Page 92 of In the Prince's Bed
“Heavens, no!” Mrs. Merivale retorted. “He’s not the sort of man we’d want to be associated with.”
“A man with a well-ordered estate, happy tenants, and contented servants?” he snapped.“Thatis the sort of man you would avoid?”
Mrs. Merivale gaped at him, but Katherine merely said in a soft voice, “Mama, you’re speaking of his lordship’s friend. We know nothing about the man but gossip, so perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to judge.” She cast him a sweet smile that reminded him why he preferred her to any other woman he’d met in London.
“Thank you,” he answered.
At least Katherine could appreciate Draker’s admirable qualities, buried deeply though they were. Mrs. Merivale and her ilk could never appreciate them; those fools looked only at appearances. A fortune hunter pretending to be rich was accepted in an instant, but God forbid a respectable, responsible gentleman like Draker, who’d made a few mistakes years ago, should darken society’s doors.
Alec couldn’t wait to be away from such hypocrisy and out in the country with his beautiful new wife, who shared his opinion of society.
“You know, my lord,” Katherine remarked, “this is the first I’ve heard of any of your friends, other than Mr. França. And you haven’t said much about your family either. I don’t even know what your parents looked like. Was your mother dark-haired, too? Or do you get your coloring from your father?”
“I resemble my father to a marked degree, actually,” he said, trying to keep the irony from his voice. Thank God she wouldn’t see a portrait of the old earl until after they were married. “Except for my hair. That I did indeed get from my mother.”
She looked wistful. “I wish I could have met them.”
“Mother would have liked you. As a timid woman, she envied women who could speak their minds.”
Perhaps if she’d spoken her mind to Prinny, she wouldn’t have succumbed to his seductions and carried his bastard. But then Alec wouldn’t have been born.
A loud snore sounded in the carriage. Glancing over at her dozing mother, Katherine flashed him a wry smile. “I would have loved your mother for being timid. Lord knows I’ve endured the opposite long enough.”
“That reminds me—earlier you mentioned your letter-writing duties. What exactly did you mean?”
She shrugged. “I’m the one who corresponds with the housekeeper at Merivale Manor about the children. I choose where our meager funds should be allotted, authorize all expenditures, and approve any requests by the servants for time off or leave to visit family or whatever.”
“In other words, you run the household.”
“Such as it is, yes.”
“When your mother said you always worried about such things, I didn’t realize you were theonlyone to do so.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Did you think Mama would do it? Not likely.”
“But surely in your childhood,someonemust have done such things.”
She nodded. “My grandfather. Until he died six years ago.”
“The two of you must have been very close.”
She stared out at the street that was damp from spring rains. “He was the only one in my family who understood me.”
Which explained why the man had left her a fortune. But it would be Edenmore benefiting from the fruits of her labor, Edenmore profiting from the fortune intended for her own family. “You must enjoy household management, or surely you wouldn’t keep doing it.”
“Actually, I look forward to leaving it all behind.” When she caught him frowning, she added, “Not that I don’t mean to fulfill my wifely duties at your estate—”
“Ourestate,” he corrected her.
She smiled. “Yes, of course. But managing a staff is a far cry from having to perform half the servants’ duties because there’s too much work to go round. Then there’s the incessant concerns about our debts…I’ll be very happy not to have to worry aboutthatanymore.”
“Will you?” he said uneasily. She wouldn’t be leaving her worries and hard work behind. If anything, until he set Edenmore to rights, she’d have more. Because even with her fortune, it would take careful management to do all that must be done.
“Why do you think I read so much poetry? To take my mind off the realities of my life.” She cast him a teasing smile. “But you’ll be happy to know that since I won’t have to worry about such things now, I won’t have to read nearly so much of that stuff you detest.”
Uh-oh. He’d better lay in a large supply of books in verse. He’d need it to soothe her temper when she found out how he’d tricked her.
Blast, blast, blast. He’d assumed that she’d be grateful to be free of her flighty mother and that too-serious idiot Sydney. When she discovered that marrying him had merely forced her to exchange one prison for another, she might not be so grateful. She might even resent having lost Sydney’s wealth and servants and easy life.
