the woman who became his sister-in-law changed everything between the two men, and Edward knew he would never be able to tell him. The confidence they'd shared in each other since they were boys had been irrevocably destroyed, costing him not only his heart but also his brother.

The result, he calculated, was a distinguished military career and an immeasurable distrust of women. He would allow himself to enjoy their flirtations and attentions and gladly take whatever pleasures they willingly gave, but he would never again trust one with his heart.

Then, in an instant, his world ended.

Stephen and Jane had gone to London to celebrate the long-awaited news that she was with child. But drunk and angry from a night losing money at cards, Phillip Benton raced his phaeton through the narrow streets, blindly speeding around a corner and into the oncoming carriage. The two teams collided in a mangle of wood and metal, blood and flesh. Stephen and Jane were cut down in the prime of their lives, while Benton walked away without a scratch.

Edward had been a country away when it happened, oblivious to the horrific and monstrous changes that fate had flung at his family.

The full weight of the Strathmore legacy descended upon him like an avalanche, ripping him from his command and forcing him back to England and into a life he'd never known nor wanted. Overnight, he'd become one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, responsible for estates and all their tenants and employees, bank accounts worth small fortunes, a seat in Parliament, and the private confidences of the Prince Regent himself.

His brother and Jane had been killed, but Edward had been sent to hell.

 

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