Once an Heiress (16 page)

As he spoke, a lightheadedness stole over her. She remembered Thorburn’s scorching eyes upon her, the way she couldn’t resist his touch. Perhaps marrying him would eventually appeal to her — at least he wasn’t a Leech — but this was so … so
tawdry
.

“And as for your idea to concentrate on the school,” Mr. Bachman said, “I have only this to say: what school?”

Lily gasped. “Papa, you’re not — ”

“With your reputation in the gutter,” he said ruthlessly, “what gentleman would donate money to your cause? What lady would sit on the board?” She opened her mouth, but he bowled on. “Oh, yes, Lily, you
need
them, as much as you like to foster your contempt for them. I have offered my full support for the start-up of your school, but I cannot finance it forever. You will have to develop good relations with the titled class if you’ve any hope of succeeding in fund raising. The only redemption for you now is to marry Thorburn at once and hope they’ve all forgotten this mess by the time you come calling for money.”

She blanched, thunderstruck by her father’s insight. This consequence of her misadventure had not even begun to occur to her. The school had not touched her thoughts once when she considered the possible outcomes of her ruin — for what did impoverished girls care for their benefactress’s reputation?

But now, there would be no girls for her to help. No school providing education and training to elevate those young women beyond their circumstances.

For herself, Lily didn’t care what society thought. Her parents would eventually forgive her, too. But to never realize her dream of creating a charitable school? To have her work snatched away from her before she’d even begun? No,
that
she could not tolerate. Even though they didn’t know it, she had made a promise to help those as-yet-nameless young women — and help them she must. If marriage was her penance, then so be it.

She swallowed and met her father’s steely gaze. “All right,” she said with a nod. “I’ll marry him.”

A knock pulled Ethan from the light sleep he’d been in since settling into one of Vanessa’s guest rooms last night. He opened his eyes just as the door opened and the butler stepped in.

“It’s gone noon, my lord,” the stately servant said. “I thought you might like a bite to eat before you’re on your way.”

Not quite a notice of eviction, Ethan decided, but not far from it, either. “Thank you, Higgins, I’ll be down soon.”

When the butler had gone, Ethan slipped out of bed. The chill air raised goosebumps along his naked length. He donned a clean change of clothes — complements of Nessa’s sainted maids — and stepped into the hallway.

He started toward the stairs, then paused, turned, and went the other direction. A knock at Vanessa’s door was answered by the new nurse, a Swedish woman who’d come with references speaking to her experience with similar cases.

“How is she?” He glanced over the nurse’s head into the bedchamber.

“Madam is doing well today,” the nurse replied in a slightly nasal voice. “She is napping just now. Her new routine is helping. There hasn’t been an outburst in three days.”

“Wonderful news.” Ethan placed a hand on his chest. “May I come in?”

The nurse’s plump cheeks fell into a frown. “Of course not!” she exclaimed. “Waking her would upset Madam’s routine.”

“Oh. All right.” He blinked and stepped back, crestfallen. He’d grown so accustomed to being the only one who could calm Nessa, it was jarring to find himself dismissed. The door began to close, but Ethan stopped it with his hand. “Would you tell her I asked after her? Tell her I send my love.”

The nurse pinched her lips, and then gave a perfunctory nod. The door closed, leaving Ethan alone in the hallway with his fingertips resting on the cool white painted surface.

As he made his way downstairs, he mulled over why it had seemed so imperative to see Vanessa this morning.

In case it’s the last time,
he reminded himself.
You might be dead this time tomorrow.

He scoffed at his own morbid imagination. He didn’t think Lily’s father would call him out for last night’s events, but he did feel the noose slowly closing around his neck. That was why he’d come to Nessa’s, rather than return to his own home — no one knew to look for him here, and he needed to get his thoughts together.

In the dining room, he found a generous spread laid out on the sideboard. He helped himself and tucked into a hearty meal. Higgins might not approve of him showing up unannounced to spend the night, but most of Vanessa’s servants treated him as the
de facto
lord of the household.

After eating, he accepted his hat from the frowning butler. What to do with his day? He rubbed a hand over a cheek and grimaced at the stubble he found there. To the barber, then, for a shave.

An hour later, he emerged from the establishment with a smooth face and nagging twinges of embarrassment. He’d waited while the barber finished shaving a boot maker to have his turn at the chair. And though the barber had treated him with the utmost deference, there was still something unsettling about exposing his neck to a razor wielded by a man who was not his own valet.

From there, a hackney bore him to Brooks’s. He’d not set foot in the club in some time, but today he approached the place with the nostalgic longing of a condemned man. He took a comfortable chair and accepted a drink off the proffered salver. He enjoyed a few sips of his beverage and settled back into the chair, then noticed a broadsheet on the table. Ethan flicked it open.

“Ever the charmer, Prinny.” He chuckled. “Poor Caroline.” His eyes drifted to the right side of the page and snagged on a familiar name — his own. Hastily — and in growing horror — he scanned the article. While Lily was the focus of the piece, he made a memorable cameo halfway down, where their kiss was portrayed as one step shy of a waltz.

With this one, stupid kiss in print for all the world to see, and every sentence more sensational than the previous, Ethan had the growing realization that when Lily’s father caught up to him, it would not be to challenge him to a duel. It would be worse.

“Shit,” he spat. “Bloody buggering shit, shit, shit!”

“Thorburn!” called a cheerful voice. “Reading your engagement notice?”

Ethan lowered the paper and cast a stony glare at the smirking Jordan Atherton, Viscount Freese. The scar bisecting his right cheek twisted up at the end near his mouth, giving him a double smile.

Ethan glowered. “Freese.”

Lord Freese ignored his black mood and continued glibly, “Not the sporting way to go about it, but you’ve accomplished what so many men have tried to do and failed — rope Lily Bachman into matrimony. And for that, good sir,” he tapped his heels together and bowed mockingly, “I salute you.”

“Go to hell, Freese.”

The man chuckled. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll get there one of these days. Can’t dodge the mamas forever. But unless I’m very much mistaken, I do believe you’ll get there first. On the bright side,” he said, quirking a brow, “just think of that gorgeous dowry.” He let out a low whistle. “You could fill a pond with guineas and go swimming in your fortune.” With that, Freese wandered off to annoy someone else with his wretched good mood.

Tossing the paper aside with a sound of disgust, Ethan collected his hat and set out for home. No sense delaying the inevitable. Freese was right about the dowry. There was that consolation. Even though Ethan had decided pursuing Lily so he could make Ghita his mistress was uncouth, it seemed Fate still thought throwing him into marriage with Miss Bachman was a grand idea.

He allowed himself the remainder of the walk home to mourn the fleet passing of his bachelorhood. There wouldn’t be much to miss. His house was an empty, dried-up husk. He passed his days and nights seeking his own pleasures, be they at the gaming table, in the arms of a willing lady, or — as was the case more frequently with his recent economizing — leafing through a book.

Life could continue as he wished, Ethan reminded himself. Marriage never stopped a gentleman from doing just as he pleased.
Look at Quillan,
he thought. Even with his firstborn due to arrive any day now, his friend still stayed on in town to enjoy the social whirl.

His mind drifted to another marriage he knew well, stopping him in his tracks. Surely his parents’ marriage was an anomaly, wasn’t it? Though many married couples were indifferent in their unions, they didn’t usually resort to his father’s violence, or his mother’s drastic escape. That was unusual, a storied scandal because of the scale of it. Ethan wasn’t destined to follow in their steps.
No.

Was he?

He frowned and kept his eyes on the walk just in front of his feet the rest of the way home, gloomy thoughts of an unhappy home rolling through his mind. What if that
was
his destiny? The thought of Ghita’s lithe figure was not the temptation it once was. Though a mistress might alleviate the boredom of a stale home life, Ethan didn’t think Ghita was the right mistress for him, after all.

With a heavy sigh, he trudged up his unkempt front steps and shoved the key into the lock. The door swung into the inky interior of his gloomy house.

“Lord Thorburn?”

Ethan turned at the sound of his name. A rotund man climbed out of a carriage at the curb. His face tugged at Ethan’s memory. “Ah, yes, Mister … ”

“Wickenworth,” the man proclaimed as he mounted the steps, leaning heavily on the hand rail. “Eugene Wickenworth, Esquire, representing Mr. Bachman.”

A hard stone settled in Ethan’s middle. “Of course. What can I do for you, sir?”

The man patted his considerable belly. “I’ve spent the morning drawing up some papers for my client,” he explained. “Now they must be signed. If you’d be so good as to join me, we’ll be on our way.” He gestured to the carriage.

Ethan’s lips drew together in a grim line. “Of course. Lead on.”

He closed up the house and followed Wickenworth to the waiting carriage. They rode in silence through Mayfair until they arrived at a modest house — still completely respectable, of course, but not the obvious dwelling of one of the richest men in England.

A servant led them to the study. Mr. Bachman rose from his desk, every bit as unassuming as Ethan remembered from his first impression of the man several weeks back. His features would have looked as home on the face of a baker.

“Thank you, Wickenworth.” Mr. Bachman took a folio from the solicitor and shook his hand. “If you’d be so good as to wait in the parlor while Lord Thorburn and I speak.”

“Of course, sir.” The rotund man shot a look at Ethan before leaving the study, the door closing behind him.

A long silence followed the solicitor’s departure. Ethan stared out the window, feeling the weight of the older man’s gaze upon him.

“Do you care to sit?” Mr. Bachman finally asked.

Ethan turned and nodded. “Thank you.” He started toward the little sitting area, but Mr. Bachman stopped him.

“This way, if you please.” He gestured to the massive desk. “This
is
a business meeting, my lord.”

Ethan scowled. Did the man consider his daughter’s marriage no more than a business transaction? He took the chair across the desk while Mr. Bachman returned to the large seat behind it.

“So it seems I’m to have a viscount for a son-in-law.” The expression on Mr. Bachman’s face did not suggest this to be a welcome prospect.

Ethan cleared his throat. “Sir, if I may, I’d just like to say that I understand the distress this situation must cause you and Mrs. Bachman, to say nothing of Miss Bachman’s feelings. And while this was certainly not the way I envisioned my own betrothal coming about, I assure you I am not here to attempt to dodge my responsibility for what happened. If our marrying is inevitable, then I am happy to accept — ”

“I just bet you are!” Mr. Bachman’s face flushed with ire. “I’m sure you’re more than happy to accept my daughter’s money.” At Ethan’s startled expression, he laughed. “Oh, please, Thorburn, everyone knows you’re drowning in debt. Very low of you, my boy. Ruining my daughter, entrapping her. You had her well and fooled. She didn’t want to believe you a fortune hunter.”

Ethan cringed inwardly. He’d known she’d learn the truth about him, but it smarted to know he must have fallen in her estimation.

Mr. Bachman harrumphed. He settled his chin against his fist and flipped open the folio his solicitor had given him. “This is the marriage contract.”

“I thought it might be.”

“Your mouth does you no favors, young man.” His dark eyes appraised Ethan shrewdly. “You’ll want to read it over before you sign.” With a smooth economy of motion, he turned the folio and slid it across the desk.

Ethan’s eyes glazed at the jumble of legal jargon. He turned a page and spotted a clause about establishing a trust fund for each of his and Lily’s future children, free and clear of the Kneath entail. Not an onerous request. Of course, he thought sourly, he couldn’t start trust funds from the dust gathered on his mantelpiece. His brows knit together. Speaking of money, where was the dowry?

He flipped to the third page. There, about halfway down — almost as an afterthought — he spotted the term “settlement” and quickly digested the surrounding text. His eyes widened at what he saw, rage flaring to life. “Ten thousand pounds!” He slammed the folio shut and glared at the smirking old man across the desk. “What the bloody hell is this?”

Mr. Bachman’s smirk fell away to an expression of blank confusion. “Whatever do you mean, my dear Lord Thorburn?”

Ethan bit back a curse. If he demanded more money, he would sound exactly like the fortune hunter Mr. Bachman tagged him to be. The hell of it was, the money
was
what sparked Ethan’s interest in Lily — to begin with, at any rate. And though his mercenary motives had given way to something less unscrupulous, the fact remained that he needed the blunt, and plenty of it.

His tongue flicked over his bottom lip. Mr. Bachman sat across from him with an exultant gleam in his eyes, damn the man. “Forgive me for being crass, sir, but I was given to understand that Miss Bachman’s dowry was of a more substantial nature.”