The man visibly relaxed, then nodded at Eleanor. “This way, miss.”
Fisting her hands until her knuckles turned white, Eleanor glared at Matthew, then jumped up and followed Thebson out of the room.
“She will never change,” Fortuity remarked, as though bemoaning terrible weather. “What poor man do you dislike enough to leg-shackle her to, since she is neither an heiress nor in possession of a pleasing demeanor? I wouldn’t even wish her on Chance, and my brother often infuriates me.” She flinched as though struck with even more unpleasantness that his wicked cousin had caused. “And I suppose we shall have to supply her dowry?”
“I am afraid so. What little her father provided for her was spent after his death, when she and her mother were extricating themselves from his family in India and the arranged marriage with some unfortunate gentleman she decided she did not like.”
“And you feltcompelledto rescue them?”
“Agnus has always been a dear cousin to me, and the only family I had. Unfortunately, when I rescued them, I did not realize what a spoiled, selfish little chit Eleanor had become.” He caught Fortuity’s hand and kissed it. “Thank the Almighty I now have you, and with His blessing, we shall have our own family someday.”
“You might not think it a blessing if I become like my sister when I get in the family way.”
“Oh?”
Fortuity shook her head. “A topic for another day.” She nodded at the doorway. “Eleanor is a danger to us, Matthew. A danger to the fragile peace and contentment it took us so long to find. No matter how careful we are, no matter what we do or say, she is a risk we can ill afford. I do not want us ruined by her,nor do I wish the Ravenglass name sullied by her any more than it already has been. Gossip about our sudden nuptials was just fading when the Duchess of Esterton returned to make everyone watch and see how you reacted. And now Eleanor is back.” A snorting growl escaped her as she jumped to her feet and took to pacing while wringing her hands. She meandered around the side tables, chairs, and settees scattered throughout the large parlor. “What about the Earl of Alcester? At one time, he was sniffing around my sisters looking for a wife. Is he still an eligible bachelor?”
Matthew shook his head. “Married soon after Thorne and your sister, and already has a potential heir on the way.”
“Farnsworth, then? Or Cedarswik? I remember them showing up to court Blessing when they heard the rumor that her dowry was greater than the rest of ours.”
“I daresay that neither of those gentlemen would be interested in the dowry I am willing to supply for Eleanor.”
Fortuity threw up her hands. “I do not wish us to be saddled with her for the entire month. And if we cannot attach her to some unsuspecting soul, what then? Do we send her back to the countryside to stir more unrest that you will eventually have to deal with whenever we leave London for the summer and retire to the manor house?” Her pacing increased to a frenzied swirling around the room. “I have the stress of stories to finish, a completed story in the hands of a publisher, and your former lady love glaring me down at every tea, ball, and dinner party we attend.” She halted and faced him. “The additional irritation of Eleanor is most inconvenient, and I resent Agnus’s assumption that her wayward daughter is our problem to resolve.”
He went to her, wishing he had a solution for the whole bloody mess. “We could hear from the publisher any day now. They said they wished to review the entirety of the work before they made us an offer.”
“Or they might not,” she snapped. “What about the other publisher? Would they still be interested?”
“We chose the better of the two. Patience, Fortuity. I warned that nothing in the world of books ever happens quickly. Remember?” He poured them both a glass of Fortuity’s favorite brandy, knowing that tea would never do for the seemingly insurmountable issues at hand. “Here. To calm you.”
She took the glass and narrowed her eyes at him. “I was calm until I laid eyes on Eleanor. Calm is no longer a state I feel inclined to assume.”
“If not for her, we might not have married,” he reminded her. As soon as the words left his lips, he wished he hadn’t said them. Fortuity looked ready to throw her drink in his face. He could be such a damned fool at times. They would have eventually married as soon as he had stopped behaving like an idiot and admitted to himself that he loved her. “What I meant to say was—”
“You said exactly what you meant to say,” she snapped. “Quite clearly.” She downed her drink in one gulp, clutched her chest, and wheezed against the heat searing her gullet.
He set aside his drink, took hold of her shoulders, and forced her to look at him. “We would have married, Fortuity. It would have simply taken longer because of my unwillingness to admit that I loved you. I was a cowardly, stubborn fool. Without Eleanor’s trap that forced me to open my eyes, who knows how long it would have taken me to embrace the truth rather than run from it?”
“You see what she does?” Fortuity pulled free and stepped back from him. “Not even here a full hour, and we are already at odds with one another.”
“My lord,” Thebson said hesitantly, revealing he had overheard their turmoil. He lifted a silver salver higher. It held more than one missive. “A messenger awaits a response to theuppermost envelope. Shall I ask him to leave so that you might reply to it at your leisure?”
“No,” Fortuity informed the butler as she hurried over and snatched up both pieces of mail. “Have them wait. Lord Ravenglass shall respond to whomever it is once he has read the message. He will ring for you when ready.”
Thebson shifted a leery look to Matthew and arched a scraggly brow.
“Carry on, Thebson.” God help the man if Fortuity noticed the butler’s hesitation to obey her. As the servant nodded and disappeared into the hallway, Matthew risked moving closer to his displeased wife, hoping to achieve a tenuous harmony at best. “Who awaits our response, my little wren?”
She glanced up at him, her eyes bright and dancing. “The publisher, Matthew. It is the publisher who awaits our response.”
“Open it, my love. Hurry!”
Her hands trembled as she carefully unsealed the envelope and removed the letter. As her eyes went wide and her lips parted, Matthew itched to snatch it from her and read it for himself.
“For heaven’s sake, what does it say?”
“Seven hundred pounds,” she whispered as she looked up from the paper. “They are offering seven hundred pounds for the one novel. That is only a hundred less than Cadell & Davies paid Ann Radcliffe forThe Italian, making her the highest-paid novelist in the 1790s.” She bounced in place, shaking the letter at him. “And that was not even her first novel. This is my first, and they are offering us seven hundred pounds!”
