“Good Christ.” The tenuous thread of Julian’s remaining patience snapped. He bestowed his most rebuking glare upon Alexandra, who had asked the question. “Do the two of you take me for a monster? Precisely what is it you’ve heard about me?”
Josephine wrinkled her nose. “I daresay you may not want to know.”
One of the benefits of being regularly inebriated was that he hadn’t a clue just how irredeemable the world apparently believed him. Even his own flesh and blood, Chrissakes. Meanwhile, here he was, about to sacrifice himself at the matrimonial altar for their futures. “I’m falling upon the sword for you two incorrigible minxes. I expect, at the very least, a modicum of gratitude in return. From this moment forward, I’ll thank you to hold your tongues if you haven’t anything civil to say.”
Alexandra’s brows shot up practically to her hairline. “But—”
“Silence,” he bellowed. “I’ll not hear another word about my reputation. Ever again. Are we understood?”
If he expected his sisters to meekly comply, it would appear he’d forgotten they shared at least half of a family tree. Josephine blinked. “A bit of a sensitive subject, is it?”
He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached. What the hell had he been thinking, to saddle himself with the vexing scraps of petticoats before him? He should have allowed them to continue moldering with Great Aunt Lydia and retained his sanity.
Julian took a breath, calmly studied the threadbare patches in his carpet, and counted to five before responding. “Each future instance of insolence will cost you dearly. One less dress. One hundred less pounds for your dowry. That goes for each of you. Am I understood now, you ill-mannered imps?”
His sisters stared in unison. Apparently his generosity had robbed them of speech. A rarity, that. His generosity and their lack of verbosity both.
And then Josephine ruined it utterly. “Do you mean to suggest we shall truly have a trousseau and dowry?”
“Yes of course.” Damn it, his benevolence was fast being depleted by the trying nature of his madcap sisters. “You were always meant to have the both. It was merely a pittance before, but now it shall be handsome. Very handsome indeed.”
“What paragon of riches are you marrying to allow such a generous amount to be settled upon us both?” Alexandra demanded, apparently having heard none of his stern admonitions of the past half hour.
“One Miss Clara Whitney.” Damn if the name didn’t feel odd on the tongue. Foreign. But it was a name she wouldn’t possess for much longer, for soon she would be the Countess of Ravenscroft. His lady. And damn if that title didn’t feel equally odd. A slip of a girl, an American at that, would be his bride.
She was a beauty, his little dove. Clara of the golden hair, winsome smile, lilting drawl, and intoxicating innocence. It was a damn shame to spoil that innocence, but spoil it he would. The sisters before him, the servants belowstairs, the roof over his head—all depended upon that very spoiling now. The darkness in him would thoroughly enjoy every second of it.
Clara faced her father not without some wilt in her posture, which, she reckoned, was only understandable. For she loved her father, despite the fact that she hadn’t known him in her formative years. She didn’t want to hurt or disappoint him. But it seemed she was forever doomed to do both. He was as immovable as a boulder, stubborn as the cornerstone in the foundation of a grand old manor house.
His expression was as eerie as a death mask. No hint of smile. No hint of the laughing, teasing father she had come to know. “You’ve finally managed to mire yourself in a situation from which I cannot save you, Clara,” he said in somber tones reminiscent of the reverend who had presided over her mother’s funeral several years before. Her father had been at her side then, and he sat opposite her now, on the other end of an imposing and ornate desk.
It was, she thought for a silly moment, as though they were two nations at war. Much like their country had been not so long ago. She felt like a stranger, almost, brokering a treaty. An armistice? Or was it her terms of surrender? She didn’t rightly know. “I neither want nor need saving, Father.”
He made a moue of supreme displeasure. “You mean to suggest you wish to marry this…waste of flesh lord who has never earned a cent in his life without taking some bored society wife to bed?”
She shifted subtly on her uncomfortable chair, attempting to ease the pressure of her corset and her nerves. Her cheeks were hot and red, she was sure. This was not the sort of conversation one wanted or expected to engage in with one’s stern and protective father. It didn’t matter that she’d had days to prepare. “I’m sure I don’t know what you speak of, nor would I wish to. Lord Ravenscroft is a good man.”
Ha! Even to her own ears, her words rang horribly false. In truth, she didn’t know the earl. Not at all. But Father didn’t need to become aware of that pathetic fact, did he? Of course not.
“Good is not a word to be spoken in the same sentence with that son-of-a-bitch.”
When Father was angry, his drawl was a great deal more pronounced. And the thickness of his drawl suggested he was very, very angry indeed. “I love him.”
Another lie. Guilt struck her heart. She was a bad daughter, a rotten daughter, to prevaricate. He left her with no choice, however. He thought he knew better than she what she wanted, what she ought to do with her life. But she knew. She had a heart and a mind of her own, and that heart and that mind longed for Virginia.
Virginia was where she belonged, fighting for her cause. She’d had her taste of the gilded world of English aristocracy. It was flimsy as her silk stockings. No limbs of its own, if you asked her. Not that anyone ever did.
“Perhaps you foolishly think yourself in love,” her father scoffed at such a notion, as though it were as ridiculous as an apple woman being presented to Queen Victoria at court. “But I can assure you that your lovesick swain has a different perspective entirely. He already had a settlement in mind, Clara. It is not you he is in love with, regardless of whatever nonsense he may fill your ears and innocent heart with. It is your wealth.”
Of course it was. Gold was one of the oldest and surest lures in the world. And it had gotten her what she wanted, hadn’t it? She held her head high. “Am I to be shocked to learn his coffers have nearly run dry? I’m given to understand that many noblemen find themselves in similarly unfortunate predicaments. Surely that makes him no different than most of his peers?”
“What makes him different is his reputation, Clara.” Her father’s eyes bored into hers.
She dropped her gaze lest he read her too well, examining his clenched hands upon the desk. There were papers scattered about, some crumpled, some with entire sentences redacted by a bold strike of his pen. Marriage settlement documents, perhaps? She’d been told by her lady’s maid that her father’s redoubtable lawyer had made a long and solemn call upon him already that day.
What had Father said? Oh yes, Ravenscroft’s reputation. It would seem she must forever answer for his wicked ways. “I’m not as ignorant as you believe me to be. Indeed, I am a woman grown, completely possessed of excellent reasoning and logic.”
“You are aware that he has whored himself to half the ladies of the peerage?”
