Dennis Wheatley - The Rape Of Venice

'They are the same, Sir,' Roger replied and, having hesitated only for a second, he added, 'After your father's death the onetime Miss Marsham did me the honour to become my wife.'

Winters raised his sandy eyebrows in feigned surprise. 'Indeed. I am glad to hear it, Sir. It may make the object of my visit easier for us to agree upon. Since my father did not arrive here in company with you, I had small hope that he had been saved. I came mainly, therefore, to discuss with you the matter of a marriage settlement entered into by him in favour of your niece. Mr. Musgrove, the lawyer who drew it up, was also one of the survivors from the Minerva. He told me of its provisions and, I must confess, I was greatly shocked to learn that my poor father, owing to his infatuation, had shown in it such neglect of my interests.'

'Pray proceed, Sir,' said Roger quietly.

'Since the young lady is now married to yourself and so no doubt, handsomely provided for, I hope I may take it that she will not put forward any claim to this settlement made upon her as Mrs. Winters.'

'You go a little fast, Sir. I cannot speak for her, and we have not even discussed the matter since the settlement was entered into. But the fact that she has since become my wife has no bearing on the matter. She is still entitled…'

Roger got no further. Jumping to his feet, Winters pointed an accusing finger and cried, 'Oh yes it does! It sets the seal on what I suspected the moment Mr. Musgrove told me of this iniquitous settlement. I guessed then that it was my father' fortune that led your hussy to exercise her wiles upon him. Now, 'tis clear, you set her on. Otherwise you would not since have married her. Why should you have if not to make certain of getting your own hands on the money? You feared that if you didn't she might run off with some other rogue. But neither of you shall have a penny of it! I'll show you up in the courts for the pair of villainous adventurers that you are!'

With difficulty Roger kept his temper, but his blue eyes had gone dangerously hard. Pointing at his sword, which hung from a hook on the wall, he said, 'Mr. Winters, for what you have said I could call you out; and believe me, I am accounted no mean swordsman. But your father was a very decent man and, although you are labouring under a series of misapprehensions, I can appreciate how these matters must appear to you. Fortunately, there have been no witnesses to the unjust aspersions you have cast upon my self and the lady who now bears my name; so I can afford to ignore them. Be pleased, though, to heed this warning. Should you repeat them in public, I will make you pay dearly for it, both in your pocket and your person.'

'You may bluster as you will, Sir,' Winters retorted. 'Your threats shall not stop me exposing the cheat you put upon my father and defending the fortune which is now rightly mine. You thought, did you not, that you and your woman were the only survivors of the Minerva:, so that you could come here and rob with impunity! In that you were mistaken, and it will prove your undoing. Mr. Musgrove and the others all knew her as your niece. By marrying her before you had made certain they were dead, you have over-​reached yourself. By having had the effrontery to continue your incestuous intercourse here in this hotel, you have played into my hands. Incest is a crime! A crime, Sir, and a most serious one! For having been parties to it, I mean to send you both to rot in prison.'

With those last words young Winters flung out of the room and, as the door slammed behind him, Roger gave a heavy sigh. To act the bully was most repugnant to him, yet he had been forced into doing so with both father and son; and with the latter it had not succeeded.

At that moment Clarissa came running in from the bedroom, exclaiming anxiously, 'Who was that, Roger? I heard raised voices; so I packed off my dressmaking woman. You were quarrelling with someone. Who was it?'

He gave her a rueful smile. 'It was young Winters. When he was first announced I had a most awful fright. I thought it was your late husband, saved from Davy Jones's locker to confound us. Thank God it was not; but near a hundred others who were with us in the Minerva have been saved.'

'That is wonderful news.'

'It is, except as it affects ourselves. This young man has learned from Mr. Musgrove, and others among them, about your ensnaring his papa and the marriage settlement. Finding us ensconced here like a pair of turtle doves, he not unnaturally jumped to the conclusion that from the beginning you had been my moll and that we deliberately plotted to rob his papa,'

'How dare he!' Clarissa's eyes flashed. 'And out of the kindness of my heart, I had meant to let him off with a payment of fifty thousand. Now he shall pay every penny of the hundred thousand.'

Roger stared at her. 'My pet, it amazes me to hear that you meant to claim any part of this money. I told him that we had not discussed it, and I was actually on the point of saying that, although you are legally entitled to it, I felt confident you would take no action in the matter, when the young fool cut me short and began to make his accusations against us.'

'What is the point of having a marriage settlement if one does not benefit from it?' she asked innocently.

He shrugged. 'In normal circumstances a woman has every right to do so. In this case, I exacted the maximum terms I could get for you from Winters for two reasons. First, so that you might use them as a powerful bargaining weapon at any time you wished to leave him. Second, so that should you decide to remain on and run his house until he died, you would be compensated for your lost years with a fine fortune. But neither of these cases now applies. You are already free of him and I consider it would be morally wrong to take from his son a big sum which you have done nothing to deserve.'

'But Roger, I want this money. The thought that by coming to Calcutta I could obtain it quickly has been my great consolation for leaving the paradise in which we lived while at Zanzibar.'

"My love; as you have always been a poor relation and dependent on others' generosity, I can well understand that this chance to achieve financial security weighs more with you than it would with most women. But I pray you to remember that you need no longer have any fears for your future, because you are now my responsibility. If you wish it, without waiting until we can marry I will willingly settle a good round sum upon you.'

Her mouth twitching in a smile, she asked, 'Pray what is the size of your fortune, Mr. Brook?'

'Between thirty and forty thousand pounds; and I'll settle ten thousand of it on you tomorrow if you wish.'

Jumping onto his lap, she threw her arms round his neck and cried in delight, 'Oh, my own darling one, how I do love you! Yet there are times when you are the most foolish of men, I do not want this money for myself. I know now that as long as you live you will provide for me and, should you die, then I'll die too, of a broken heart. But here is a chance for me to become a fine parti; and being a woman, I'll have no scruples in taking it. Can you not realise the intense joy it will be to me, instead of coming to you empty handed, to bring you a dowry of fifty, nay, a hundred, thousand pounds?'

;My sweet! My sweet!' Clasping her to him so that her cheek was against his, he shut his eyes and gently shook his head. 'You overwhelm me, and I am more than ever ashamed that for so long I rejected the wondrous gift of your love. What you decide about the settlement is your affair, and it is not for me to seek to deprive you of the pleasure of giving. Yet I pray you to remember that you did ensnare Winters not for money, it is true, but for your own ends; so it would be ungenerous to deprive his son of a portion of his fortune sufficiently large to prejudice his future.'