A Gentleman Undone (42 page)

Nick snorted and lurched up from his chair. “Yes, you would welcome this, wouldn’t you? The two of you would look positively respectable by compare.” He wheeled to the window, eloquently turning his back on his shambles of a family.

“I liked her.” Calm resolve colored Martha’s voice. “She showed a very becoming concern for her maid. And people in desperate circumstances do what they must.”

Kitty was not so magnanimous. Her daughters were older than Martha’s, of course, and the damage this connection would do to their prospects therefore loomed larger with her. “I’ll allow she might have been a worthy lady who would sooner not have entered into such a life. I’ll believe she treats her maid, and anyone else of humbler station, with such graciousness as sets the example for us all.” She angled forward, hands earnestly clasped. “Can you not see that none of that makes the least difference?”

“A gentleman of good family isn’t always free to love
where he likes.” Her husband, beside her, offered this gentle underscore to her argument.

“I beg your pardon, he is perfectly free to
love
as he chooses.” Nick pivoted and set his hands on the back of the armchair. “Gentlemen fall in love with unsuitable women all the time. What they don’t do is marry them. If you would only keep her, discreetly, there need be no scandal at all.”

“I’m sorry for the scandal. Truly, I am. I’m sorry for any injury to your name, and your practice, and I’m sorrier than I can say if my nieces’ fortunes should be affected. But the fact is I cannot seem to find my place any longer in a society where to keep a woman in sin is a more respectable path than to give her my hand and my name.”

“Don’t dare try to cloak this act in morality.” Andrew had finally found his voice, and a fearsome voice it was, low and taut and suggestive of temper just barely contained. “And don’t insult us with ifs. You
will
do harm to your brother’s name and practice, either through the duel or through this … connection … you would impose upon the family. You
will
hurt my daughters, Kitty’s daughters, Martha’s daughter, by crippling their chances to make an advantageous marriage. If you insist on going forward with this astounding show of selfishness, you must count yourself a stranger to this house, at least.”

He’d expected it. He’d borne reversals ten times as brutal. And still, it pierced his middle like an icy blade. He dropped his gaze to the carpet for a moment. “I don’t dispute anything you’ve said. Indeed, to cut my acquaintance would probably be the reasonable course for all of you.” He raised his eyes again for another look round at the familiar faces. “If I’m so fortunate as to … Well, I shall strive to keep my name out of gossip, and be as little known in your circles as I can.”

No one spoke—really, what more was there to say?—so he bowed, and made to leave the drawing room. Martha jumped up and was at the door before him, hand extended. “Any day next week will do for a call. I look forward to knowing her.” With fierce determination she gripped his hand and said this, as though by making plans for the future she could will him safely to the other side of the duel.

“I look forward to her knowing you, too.” Irrepressible hope fizzed through him at the thought that he might after all have more to offer Lydia than just himself. She would gain a sister, a brother, and a niece, if only—no, he would follow Martha’s example, and pass over the
if only
. “Thank you.” He kept his voice low. “And thank your husband. I’ve scarcely been acquainted with him. I shall strive to correct that.”

His sister nodded, flushing with pleasure. She knew a bit, didn’t she, about the cost of marrying a black sheep. No wonder she’d spoken up for him. Please God he’d live to repay her loyalty.

With a last squeeze of her hand he made his exit. He was in the entry hall, waiting for his hat and coat, when brisk, purposeful footsteps sounded on the stairs behind him. Nick. Save for when he was being dragged into a gaming hell, his brother always walked as if he had somewhere important to be and something important to do once he got there.

Will straightened but didn’t turn. For all that he knew better, he couldn’t wholly suppress a hope that his siblings had relented
en masse
, and sent Nick to fetch him back among them where he belonged.

He checked the hope. “Don’t try to argue me out of the duel or the marriage. For more reasons than I can share, this is the only possible course for me.”

Nick’s step slowed, and halted. “I didn’t intend …” His voice trailed off, uncharacteristically hesitant. “That
is, I do wish you’d change your mind. And I’m sorry you can’t tell me your reasons. But I only came after you to ask whether you’re in need of a second for your duel.”

He turned, then. His brother stood on the lowest step but one, hand on the railing, jaw set with dutiful resolve. Will inclined his head. “Thank you for thinking of it. But Cathcart’s already agreed.”

“Ah. Well, then.” Nick glanced away, almost as though he were stung by not having been asked.

Will felt all over again the distance that had opened up between him and his brother—hell, between him and every other Blackshear—since he’d gone away to war. This last, decisive estrangement had perhaps been inevitable, and still, if he should be mortally wounded in a few days’ time, among his regrets would be that he hadn’t tried harder, in the months since returning, to reforge those familial bonds.

Nothing for it now. “I
am
sorry, Nick.” Here was the footman with his coat; his parting remarks must be brief. “I know what your work and your good name mean to you. I would gladly have sacrificed my own happiness, if it were only my happiness at stake.” He settled his hat. “But she loves me. She trusts me. I’ll give my life before I’ll abandon her.”

He might give his life indeed, not many days from now, and he couldn’t help wondering, as he left his brother’s town house and descended to the street, whether some in his family might not prefer that less scandalous outcome.

A
N HOUR
later he sat before Fuller’s desk, elbows on the arms of his chair, frowning out the window at the sun-starved greenery of Russell Square. “I don’t know why you’re not angry.” He twisted to face the man again.

“Because you’re angry enough at yourself.” Fuller
shrugged, hands clasped atop some piece of correspondence. “And you’ve lost the better part of your family already today. And you might be dead by next week.” A grin cracked his face. “Altogether I’m more inclined to offer you a drink.” He set his palms flat on the desk and pushed to his feet.

“What will you do, though? Is there any chance of finding another investor in time?”

“Possibly. I have prospects. None I like as well as you; I’ll be frank about that.” At the other side of the room he fetched a bottle and two glasses from a cabinet. “None so likely to impress my trading partners with fine English manners. None with your gift for inspiring confidence.”

“I think it may be more curse than blessing on balance, that gift.” He pressed the thin edge of one cuff-stud hard into the pad of his thumb, a tiny act of self-mortification. “People like yourself put their trust in me when perhaps they oughtn’t.”

“Really, Blackshear, you lay it on a bit thick.” Brandy gurgled musically as he tipped the bottle over one glass, then the other. “What would a trustworthy man have done, that you didn’t? Turn your back when you saw Miss Slaughter’s gentleman hit her?
Sorry, sweetheart, but Jack Fuller is expecting me to help him buy a ship and I can’t go risking myself
.” He corked the bottle and put it away. “You dealt with me in good faith. You never planned to fall in love, to wind up in a duel, to have to provide for Miss Slaughter in the event of your death.” Carefully he took up the glasses and crossed the room again with his uneven step. “If you’d plotted it all from the beginning that would be different. I’d be more than happy to heap abuse on your head.”

“I admire your equanimity.” Will took his brandy and tossed back a good swallow. “You ought to have seen my brothers.”

“It’s an advantage of my class, I think.” Fuller resumed his seat. “We merchants get a good deal of practice, early, in contending with things that don’t go the way we’d like. We learn to take a philosophical view.” He tipped a mouthful from his own glass. “I recommend trade to any man, if only as a forge of character. Tell your brothers I said so.”

Ha. Maybe he would, by letter at least. Another swallow of brandy, and already he was beginning to feel its warming effect. Or perhaps the warmth had other sources.

It was all true, what Andrew had said—he was making a selfish choice, besmirching the family name—and yet here, in Russell Square, there were other truths. Other expectations. Not once had his friend suggested he ought to abandon Miss Slaughter, or keep her as a mistress and avoid all scandal. In this world, such a marriage might not be so very remarkable.

He set down his glass and leaned forward. “Fuller.” The brandy had surely gone straight to his head. “I’ll want an income, if I survive that duel. Not a great one—the money we’ve won at cards can establish us, at least—but if I’m to marry, I’ll want a steady source of funds.”

He paused for a quick breath. To ask this of the man was impudent in the extreme. But devil take it. He might be dead in a few more days. “Whatever qualities you found appealing in me as a prospective investor … might I be able to bring those qualities to your business in some other capacity? It’s not just the income, you know. I had looked forward to being part of this. I’ve studied to learn about ships and shipping.” Now the brandy had hold of his tongue. He stilled it. He’d made his case and he could wait for an answer.

Fuller rubbed a considering hand over his jaw. “To be sure I could use you when the Americans come. I might have other uses as well.” He was silent for a moment,
gone somewhere else, picking his way through the intricacies of his business to find the places where Will might fit. “Come call on me after the duel, if you’re able.” He grinned again. “If you’ll promise to bring your wife sometimes to have a look at my ledgers, I think perhaps something can be arranged.”

His wife. That sounded excellent. If he could live to see his own wedding, he had every reason to be hopeful. They’d work hard, the two of them, and scrape their way from subsistence to comfort. And with an income to look forward to, he could think again of carving out part of his winnings to provide for Mrs. Talbot.

A muscle somewhere deep inside him twitched. Guilt. How was he to forgive himself, if he’d led the widow to expect an offer and now must disappoint her? What if he died some several days hence? The nearly twenty-eight hundred pounds he’d amassed could buy independence for one woman, but not two.

He pressed the cuff-stud to his thumb once more, but the guilt-muscle only twitched harder. Sometime in the next few days he must call in Camden Town. He would swallow the medicine of correcting any mistake as to his intentions. But how to honor his promise to Talbot, while still securing a future for the woman who now had every claim on his heart, was a calculation requiring more dumb genius and depth of understanding than he knew how to summon.

Chapter Twenty-two

A
WIFE’S HONOR
, he’d said, was her husband’s concern. Then surely a husband’s honor was his wife’s concern, and his debts and obligations likewise her own. And so here she stood on the steps of the little house in Camden Town, waiting for the widow Talbot to fetch her cloak and come out for a walk.

Lydia unwound and rewound her reticule strings until the purse sat snug in her palm. He’d gone to brave the wrath of his family for her, according to the note on the pillow, and then to withdraw from his partnership with Mr. Fuller. She’d woken too late to prevent him in that. Not for the world, though, would she give him any chance to default on this most solemn of debts. Not in her name.

“You’re very good to call again.” Mrs. Talbot descended the steps, a polite wariness in her manners. Pity
would
well up, despite all Lydia’s firm intentions. The woman had lost her husband through circumstances too horrible for her to ever know. Nor could she ever have the consolation of being Mrs. Blackshear. For Will to marry her, bearing the secret he bore, would only be a cruelty to both. She understood that now.