Barbara Metzger (9 page)

Clarence sank back, defeated. He brightened when he spotted the last slice of buttered toast.

Delia, meanwhile, had begged the others’ pardons and stepped away to read the letter. She would study it later, and likely weep over George’s final words to her, but skimmed it quickly now. Ty, meanwhile, poured himself a cup of tea and commandeered the toast.

When she was finished reading, Delia looked up and said, “But this says nothing about—

“Waiting. I know,” Tyverne told her. “That is why I procured a special license on my way here.” He patted another coat pocket. Then he turned to Gwen, Lady Croft. “I thought a simple ceremony, just the family and closest friends, because of our recent loss. I am sure you would know better the proper form for these things, while honoring George’s wishes.”

“George did not—” Delia began, only to find her mouth full of toast.

Clarence was shaking his head. “George never did have a particle of sense. Going off to war half-cocked when there was no need.”

Ty suddenly lost his appetite for tea. “There was every need, for each and every brave lad.”

“I’ll grant you brave, but my cousin was nothing but a hey-go-mad hellion.”

His wife nodded, the stuffed head of the poor dead creature bobbing on her chest. “Just look at the mess he left.”

“He left me alive to remedy the situation.” Ty drew himself up to his considerable height, in formidable, rigid military stance despite his weakened state. “Lieutenant Croft, your cousin Sir George, saved my life. That is enough.”

Clarence waved a fleshy hand in the air. “Right, right. No need to get in a taking, I say. Oughtn’t speak ill of the dead at any rate. Still and all, George never told
me
his wishes, so you cannot marry Dilly. Um, Delia. I gave her hand to Dallsworth.”

Ty looked down at the woman next to him. He saw two delicate appendages formed into serviceable fists. “These do not seem taken,” he said, taking both of them into his much larger hands before Miss Croft could decide to use them. “Nor do I see a ring on any finger.”

Delia tried to wrench her hands away, a futile endeavor for sure, considering the viscount-major’s superior size, strength, and determination to outmaneuver Clarence. Her color was heightened, Ty noted, although not as high as near apoplectic Clarence’s, nor the shade of his wife’s, who was in a pinkish gown more suited for a young girl—a thin young girl.

While Delia kept struggling to free her hands, Ty decided that the added color made Miss Croft deuced attractive. Not as pretty as when she smiled, of course, but vibrant, alive, alluring, especially with her red hair coming out of its neat coil to curl around her cheeks. Besides, he was coming to admire her spirit.

To avoid creating more of a scene than he already had, Ty let go of one of Miss Croft’s hands, but he kept the other. It felt right here, just the right size and softness. He was enjoying the feel of her smooth, ungloved skin in his so much, in fact, that he brought it to his lips.

She stomped on his feet. His bare feet. Perhaps a bit less spirit would be a bit more admirable.

Clarence was still sputtering. “And you could not have her anyway, not without my permission, because she is still underage.”

“Ah, but I thought a special license was for just such eventualities.”

The special license meant age or permission or reading of the banns were all unnecessary, and Clarence knew it. With that document in hand, Delia could wed the devil himself, or the linen draper. “But
...
but I do not have to release her dowry, if she marries against my will.”

“Oh, did you have a dowry, my dear?” Ty asked Delia, as if such a thought had never occurred to him, which, in all honesty, it had not. Money was not important here, not to him, at any rate. “I assure you I will not miss it.” He squeezed her hand slightly when she would have spoken, then addressed her cousin: “But tell me, Sir Clarence, do you intend to refuse my suit? That is, if I do decide I should ask you, despite having the lady’s brother’s approval.”

“Of course I will deny you. Already gave the nod to Dallsworth, I said.”

Ty ignored mention of his would-be rival. “Now that I think on it, Miss Croft’s dowry would be welcome, to settle on any daughters the match might produce. Sons, naturally, will be handsomely provided for from the estate. I wonder how you would explain that to my solicitors, withholding your blessings, and the dower monies, from a marriage between your cousin and a St. Ives. The St. Ives heir, in fact. You are not questioning my ability to support Miss Croft in fitting manner, I assume.” His gaze traveled around the parlor, which, while neater and grander than most of his recent army billets, would have fit inside the entry halls of half his father’s houses. “One can only gather, therefore, that you are finding fault with my character.”

This last was spoken softly, not so much a statement as a challenge. Ty might have tossed a glass of wine in the baronet’s choleric face, if he had a glass of wine, or slapped Clarence’s rounded cheeks with his glove, if he was wearing any. Instead, he skewered the corpulent coxcomb with his blue-eyed stare. “I think that would be a mistake.”

Croft’s wife was clutching his arm, wrinkling the fabric and possibly saving her husband’s life. “You cannot do it, Clarence. His father is an earl. Tyverne will be an earl someday. You cannot refuse a viscount’s offer.”

“Well, I can!” Delia said, finally reclaiming her hand and pointedly wiping it on her skirt and hoping the tingling would go away. “I can and do.”

Aunt Eliza started weeping again. Ty knew it was time to drag out the heavy artillery. He was growing weary and weaker, and losing the war, although he might have defeated Clarence in the day’s battle. “I’d wager Dallsworth is not willing to accept the child.”

Five mouths hung open, including Mindle’s, who had returned with the major’s boots. Delia regained the use of her senses first. “And you are?”

Ty had been thinking. No woman wanted to give up her baby, he had reasoned, no matter how it was conceived, so George’s sister might be more amenable to his suit if that offer included her child. Taking the infant into his home would generate gossip, but what did he care? Many well-known families had irregular entries in their pedigrees, and Ty did not care if they lived away from London, where rumormongers and scandal-brewers thrived. Then, too, accepting the child did not mean acknowledging paternity, which no one could believe anyway, since Tyverne had not been in England this past year, and he doubted if Miss Croft had been on the Peninsula.

Still, if he declared the child his, someone would have to bring a suit to refute the claim. Totty or Nonny could, if the infant were a boy, to avoid being cut out of the succession by a baseborn interloper. Ty could not imagine either of his brothers caring one way or the other who eventually took over the earldom. The earl would, though. Oh, how he would contest the claim. Ty could well envision his sire suffering a stroke at the thought of an outsider in line for his title. It might even be worth the aggravation to see the old man squirm with a bastard for a grandchild.

“Yes,” he answered. “I am willing to accept the child. My debt to George Croft demands no less. I could not look at myself in the mirror otherwise.”

Clarence was silenced, his wife was thinking about swooning again. Mindle was shaking his head, and Aunt Eliza’s tears had changed to hiccups. Delia was staring at the viscount as if he’d just sprouted antlers.

The silence was broken by Dover, who skipped in, around the door. “Ain’t those boots a treat, Major? Why, you can see yourself in ‘em!”

Chapter 11

“Of all the arrogant, audacious ...” Delia was so angry she could not think of the right words.

“Asinine?” Ty offered with a helpful half smile, wondering what he’d done to set the cat among the pigeons, this time.

“That, too.” Delia grabbed the viscount’s sleeve, to tug him from the room. She told the others, “You will excuse us, I am sure. Lord Tyverne and I obviously have a few matters to discuss in private.”

“Private? Here, here, not at all the thing, is it, Gwen?”

“I’ll make sure Cook packs up the rest of those ginger biscuits for you,” Delia told her cousin.

“Well, I suppose that’s all right, then.” He leaped off the sofa, out of his wife’s reach. “Ouch. Dash it, Gwen, I am going to be black-and-blue by tomorrow. What’s that? Oh, yes, I am head of the household now, Dilly. You cannot be making these decisions by yourself, you know. I am the one to look after the welfare of the family, eh?”

“If you” —she glared at Clarence, then Tyverne— ”either of you, cared one whit about my welfare or well-being, you would consult my wishes, not ride roughshod over them. I am neither a child nor a simpleton, needing your supervision.”

“But, Dilly, my girl, you are a mere female. How can you know what’s best?”

Ty might be a rough soldier, but at least he knew not to say
that
to a woman. He would not be surprised if Dilly—Delia—was the one to toss down the gauntlet to Sir Clarence. In fact, he decided to get her out of the room before she picked up a weapon. She was too near the fireplace poker, and Lud knew which of them she’d use it on first.

Delia was so angry that, in another minute, she feared, she would be throwing Clarence out of his own house. She needed to stay on at Faircroft a short while longer, which meant she needed to stay out of the nodcock’s presence. As for the lummox who had her hand in his big paw again, well, she’d put a flea in his ear and send him on his way. If the officer was too ill to ride, he could take the family carriage with Clarence and Gwen, and take it back to Gwen’s father’s house, for all Delia cared. That way no one could malign her reputation, and she would have one less nuisance to deal with. She pulled him toward the door.

The problem was, where could she take the meddlesome major to give him a piece of her mind? Not his nearby bedroom, certainly, nor any of the other rooms on this floor where her cousins were sure to hear every word, if they had to stand with their ears against the walls. Below stairs the staff would be an equally attentive audience. Not outside or to the stables, for the buffle-head had left his boots behind. That left the master suite sitting room, the one Gwen coveted, so Delia led the viscount up the narrow winding staircase. She supposed she ought to have warned him about the low ceiling at the landing.

Before she could corral the angry words stampeding in her head, his lordship started to speak, to beg her pardon. His stiffly pronounced words barely penetrated her fury. He stood erect in the center of the room, a handsome, broad-shouldered statue, one that could have been titled
British Heroism
or
The Empire’s Ares.
He was so strong, so sure of himself, never doubting his own authority or his own judgment, that Delia would have screamed her interruption, if she had not noticed him swaying on his feet.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Croft,” he repeated to her back this time, for Delia had gone over to the drinks tray by the window. “I overstepped myself.”

“No, what you did was ride in here with the intentions of examining the goods, making your offer, signing a few papers, then going on about your business, as if you were purchasing a horse instead of proposing marriage. You thought you could meddle in affairs that do not concern you, simply because you are used to being in charge, dash it.”

The major took a deep breath. “You are correct. I should not have tried to force your hand that way, but I did truly believe I was acting in your best interests. I still feel that our marriage could be beneficial to both of us, if you would have me.”

Delia practically slammed a glass of sherry into his hand. “Here, my lord, and sit down before you fall down.” She kept another one for herself. Heaven knew she could use something to steady her nerves after shouting like a fishwife at the unfortunate featherhead!

The viscount took the glass as if it were a lifeline thrown to a drowning man and rubbed his head, looking around the elegant cream and gold room, with its gilded, spindle-legged chairs. Oddly enough, Delia thought, the officer did not look entirely out of place here, despite one button of his uniform being unfastened. She nodded toward a backless chaise. “That should not collapse under you.”

Naturally he could not sit until she did, so Delia muttered, “Botheration,” and threw herself into a cane-backed seat.

Tyverne swallowed half the thimble-sized glass of wine at once, then asked, “Is ‘botheration’ the only answer I am to get to my latest proposal? I rather thought a woman was supposed to thank the poor chap for the honor of his offer.”

Delia drank her own sherry almost as hurriedly. “You, sir, are a gudgeon.”

He nodded his agreement. He
was here, wasn’t he? “But other than that, I do not think I would be considered such a bad bargain on the London Marriage Market,” He could not hide the shudder that swept through him at the thought. Delia got up and put another log on the fire.

“I mean,” the viscount went on, “that aside from a few scars and this plaguey fever, I have all my teeth, my hearing, and my hair.” He ran his fingers through his blond hair, wondering if he’d remembered to comb it. “And a hard head,” he added, “to say nothing of the title, connections, and enough income of my own to support a household, with or without my father’s largesse. When he dies
...
Well, that is in the future. Meanwhile, I can offer a woman my protection and my respect. I am neither clutch-fisted, a drunkard, nor a gambler. I seldom lose my temper, and have never raised my hand to a woman.” Of course no woman had ever raised the temptation like this one, but Ty did not mention that fact. “I never would.”

Delia was pacing now, too upset to sit still. “Next I suppose you will be telling me what an accommodating husband you would make, turning a blind eye to your wife’s discreet liaisons, while you were free to conduct your affairs.”

The viscount finished the contents of his glass. The thought of an unfaithful wife was enough to make a tippler out of him, after all. A wife was bad enough, but a wife who cuckolded him at every turn? Or, worst, presented him with yet another bastard to raise? He set the empty glass down before the crystal shattered in his grip. “Why, no. I expect my wife to honor her vows, the same as I expect from myself. I am not a libertine or a philanderer, Miss Croft.”