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“Avery House and an endowment! And he already has Fairmere Priory and all the lands.”
“He’s done very well.” Rob nodded. “I’m glad for him. My mother was very glad to go back there, in her last years. It was a great repayment for her kindness to him.”
“Lady Avery and I have agreed that Matthew would be a most suitable match for Hester,” she said, taking the plunge. “I thought of it when we met her at the Priory, and I visited her at court and she proposed it. Or I did. I can’t remember which of us spoke first—it’sso obviously the right thing.” She stole a quick look at his stunned expression. “You cannot be surprised! I thought you were encouraging him. Your sister did too!”
For a moment he was silent. “Hester is far too young,” was all he could say.
“She’s sixteen!” she exclaimed.
“Her foot…”
“You said yourself that it is almost straight. And besides, it makes no difference.”
“Julia, I can’t consider it.”
She laughed at him. “I have taken you by surprise, your little girl is fully grown, and she deserves the best settlement we can get for her. What good fortune that the most eligible young man is a friend of the family, and she is head over heels in love with him already. We are arranging a love match—the best of all possible worlds.”
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
“She hangs on his every word. Whenever they have been at the Priory, it is all ‘Matthew says…’ and ‘Matthew thinks’—what did you intend when you threw a pretty girl and a handsome young man together for days at a time?”
“I thought they were, all four, children together.”
“Well, the children are grown up, and will have children of their own!”
As if those words unlocked something in him, he stood and pushed back his chair. “It’s not possible,” he said flatly. “They cannot marry.”
She blinked at his tone. “My dear—you’re too late—the lawyers are drawing up the contracts.”
“You cannot have instructed them without me!”
“I did not instruct them. Papa did so. They are his lawyers.”
“Does your father know that I have not been consulted?”
“It’s his fortune that Hester inherits. It’s his lawyers that draw up the contracts.”
“She’s my daughter!”
“But of course. Which is why I want you here at teatime!”
“It cannot be,” he said. “Believe me, Julia, I am completely serious about this. It cannot be.”
“Then you can go and tell Papa,” she said easily.
“I shall go at once, and see your father, and tell him that this cannot happen.” He bit down his anger that she had gone so far, knowingly defying him, and went from the room without another word.
Hester was waiting for him on the turn of the stairs, where she used to wait for him when she was a little girl. As he ran up to his dressing room to get his jacket and his hat, he found here there.
“Papa, are you coming to tea? Did she tell you?”
“She told me. Hester, it’s not possible. You’re both far too young.”
“No, we’re not,” she said reasonably. “And we will be betrothed for a year anyway.”
“There are obstacles, I can’t discuss them with you, but there are insuperable obstacles to the two of you marrying.”
“You like him?”
