When the Marquess Met His Match (5 page)

“I don’t believe he shall have to take that step.” The lawyer reached into the leather dispatch case beside his chair and pulled out a newspaper.

Nicholas glanced at the masthead and gave a snort of contempt. “
Talk of the Town
? I had no idea you read the scandal sheets, old boy. I am often discussed in them, I admit, but I fail to see how one more sordid, exaggerated story about me has any bearing on my credit.”

“This one might.” He folded the newspaper back to a particular page, leaned across the table, and placed the paper in front of Nicholas so that he could read the headline.

DUKE OF LANDSDOWNE CUTS OFF SON’S TRUST FUND!

DESTITUTE MARQUESS NOW DESPERATE

TO MARRY AN HEIRESS FOR MONEY

Nicholas stared at the article, and his apprehension gave way to something much stronger—a feeling akin to being kicked in the teeth. How had
Talk of the Town
tumbled to his straightened circumstances so quickly? Landsdowne? He knew from lifelong experience that the duke was ruthless enough to do just about anything to get his way, but not this, surely? Before he could come to any conclusions on the matter, Mr. Freebody spoke again, returning his attention to the material point.

“This story has caused your situation to be made public. Your bankers surely know of it, and it is doubtful they will offer you any additional credit, for you have no way to secure the loan’s repayment.”

Freebody was right, of course. Given this story, they’d want collateral. He had none. He took a deep breath and shifted his ground. “I can borrow against my expectations. As the press has already informed the world, I am in London to find a wife. Although I fear she won’t come up to snuff in Landsdowne’s opinion, I expect she’ll bring a dowry satisfactory enough for my bankers and my pocketbook.”

“To borrow against your expectations, there would need to be a wealthy fiancée waiting in the wings. Is there?” When Nicholas didn’t answer, he went on, “You see? You may find your search for a suitable bride quite difficult.”

Difficult? Nicholas thought of Lady Featherstone’s refusal to help him and her vow to do all she could to stand in his way, and he rubbed his forehead with an irritable sigh. Damned near impossible was quickly becoming a more apt description of his quest. He lifted his head, forcing aside his misgivings. “It won’t be easy, I’m sure,” he said, and took a sip of coffee. “But I shall fight the good fight, as they say.”

The lawyer gave him a vinegary smile. “Forgive me for being blunt, but your blackened reputation—”

“And who was responsible for that?” he shot back, tired of having that wretched business thrown in his face, first by Lady Featherstone and now by Landsdowne’s lawyer. “Did you know the duke had his fingers in that little pie? I doubt it, for you’re a far straighter arrow than your employer.”

A flicker of what might have been uncertainty flitted across the little lawyer’s face, but it was gone before he could be sure. “Does it really matter how the incident came about? Your refusal to marry Lady Elizabeth nine years ago after the pair of you were caught in a compromising situation ruined both your reputations and will prove a serious impediment in your current search for a wife, particularly as you have made no efforts since then to regain society’s good opinion.”

He knew all that, but there wasn’t much he could do about the past. He simply had to do his best to repair the damage now, if he could.

“Your father could be of great assistance to you,” Freebody murmured as if reading his mind. “If Lady Harriet does not suit you, no matter. With his support behind you, no suitable woman would dare refuse you.”

With those words, Nicholas could feel the same terrible sense of helplessness and rage he’d always felt as a boy growing up under Landsdowne’s thumb. He thought he’d buried those feelings deep enough that they would never resurface, but he’d been wrong. Now, as they came welling back up inside him, he also felt a hint of despair. God, would he never be free of the damnable tyrant who had sired him?

He refused to accept that notion, and he closed his eyes, shoving all the raked-up despair back down, burying it, working until he once again didn’t give a damn.

“Well,” he said at last, and opened his eyes, “this has been a most fascinating conversation, Freebody. But then, it’s always fascinating to see what Landsdowne’s got up his sleeve. Thank you for informing me.” He stood up, indicating this meeting was at an end. “I wish you good day.”

The attorney also rose to his feet. “You father desires an answer to his proposition. What do you wish me to tell him?”

“Tell him . . .” Nicholas put on his most genial smile. “Tell the autocratic old bastard he can go to hell and take my trust fund with him.”

Mr. Freebody did not seem surprised by his answer, but then, he was accustomed to such communications between father and son. This latest skirmish was nothing new. “Very well, my lord,” he said, then he bowed and departed.

Nicholas sat back down with a sigh. As satisfying as it always was to tell the old man to go to hell, it did little to resolve his problems, which had now been made even more acute due to a sordid scandal sheet. With that thought, he snatched up the copy of
Talk of the Town
that Landsdowne’s solicitor had left on the table. Just what had this damnable rag said about him?

Nicholas read the whole sordid essay, and with every word, his anger grew. Elizabeth Mayfield was mentioned, of course. And Mignonette, though the fact that he had broken with her before leaving Paris had somehow escaped their notice. Apparently the scandalmongers at
Talk of the Town
hadn’t appreciated the fact that a man with no money could no longer afford an expensive Parisian courtesan. There were also snippets about several other women he’d been involved with over the years, though thankfully, there was no mention of Kathleen.

By the time he’d finished the story, he was angry as hell, but he was also convinced beyond doubt that Landsdowne was in no way responsible. His father would never air the family’s dirty laundry this way, not in a thousand years. So just how had the news of his situation fallen into the hands of the gutter press?

I’ll stop you any way I can.

Lady Featherstone’s voice rang in his ears as if she were sitting at his table and he had the answer to his question.

Yesterday, he’d been reasonably sure that any attempt on her part to warn young ladies away from him would fail because young ladies seldom heeded that sort of warning. But this was a different tactic, one he had not had the wits to foresee.

A man couldn’t spend a season in town looking for a bride if he had no money and no credit. And how in blazes was he to obtain said bride, with his intentions laid bare and his reputation besmirched all over again in London’s most prominent scandal sheet, where every wealthy American family in London could read it?

It was an open secret that many transatlantic marriages were a trade of social position for money, but no girl wanted her social-climbing ambitions or her future husband’s mercenary motives so flagrantly displayed. A public pretense of romantic love was expected on both sides, something which for him and his future bride was now off the table thanks to Belinda Featherstone. And even if some heiress were willing to ignore this bit of dirt as well as his rather notorious past, and if by chance he succeeded in obtaining her consent to wed him, what about her family? No father worth his salt would agree to the match. Eloping to Gretna Green might become his only option.

Since the incident with Lady Elizabeth, he was rather persona non grata with London society, which was why he’d gone to Belinda Featherstone in the first place. Little had he known his visit to her would have the opposite effect of the one he’d intended. In making his situation and chosen course public in so blatant a fashion, she had well and truly spiked his guns.

Devil take her. She’d not only betrayed his confidence by airing their
private
conversation in the gutter press, she’d ruined his credit and damaged his chances of marrying well. He was not about to let this move on her part go unchallenged. Taking up the paper, he rose to his feet. Lady Featherstone wanted a fight, did she? By God, he’d give her one.

Fifteen minutes later, he was on her doorstep and her butler was again expressing doubt as to whether she was home to visitors, but Nicholas had no doubt whatsoever on that score. She’d see him. How else would she have the opportunity to crow?

Nicholas was proved right when the butler returned. “If you will follow me, my lord,” the servant said, and once again showed him into Lady Featherstone’s drawing room.

She rose from her chair at the tea table as he entered the room, making a great show of setting aside the newspaper she’d been reading. Her expression was as cool and self-possessed as ever, but an unmistakable little smile curved her full lips. “Lord Trubridge.”

“Lady Featherstone.” He removed his hat and forced himself to bow.

She gestured to the silver tea service on the table. “Would you care for tea?”

“No.” He strode forward, wasting no more time on banal civilities. “You went to the scandal sheets about me.”

She didn’t deny it nor even try to dissemble. “One scandal sheet,” she corrected, and in those three words was enough relish to send Nicholas’s temper up another notch.

Nonetheless, when he spoke, he kept his voice even and controlled. “The things I told you about myself and my situation were in confidence, madam.”

“I deemed the hearts, virtue, and reputations of young ladies to be more important than your confidences.”

“That was not your choice to make.” He could feel a tiny muscle working at the corner of his jaw, and his hands were so tightly clenched around the brim of his hat, they began to ache. “You had no right.”

“I had every right! The future happiness of many a young lady depends upon choosing a husband of fine and upstanding character. You, sir, are not one of those. And I fail to see why you are bothered about the story.”

“Bothered? Lady Featherstone, I am more than bothered. I am outraged.”

“But why should you be? According to what you told me yesterday, you are prepared to be an honest fortune hunter. If that is true, then why should it matter if the news of your financial situation comes out now rather than later?”

“Because having the news come out later would have given me the time to secure a loan from my bankers, which would have been enough to tide me over until the end of the season, by which point I had hoped to be married, or at least engaged. Now, thanks to you, I do not have even that small window of opportunity. I will be unable to secure the blunt to lease a house in town, cover the bills of tradesmen, or pay wages to a staff. How can I be expected to establish the connections I need to find a young lady to marry if I cannot even establish a household in which to entertain?”

“That is not my problem. Perhaps you should have put by some of your income when you had it? Saved it for a rainy day?”

“Perhaps,” he was forced to acknowledge. “But it’s a bit late for that now.”

“So it is. But for my part, I cannot feel anything but relief, knowing that no young lady shall be unknowingly beguiled and seduced by a scoundrel like you in the candlelight of your latest dinner party!”

“Dinner party?” he echoed through clenched teeth. “I doubt I could even procure the required joint of beef from the butcher, thanks to you. And as for honesty, I was prepared to be honest about my circumstances with my future wife and her family, yes, but that it is a far cry from having it bandied about in the scandal sheets! You say you care about reputations, madam, but that isn’t quite true, is it? Only certain reputations matter to you. It is apparent others do not.”

For a moment, a shimmer of what might have been guilt crossed her face, but it vanished before he could be sure. “You don’t seem to care about your own reputation,” she said after a moment. “Why should I?”

“Because not doing so makes you a humbug. You display yourself to all the world as a woman of honor and integrity, yet you do not hesitate to blacken the reputation of a man of whom you do not approve, based on no justification other than your preconceived ideas about his character.”

“Your reputation was already blackened, and by your own actions. And you seem perfectly willing to blacken a young woman’s reputation along with your own. And,” she added as he started to protest that unfair accusation, “your manner of living since then hardly does you credit. All of that, along with your words of yesterday, make your character quite clear.”

“You know nothing about me or my character, madam. You—” Nicholas broke off, too frustrated by her reference to that episode with Elizabeth to continue. How ironic that with all the things he had done in his life, she’d chosen one of the things of which he wasn’t guilty to condemn him.

“And now,” she went on, “you intend to seduce another innocent girl, blacken her reputation, and force her into matrimony, so please do not pretend to take any sort of moral high ground here, sir!”

“What?” He stared at her in astonishment, but as the implications of her words sank in, his astonishment gave way to an even deeper rage. “Good God, is that what you think?”

“After you confessed your sordid intentions right to my face, what else was I to think? You said you would not be conducting a proper courtship. That you intended to conduct one that is as improper as possible.”

“And you took that to mean I would ruin a girl publicly, thereby forcing her to marry me? I—” He stopped, for the notion he would do such a thing was so damned insulting that fury put him at a loss for words.

He looked down and realized he was crushing his hat. Worse, he could feel his temper giving way, and losing his temper was something no one had been able to make him do for a long, long time. Carefully, he set his mangled hat on the tea table between them, and when he spoke, he worked to keep his tone civil though it took a great deal of effort. “That you believe I would deliberately ruin a girl for money says far more about your mind than it does about my character.”