Page 61 of Unmasked by the Marquess
Portia Allenby, who was no doubt used to all manner of shocking creatures showing up on her doorstep, still stared at him in openmouthed astonishment for a few seconds before recovering her aplomb.
“My lord,” she said.
“I have a matter to discuss with you.”
She nodded wordlessly and led the way to a room at the back of the house. From a chamber off to the side, he could hear laughter and music. This, he realized with a pang, was a happy house. That was why Robin had liked it here. Perhaps that was what had brought his father here too. Alistair would never have this for himself—a house where laughter echoed through the hallways, a place people wanted to be. But it didn’t matter. It had never occurred to him to want such a thing, so it shouldn’t pain him to know he’d never have it.
“I’d like to make arrangements for the girls,” he said, gripping the back of the nearest chair. “Settlements.”
“Oh,” she said, her eyes wide. “I was not expecting that.”
That sounded like she had thought he had come for some other purpose, but he’d deal with that later. “Do they have anything now?” he asked.
“Six thousand to split between the three of them,” she replied, sitting in a low gilt chair. “Your father was very generous with us,” she said slowly, but with no trace of apology. “However, most of it has gone to school fees and governesses.”
He had already gathered as much. He had seen Amelia Allenby often enough by now to know that she had been raised as a lady, and that level of finish cost money. Remembering his own manners, he sat in the chair instead of digging his nails into its upholstery. “I quite understand,” he said, and tried to sound like someone who hadn’t been in the practice of judging this woman’s finances for years.
“To be entirely honest, they don’t need any more.” She regarded him frankly. “Two thousand pounds apiece isn’t a grand sum, not by any means, but it will do.”
It was a pathetic sum for the acknowledged daughters of a marquess. “I was thinking of giving them each three thousand pounds.” Five thousand pounds was still not a grand dowry—three times that amount would not even be a grand dowry. But in Alistair’s scheme, it wasn’t only the money, but the family connection, that would serve these girls. By publicly settling money on them, he would be announcing that his sisters were under his protection. “It wouldn’t be a dowry, but for them to do with as they please once they come of age. If you consent, that is.”
He thought of Robin, without family, without protection. He remembered what lengths she had gone to when her sister-in-law had been left similarly alone. And he imagined what would happen to his half sisters if Mrs. Allenby died. For all he knew, they had friends and relations by the dozen. But he would do his part to let the world know that the Marquess of Pembroke stood by his family.
“Three thousand each,” Mrs. Allenby repeated. “I didn’t think you had that much at the ready.” Her eyes opened wide. “Oh drat, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You’re quite right. I don’t. But I can put a thousand pounds a year away, so that when Amelia comes of age she’ll have her three thousand, and then when the other two—” for the life of him he could not recall their names “—come of age, they’ll have the same.”
“Frances and Eliza,” she said.
He nodded. “Frances and Eliza,” he repeated.
“I hardly know what to say.”
He rose to his feet. “Don’t say anything. If my father had lived, he would have done more, and we both know it.”
“You’re wrong there. If your father had lived, he’d have run the estate into the ground. I loved the man, but he couldn’t keep sixpence in his pocket. Now, I think you ought to go into the drawing room.”
Alistair didn’t think he had it in him to play the part of the elder brother, but he followed the sounds of laughter and conversation to the drawing room door. There, in the same room where he had listened to the cat-carrying astronomer while flirting with Robin, were the three Allenby girls and an elderly woman.
With a start he realized that the other woman was Miss Cavendish, the treacherous Aunt Agatha. What the actual devil was she doing in this house? Or anywhere in London, for that matter? He had driven past the house Robin and Miss Selby had leased for the season and found it closed up, the door knocker removed and no trace of servants within. He had assumed that Miss Cavendish had returned to wherever it was she came from. Northumberland, or perhaps whatever circle of hell was reserved for people who played fast and loose with laudanum. If Robin had been hurt, Alistair would have seen that old witch in a noose.
The two younger girls fell awkwardly silent when they saw Alistair at the threshold. Amelia rose politely to her feet and dropped into a curtsy.
“Oh, it’s you,” Miss Cavendish said.
Ah, so they were both equally delighted to see one another. It was so much more comfortable when antipathy was mutual.
“Delighted, ma’am,” he responded, bowing first to her and then to the girls.
“I’ve had a letter from Louisa,” Miss Cavendish said, looking impossibly smug. “Or, I should say, Lady Gilbert. She and Lord Gilbert are staying at an inn in the Lake District. They traveled directly there from Scotland.” If she had stuck her tongue out at him or thumbed her nose, she still wouldn’t have looked more smugly satisfied with herself than she did that moment.
“How lovely for them,” he responded affably, as if it were not at all insulting that Gilbert had not bothered to write to his own brother but Louisa had found time to inform her sister-in-law’s poisoner. Perhaps Gilbert’s attention was taken up by his bride. Or perhaps Alistair had thrown away all brotherly confidence by behaving like a controlling bastard for so many years. “And where is Mr. Selby? Did either he or Miss Church accompany them on their wedding trip?” He made this reference to Miss Church with a very pointed look at the old lady.
Miss Cavendish narrowed her eyes, and remained silent for the moment it evidently took her to conclude that Alistair knew about Charity’s double role but was not going to reveal it. “Not that I know of,” was her only answer.
He forced himself to sit down and drink the tea Mrs. Allenby poured him. He listened to the middle child—Frances, he recalled—play the harp, and admired one of Eliza’s drawings. Only Amelia remained reserved, quietly observing him.
Why had they gone to Scotland? He couldn’t make sense of it. They had the special license and they had Robin to give consent. There was no need to go all the way to Scotland; with Gilbert’s arm in a sling and Louisa still recovering, it would have been a grueling journey. Robin would not have allowed it unless it were absolutely necessary.
