Mary Brendan - Chivalrous Rake, Scandalous Lady

‘I’ll stay…’ Marcus croaked, attempting to swallow a burning lump lodged in his throat. He knew the time now was very near.

‘No!’ Solomon gasped. A smile quivered on his purplish lips. ‘No,’ he repeated gently. ‘Some things a man must do by himself. Dying…choosing a wife…’ He gulped back the small amount left in his glass and, satisfied, gave it over to the doctor. Then he lay back and closed his eyes. ‘Go…’ he told Marcus on an exhalation. ‘Marcus!’ the faint, urgent cry arrested his nephew at the foot of the bed. ‘From the moment you came to me,’ Solomon ejected the words with difficulty, ‘your future happiness was the purpose in my life.’ He sucked in a ragged breath. ‘Now our journey together is done…I go on alone.’ He panted rapidly, striving for the breath to finish, ‘But you know where happiness lies…’

A groan of pain seemed to issue from deep within his uncle’s being and it made Marcus instinctively rush back to clasp one of his freckled hands in support.

‘I shall make him as comfortable as I can,’ Dr Robertson promised gravely. ‘Please, you must go or he will fret and try to struggle on if he thinks you still here. Mrs Paulson will stay until the end.’

Marcus nodded, his eyes feeling gritty and afire with grief. He stooped to kiss his uncle on both sunken cheeks, then in instinctive obeisance he lowered his forehead to touch together their brows.

‘If it wasn’t for the respect I had for the old Earl I’d go right now and offer the new one his choice of weapons.’

Theo Wyndham continued gingerly fingering the bruise on his neck. It had been almost a week since Marcus Speer had turned up in Hanover Square and gripped him by the throat whilst informing him in awful tones what he thought of him, and what he’d next do to him if he had reason to return.

The gentleman to whom Theo had directed his remark was lolling against the window frame, ogling a housemaid’s swaying posterior as she scrubbed the step of a house opposite. Theo’s ludicrous boast caused Graham Quick to snort in derision, but his attention remained riveted on the girl’s jiggling buttocks. Finally he turned to slant Theo a laconic glance. ‘I suppose you do know that Speer has winged at least three fellows who’ve annoyed him.’ Graham’s heavy-lidded eyes dropped to the livid mark on Theo’s neck. ‘God only knows where he’d aim in your case.’ After a last leer at the buxom servant, who was on her way to the side of the house with her bucket, Graham turned to face Theo with an impatient sigh. ‘It takes you an age to get ready, dear chap. Are we off to White’s some time this afternoon…or not?’ A pinch of snuff was deposited on the back of a foppish white hand and immediately sniffed into a fastidious nostril.

In Graham’s opinion Wyndham was fortunate not to have on his person a more severe sign that he’d incensed one of the gentlemen he’d solicited to marry his cousin. Graham unashamedly flouted convention, yet he wasn’t sure even he would have found the effrontery to solicit proposals from fellows who had suffered the ignominy of being spurned by a saucy schoolgirl. In a drawling tone he told Theo so.

‘Nothing wrong with a fellow trying to get his ward wed,’ Theo testily defended himself. ‘It’s my duty, like it or not, to get her settled before she gets any older. Besides, there was only one of them took it badly.’

‘And with good reason, considering he’d just announced his betrothal to the sweetest heiress imaginable,’ Graham interjected ironically. ‘Miss Cleveland has a very tempting dowry.’

Theo’s complexion turned florid and he muttered something about being unaware of any of that. The stale lie only served to elicit another snigger of disbelief from Graham.

In exasperation Theo tugged this way and that the linen he was winding about his neck. At last he seemed satisfied that the intricate bow at his throat hid the worst of the damage and he turned from his reflection to give Graham a smug look. ‘This, I think…’ he waved a note he’d picked up from the desk ‘…adequately proves my point. The chit needs a husband, and I’ve got her one.’

‘I wonder if Miss Bailey will agree with you on that,’ Graham suggested with a hint of malice. ‘You might march her down the aisle, but you can’t make her say her vows. Besides, Stephen Crabbe has his pockets to let. Have you settled on her a juicy portion?’ At Theo’s sullen silence he goaded slyly, ‘Come, tell me—perhaps if the price is right I might be interested in her too.’ His idle remark seemed to amuse him and he erupted in a guffaw. ‘’Spose you’d want me to lend you that cash, too, just so you could give it back to me to take the wench off your hands.’

‘I wouldn’t wish you on any female, let alone my own kin,’ Theo replied scathingly, ignoring the reference to the loans he’d chivvied out of Quick.

Graham grinned. He revelled in his reputation as an insatiable libertine. He found Wyndham a tiresome dolt and a constant drain on his pocket. But Theo had got himself an odd notoriety and Graham liked to be in the thick of things, so had become chummy with him. Unwittingly Theo had managed to worm his way to prominence by creating a drama and casting himself as a central character. Once the debate in Mayfair’s clubs and salons over whether Wyndham had impertinently interfered, or sensibly intervened, in his ward’s life ceased, he would drop him like a hot brick.

Theo was also aware that employing desperate measures to get the Bailey inheritance had turned up a wondrous benefit. He’d gained a little in popularity. He had realised the situation wouldn’t last, so was intending to milk his moment for as long as possible. With that in mind, he released the note advising him that Stephen would be happy to be re-introduced to his ward with a view to making an offer. It floated back to his desk to rest atop the one his ward had sent to him earlier in the week. That communication had arrived the day after Jemma had confronted him at home like a deranged harpy and contained no welcome news. She had not spared his feelings or her adjectives describing her disgust at his behaviour. She had also made it plain she had no intention of succumbing to any plot to get her wed. Theo frowned; Graham Quick had touched a raw nerve when he taunted him that he could not force the obstinate minx to marry against her will. But there was always a way, and he would set his mind to finding it in due course. For now a pleasant afternoon spent holding court at White’s beckoned.

* * *

It was no surprise to Jemma when her maid, Polly, announced that Miss Wyndham was pacing back and forth in her parlour awaiting an audience. Maura had been a visitor to Jemma’s home on Pereville Parade every day since the furore erupted over Theo contacting her spurned suitors. As far as Jemma was concerned the whole idiotic matter was unworthy of such attention, and she was becoming irritated that Maura would not let it wither naturally away.

Jemma had been potting seedlings in the small conservatory set at the back of her neat town house. Now she wiped the soil from her fingers on to a cloth and with a sigh set off towards the parlour to see her cousin. Usually Jemma was pleased to have a visitor, but she suspected Maura would again want to hear the details of her meeting with Marcus Speer, and she had nothing new to tell her. Neither did Jemma want to be constantly reminded of that episode. Since it had occurred, every thought of Marcus made an ache of unbearable poignancy ripple through her. It was impossible not to remember their tense conversation without the memory of his lazy lustful look rushing heat and colour to stain her cheeks. It did so now and she put a cool palm instinctively to her skin to soothe it. Her mind darted to recall how, when a little less hostile to one another, they’d walked side by side as civil companions, if not friends, and she’d felt her uneasiness starting to evaporate. She’d been sure he’d believed her when she’d said she was unaware of Theo’s disgraceful behaviour. But, only a few minutes later, and without any warning or proper farewell, Marcus had abruptly walked away and not once looked back. The memory of having been so rudely abandoned still made her inwardly squirm in indignation.