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Another bright smile. A kind, encouraging spark in her green eyes.
“Because of your obvious affection for them you must allow them to experience the modicum of freedom afforded them by the excitements and social engagements of the Season. Let them be young, Your Grace. Allow them to converse with gentlemen, fill their dance cards, observe London at the horse races, walk along a moonlit path at Vauxhall Gardens—”
“Let me just stop you there.”
“But I’m not finished yet.”
“It’s a very pretty speech, and very winningly said, but it won’t have the desired effect. My mind is made up, I’m afraid.”
The smile left her eyes and lips. “So, you’ve been gambling and being... wicked for years and suddenly you simply decide to marry and force your sisters into unhappy marriages on a whim?”
“It’s not a whim.” The memory of Laxton’s poisoned barbs reverberated through his mind, turning his thoughts dark and vengeful. “This is my duty. I should have taken responsibility for their prospects before now. I’ve already signed a preliminary marriage contract with Miss Chandler.I asked her father all of the necessary questions and received satisfactory answers.”
“What questions did you ask, pray tell?”
“The urgent details of any marital union. How many months out of every year she’ll spend in Boston, leaving me free in London. What her spending habits are. Whether she wants a large family. That sort of thing.”
Miss Beaton was not impressed. “That’s the most bloodless, mercenary description of a courtship conversation I’ve ever heard.”
“There’s not going to be any courtship.”
She sniffed. “Obviously.”
“I was satisfied by her father’s answers. She spends extravagantly but he’s good for it. She only wants a small family, and she’ll stay in Boston for at least six months of every year, sometimes longer.”
“Leaving you to your own devices. Or vices, as it were. And you honestly think that these conditions will make a happy marriage?”
“No less harmonious than most.”
“I knew you were reckless and gambled with your sisters’ dowries, but I didn’t take you for coldhearted and calculating.”
That touched a nerve. His father had been the coldhearted one. “Miss Chandler will have as much benefit from the marriage as I’ll have. She’ll be a duchess, the envy of all her friends—she’ll trot her title around Boston, and be the reigning queen of society there.”
“She’ll do nothing for your reputation in England.”
“My great-aunt is always attempting to foist some well-bred young lady or another upon me on the infrequent occasions I appear in society. I took matters into my own hands and I chose a bride who may not be English, and well-connected, or born to be a duchess, but who is so wealthy that any objections will be brushed aside. Wealth is the great equalizer. Her fortune will smooth my sisters’ way in society. They’ve had a rough time of it since our mother died. This is my way of trying to do my duty.”
“They want more from you than duty. You should hear the way they talk about you. They want you to stop drinking, gambling, and to come home in the evenings and sit by the fire with them. And Miss Chandler may wish for your company, as well.”
“It’s a heartwarming portrait you paint of me sitting in domestic bliss by the fireside, but it’s never going to happen. I gave up a conventional life long ago. It’s too late for me to be truly reformed. I’ll do my duty in this matter, but that only goes so far.”
“Do you have any idea what Miss Chandler expects from this union? Do you know the very least little thing about her besides the size of her father’s fortune?” Miss Beaton’s cheeks flushed and her eyes glittered. “Her preference in literature, her favorite food, her favorite thing to do on a rainy day? I’ll wager you don’t even know the color of her eyes.”
“They’re brown. I think.”
“Youthink?” She rolled her eyes. “There areso many shades of brown. Are they a dark rich brown or a do they have streaks of amber? What does their color remind you of?”
Miss Beaton’s green eyes were nothing like emeralds, more of a fern green, warm and alive.
She didn’t require fashionable gowns to be pretty. Even wearing that prudish white lace cap and lecturing him like a prim schoolmistress, she floored him with her loveliness and audacity.
He smelled a faint hint of lavender, the scent that always lingered in the hallways after she left the house.
“You don’t know the color of her eyes because when you look into them all you’ll see is her father’s gold coins,” she concluded, with an accusatory sniff.
“Gold is a noble color. The wife I have chosen for myself is one who will make very few demands upon me because we are both making use of each other. She wants my title to be the envy of all her friends in Boston. And I want a very large fortune. It’s a marriage of convenience and no one will question it.”
“Will she be a good role model for your sisters? If Miss Chandler will live chiefly in Boston she won’t be here to ease their way in society. Mightn’t it be better if you found a wealthy and respectable English lady to marry? A lady who was raised to become a duchess.”
