She met his eye with that dark, steady gaze of hers, and a rush of warmth filled him, deeper and more layered than the rush of attraction that always kindled when she was near. Hesaw in her face that she had come to support him and she meant to fight for him. She could be deposed as a witness for how Sybil had left the children, if need be.
And she could testify to the documentation that made his birth legal and gave him the status of the duke’s heir.
No. He refused to disinherit Hugh or the others. She was here in vain. He turned without acknowledging her and strolled to the other side of the room where the black-robed, white-wigged group of men stood conferring.
“Froggart!” he exclaimed. It was his old nemesis from the Middle Temple, a green-gilled, boot-licking cousin of a viscount who had been called to the bar before him. “You can’t be representing Sybil?”
“I have that honor,” Froggart said, wetting his lips in nervousness and watching Mal as if he were a snake that meant to swallow him in one gulp. But Mal was no toad-eater, which could not be said of Froggart.
His surprise was complete when he recognized the judge appointed to preside over the session. “Oliver! I’d heard you’d been made a Master in Chancery, but I didn’t know you had this case.”
“I took it over.” Oliver pulled the queue of his wig free from his robe and arranged it down the back of his neck. “Felt I was qualified to make a good decision, and the Lord Chancellor agreed.”
Mal wondered what this boded for his case. Oliver’s eyes flickered to the pew where Amaranthe sat, and a light of approval entered his eyes. “I see you’ve brought your lady.”
“She’s not my lady,” Mal said. Oliver’s look of inquiry made him add, unable to contain his bitterness, “She proved too clever for me.”
“Always a risk,” Oliver said. He proceeded to the dais to take his seat and called the court to order.
Sybil’s strategy emerged at once. She had decided to forego her initial line of attack, which concerned what she felt she was due her as the late duke’s duchess and wife. Now she had decided to undermine Mal’s claim to the guardianship with a wholesale scuttling of his worth, his ability, and his character.
Froggart began entering into the rolls, by the tactic of reading aloud to the Court, long depositions from Sybil and other witnesses painting Mal as a wastrel of the first order. Accounts were given of every time he had visited a club or private house and lost money gambling. Friends who had encouraged his most reckless acts bragged of wagers on carriage races and cock fights. Viktor Vierling, Captain in the Grenadier Horse Guards and a traitor twice over, hinted at a duel.
Mal smothered a groan. That affair had been settled at dawn without weapons on account that neither principal, nor their seconds, could recall, once sober, what the offense had been, but Froggart slanted the report to cast Mal as a ne’er-do-well. None of these peccadilloes were more than the larks that most young gentlemen in London fell into from time to time, but Froggart depicted Mal as a menace to society.
His history of reprimands and infractions at Cambridge were recounted in detail. A former schoolmaster at Winchester, the one who had liked him the least and disciplined him the most, gave an account of his character as being thoroughly irredeemable despite regular beatings. A witness from Bristol—no less than his childhood enemy, Tew—claimed that in one fight, after he’d done no more than give an accurate account of Mal’s parentage, he’d feared Mal meant to kill him. Mal, arms folded, sank lower in his seat as his failures at going to sea, apprenticing to a printer, and studying for the priesthood were explored in full.
Froggart reported with particular relish the disappointments of one Sally Bly, from a family of Irish lacemakers, who had beenrudely jilted by Mr. Malden Grey, of whom she had expectations of marriage. At this Mal felt the scowl freeze on his face. Sweet Sally had flirted and led him on, all to fire the jealousy of the man whose affections she really wanted, but she told Froggart Mal made promises and broke them? He looked a blackguard indeed.
And Amaranthe was hearing every word of this. Every instance of bad luck, observed; every whim or inane occupation, itemized. Mal o’ Misfortune, his whole history laid miserably bare.
With the first witness Froggart called, Mal’s stupefaction was complete. Mr. Thorkelson, looking more than ever like an aged Viking warrior gone to fat, took the witness stand and swore an oath to be truthful. Mal turned to glare at Sybil, who raised her brows in disdain. So she’d had both the steward and his solicitor working in her interests. He’d not given her full credit for the depth of her guile.
It seemed his lot ever to be deceived by women.
Froggart began by asking Thorkelson about how Mal had mischaracterized Sybil’s flight to the Continent with the ducal income.
“Her Grace left for France with the intention of finding a house in Paris for her and the children,” Thorkelson claimed, broadcasting news that, if true, he had not seen fit to share with Mal. “Since she has spent much time living in France herself, she felt it would be beneficial to their education to learn the language. When she heard that Mr. Grey was describing her as having fled the country with stolen goods, she returned at once to prove her innocence.”
“Did she return the money?” Mal said loudly, outraged at her guile. Froggart glared at him, and Oliver scowled at his speaking out of turn.
“Why should Mr. Grey go about with unfounded accusations that Her Grace had taken more than what was essentially her property as the Duchess of Hunsdon?” Froggart asked. “In addition to casting aspersions on the character of a mother who has nothing but the care and security of her children at heart.”
Mal’s loud snort was pointedly ignored.
“I regret to say that I believe that Mr. Grey harbors a great deal of ill will toward the duchess,” Thorkelson said. “This is not the first time he has cast such aspersions on her character. In fact, it’s widely known that he objected to his father’s marriage most strenuously, and in the time he has been in London, he has not dined, nor very frequently visited, at Hunsdon House.” He coughed lightly. “This casts some doubts, at least in my mind, about the sincerity of his wish for the guardianship of the Delaval children.”
“Oh, indeed?” Froggart asked his witness. “Why do you suppose he would interest himself in these children who have no real claim upon him?”
Mal stiffened in outrage. No claim but blood, he wanted to shout.
Thorkelson coughed again, a low rumble. “I am loathe to make the suggestion, but I fear very much that Mr. Grey has interested himself more than is usual in the incomes and allowances pertaining to the Hunsdon estates. We all know that, due to the unfortunate circumstances of his birth, he has no claim to inheritance himself. A man in such a position might very well see his guardianship of the young duke and his siblings as an opportunity to line his own pockets.”
Mal turned and glared at Sybil. The nerve of her, to suggest ofhimthe very deed she was guilty of! She schooled her features into innocence, but a coy smile flickered about her painted mouth.
Froggart went on to paint Sybil as the picture of a bereaved mother who saw herself and her cherished children threatened and besieged by the avaricious, ruthless bastard son of her husband. What could the court do to protect this noble and virtuous woman from Mal’s greedy and undeserving clutches? Award her guardianship of the children until Hugh was twenty-five, Froggart concluded, and give her the ability to direct and oversee the Hunsdon estate so she might be at liberty to support and provide for her children.
Mal’s horror grew as he saw Oliver’s face softening at Froggart’s depiction of a duchess deprived of her proper station, her maternal impulses stifled, her very well-being at stake. Sybil adopted an appropriately sorrowful, downcast look, avoiding Mal’s look of rage. How dare she even call herself a mother, he thought furiously, when to his knowledge she had never once denied herself an entertainment to see to the care of the children. She had left them in the nursery under the care of servants and spent their income on her own pursuits.
