Leslie Lafoy (11 page)

“Oh?” Carrie prodded diplomatically.

“I can conclude one of two things,” Drayton said as he refolded the document. “Either he’s consumed with guilt and remorse for his conduct last evening and is attempting to make amends, or he’s in such physical pain that he’s drunk himself to the point of wild generosity.”

Carrie chucked and Drayton grinned. Fiona looked back and forth between them and then finally asked, “Physical pain?”

Her sister cleared her throat softly and then replied ever so sweetly, “Jane made a concerted effort to unman him. In his shock, he toppled backward into the sofa, sitting down rather hard on a pair of champagne flutes. Apparently that pain moved him forward, but not quite to his feet. He toppled off the sofa and face-first into the carpet where he was left alone to contemplate his poor judgment and then collect what he could of himself to get home.”

“How horrible,” Fiona murmured. He’d been a cad, yes, but—

“He’d have been in worse shape,” Drayton growled, “if he’d still been lying there by the time I heard what had happened.” He held up the packet. “Do you want to see what His Grace is offering? Bearing in mind, of course, that the settlement should have no impact one way or the other on your ultimate decision to marry him or not.”

Without a word she took the packet from him, opened it and began to read. There was a clause pertaining to the soundness of mind of the signatories—her and Ian respectively—and another clause regarding the freedom of their individual wills. Following that was a rather lengthy and surprising provision transferring the titles of two houses—one in London’s Mayfair district and one in Scotland—into a trust for perpetuity, regardless of the length of their marriage and whether or not she produced any children for him.

The most shocking discovery Fiona made, though, concerned the amounts of money the Duke of Dunsford was delegating as annual stipends for her and their eventual children. She read the passage twice, but even then found the figures hard to grasp. To call such a staggering amount an allowance would have been ludicrous.

After the section detailing the yearly income, there was a clause concerning the disbursement of the estate in the event of Ian Cabott’s death. She read that passage three times, unable to imagine sums that large, but understanding that the funds and property he intended to leave her would likely make her one of the wealthiest women in England. The provisions for any children they might have were just as large, just as generous. Clearly, as the Duchess of Dunsford, she would never want for money or the things it could buy.

If only it could buy her love and happiness.

She knew full good and well that Ian Cabott hadn’t offered to marry her out of the demands of his heart. Given the incident in the Miller-Sandses’ library, he obviously had no great and abiding aversion to scandal, either. No, he’d made it clear in his initial proposal that he was motivated primarily by the need to fulfill his obligations to the peerage, to produce the expected male heir and a spare so that the title would continue on. His secondary motives were no more complicated or personal; he needed someone to manage his home and a respectable, reasonably attractive female to take to Society events.

Undoubtedly, to his way of thinking, any single female would do just as well as another. If she hadn’t shown up with Beeps and inadvertently put herself in a compromising position, he’d likely have written the names of single females on slips of paper and tossed them into a hat, drawn one out and considered the matter neatly resolved.

Given all of those realities, the settlement offer was far more generous than he had cause to offer. Drayton could be right as to Ian Cabott’s motives, but which possible scenario it might be made a considerable difference. Genuine regret was one thing, a drunken, pain-clouded mistake was entirely another. She had absolutely no intention of letting the promise of wealth and material comfort affect her judgment, but she truly wanted to know the reason for Ian Cabott’s exceptional—and completely unnecessary—kindness and generosity.

Fiona put down the settlement papers asking, “How long do I have to think about signing this?”

“Good manners,” Caroline explained, “suggests no more than a day or two.”

“Good manners being a reciprocal thing,” Drayton added firmly, “I’d say you can take however long you damn well please.”

She nodded, considering her course, and then announced, “I think that I’d like to call on His Grace this morning.” At Drayton’s glower and Caroline’s arched brow, she added, “If he was kind enough to offer a huge settlement, I can be kind enough to check to see if his brain was scrambled when he fell to the floor last night.”

Drayton muttered about Ian Cabott’s brain being located in another region of his anatomy. Caroline shot him a warning look and then laid her napkin beside her plate. Rising, she said, “I’ll be glad to accompany you. Let me change my clothes and we’ll be on our way.”

Fiona offered Drayton a reassuring smile as Caroline left the dining room.

“Be careful,” he admonished with another glower as he picked up his morning newspaper. “Words are cheap. A man is best judged by his deeds.”

With that pronouncement, he snapped open his paper and ended the conversation. Fiona nodded anyway and dutifully made a note of his advice.

*   *   *

What a difference daylight made. Daylight and not being preoccupied with getting home before she was missed and the scandal mill began to churn. Fiona followed the butler across the cold marble foyer of the duke’s home and willed herself not to shudder. Carrie trailed behind her by a pace or two, but Fiona didn’t dare look back at her sister. One glance, no matter how quick, and Carrie would know that her confidence was crumbling by the second.

Fiona’s first real opinion of Ian’s residence had been formed as they’d climbed down from the carriage and made their way up the front walkway. Massive dark gray granite stones stacked one atop the other to the height of three stories and looking so much like a fortress that she’d craned her neck and searched the roof line for archers’ slits. There were windows, of course. On all three floors, all of them exactly alike and very precisely spaced. All the curtain linings were of the same fabric.

The front door that had seemed only old and thick in the darkness was, in the light of day, also huge and clearly designed to keep the Huns from battering their way in for tea and biscuits. The poor little pair of carefully manicured boxwood topiaries potted up on either side of it were undoubtedly supposed to whisper a refined and stately welcome. Unfortunately, the rest of the house was bellowing
Go Away!

A swift visual survey of the house’s interior from the front door had only deepened her initial impressions. Obviously Ian had spared no expense in either the construction or the furnishing of his city residence. The rugs were from the Orient, thick and obviously finely woven. Only the sheerest silks and finest damasks—with luxurious fringes trimming the edges—draped the windows. The floors were tiled in dark gray tending to black marble and the walls and banisters were paneled in dark woods that spoke just as much of far off forests as they did the impressive skills of the English craftsmen who had transformed them into works of art.

The furnishings throughout were clearly expensive and—were she to hazard a guess—culled from the finest estate collections from all across Britain and the Continent. The linen covering the tables was brilliantly white and probably Irish. Everywhere—on the table tops, on the bookshelves, in the wall niches—were the very best appointments money could buy anywhere in the world. There were crystal figures of elephants and giraffes, gold boxes of every size, and silver … well, silver everything: trays and candlesticks, picture frames and bowls, and even floral arrangements.

And despite all the money with which Ian Cabott’s home had been furnished, it was a gloomy, dark, forbidding place with all the homeyness of a two-hundred-year-old mausoleum. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that a formal tour of the whole thing would reveal a grand structure with wide staircases, countless rooms—all of them perfectly decorated and meticulously maintained.

Yes, if Ian’s home were being described by the architects and doyens of home fashion, the homage would be to every nook and cranny speaking eloquently of great wealth and refined taste. It wouldn’t occur to them to mention that there was nothing in this house that said anything about the owner other than his ability to spend whatever he wanted to acquire whatever he wanted.

There were no portraits of his family—living or dead—on the walls, no obviously personal items scattered here and there. There wasn’t even a scrap of mail on the foyer table or a newspaper lying on the parlor settee—a monstrous thing upholstered in the current fashion rage of dark plum brocade. In fact, she’d seen absolutely nothing in the house so far that suggested that anyone actually lived there. It most certainly wasn’t a home as she knew them.

Fiona nodded to the departing butler and then deliberately turned about to study the parlor in detail. Yes, just as she expected; it was perfection. She hated it. And from that realization came firm resolution: There was no way on God’s green earth she was ever going to agree to be the resident docent of this Museum of Privilege and Extreme Wealth.

*   *   *

Ian looked up from the architect’s drawings to stare at his butler. “I beg your pardon, Rowan. I don’t believe I heard you correctly.”

“Her Grace, the Duchess of Ryland has called with her sister, Lady Fiona Turnbridge. They are awaiting you in the parlor.”

Well, at least there was nothing wrong with his hearing. “Thank you, Rowan. I’ll be there directly.”

“Very good, Your Grace. Shall I have refreshments served?”

“It depends. Are they armed?”

“They both appear to possess two of each, Your Grace. Perfectly normal in appearance.”

Ian rubbed his fingertips over his rapidly tightening brow and rephrased the question, asking, “Did you happen to catch sight of what might be considered a lethal gleam in either of their eyes?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not be found dead, draped over a tea cart with my head stuffed into a teapot and fussy little sandwiches mashed into my shirtfront. We’ll see how it goes before we order tea. But as a courtesy, please inform Mrs. Pittman that we have guests and warn her of the possibility of me having to be a gracious host.”

“At once, Your Grace.”

Ian waited until Rowan had closed the heavy infirmary door behind himself before he walked stiffly to the sideboard, poured himself a generous amount of whiskey, and swallowed it down. He didn’t normally drink this early in the day and certainly not at home, but if ever there was a looming conversation that required high-proof alcoholic fortitude, it was the one awaiting him in the parlor. He tried to remember the last time he’d so badly mangled a relationship. And couldn’t. No, last night he had managed to stumble and bumble his way to an all new high level of achievement. Or depth, depending on how he looked at it.

The aftermath was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. To his mind, Lady Baltrip’s vengeance had been considerably over the top, especially considering the ruthless degree to which she’d been pursuing her objective just prior to the door being flung open. He was going to spend the next week or so in acute physical discomfort and then at least another two after that fully healing.

He’d earned his pain, though. Fiona hadn’t. Which meant that healing her hurt was going to be a far more difficult task to accomplish. For as long as he lived he’d remember the wounded shadows darkening her beautiful green eyes, remember the sight of the tears welling along her lashes and how she’d run away before they could spill down her cheeks. To know that he was responsible for her anguish …

And God, her embarrassment. Personally
and
socially. A gently raised young woman, a complete innocent, so sweet, hopeful and trusting … If she had a mean bone in her body, he’d hand her a pistol and invite her to shoot him. Lord knew he deserved it.

If only he’d listened to his conscience and not followed Lady Baltrip off to the library. If only he’d been more forceful with her at the outset, said to hell with finesse, and bluntly announced his pending engagement. The entire mess could have been so easily avoided.

But he hadn’t done one sensible thing and now he was going to have to pay the piper. Dramatically increasing the marriage settlement had been the first thing he’d thought of to address the wrong he’d done her. Not that he expected her opinion of him to be swayed by the offering. He didn’t know much about Lady Fiona Turnbridge in a personal sense, but of one thing he was absolutely certain: money wasn’t the reason she’d agreed to marry him. In fact, he wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that she and her sister were waiting in the parlor to fling the settlement papers in his face and tell him, ever so succinctly, to go to hell.

And if they did, he’d have two choices: either gracefully accept being discarded as bad rubbish and go about selecting someone else to be his duchess, or figure out a way to get back into Lady Fiona’s good graces. The first of his options wasn’t without its difficulties. All of London was talking about his escapade with Lady Baltrip, and scandals did tend to make fathers a bit leery of handing off their precious daughters to a male of dubious judgment and no sense of fidelity. A few weeks would see the worst of the whispering past, though. And what paternal qualms remained after that could be soothed with a sizable marriage settlement. Yes, he could find himself another duchess easily enough and without an unreasonable delay.

But he really didn’t want to. It was odd how settled his mind was on making Lady Fiona his wife. He’d only met her a scarce day and a half ago and yet there’d been precious few minutes between then and now that she hadn’t been in his thoughts.

What was it about her that so consumed his thinking, his feelings? No one else had ever had that kind of power over him. Was she worth groveling for? Even as he wondered, he knew the answer: yes, she was. She was the most decent, honest and kind-hearted person he’d ever known and his world would be infinitely brighter for having her in it. Ian poured himself a second glass of whiskey, downed it as quickly as he had the first, and then set off to do whatever he could to salvage hope from the mess he’d made.