Page 62 of Miss Dashing
“Papa. I don’t want to call him that. Isaac. He wouldn’t admit to colluding with Johnny, but he intends to support Johnny’s claim on me right up to the courts and beyond, if necessary.”
When dealing with a fractious beast, Phillip usually took the approach of first deducing what inspired the animal to bad manners and contrariness. Herd politics might play a role. A tummy ache, fear, inexperience, or a simple need for time to absorb new surroundings could all come to bear. Rarely was an animal difficult for no discernible reason.
The Bromptons were driven by money, the lack of it, the lust for it. Sorting out their motivation took no effort at all. “They are after your fortune.”
She nodded. “And I would wish them the joy of it, except that in their hands, the money won’t last five years. Charlie and Eglantine’s children will come of age as paupers, Uncle Nunn’s beautiful estate—his memorial to his lady wife—will collapse from dry rot, and Portia and Flavia will become spinsters.”
And Hecate cared for those people, even as she loathed the man her mother had married. “You are like a yeoman,” Phillip said. “Nature has dealt you blow after blow, but if you don’t get out of bed each morning and strike back against the incessant rain, falling markets, and crumbling pasture walls, your family will suffer, and all those folk in the cities will have no bread at any price. So you get up, face the day, and carry on, tending your patch.”
“They are my family, Phillip. If I marry Johnny, the money will be frittered away. If I don’t marry Johnny, he will bring suit for breach of promise and demand my fortune in damages. Papa apparently has some papers I unknowingly signed that qualify as settlement agreements. I can repudiate them, but I’ve had ten years to do that and haven’t. I’m sure Johnny will make that point to a very sympathetic jury.”
“And then Johnny will fritter away the funds withoutevenmarrying you.”
Phillip had dropped off to sleep last night the first time, anticipating shared pleasures with his beloved. In his worst imaginings, he could not have conjured waking to this mare’s nest of intrigue, greed, and arrogance.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You don’t deserve this, and it’s certainly not your fault.”
Hecate rested her forehead against his shoulder, bringing him a bracing whiff of her rosy scent. “Thank you. The words help.”
Words could make no difference, though, to the misery pressing in on her from all sides. Phillip put an arm around her shoulders.
“You could marry me. Spike their guns, steal a march on the invaders.” Not how he’d wanted to propose, but Hecate needed to know she had the option.
She straightened, staring hard at the rain dripping down the window. “Marry you.”
Phillip waited, his heart sinking when she shook her head.
“That would only embroil you in the whole mess,” she said. “Johnny can sue me just as easily if I’m married to you, more easily, in fact, because my perfidy—throwing him over for a marquess’s heir—would be obvious.”
Well, damn, but her logic was irrefutable. “Brompton said something last night about taking the matter to the court of public opinion. Said he’d ruin the young ladies, blacken Charlie’s and Isaac’s names, do worse to Edna’s and Eglantine’s reputations. Was he boasting, or can he achieve those ends?”
“He will turn on Isaac in an instant if he thinks that will support his objective, and Isaac will turn on him.” Hecate rose and went to the window. She made a lovely, sad picture in the watery morning light, and she’d done something different with her hair.
“I am afraid, Phillip. I have been afraid for most of my life. Afraid Papa was angry with me, afraid the other girls wouldn’t like me, afraid my family will create a scandal I cannot make go away with my money. I am so tired of being afraid, but Johnny is ruthless, and Isaac is mean. A word in the wrong ears, an innuendo in the clubs, a wager left for all the gents to see on the betting books… Johnny and Isaac can and will wreck the lives of innocents to get what they feel they deserve.”
And then they’d make those lives a misery anyway, in all likelihood. Hecate could limit the damage somewhat, but she’d need solicitors and bankers and endless guile to do so.
Phillip slipped his arms around her from behind. “My father wrote a codicil to his will. If I ventured away from Crosspatch Corners, if I set foot outside my rural backwater, I’d lose the home I dearly love. I convinced myself, eventually, that I wasn’t the venturing sort, because believing that of myself was the only way to preserve contentment.”
“I’m not the only person cursed with a vile wretch where a doting father should be?”
“No, but my point, Hecate, is that the codicil was unenforceable. The legal particulars hadn’t been observed, and the condition was vague, and so on. And yet, I let my entire life be limited by the fear of losing my home. I understand the burden placed on you, and I will share it any way you allow me to.”
Don’t send me away. Don’t banish me. Please not you too.Rather than beg—and burden her with importuning—he held her. She turned and wrapped her arms around him.
“It’s as if Johnny went away to Canada and came back a different man. I wanted to go with him. Wanted the simple solution of being an officer’s wife, far from polite society and grasping relations. He gently refused, and advised me to remain unwed as long as I could. I would have sworn he meant that advice kindly and not for his own purposes. But why refuse me then, only to demand my hand now?”
“Are you wealthier now?”
“Considerably. I am good at investing and not averse to an occasional risk.”
Had Phillip fallen into that category for her? A little deviation from good sense and decorum? Would she talk herself into believing that description if left to fret long enough over her perfidious cousin’s scheme?
“Johnny cannot file his suit tomorrow,” Phillip said, stroking Hecate’s hair. “He’ll have to ingratiate himself with Society first, spread the appropriate rumors, be seen to pine for you from afar. We have some time.”
Hecate burrowed closer. “Time for what?”
“I will acquaint Tavistock with the situation, and he is connected to half the peerage through his step-mother. If Johnny thinks to fire the first shot across Mayfair’s ballrooms, he will find himself late to the battle.”
