Wager for a Wife Page 16

  “Louisa—”

  “No!” she cried. She held up one of her hands, her fingers clenched. “Watch and see. One”—she held up her first finger—“both of your parents are deceased, and your father’s death made you viscount. That is two things”—she held up her second finger—“so I will count them as two, just to be generous. Three”—a third finger joined the other two—“your father left you in poverty, and I would wager—ha, wager, indeed.” She chuckled humorlessly at her irony. “I would wager that you are also deeply in debt through his actions. Four, as a result, you have but one item of any value, and it is of great value, at least to me, for what is more valuable than a human life? For that item is the vowel that holds me—my very person—wholly accountable for my grandfather’s sins. Lastly—”

  “Enough, Louisa, please,” William said, feeling as if his soul was being torn asunder. He’d wanted her to speak, had urged her to, but he could no longer bear to hear the pain he had caused her. “You have made your point.”

  “Lastly,” she continued, ignoring him. “You are counting on my father’s love for his only daughter to see you clear of your debts and obligations through the financial benefits marriage to her—to me—will bring you.”

  “Louisa, stop,” William said, again taking her by both shoulders, more firmly this time. Her eyes were large, and her cheeks were streaked with tears, but she looked back at him with fire and defiance. His entire body ached from the strain of hearing her words, words he’d repeated to himself over and over again since that fateful day when Heslop had shown him the vowel. He longed to assure her that she could trust him, that he would do anything for her.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t do it. His father’s words were a never-ending drumbeat in his mind: Stop crying. You’re supposed to be a man. Act like one . . .

  “I am a fool,” she said in a dull voice. “There was never the hope of love for me, was there? Not with you, certainly. And the Earl of Kerridge has once again asked me to marry him. I am one of very few ladies who meet the high standards of the future Duke of Aylesham, you see, and have been forgiven for my flawed judgment in thinking that I—a mere female—should act with honor. I have only ever been a means to an end when it comes to men and marriage—merely a source of income or the breeder of heirs. What a glorious future I have.”

  The bleakness of her words left William cold and hollow, the lump in his stomach a great dead weight. He had brought this terrible injustice upon her. And the knowledge that Kerridge had proposed to Louisa once again—after having the temerity to forgive her for acting honorably—made him want to do violence to the man. He drew her close and wrapped his arms about her, giving her what comfort she would take from him. Thankfully, she came without resistance.

  “There,” he whispered in her ear. “You will feel better now that you’ve shared this, Louisa. You are a verbal creature. Words are your friends, as they are not mine. Be at peace.”

  He kept his arms around her, simply holding her, until at last he felt the tension begin to ease from her body. He kissed her on the cheek and then handed her his handkerchief while keeping his other arm around her.

  She dried her eyes and blew her nose. “I must look a sight.”

  “You look as beautiful as ever; trust me,” he assured her. “No one will be the wiser.”

  She looked up at him with skepticism and then heaved a sigh. “Well, at least it’s dark. I shall simply avoid getting too close to any of the lanterns for the remainder of the evening.”

  “No one will suspect a thing.”

  She tried to hand him his handkerchief.

  “No, you may keep it.”

  They remained silent for several minutes while he held her close, reluctant to let her go, desirous to ask her more about Kerridge without upsetting her further. “Louisa,” he eventually said with the gentlest of tones. “Will you tell me about your encounter with Lord Kerridge? The conversation was clearly upsetting to you.”

  “There is not much to tell. Anthony and I joined the Meltons at the theater last evening, and Lord Kerridge came to their box during intermission when I was alone. He said no one knows anything about you beyond the reputation of your father and that I should act with caution, that everyone would eventually forget my ‘lapse in judgment,’ as he called it, and that his offer of marriage still stands.”

  The dead weight in William’s stomach turned into a mass of strangled knots, and he could hear his father’s voice taunting him now. He’s raised the ante, boy. He’s called your bluff.

  William drew in a slow breath before speaking. “I promised you before I left for Buckinghamshire that I would answer your questions. And I shall. But it is time to return to your parents now, or they will become concerned—if, that is, you are ready to join them.”

  Her gaze dropped to the ground at her feet. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you?” He would not, for the world, make her face the crowds of Vauxhall until she was ready.

  She took several even breaths before lifting her face to his, looking to him as if she’d successfully mastered her emotions. “Truly, I’m fine now, thank you. Besides, they might send my brother out looking for us, and I would hate that above all things.”

  William nodded. Perhaps the worst of it was over. Perhaps he had mitigated the damage Kerridge had caused, blast the arrogant man, although he doubted it. He took her hand in his—no struggling this time, thank goodness—and led her out of the dark wood and back to the lights of Vauxhall and genteel society.

  Oh, and to a plate of thinly sliced ham. Considering the state of his stomach, it would surely be more than enough.

  Chapter 10

  William awoke the following morning feeling a bit unsure. Today, he was going to have to speak openly about his past with Louisa.

  On their way to the supper box, where Louisa’s parents, brother, the duke and dutchess, and Lady Elizabeth had, indeed, been awaiting their return—some more anxiously than others, he’d noted when he’d glanced at Louisa’s parents—he had promised her again that he would call upon her the following afternoon. They had agreed that they would spend the time in the garden of Ashworth House, weather permitting, and she could ask him any question she wished about him.

  William would answer her questions as candidly as possible. He wasn’t sure, however, that their individual definitions of candid were in total accord, and he wouldn’t know until the matter was put to the test.

  He had nearly completed his morning toilet when there was a knock at the door. He wiped the lather from his face and went to investigate.

  “Lord Farleigh,” the rusty voice of Mrs. Gideon called after knocking again. “There’s a man here to see you. Says his name is Wilcox and he was sent here by a Mr. Heslop. He’s got a letter for you and refuses to leave until he’s delivered it personally to you.”

  What could Heslop possibly want that would require personal delivery of this sort? “Thank you, Mrs. Gideon,” William said after unlocking and opening the door to thank her face-to-face. “Tell him I’ll join him presently.”

  He pulled a shirt on over his head and tucked it into his pantaloons and then tugged on his boots, buttoning his waistcoat on his way down the stairs to the sitting room just off the main entrance. He doubted Wilcox, who was one of Heslop’s clerks, would care whether he was properly dressed or not.

  Wilcox jumped to his feet the moment William entered the room. “Good morning, your lordship,” the man said, bowing deferentially to William before producing a sealed letter and handing it to him. “Apologies for the early hour, but it couldn’t be helped, I’m afraid. The matter is urgent, and Mr. Heslop was most insistent that you receive this and respond to it as soon as possible.”

  William broke the seal on the missive and read it. He read it again, his head beginning to throb. He rubbed his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I should have suspected something like this,” he muttered to himself. “I assume
you arrived in a hackney, Mr. Wilcox?”

  “Yes, your lordship. It’s waiting outside.”

  “I need but a few minutes to make myself more presentable, and then I shall be accompanying you back to Mr. Heslop’s office.”

  “Mr. Heslop said to expect that would be the case.”

  William returned to his room, taking the stairs two at a time. He tied his neckcloth into the quickest, most basic knot he could and grabbed his coat and hat. Thank goodness he’d finished shaving before Wilcox arrived.

  Wilcox gave the driver directions and urged him to make haste. When they arrived at the solicitor’s office, Wilcox paid the driver while William rushed inside. He felt a wreck.

  “I’ll let Mr. Heslop know you’ve arrived, your lordship,” his other clerk, Jamison, said, rising to his feet from behind his desk. The clerk stepped into the next office, and William could hear murmuring beyond the door, albeit he was unable to tell how many people besides Heslop were in the other room or what they were saying. He removed his hat and ran his hand over his hair. Always keep a cool head, boy. Keep your thoughts to yourself. Ironic that his father’s words were the ones that once again came to mind in a crisis since the infernal man had created all the crises William had been dealing with.

  Fathers left their mark on their children, for good or for ill.

  Heslop left his office and came forward to shake William’s hand. “Is it true?” William asked him, unable to even greet the man properly first.

  “It appears so, yes,” Heslop replied. “This all comes as quite a shock, to be honest. There was nothing I could find in your father’s papers to indicate he’d . . . done this. But it’s a bit more complicated than even that, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you mean?” William asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

  “It’s best you see for yourself.”

  Heslop opened the door to his office and stood back so William could precede him inside.

  William closed his eyes briefly, braced himself for what he would see, and then opened his eyes and entered the office.

  There, seated facing Heslop’s desk, was a slender, brown-haired woman who appeared to be not many years older than William. She turned at the sound of the door.

  And William instantly understood what the additional complications Heslop had mentioned were—for a little girl sat on her lap, and a young boy a few years older than the girl sat stiffly in the chair next to her.

  “Lord Farleigh,” Heslop said. “Allow me to introduce the dowager Lady Farleigh and her two children, Peter and Daisy Barlow.”

  “Except I never was Lady Farleigh, was I?” the woman said in an evenly modulated tone. “I was only ever Mrs. Barlow, and now I’m not even that.”

  Heslop shot a somber look at William. “Miss Jane Purnell, then,” he said softly. “Miss Purnell, this is William Barlow, Junior, Viscount Farleigh. Your husband’s son by his first wife.”

  William’s vile, accursed, selfish father—oh, there were not enough unsavory words in all the English language to describe the man—had married another woman, but the woman’s words added a dreadful layer of foreboding to Heslop’s letter.

  William watched the boy and girl closely. The boy, Peter, sitting as stiffly as ever, glowered at William. He was brown-haired like his mother and looked to be nearly the age William had been when he’d been sent off to Eton. The little girl had large, dark eyes and curls the same yellow color as William’s own when he’d been a lad. On the little girl, it looked like spun gold. She was chewing her lower lip and watching William closely. He doubted she knew what was going on around her beyond sensing that it was serious.

  The letter Heslop had sent had informed him that his father had taken a second wife and that it had created unforeseen complications that needed immediate attention. William had been an only child, however, so it hadn’t dawned on him in the slightest that those “complications” would be a half brother and half sister. For that was what they were: his siblings.

  Good heavens.

  “Perhaps this is a conversation better had without the children present,” William suggested in a low voice, his lips barely moving.

  “No!” the boy, Peter, exclaimed. “I’m not leaving Mama. And Daisy isn’t either, are you, Daisy?”

  “Mama,” the little girl said, burrowing deeper into her mother’s lap.

  “We can speak in front of the children, Lord Farleigh,” Miss Purnell said. “They are generally aware of the situation in which we find ourselves. I doubt the details will be any more stressing than the generalities already are. And I would prefer to keep them by my side.”

  “It might be possible to find a suitable person to tend your children while we discuss matters best suited to adults, however,” William said in what he hoped was a gentle tone. He was still trying to gather what remained of his wits and maintain a smooth facade. “I doubt the conversation will be of interest to them.”

  “I am keeping my children with me nonetheless,” she said firmly. She was an attractive woman, which shouldn’t have surprised him, considering the singular taste for fine things his father had always had. It certainly applied to his choice of women.

  Heslop looked at William and gave a subtle shrug. “Very well,” the solicitor said. He scooped up the folder of documents on his desk and handed it to William. “These are the papers she brought to me yesterday, including a few I have added since then.”

  William rested his hip against the corner of the desk and perused the documents one by one before looking up. “It says here that your marriage to my . . . to the former Viscount Farleigh, was on—”

  “Christmas Eve 1796. That is correct, milord.”

  “But that’s—”

  “Before the first Mrs. Barlow, Lady Farleigh, was deceased. Yes, I know that now. I did not know it at the time and only discovered the truth of it yesterday when we came to talk to Mr. Heslop; he has been very kind in explaining the particulars to me. My marriage is null and void, I have come to understand, and my children, therefore, are illegitimate.”

  Confound his father! He’d betrayed William’s mother in the most heinous of ways, but he’d used this woman just as badly. The guilt and shame William felt over the actions of his father fell on him like a heavy mantle that threatened to suffocate him.

  Peter—William’s half brother, for heaven’s sake!—obviously knew what the word illegitimate meant, if the scowl on his face was any indication. “I hate him,” the boy muttered.

  “Allow me to summarize, your lordship,” Heslop said. “Your father married Miss Purnell under false pretenses—”

  “He told me he was a widower,” Miss Purnell added. “That he was Mister William Barlow. I never even knew he was a viscount.”

  Heslop nodded in acknowledgment and then continued. “As he was at Farleigh House in London rather than with Miss Purnell when he died, the servants there had his remains escorted to Buckinghamshire for burial in the family cemetery at Farleigh Manor, leaving Miss Purnell none the wiser.”

  “He was often away, sometimes for several weeks at a time,” Miss Purnell added. “He had responsibilities, he said, though he never talked about them, and I stopped asking. I didn’t know anything was wrong until a man showed up asking me for the mortgage money; he said back money was owed as well.” She blinked back tears, and William couldn’t help but feel compassion for her. He’d watched his own mother struggle with his father over similar things when William was no more than Peter’s age now, and things had only gotten worse over time. “William always told me the house was mine,” she added. “That he’d bought it for me and Peter and Daisy. I thought it was all paid for.” She fumbled in her reticule for a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes and nose, then she straightened her back and lifted her chin. “I’m sorry, Mr. Heslop. Please continue with your explanation.”

  “Miss Purnell discovered my name and direction amongst the viscount’s belongings. She arrived here yesterday with questions.”

 
; “Ah,” was all William could think to say.

  “I didn’t become worried about him—he’d been gone only a few weeks, you see—when your betrothal announcement was printed in the papers,” Miss Purnell said. “It listed your name, William Barlow. Just like his name. It was such a coincidence, and I couldn’t ignore it. It got me wondering . . . He would never speak about his past, you see. I should have persisted in asking, I see that now, but I never did. He was older than me, so very imperious . . .” She looked down at her children. “Well, it doesn’t matter, because eventually, he spent little time with us. And then when the man, the landlord, I suppose he was, showed up, demanding money . . .”

  Heslop took up the rest of the story when she faltered. “Sadly, I provided her with the answers she needed but did not expect,” he said. “I thought you had better be a participant in our conversations.”

  “What of your own family, Miss Purnell?” William asked.

  “I have no family. I met William when I was a governess, but those days are long behind me. He was an acquaintance of my employer; at least he attended a house party my employer hosted. That was when we met.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “I didn’t know he was dead,” she whispered. She patted her daughter’s curls and held her close; still, William suspected she was mostly comforting herself. The little girl had lost interest in the adult conversation around her and had fallen asleep on her mother’s lap.

  “Will you excuse Lord Farleigh and me, Miss Purnell?” Heslop asked her. “Perhaps you could use a few minutes alone.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He and William left the office and moved slightly away from the closed door. Wilcox and Jamison were busy at work, dutifully minding their own business. Heslop had trained his employees well.

  “I have informed Miss Purnell that even if the legitimacy of the marriage had been proven sound, there wouldn’t be any inheritance—that you are the rightful heir. I also mentioned the debts. She’s a bright woman, milord; she understands that she has been left with no home, no source of income, and two children to support in addition to herself—all while discovering that her marriage was a sham and that her illegitimate husband died without her knowledge. It’d be quite a blow for anyone, poor woman.”