Royal Regard (24 page)

“The long and short of it,” Nick admitted, “I
question my intent because I have never before questioned my
intent. Only one thing is certain. I no longer view Lady Huntleigh
as a conquest, either as willing wife or widow, but rather a friend
with whom I might converse about mutual interests—our travels
foremost—in otherwise tiresome company. Should something… romantic…
develop from our… communications, the… relationship… might be…
reevaluated.” Nick wished he were choking on his drink. He brought
the glass to his lips.

“I have seen her face during your
conversations,” Huntleigh admonished, “You have not been discussing
your travels.”

“We are both fascinating creatures of broad
interests,” Nick stated quietly, finishing his glass, swallowing
the drink along with his acrimony.

“You are both that,” Huntleigh agreed.

The chestnut-colored carpet he had shipped
back from India years ago was suddenly far more interesting than
continuing the conversation, until, with a start, Nick realized the
copper tracing perfectly matched the henna markings of a Middle
Eastern bride. He looked up at the print on the
coquelicot
wallpaper, wondering what had possessed him to redecorate the room
in varying shades of blood-red when it had been so soothing in the
greens his mother had chosen.

Before he fell too far into recollections of
his mother, which could only lead to further consideration of a
marriage in which he did not intend to indulge—
indulge?
—he
asked, “From things Lady Huntleigh has said—nothing purposefully
indiscreet, of course—I believe she had a child? I know it is a
source of great pain, and haven’t wanted to press.”

Huntleigh turned away, looking into the fire.
He grasped the silver globe at on the head of his walking stick,
moving the cane from the end of the armrest, twisting it in his
hands, pushing the other end further into the carpet. He looked as
though he would push himself up off the sofa to leave the room, but
only shifted his calf against the gout stool and tugged at his
waistcoat.

“Of course. You will need an heir. I should
have considered.”

Nick’s head shot up and his mouth twisted in
both offense and commiserative pain. He repeated to Huntleigh the
same thing he had been saying to his sister for four years: “I have
an heir, though not a son, and have long since made peace with it.
I merely prefer not to cause Be—Lady Huntleigh any additional
distress by misunderstanding the history. Please forgive me
bringing up such a personal matter. If you prefer not to discuss
it…”

“No, given my request, you have every right
to know.” Huntleigh paused, letting loose a lengthy sigh. “I cannot
entirely warrant her ability to give you children. Rather the
opposite, I’m afraid. We had a daughter while we were in Edo seven
years ago—Arabella—who only lived ten days. It took Bella many
months to recover herself, if she ever has. Leaving her child
buried on another continent was almost more than she could
bear.”

“The frigate. I had wondered about the name.
I thought it was for Lady Huntleigh.”

“No, my wife’s name is Isabella; our
daughter—and so the ship—was named for my mother-in-law, who died
when Bella was hardly old enough to remember her.”

“So, there were no other—”

Huntleigh cut him off before he could even
ask. “Before then, two others, both miscarried early on, causing
Bella some grief, but not nearly the same… unhinging. After our
daughter died, I deemed my wife’s welfare more important than
producing children, so have restrained myself where she is
concerned. I was an old man by then, such pursuits not so important
as they once were.”

Nick sat back, watching Huntleigh thump his
cane against the floor. “Are you not concerned with who will
inherit your interests?”

At the change in subject, Huntleigh’s grin
danced a jig his legs could no longer manage. “Wealthiest widow in
England, I’ll wager. I am rather proud of that.”

Huntleigh set the walking stick back against
the furniture, where it promptly fell over. When Huntleigh reached
for it in vain, his leg’s position keeping him relatively immobile,
Nick bent to replace it within arm’s reach, then returned to his
seat.

Huntleigh leaned the cane against his bad
leg, continuing to twist his gnarled hand over the handle.

“Nothing I own is under entail, and I have no
other family with any claim. It will pass to Bella entirely, and
rightly so, after all she has done to help me acquire it.”

Nick sat back, resting his hands across his
waistcoat. “Most men would hesitate to make such an
arrangement.”

“That is unfortunate for their wives.”

“And a boon to her next husband.”

“Yes.”

The oily smell of burnt coal reminded Nick to
add a shovelful of slack to the fireplace. While he stumbled
slightly to the hearth, he pondered how to politely decline the
elderly man’s offer.

“I am the perfect second son,” Nick said,
shaking his head, possibly slurring his words. “I arranged
everything in my life precisely for the freedom to go anywhere, do
anything, and remain permanently unattached. I
chose
to come
back to England and take on the oversight of this damned title in
dubious deference to my father and brother, when I could have
stayed in Santiago, never to be seen again. I still sometimes
regret it. Deeply. I would be better off if the duchy had reverted
to the Crown.”

“No argument from me,” Huntleigh agreed. “I
would rather be a Bedlamite in chains than a titled man in
London—although a case could be made there is no difference. I
would have hated playing Lord of the Manor, and so would Bella. We
would have come home to raise children but were never forced to
choose.”

While he watched the anthracite ignite,
warming his already warm hands, Nick continued, “I do not wish to
regret a wife and children, nor for them to regret me if I cannot
bring myself to stay in one place the rest of my life. I’d rather
leave the dukedom to a chimney sweep than cause that kind of
pain.”

“I understand that, and in fact, respect it a
great deal.”

“You may be the only man in England who
would.”

“No, I think the late duke would have agreed.
Well, the senior Northope, at any rate. I had very little knowledge
of David.”

With mention of his father, Huntleigh saw he
now had Nick’s undivided attention, so indicated with his eyes that
Nick might prefer to re-take his chair. Somehow without tripping
over his own feet, Nick complied with the unspoken request,
stopping at his desk on the way to retrieve the brandy carafe and
his glass.

As Nick poured more cognac, then a cup of
cold coffee for his guest, Huntleigh started, “When I wed Bella, I
was a not much older than you. You are six-and-forty?”

Nick nodded, swirling the brandy in his
glass.

“I was just past fifty, and had sworn equally
as adamantly I would never marry. Then, of course, I was granted
lands and a barony to bequeath. It might take you as long to
justify the decision, but if it does, Bella will be contentedly
settled with another man.”

Nick felt a lump in his throat and washed it
down with a sip of his drink.

“She will be just as
fond of him
as
she is of me,” Huntleigh continued, “and if she is lucky, he will
be as fond of her as her money. I think that a poor substitute for
a man who might bring her joy.”

“You are offering me your blessing?”

Huntleigh shook his head, but did not reply
right away. Eventually, he intoned, “I am offering you the chance
to earn my blessing, and my fortune, before anyone else does.”

Nick found himself once more unaccountably
belligerent.

“I don’t need your money, and I don’t need
your sanction to fall in love with Lady Huntl—
Bella
—or to
marry her. Or to take her off to sea with me, if it came to
that.”

Huntleigh leaned back, finally fully at ease,
and stretched his arm along the back of the sofa. “I knew if you
had a brandy or two, you might come to see the sense in it.”

Nick had the feeling he had just missed
something terribly important, but felt too bleary-eyed to see it.
His confusion increased tenfold when he realized he wasn’t really
bleary-eyed at all. He was remarkably clearheaded considering the
amount he had imbibed.

“I think I need less brandy and more
coffee.”

“I am certain you do. Shall I call for the
butler?”

“No.” Nick sat forward to take up the
coffeepot, his hands less unsteady than expected. “I’ll drink it
cold.”

Once Nick had gulped down half a dish of
tepid coffee, Huntleigh used both hands to drag his leg off the
stool and set his swollen foot gently on the floor.

“I have one other topic of concern before I
leave you to the business I so rudely interrupted.” Huntleigh
tipped his head toward the newspapers and account book on the desk,
and Nick looked over, feeling as though they belonged to another
lifetime.

“Please, don’t stop now. Shall I open a new
bottle?” Nick asked, tongue firmly in his cheek.

“You may wish to. There is another man paying
her court.”

“Malbourne.”

Huntleigh confirmed, “Malbourne. I’ve
discouraged him every way I can, but to no avail. He pops up
whenever she is out of my sight. Short of setting guards on her, I
cannot stop him. And she is not immune.” Lines burrowed even deeper
into Huntleigh’s forehead. His frown fell past his chin. “He has
learned to indulge her opinions instead of flattering and flirting,
quite astute, but he is a fortune hunter and a Frenchman, and his
first marriage was disastrous for the poor girl.”

“How do you know?”

“I knew his first wife’s parents. Much as I
did you, I dandled her on my knee when she was still in leading
strings.”

Huntleigh’s good knee bobbed as though he
were currently playing horsie with Malbourne’s duchess. He once
again took hold of his walking stick, intent more clearly to stand
in the immediate future. Before he did, however, Nick stayed him
with a gesture.

“I don’t make a habit of listening to rumors,
but I’ve sought information about him.”

“Always best to understand one’s enemy,”
Huntleigh concurred.

Nick cleared his throat, neither agreeing nor
disagreeing. “The worst anyone can say is he is French. But still,
family ties to the Bourbons, royalist to the bone, plenty of money,
pays his vowels when he gambles, which is rarely, never drinks to
excess, doesn’t frequent the bawdy houses, and the ladies say he is
a superlative dancer and ever-so-handsome. Helped finance King
Louis’ court-in-exile—entirely proper, given his position—and all
of the French nobles have been restored.”

“Not all. You forget, Wellbridge, I just
spent the last six months in Paris. The court is no longer in
exile, but Malbourne is still here. His title has been restored but
is, for all intents and purposes, worthless unless King Louis
reinstates or replaces the estate, which he seems disinclined to
do. Something has set Malbourne’s king against him.”

“Do you know what he’s done?”

“No. Nor do I care to delve any deeper into
the morass of French royal politics at this late stage of my life.
It is enough to know a very wide rift exists.”

“There are many worthless French
titles—titles nonetheless. If that is the worst—”

“I will not repeat my most vile suspicions
because they make me want to lose my stomach, but they speak
extremely poorly of his relations with women,” Huntleigh declared,
“I can assure you my conjecture is borne out by what I know of Lady
Amelia Dewhurst. Her father never again heard from his daughter
once the duke took her to France, and only heard from Malbourne
when he appeared at the door with news of her death in childbirth,
purely to claim her small land trust—the estate in Dover where he
now lives.”

Nick shrugged, “As her husband, his
right.”

“According to people in a position to know,
she was never
enceinte
, though I might be the only man in
England with the information. Her death was in some way sinister,
although I admit knowing few details. Only a handful of people in
France knew he had married, and no one at Court, even the king.
Just a few servants who were reticent—most often terrified—to speak
of the duchess when I sought them out.”

Nick’s feet thumped onto the floor, and he
pushed away the carafe. “How is this not common knowledge?”

“Servants’ accusations against a duke?”

Nick nodded. Likely nowhere in Europe could a
commoner offer up criminal evidence against a royal duke, no matter
how egalitarian the political climate. Still, “No love of nobility
in a French court of law at present, if the case were pursued.”

“He is in England with no inclination to
leave,” Huntleigh observed. “As for any rumors, her father was the
last of his family and his line; the title and any English gossip
died with him. It has been more than thirty years.”

“Of course.”

The wheels in Nick’s head were now not only
turning, but screeching. He had been concerned about Malbourne’s
attentions to Bella before, but only because he preferred to woo
her with no rivals. This information made the wretch a much greater
threat. Nick loved that Bella was still in some ways innocent, but
he would wish her sadder-but-wiser if it would force her to see
Malbourne’s true face.

Huntleigh took in the gravity of Nick’s
expression, nodding his head firmly, preparing to rise. At an offer
of assistance, Huntleigh used both Nick’s arm and the cane to bring
himself to his feet.

“I do not know what the Devil Malbourne
plans,” Huntleigh growled, his voice and language out of harmony
with his usual demeanor, “but he is the first in a long line of
ill-intentioned noblemen from whom my Bella should be
protected.”