Page 6 of About a Rogue
“Respectability,” she said crisply. “No outrageous behavior. Sobriety. The Dukes of Carlyle have long held positions of power in Westminster, and you would do well to take an interest in politics so that you are prepared to acquit yourselves well when you sit in the House of Lords. If you do not, someone else will be happy to take advantage of you, sooner or later.” She paused. “And I have always felt a wife settles a man. The next duke will need a legitimate heir. A suitable bride is necessary, and I advise you to turn your attention to finding one.”
“We must marry?” asked the captain, a faint frown touching his face.
“The Duke of Carlyle will need an heir,” she repeated. “If you do not provide one, Captain, Mr. St. James would become the heir presumptive.”
Max and the soldier exchanged a fleeting glance.Not bloody likely, thought Max of his chances of becoming heir to the dukedom under that man. The captain was the sort who did what was expected of him. No doubt he was thinking of a woman right now who would leap at the chance to become his future duchess.
Not that Max could blame him. Everyone in this room knewhewould be a terrible duke.
“Mr. Edwards will answer any further questions,” said the duchess as the clock chimed softly. She got to her feet, and a large ginger cat strolled from beneath her chair with a yawn and a stretch.
“If I may, Your Grace...” The soldier leapt forward to help her, bending solicitously near as he offered his arm. Max caught a few quiet words as they walked toward the door, and gathered the captain was concerned particularly about the question of a wife. Max could have sworn the fellow was asking the duchess to choose a woman for him.
Thank God he wouldn’t have that problem. He turned to the solicitor, who sat with smooth hands folded neatly on his papers. “An annuity for good behavior.”
Edwards’s spectacles gleamed. “Her Grace wishes it.”
“And are you the man who shall judge that her conditions are met?”
“I am.”
“Marriage,” said Max thoughtfully. “Sobriety. Those are well-defined; a man is married, or he is not. He drinks, or he does not. Respectability...” He made an equivocating motion with one hand. “That is less objective.”
“I grasp your concern.” Mr. Edwards removed his spectacles. “My advice would be to consider whether or not you would be content to acknowledge your actions in the town square. If you would proclaim them proudly, I believe you’ll have little to fear from Her Grace.”
Max thought not. He thought that the duchess would be appalled by a solid half of the things he had done in town squares, to say nothing of what he’d done in gaming hells and theater boxes and pleasure gardens. But then, Her Grace had no conception of what his life had been.
“I see,” he replied politely to the attorney.
The captain was still speaking with the duchess, his shoulders hunched over as he bent his head down to hers. Max rested one hand on his hip and tapped his fingers. The velvet of his coat was worn there from the nervous habit. What was the captain so eager to know?
He couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was trying to steal a march on him somehow. But how? The captain, as the duchess had spelled out earlier, had a nearer claim than Max, and nothing either of them did would change that. The captain had the inside lane already.
But if the duchess approved of the captain’s bride, she might settle an additional amount on him. Was that what the man was after? Fifteen hundred pounds per annum was significant—a bloody fortune, in Max’s eyes—but it was surely a trifle to the mistress of Carlyle Castle. “Does she expect to choose our brides?” he murmured, only partly to the solicitor.
Mr. Edwards’s face grew pained. “Indeed not. Surely—surely you wouldn’t think of wedding an actress or a courtesan?”
“No,” said Max, smiling faintly at the confirmation that the attorney did, in fact, expect him to do precisely that. “Nothing like it.” His gaze lingered on the captain. That fellow wanted the duchess’s approval desperately, and he wasn’t hiding it.
Max instinctively recoiled from doing the same. The duchess thought he was a thoroughgoing rogue already, incapable of making a correct decision. If the captain—who obviously stood far higher in her favor—allowed her to ride roughshod over him, she would think Max deserved it, too, if not worse.
Max wasn’t about to let the duchess, or anyone, pull his strings.
But perhaps... perhaps she had handed him the chance to cut those strings once and for all.
Chapter Two
For almost sixty years, a pottery works at the bottom of Marslip Hill had produced earthenware by the Tate family. It was in all respects a family business; each new generation of children was exposed to all aspects of the industry, to see where they might fit in best. Brides were wed from neighboring families, knowing what to expect and proud to ally themselves with the Tates.
Like many family businesses, it had been the desire of each generation of Tates to see his sons join him and take over the works eventually. For three generations it had happened just that way. But the current owner, Samuel Tate, had no sons, only two daughters. And although he loved them both dearly, never had he wished for sons more than on this day, in the middle of this blistering argument with not just one but both daughters at once.
“Papa!” Bianca was in a full-fledged fury. “You’ve gone mad!”
“Not a bit,” he returned. “It’s a brilliant idea and will be the making of us.”
“The making ofyou,” she flung back. “Not Cathy! You’re trying to ruin her life!”
They both turned toward the elder sister, who had sat mute and morose through the entire argument. At their regard, tears obligingly welled up in her big blue eyes. One streaked down her pink cheek as if trailed by the brush of an artist. “No, Bee,” she protested, her voice raspy from tears. “That’s too far...”
