“Any problems?” he asked quietly. He’d been away for only six hours, but anything was possible.
“Nothing to speak of, milord. A Lord Nunseath paid acall. Happened to be passing by, he said. From fifteen miles away.”
A remarkable number of gentry and aristocracy did that, and Dauntry was glad to have missed one. They properly welcomed him to his new elevation, but they all bore invitations from their ladies, and most mentioned available daughters with handsome dowries, charming accomplishments, or both. He should have sought a bride from among those, but such a lady would not have welcomed a hasty wooing, nor her husband’s intention to leave her in command here and live mostly in Town. In addition, she would have brought entanglements.
The visiting gentlemen all sounded out his politics, trying to discover what side he’d be on in national and especially local matters. Some had requested financial support for this good cause and that. Braydon would pour out guineas to be rid of them, but he’d detected local politics behind some causes, and a few seemed like outright fraud. It wasn’t in his nature to ignore that. A wife without local connections had seemed to be a good idea.
He entered the house by the back door that lay close to his office, first entering the room used by his secretary. Worseley rose to hand him a message from the parsonage. As feared, it told him that Mrs. Cateril had arrived.
“Anything else of importance?”
“No, sir.”
Braydon put the letter in his pocket as he progressed to the front hall, considering what to do about the widow. He could write to say she would not suit. She’d know why. But that brought problems of its own.
As he crossed the hall toward the staircase, Isabella entered by the front door. The little white dogs yapped the alarm as if he were a sneak thief, perhaps taking their cue down the leashes. This had to stop.
“Take the dogs to the dowager Lady Dauntry,” Dauntry told an impassive footman. “Isabella, a word with you.”
He indicated the library.
She gave him an icy glare, but she went into the room. He’d seen wariness beneath the glare, so he spoke gently.
“Isabella, I understand that you are upset by all that’s happened, but perhaps it hasn’t been made clear to you that I am not the worst result.”
She stared at a bookcase, the perfect image of a rude child. She was nearly seventeen. She was a pretty girl with dark curls, a clear complexion, and vivid coloring, and would have no difficulty in finding a husband, especially with her large dowry. One of the complicating factors to his inheritance was that on his deathbed, the fifth viscount had put all the unentailed property and funds into Isabella’s already generous portion. It was an understandable action from a father whose son had died, leaving only a daughter, but it made the viscountcy much poorer than it should be. Braydon wished Isabella well, however, and would do what he could to steer her into a happy life.
He kept his tone moderate. “If I didn’t exist, the title and entailed property, including this house, would have already reverted to the Crown, and you would have had to leave.”
She swiveled her head to look at him. “That’s not true. The Regent would have promised to grant my husband the title.”
“Highly unlikely.”
“Grandmama is a friend of the queen.”
That was putting it too strong, but the dowager had been a lady-in-waiting for many years, and Queen Charlotte had sent a personal letter of sympathy.
So this had been the hope lurking here between the fifth viscount’s death and the confirmation of his owninheritance. He should have confronted Isabella sooner. The detail changed nothing, but now he could deal with the issue.
“Such a matter would be complex,” he said, “and it’s more likely that the title would have been restored, if at all, for your oldest son when he was of age. In the intervening decades, you and the dowager would have to live elsewhere.”
He saw a flicker of uncertainty, but she shrugged.
“Now I’m in place,” he said, “all such matters are moot.”
“That’s why you are going to marry me.”
He’d suspected this plan and was glad to be able to scotch it. “No, I’m not.”
“You’ll have to,” she said with a smug smile, “or you’ll be dreadfully penny pinched. I have most of the money.”
He could tell her that he had a fortune of his own, but he saw a better way. “Then I’ll be obliged to sell off most of the extravagant bits and pieces the dowager has wasted money on over the decades.”
The girl’s chin dropped.
Report that back to your grandmother, and I hope it chokes her.
The dowager was the enemy here, however, and Isabella merely a foot soldier. If Isabella had been a French spy—and some had been as young and pretty—he’d know how to handle her, but nothing in his army experience or since had prepared him for Beauchamp Abbey and its female combatants. He’d put his faith in sensible Mrs. Cateril, damn her.
