Compromised by Christmas (10 page)

Scully jerked open the door, then stared at Max. His
blue eyes narrowed. "You are not whom I wanted to see." He shook
his head, the dark shock of hair flopping across his forehead.
Scully shoved it back and muttered, "I knew something was wrong
when I realized I was in Fanny's former room."

"Please, avail yourself of my valet until yours
arrives." Max held out the dressing gown, then realized what Scully
had said. "How do you know this room was once Fanny's?"

Scully shook his head. "Do I have to spell it out for
you, son."

No, he supposed he didn't. Max wanted company, not an
argument, and the insult to his father was moot now that the old
duke was dead. In any case, Scully and Fanny had been discreet
enough he hadn't known anything had ever happened. But he did know
Fanny hadn't made a habit of cuckolding his father, unlike other
pretty young wives might have done.

"Come have a nightcap with me." Max lifted the
decanter.

"I drink too much as it is," said Scully, but he shed
his coat and waistcoat, then grabbed the dressing gown. He jerked
the knots of his cravat free. The clothing went sailing back into
the blue room, landing on the floor.

Max had removed his outer evening clothes long ago
and switched to long unmentionables rather than his evening
breeches. He scrutinized his friend. "Were you planning to go out?
It is well after midnight."

"I haven't the slightest idea of which door to tap on
now. Putting me here was cruel of Fanny. I suffered grandiose
notions of easy seduction, only to find I am sharing a suite with
you."

"Sorry to disappoint, old boy." But it was that kind
of night.

"Never mind. My course has never been easy."

"Fanny did not put you here, I did. I preferred your
company to Lady Malmsbury's." Max pointed. "Fanny's room is two
doors down. Mind you, not the next door, for that is Fanny's
dressing room and her maid is sleeping in there. You will scare the
dickens out of her if you tap on that door."

"God love you, son."

"You call me son one more time, I shall throw you out
on your ear so Fanny won't have to. If you knock on her door, I
expect you will offer marriage. Otherwise, don't knock."

Scully paused in his flaying attempts to get the
dressing gown on over his shirt. "You're testy."

"Me? Never." Max turned back into his room and set
the glasses down on the table between the two easy chairs facing
the fire and poured brandy into them. He just needed a drink. And
he needed to know that Scully would do the right thing.

"It is Miss Winston, is it not? Hell, just marry
her—you do not need a woman to bring a dowry to the estate."

"I'm not marrying. I want Thomas as my heir."

"I'm not sure Thomas wants to be your heir."

"Want to or not, he is." Max did not know why
everyone was so resistant to the facts of the matter. Once Thomas
fully appreciated all that he would have, he would want the title
and all that came with it.

"Besides, I've scarcely known her a week." Max stared
into the liquid in his glass, then tossed it back in one gulp.
"Should I ever marry, I'd need a heiress."

"Bad form, Max. Brandy should be warmed before you
gulp it."

"I know how to drink, Dev. Just because Miss
Winston's presence has affected me, does not mean I should marry
her."

"Ah, her presence or her enthusiasm?" asked Scully
with a knowing tone in his voice. "For she seemed quite as engaged
in that kiss as you were."

"Do not speak ill of Miss Winston. She did offer
resistance." Thank the Lord, she had finally come to her senses,
because Max wasn't entirely sure that he would have. He didn't even
want to think about his near repeat in the drawing room. He slammed
back another drink. In all his years, he had never come so close to
losing control.

"That was hardly speaking ill. Quite a beautiful
chit. She makes best use of her charms, does she not?"

"Scully!"

"Ah, do you mean to call me out? Defend her honor?
She has caught you in her web, and I do not even think she was
trying to snare you. You really should marry her. She would stand
up to your superiority."

Max ground his teeth and ignored Scully's
irreverence. They had known each other too long to be truly
offended, but Max was skating closer to the edge of the precipice.
"No, I should not."

"Yes, you should. You are enamored of her. Happens
quick like that at times, happened that way for me."

"You were fifteen, and I am not enamored of her." Max
did not need to pretend with Scully. What Max felt for Roxana
Winston was pure and simple lust, while his friend had been
enamored of his stepmother since Eton days.

"And I have been steadfast in my affections ever
since," returned Scully, rolling his brandy glass between his
hands.

"Hardly so."

Scully made an odd noise and threw himself into one
of the high-backed chairs. Max looked at him. Scully seemed as
fretful as Max felt. Was he having second thoughts now that Fanny
was free? Unrequited love for a married woman was one thing,
unrequited love for a widow was an entirely different matter. In a
way, Scully's professed love for Fanny had kept his heart free
during his numerous entanglements over the years.

Trouble was, Max cared about both of them. He poured
out a third glass of brandy and tried not to allow the memory of
that kiss to crowd his mind. Of course, realizing that he had
managed about ten seconds' respite from the memory of Roxana's
perfect form pressed against his body made heat rise in his
blood.

He shifted in his chair.

He had barely managed any other thought as he played
the gracious host throughout the remainder of the evening.

"You shall to have to marry one of these days. You
have responsibilities," said Scully. "I, as a younger son, bear no
such need. I do not need to reproduce. My property is too modest to
split among heirs."

Max closed his eyes. "I won't have Thomas going into
the military. If Fanny or my mother had brought lands to marriage
as dower property I could give them to him, but neither did."

His father should have considered what would happen
to his heirs before he married women who brought small portions to
the marriage and then allowed them to spend so recklessly. For it
was not all Fanny's spending that brought about the current state
of affairs. Many of the loans predated her marriage. His two
brothers left debts to discharge too.

The weight of Scully's stare bore on him.

"My father's debts are monstrous. Everything is
entailed, you know. I cannot sell any property to settle his loans,
nor can I split off any lands to provide for Thomas."

"So you can marry only a woman who brings
considerable dower property to the table?" Scully balanced his
glass on his forehead and stared at it cross-eyed. "You are the
only one who knows of my affection for Fanny, you know."

Max looked at Scully. "Why is that?"

"I did not want you offended if I was successful in
my pursuit of your father's wife."

"I hadn't realized you were successful," said Max
dryly.

Scully twisted his head, catching the glass as it
fell off his forehead with nary a spill. "I may have been a lark to
her, an indulgence for her vanity. She has made no secret of her
preference for maturity and stability. Has she asked about me once,
since your father's death?"

Max looked into his glass. No, Fanny had not asked
after Scully, but he had always thought she reacted when he spoke
Scully's name. He knew she was lonely and vulnerable, but did she
truly mean to avoid Scully? Would she be happy only with a husband
who encouraged reckless spending? "It has been only a little
while."

"It has been eighteen months," said Scully.

The door clicked open and both men swiveled in their
chairs to see Lady Malmsbury draw up short in the doorway.

"Oh dear, I seem to have lost my way," she said as
she glared at Scully.

Fanny spooned buttered eggs onto her breakfast plate.
She initially lifted two scones with the serving fork and then put
one back. She glanced at Roxana's plate. Her guest had moderate
servings of everything. No wonder she was so slender. Although
truth be told, Roxana was no twig, she just had the figure of a
young woman and dresses that showed it to her best advantage. Her
figure was much like the one Fanny had enjoyed nearly twenty years
ago . . . before children.

Fanny sighed as she sat down at the morning-room
table and pulled the cloth napkin across her lap. She hadn't grown
monstrously large, but her hips had widened with each of her two
children, and well, her figure was fuller and gravity was working
against her.

Roxana was the full-grown daughter of one of her best
friends from school days, a friend she had not seen in nearly
twenty years. Fanny's own daughter would be presented to society in
four short years, and Thomas would be away to school in just a few
months.

Fanny felt old and yet too young to be alone for the
rest of her life. Julia and Thomas tromped into the breakfast room
and shoved to be first at the sideboard.

"Thomas, do let your sister go first." Fanny's words
had little effect.

"I'm hungry," complained Thomas.

"I was here first," said Julia.

Across the room, Max lowered his newspaper. "If you
two must behave like little children, you will have porridge in the
nursery. We have guests."

The shoving stopped. A frisson of resentment
surprised Fanny. She should feel nothing but gratitude toward Max,
who allowed her to stay on in his household, although he could have
suggested she move to the dower house. Max had done wonders
stepping into his father's role without hesitation. Of course, he
had been raised to do so from his infancy.

But his decreeing that his friend Devlin Scullin
sleep in a room just two doors down from hers when she did not even
want the man in the house bothered her. When Max had spoken to her
of ending the improvements to the house and grounds and suggested
economy in spending habits, as was his right, Fanny had felt
chastised and humiliated.

In the near nineteen years of Fanny's marriage, her
husband had never once indicated that she spent too much or that
paying the bills created problems. Max stopped short of saying she
should live on her jointure and apologized handsomely, blaming
recent crop failures and that he wished to be sure Thomas and Julia
would be adequately provided for. Fanny knew that he avoided saying
her reckless spending had created debts. The former duke had
indulged her and encouraged her spending to no end.

But she was not able to voice to her stepson her
protest that she had not known that she was too extravagant. She
should have known. She had long ago discovered that the pretty
things held little appeal once bought, but by then her spending was
more habit than not. Max was the head of this household now, which
made him guardian of her children as well.

Although on the face of it, Fanny could not fault
Max. She knew he would not have asked her to cut back if there was
no need. Resenting Max's long absences and his mandates about
Thomas's education was silly. Nothing had changed in the way Max
handled himself, except he took his duties to Parliament much more
seriously than his father had.

She was just lonely, and Max was not at fault, nor
was her husband to blame. No more than it was Roxana's fault for
being young and wearing beautiful clothes. Roxana would no doubt
receive a great deal of attention from the men at the house party.
Fanny would receive the deference due a hostess.

"Thomas, do sit here beside me and tell what you will
do today," said Roxana. "Do you have studies?"

"Not today, for it is the week's end and Max gave our
tutor leave to visit his family for Saturday and the Lord's day,"
said Julia as she took the seat on the other side of Roxana.
"Seeing as how his home is a county away."

"He's my tutor, not yours. You only get to borrow him
while he's here to teach me," said Thomas.

"I know more than you do," retorted Julia.

Fanny opened her mouth to stop her children's
squabbles. Not that they were likely to listen. Max folded the
newspaper and gave Julia, then Thomas, a look.

Thinking that might be the end of it, Fanny closed
her mouth.

Roxana gave the tiniest shake of her head. "Would you
not expect to have learned more? You are older, after all."

Fanny's heart sank. She'd thought perhaps the
argument was done, but even though she was trying to help, Roxana
had likely extended the unpleasantness. And Julia looked stunned
that her idol hadn't championed her. Certainly, Fanny was not half
as strict as their father had been, and her lack of discipline was
showing in Thomas and Julia.

Max was engrossed by the exchange, too. Fine, let him
settle it. Fanny buttered her scone as if her children weren't
behaving like spoiled limbs.

"I don't see why I have to share my tutor with her.
Girls aren't supposed to know Greek and Latin and mathematics,"
Thomas said sullenly.

"Why ever not?" asked Roxana. "Does it harm you that
Julia is fluent in the ancients?"

Thomas shook his head.

Fanny realized she was extraneous to the
conversation. She didn't care one way or another if Julia's
education matched Thomas's. She just wished they weren't arguing
about it at the breakfast table.

"Do you know such?" Julia asked.

As Roxana shook her head, Max cleared his throat.
Both the children ducked their heads.

"But I should have liked the opportunity to learn,"
Roxana said.

"Then you should come up and study with us, Roxy,"
said Thomas with a sly look at his sister.

Max stood and folded the paper. "Thomas, have you
been given leave to be so informal?"