“I do nothing of the sort,” he said, shifting again on his chair.
“Has it ever occurred to you that I need not direct my funds or Wingfield Hall to you, Brandon?”
“No.” His answer was swift and honest. “It has not.”
Brandon was his grandmother’s sole heir, and his mother’s side of the family had been hideously wealthy from decades of building a fortune in manufacturing and trade. His father had never allowed his mother to forget her lack of noble forebears, though he’d had no compunction about availing himself of her immense dowry.
“Then perhaps it should.” Grandmother’s eyes narrowed. “I will not leave my fortune and my family’s lands to be pilfered by you as you abandon a string of illegitimate children about London in your wake like your father before you. Wingfield Hall is sacred to me, as you know. I would sooner consign it to Hades than leave it to a profligate to plunder like some sort of modern-day pirate.”
Wingfield Hall had become Brandon’s most exclusive den of pleasure. Vast and sprawling in the Hertfordshire countryside, it had been the site of the inaugural meeting of the Wicked Dukes Society for its convenience to London and verdant privacy. It had for those same reasons been the host of each meeting thereafter. It was also a desperately lucrative—and intensely secret—business. One he had taken great care to make certain his grandmother would never discover. Losing it had never seemed a possibility.
“You would deny your only flesh and blood his birthright?” he asked with deceptive calm, hoping she would see reason in such folly.
But Grandmother’s pointed chin went stubbornly up. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but I will do whatever I must to save Wingfield Hall—and you—from ruin. I would sooner see Cousin Horace have it.”
“Ruin?” He might have laughed, were he not still so shattered at the prospect that he had somehow been a father forfour bloody yearswithout knowing, and had his grandmother not just threatened to give the shining jewel of his estates to a country booby cousin who smelled like sheep.
Grandmother sighed. “I have heard rumors you are a member of some infernal society devoted to iniquity. I needed my hartshorn when Theodosia Dowling told me she had heard it from Lady Agnes Bryson. I never could abide by Lady Agnes—she has hated me for years, ever since I won your grandfather after she had set her cap at him. It goes without saying that I disapprove wholeheartedly of any such scandalous claptrap. I thought better of you, Brandon.TrulyI did.”
She extracted a fan and, despite the relative chill in the air, began fanning herself. Brandon stared at her, everything he had just heard making no more sense than it had when she had first uttered it.
His mind whirled.
Grandmother had heard about the Wicked Dukes Society? But how? Years had passed since that Bordeaux-soaked night when he and five of his old Eton chums had first settled upon the notion. He had not supposed word would ever reach anyone, let alone her. After all, it was meant to be asecretsociety. Not that it was much of a society. More than anything, it was a friendship—a brotherly bond that each of them had found absent in their lives previously, whether by lack of blood brothers or lack ofblood brothers who weren’t arseholes. It was also making them sinfully rich.
“Grandmother, I can assure you that I do not belong to any such society, infernal or otherwise,” he said smoothly, “and that Mrs. Dowling and Lady Agnes are indulging in scandal broth. It is idle gossip, nothing more.”
“Do not lie to me, Brandon.”
He held her gaze. “I would never lie to you, Grandmother.”
Unless I have no other option, he added internally.
“I’ll not be cozened,” she snapped. “Do you think me an imbecile? I’ve been hearing whispers about you for years, but I have refused to indulge in rumors. Look at where my forbearance has led—to your natural child being delivered to my door.”
Blast.This interview was not going well. His head was beginning to ache, and not just because Grandmother had been peppering him with a volley of unpleasant questions and revelations. But also because he was a father, and suddenly, his world had been not just upended, but burned to ash.
He had to concentrate upon what was truly important in this moment. It didn’t matter if Grandmother had heard the whispers, or that every man or woman who entered the hallowed walls of Wingfield Hall did so under a vow of strictest silence some had clearly broken. What did matter was the child—Pandora, he reminded himself.
She had a name. Dear God, what was a voluptuary like him going to do with a child? He’d need to hire a nurse. Could he send the girl away somewhere? So many details to sort through, and the lingering effects of the previous evening’s merriments still fogged his poor mind. It was too early in the afternoon for such dire news.
“Brandon, are you attending me at all?”
At the shrill tone entering Grandmother’s voice, he jolted from his musings.
“Of course, my dear,” he reassured her grimly. “It is impossible not to attend you when you are shouting at me.”
“I amnotshouting!”
The echo of her voice in the chamber was a stark rebuttal.
He had never seen his otherwise impassive grandmother exhibit such a frenzy of emotion. She was in fine dudgeon now, twin patches of angry color in her cheeks, eyes sparking with fire.
“I apologize for the child’s unexpected arrival,” he said. “I’ll send someone to fetch her now if you’d prefer it.”
“She is a child, not a parcel.”
There was no pleasing his grandmother today.
