Wicked Wyckerly (5 page)

“Green people?” Easily distracted, Penelope turned to her food.

Throughout supper Abigail alternated among wanting to box Mr. Wyckerly’s ears, hoping to teach him to appreciate his daughter’s worth, and fearing he would take Penelope away if she did either. The child obviously needed love and attention, and her dashing guest equally obviously did not know how to provide it.

She had worked herself into a state of high dudgeon by the time she tucked Penelope into bed, still with no sign of the miserable scoundrel’s return.

5

“What are these letters in this drawer, Maynard?” Isabell Hoyt, the youthful Dowager Marchioness of Belden, ran her hand over stacks of yellowing correspondence, some neatly tied with disintegrating ribbon, others lying loose and unopened.

“That’s the Poor Relations drawer, my lady,” her late husband’s assistant said with a sniff, showing no evidence of irony. A scarecrow of a man who’d worked with the marquess for years, he’d no doubt been hired for his lack of both imagination and humor.

“Yes, I daresay he had poor relations with anyone whose correspondence was left unopened for years,” she mused, choosing to unfold a sheet that was less yellowed than the others.

“One cannot indulge all those who believe they are owed funds for no better reason than their name,” Maynard intoned. “The estate would be bankrupt in days.”

“Yes, Edward having such a large and prolific family,” the dowager said with a hint of the irony that Maynard lacked. She glanced up from the heartfelt plea in her hand. “This one does not request funds. Did anyone even read this correspondence, Maynard?”

He tugged on his neckcloth. “Only if his lordship requested.”

Which, of course, her gouty, miserable clutch-fist of a spouse had not. Really, she hoped Edward was having a good long talk with his Maker about now. The man may have been a charmer in his time, but age and illness—and possibly his infertile wife—had turned him into a bitter relic well before his death.

She glanced up at a polite scratch on the office door and sighed. “Yes, Butler?” She lived surrounded by irony. Her butler’s name was Butler.

“The Honorable Lord Quentin Hoyt has arrived to offer his family’s condolences.”

“Dashitall.” She stood and shook out her mourning gown. Dust blended nicely with the dove gray. “It took his family three months to send a representative down from Scotland?”

Maynard cleared his throat. When she glanced at him with annoyance, he lifted his invisible chin high so that his scrawny chicken wattles stretched above his collar. “I believe the Scots relations were the reason for the refusal to parcel out funds, my lady.”

“Yes, of course, because they were poor and had many children and actually had reason to
need
funds, while Edward only needed his port. Yes, indeed, I understand that logic perfectly. I do hope the new marquess’s heir is not carrying a dirk and broadsword.”

“Younger son, my lady,” Butler offered. “The new marquess and his heir are both still in Scotland. Lord Quentin is the fourth eldest of the ten children and does business in London.”

She knew that. But she was feeling peevish, and she had every right to be as querulous as a dowager, since she was one, with all the privileges and honors that rank disposed—like having no man in her bed and no social life.

At the ripe old age of thirty-three, she hardly considered that fair, so she found her amusement where she could, though she supposed tormenting her servants wasn’t a good habit to develop.

Her heels
click-clack
ed down hollow halls, following Butler to the front of her town residence. She owned all this now. She was possibly the wealthiest lady in all London to be fully in charge of her own fortune and future. After years of living under Edward’s thumb, she found it a strange situation.

Edward had never allowed any of his distant relations inside his home. Perhaps she ought to learn if there was any reason for that, other than snobbery.

Lord Quentin stood hat in hand, his broad shoulders and height diminishing the narrow entrance. He appeared elegantly handsome and perfectly at ease inside the town house that would have belonged to his father had the Hoyt wealth been entailed. Which it was not. The title was merely attached to worthless hills in the north and the new marquess and his Scots family had inherited next to nothing.

The new marquess had waited a long time for the title. His younger son was older than Isabell and far more darkly handsome than Edward had ever been, but she was not enamored of ambitious men these days.

“Good afternoon, sir,” she said crisply, leading the way into the formal parlor, the only room in the house that Edward had allowed her to decorate. She was fond of the gold damask draperies. The Persian rug with hints of gold and blue among the ivories and crimsons thoroughly satisfied her. The cost had nearly given dear Edward an apoplexy ten years before his time—perhaps the reason he’d never allowed her to decorate another room.

Lord Quentin possessed a full head of dark, wind-blown curls and a healthy bronze color that spoke of a life spent outdoors. Given the extreme poverty of his large Scots family, he’d had to work for a living, unlike his peers who preferred to exist like vampires, rising only when it was dark to frequent their clubs and stagger home at dawn. For his efforts, he’d been scorned by the
ton
and was seldom accepted in the best homes.

She had heard that he’d done extremely well at trade—shipping and mining and things in which she held no interest. Now that his family held the title, and Lord Quentin provided the coin, they would want to partake of the society that had scorned them.

Edward would roll over in his grave if she encouraged his poor relations, she decided with relish.

“I have come to offer my family’s condolences, my lady,” Lord Quentin said formally, following her into the feminine room and overpowering it with his size and masculinity.

“Very good.” She tugged her skirt into place and settled on the crimson velvet settee. “I appreciate your vanquishing your grief for the sake of propriety, but please do not carry the hypocrisy too far. I am suffering a strong sense of irony today and cannot vouch for my behavior.”

He didn’t smile. She had hoped at least one Hoyt possessed a sense of humor. Oh well, tedious family traits would win out. She’d learned her lesson about admiring dashing men with no humor. They turned into controlling old misers who prized money more than people.

“I apologize for my tardiness in paying my respects,” Lord Quentin said. “I have been away and have just come home to run afoul of mortality twice over. Edward was a decade younger than my father. His demise was unexpected. And I have also lost a good friend years younger than myself. It is a cruel reminder that life is short.”

“Wasn’t it Samuel Johnson who said
‘Life is hell, and then we die’
? If he didn’t, he should have.” Isabell gestured at her hovering servant. “I believe Lord Quentin requires something stronger than tea, and I would not mind a brandy myself. And perhaps something a little more filling than pastry to go with it, please.”

She’d hoped to shock her husband’s relation with her tart tongue, but he was still squeezing his hat brim and looking into the distance as if he truly was affected by morbid sentiments. She’d heard he was a serious gentleman. One had to be as a younger son in a barefoot horde. Even choosing between the military or the priesthood, as most younger sons did, had to have been impossible, since he’d had no funds with which to build a career. That he’d dared to scorn tradition and take up trade had been a bold, and perhaps foolish, decision. Society frowned on men who actually
worked
for a living. So common, after all.

“I did not mean to burden you with my gloom, my lady. I apologize.” Hoyt rose, as if preparing to leave.

“Sit down,” she ordered. “I am trapped in this house day in and day out, doomed to listen to old biddies prosing and posturing, asking when I’ll begin entertaining again. I haven’t decided if I shall. I would appreciate some good, honest talk.”

Politely, if rather absently, Lord Quentin returned to his seat, setting aside the hat he hadn’t relinquished upon entering. His broad shoulders overwhelmed the slender chairback. “I am at your service, as ever, my lady.”

He did not seem excessively appreciative that he was the first Hoyt outside of Edward’s sisters to cross the threshold. Nor did he seem the obsequious type inclined to flatter her generosity. Annoying man. “Isabell. My name is Isabell. If we are to be friends, we must speak as equals.”

“Are we to be friends?” he asked quizzically, rightfully so.

“I hold nothing against you or your family.” She gestured as if waving away decades of old grudges. “Although I suppose you have every right to hate me. Do you?”

“Hate you?” He blinked, and for the first time since he’d entered, he actually focused on her. A decidedly male interest sharpened his dark gaze.

She preened, if only just a little. It had been a very long time since she’d felt like a woman, much less an attractive one. Perhaps she wouldn’t bury herself in blacks and caps just yet. “My husband and I have not been considerate toward your family.”

He shrugged. “You are the one who had to live with the curmudgeon all these years. You’ve earned your wealth the hard way.”

She snorted indelicately. “On my back? Granted, it ended up that way, but I was young, foolish, and thought myself in love at first. Love is highly overrated.”

“Possibly, but in our world, marriage can be beneficial in many ways. Your family gained from the marquess’s connections.”

“If saving my father from debtors’ prison and shipping my younger sisters to the Americas can be called
gaining,
then I suppose your argument is correct. But I do not consider selling my soul for money a wise choice, particularly since I have not seen my family since.”

He nodded his understanding. “But yours was an unusual situation, and you must admit, your current circumstances are better than they might have been otherwise. Had my friend Fitz found a lady of wealth, he might not have so readily committed the heroic deed of dying for the benefit of his estate.” He returned to looking miserable.

“Fitz? The younger Wyckerly, you mean?” she asked, appalled. “The lovely gambler? I sincerely regret his loss, but the man never committed a heroic deed in his life.” She gestured for Butler to set the tray down in front of her. “I find it hard to believe that he would die for anyone. Not that I find anything heroic in death.”

“They discovered his clothing and a fired pistol beside the river on the grounds of his estate.” Quentin swirled the brandy in the glass she handed him. “His father and brother were notorious wastrels, but Fitz always lived within his means. He must have despaired at being left an estate so mired in debt that he could not possibly have paid his way out in two lifetimes. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that his cousin and heir is a man of fortune. No, I believe the evidence speaks for itself. Fitz did the honorable thing. He took his own life for the sake of his tenants and creditors.”

“Absolute balderdash. I daresay Danecroft’s tenants or creditors shot him down as they may have his antecedents in hopes that someone with sense and money would inherit. Or given the family’s general notoriety, perhaps his heir helped him depart this mortal coil. If memory serves me, his cousin Geoffrey has been courting a duke’s daughter. Even a bankrupt title would sway the tide in his favor.”

Like Lord Quentin, Geoffrey Wyckerly was also in trade. Without a title, he did not stand a chance as a prospect for any heiress among the
ton
.

Her guest possessed a refined air of intelligence and accomplishment as he considered her words. Isabell sat back and enjoyed the view. Now that she was wealthy and independent, perhaps she could start collecting cicisbei, as women did in her mother’s time. She would have to take a good look at herself in the mirror one of these days, but she feared what little beauty she’d once possessed had faded with age and disillusionment.

“If Fitz was murdered, then we must discover the murderer,” Quentin declared with a flash of outrage that was more pleasant to look upon than his earlier gloom.

“A blessing he wasn’t married, or I’d suspect the wife.”

Wrong thing to say. Quentin returned to his dismals. “I should have steered him toward the marriage mart, but he was doing fine on his own. I never anticipated that he’d inherit his family’s mistakes so soon. Or at all.”

Isabell rolled her eyes heavenward. “For pity’s sake, do you hate women so much that you are determined to snare some poor innocent in your Machiavellian coils? Can you think of anyone who would be happy married to a feckless gambler? As you are well aware, I know whereof I speak. He’d run through her dowry and leave her barefoot and pregnant. It would take the wealth of a duke to save the Danecroft estate. I will miss Fitz’s smile, but I would have shot him myself if he’d tried marrying for money.”

Quentin set down his glass, and his lovely brandy-colored eyes flashed again. “Fitz was a good man burdened by circumstance. Someone needs to come to the aid of the younger sons who have been raised to live as idle nobility but left with no means of support.”

Amused, Isabell sipped her brandy. “And you will find them all wealthy women to drag down with them?”

“If they are good women, they will provide a steadying effect, while their dowries would offer opportunities for advancement that young men need.”

Isabell enjoyed his outrage, so she politely refrained from snorting. “If they are good women, I would rather see them keep their fortunes to make lives of their own choosing. Why do they need irresponsible, impoverished husbands?”

“So they won’t become selfish harridans?” Snapping his hat back on his lovely curls, Lord Quentin stalked toward the door. “Instead of wasting time here, I shall look further into Fitz’s death.”

Oh, the man had a temper. She liked that. Showed spark, unlike Edward, who merely growled and closed the door when she expressed an opinion. “I don’t think it at all selfish for women to look after themselves and their families as men look after their own!” she threw after him. “The misfortune is that we are even more limited than younger sons in the ways society will allow us to do it.”

He halted in the doorway to glower at her. “Which is why women need men to take care of them! If Fitz had married well, he’d be doubling his wife’s fortune by now, whereas a female would fritter it away on fripperies.”

“I am female and I have no intention of frittering away my fortune on fripperies,” Isabell exclaimed, feeling the excitement of a challenge for the first time in a very long while. “I will show you that women can manage their wealth wisely.”