Chapter 27
Was Lady Jane Montfort also a member of Father’s network?
Father frowned, and Lady Jane glared back at him.
“If you could but see the bruise on Perry’s back…” She inhaled sharply and turned a hot look on Fox. “And you. I don’t even want to ask why she was out on that road last night.”
“We’ve been over this before. It wasn’t his fault.”
“I take full responsibility,” he said.
Perry pushed back her chair and hurried around the table, gripping his shoulders. “It wasmyown foolishness.”
She swallowed hard. Fox didn’t reach up to touch her. Father had shown her more affection this morning than Fox.
Maybe he hated her.
Lady Jane shook her head. “Look at them, Shaldon. Would you keep them apart? She has been mooning over him since the wedding ball. Enough to run away and come to him.”
Perry gasped. “I didn’t know Fox was here.”
She thought back to the day she found the papers about this house. She’d been snooping, as usual, when Father was out, and that time he’d left his study unlocked, the documents relating to this property on his desk. It had been during the turmoil of Charley’s and Gracie’s problems, and she’d thought it had been an uncharacteristic, and for her, fortuitous, moment of carelessness on Father’s part.
Father’s face was unreadable, as usual. She wobbled, and Fox pulled out the chair next to him, helping her onto it.
His warm strength enveloped her. Perhaps hedidn’thate her. If only they could be alone and she could talk to him instead of in this room with Father, Kincaid and Jane looking on with disapproval.
And yet, and yet…had Father manipulated her into this reunion with Fox? If Lady Jane had seen her interest in Fox, then Father had seen it also. Perhaps Father was throwing them together, not keeping them apart.
And perhaps, he’d seen that Fox had some interest inher.
Heat shivered through her. Well, of course. Even if he didn’t wish to wed her, the drawings, the painting, those were proof Fox had at least been thinking about her. Perhaps Father had seen them.
Where her brothers were concerned, Father had been making up for the many years of his absences, the lost time he could never recapture. He had been watching them, and manipulating them.
Into the matches ofhischoice.
She reached for Fox’s hand. Surely, they already had Father’s blessing. He might have expected her to behave better, buthehimself hadn’t, had he? Not when her eldest brother Bink, Father’s by-blow, had been conceived.
Lady Jane’s gaze bore into her. She certainly expected better from Perry. And…what had she said about Sir Richard?
Blast it, she’d been distracted again.
“What’s this about Sir Richard, Lady Jane?” Perry asked.
Lady Jane’s frown only deepened. “You are the very image of your mother at your age. Is she not, Kincaid?”
“Yes, you are very like your mother, Lady Perpetua,” Kincaid said. “She also was not averse to a gamble and would occasionally get a hair up and—”
“Kincaid.” Lady Jane tapped the table.
Kincaid nodded and leaned back.
“I’d first met Sir Richard many years before that ball I mentioned, when I was a child. I’d been brought along to a house party where your mother, Felicity’s, engagement to Lord Shaldon became known.” She turned to Father. “That was Lord Shaldon, your brother. You were still in Ireland.”
Father did not so much as nod.
“Sir Richard hadn’t yet succeeded his uncle as baronet. He was simply Richard Fenwick. It was clear, he’d set his sights on your mother, and especially her lands and her dowry.” She leaned across Perry for a long look.
