Page 75 of No Duke of Mine

It was a bold suggestion, which he’d given some thought to on the way home. Hadn’t Aunt Violet announced she intended to remain at Ravenswood for the rest of her life? She could not be here without her husband, too.

A sudden smile lit up Aunt Violet’s wrinkled face as she regarded him. “I knew you were my favorite for a reason.”

Algernon couldn’t hide his surprise. “Your favorite?”

“You made the right decision in the end. You married for love. Why else would I decide to make you my heir?”

He sat down quickly. “Your heir? Heir to what?”

“My estate, my other property,” she advised him with another smile. “The value in the region of two hundred thousand pounds, at last count.”

Algernon’s jaw dropped. “What?”

The old woman chuckled, a dry sound he’d rarely heard from her. “Did you believe me cut off and penniless when I left Ravenswood and your awful father? I’m a great deal richer than he ever was, too.”

He sat forward. “How? Father led me to believe quite the opposite.”

She shrugged, her expression smug. “The family liked me better than my older brother. When unmarried uncles and aunts died, they mentioned me in their wills. But never him.”

He shook his head. “Two hundred thousand pounds is more than a mere mention.”

“Perhaps, but they loved me best of all and disliked your wasteful father intensely. Everyone did.”

Algernon completely understood their decision to leave his greedy father out of any wills.

And then he remembered the paper that he gave Aunt Violet, and his hope died. “If you are to marry, Seymour will take control of your estate.”

“And he has already written his will, leaving all his worldly possessions to his beloved duke,” Violet told him with a gentler smile. “I never suggested it, but Seymour has no family, and he adores you and his life here. Now…begone, boy, and find that wife of yours. I expect to see her holding your heir in her arms within a year.”

Algernon clenched his jaw at the abrupt dismissal, and also to prevent any expression crossing his face that suggested that would never happen. Aunt Violet would find out Maggie’s feelings about children eventually. For now, he’d rather have peace with her for as long as possible. Providing her with the means to marry her longtime love appeared to have softened her toward him a great deal.

He strolled back into the house, but once out of Aunt Violet’s sight, he ran upstairs to find Maggie.

She was sitting on the floor in the duchess’ rooms, her father’s lesson books scattered all around her, an empty sherry glass in her hand.

When he drew closer, he caught sight of bright, shiny gold coins stacked around her in neat piles. “Maggie?”

“I always wondered what Papa did with his money. He sold the cottage when Mama died and never purchased another. He saved everything he earned and hid it in his trunks.”

She reached for a stack of papers that he soon realized were currency when she handed them to him to look at. She got to her feet and headed to his bedchamber with her glass dangling from her fingers. He heard the clink of glass on glass as he flicked through the banknotes, attempting to count them. But then his eyes landed on other stacks that had been hidden behind Maggie’s back, where she’d been sitting on the floor.

His eyes widened. “Good God!”

“I don’t usually drink, you know, but I’ve had quite the shock just now,” Maggie said, as she returned and handed him a second glass of sherry. “Cheers, husband. It seems you married an heiress after all!”

He let out a shaky breath. “My aunt just told me she has made me her sole heir.”

“Did she really?” Maggie scowled. “How cruel of her to tell you only now.”

“She had not made up her mind before I went to London to marry. She only decided when I came back with you as my duchess. Her estate is worth over two hundred thousand pounds.”

Maggie tossed back her sherry as if it were water. “I’m glad for you, and us all, of course, but if she strikes anyone with those canes, I will take them away again and give her a rolling chair to move about with instead.”

Algernon laughed softly, putting an arm around her back as he took away her empty glass to give her his untouched one. He waited till she’d finished that, too. “You never told me you took the dragon’s canes away from her. She blamed me at first.”

“I didn’t tell you because you were a terrible liar then. You might have given me away and retrieved them too soon,” she told him, putting her head against his chest. “We’re going to be all right. The estate, your brothers, our horde of children stampeding through every room.”

“We are indeed, my dear.” He kissed her brow—and then looked at her sharply as her last words sank in. “What did you say about our children?”

Maggie sighed and patted his chest. “I lied about that before. Forgive me.”

He turned her about and held her by the shoulders. “So you wanted children all along?”

“More than all the riches in Ravenswood,” she promised, nodding quickly. “But only ever if they could be yours.”

A smile broke over his face, slow and full of wonder. “Then we’d best get started,” he murmured. Algernon kissed Maggie soundly, scooped her up into his arms, and carried her to his bed.