Page 88 of Lady Daring
“I’ll make a point of it,” the marquess agreed.
“Well, good day, then,” the duchess said. “Clarinda, I’ll send a footman round to you later. I want to know where you get that butter.”
“And just like that,” Henrietta said after the duchess departed, “you’re all friends again, and will chum together at the clubs, even though you ruined her daughter and her son shot you.”
“Well, of course,” the marquess said. “There ain’t that many of us at this rank, gel. We may fight like the sons of Atreus, but we have to stick together in the end.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Darien said.
“She is learning,” Clarinda said kindly. “And now her daughter is provided for. Well done, Hetty.”
“That’s one solved,” the marquess said with a nod. “Once Jasper is home, we’ll draw up settlements, so that’s another.” He set his plate aside.
“I haven’t agreed to anything,” Henrietta reminded them all, but no one was listening. The marquess regarded his son.
“There’s one more matter we need to settle, puppy,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Darien heard the stir below when Sir Jasper returned that afternoon, shaking off the dust of the Great North Road. There followed the sound of quick, booted steps on the stairs first to the family parlor, then the nursery as Jasper threw himself into the embrace of his loving wife and daughters. Darien wondered what explanation was being given for his presence, and what Jasper would have to say about it.
Jasper was quite a different father than the marquess had been, taking a keener interest in his children’s daily lives. Darien knew which pattern he would follow if Henrietta ever granted him the great good fortune of setting up a household with him.
He set aside his book when Henrietta came in later, her face drawn and white, to report that a summons had come from a footman in royal livery, scheduling an audience with His Majesty the King at the request of Prime Minister Pitt. Clarinda convened a war council, calling it dinner, and the marquess consented to attend.
Darien intercepted his father when he arrived at Hines House. He needed to warn him, in private, of the role Wardley-Hines funds had played in the wars in Mysore. The marquessmight change his mind about Henrietta, though Darien would not.
“His money supported General Cornwallis’s troops?” The marquess stood at the window of the blue parlor, looking over the square, his fists clenched over the skirts of his dress coat. Darien thought again of those white streaks beneath his wig.
“For the Third War, as I understand it,” Darien answered.
The marquess sighed heavily and turned. “That wasn’t the battle that took Lucien anyway. He disappeared after the Treaty of Mangalore, after the Second War. I wish to God I knew where he is.” He met his son’s eyes, his expression bleak. “Kings will have their way with us, lad. ’Tis how the world turns.”
Not in the American colonies, Darien thought, and it seemed not in France either. His father belonged to an old order, as did the Wardleys. But the Hines were of a new order, one that prided industry over birth and name. Darien offered her an alliance with one of Britain’s oldest peerages, and Henrietta Wardley-Hines was the only woman in the realm who did not spring at the title.
He wondered what it would take to persuade her. What he could possibly offer that would make her want to bind herself to him.
“Hello, Uncle Daring,” said a timid voice, and Darien turned with disbelief as a young woman entered the room. She was a slim young thing of fourteen, with yards of midnight hair and the Bales blue eyes.
“Horatia? Why on earth did he drag you down from Bellamy Hall?”
“Grandfather thought I might like to see London.”
Darien guessed that producing his niece was a last, desperate gambit in his father’s campaign to guilt Darien into taking charge of Horace’s estate. The girl did not appear to be thriving in his cousin Rathbone’s care; she was rail-thin and dressed in achildish white frock that accented her pallor. The knowledge was a fresh lash in an open wound. Darien had failed Lucretius, and he was failing Horatia too.
Henrietta took the girl in hand before introductions were completed. “You lovely thing! Come meet my sisters and the baby,” and she whisked Horatia to the nursery, no doubt to regale his impressionable niece with tales of reform societies, charitable works, and Wollstonecraft. By the time they sat to table, Henrietta had brought another stray to her bosom and Horatia was in thrall.
Darien could not say he was surprised. Who would not want to be in Henrietta’s orbit? Who would not want to dwell in that pure, sane, steady light?
It occurred to him that he might use Horatia to ally Henrietta to his cause, then realized over dinner that his father intended to use the same tactic. The marquess responded to Sir Jasper’s friendly questions about Bellamy with a grim picture of an estate left in limbo after Lucretius died. With the legal guardian absent, Rathbone could spend the estate’s income as he wished but saw no reason to invest in the land or Horatia’s care.
Construction on the canal Darien designed had stalled, and after a bad harvest, the tenants had ground the year’s seed corn to get them through the winter. Hoof-rot had decimated the sheepfold, and there were more women and children in the workhouse than the parish had ever seen. Rathbone raised rents and yet claimed there was no money for improvements, while he and his wife attended the races, hunting parties, and assembly balls.
Henrietta’s eyes lit with a fire Darien recognized as the marquess described a forsaken people who, while not yet in starvation, were watching it limp down the road toward them.
“All this because Lord Lucien was lost in Mysore.” Sir Jasper put down his knife. “You must know the King used a loan of mine to fund the last war.”
“I do not hold you responsible.” The marquess’s gaze held steady, as did his voice.
