“What a truly horrific place,” George remarked. “I can only be glad you never saw fit to bring me here.”
“And I didn’t bring you here now,” his father said sourly, tossing back the water as though it were brandy. He shuddered. “Awful stuff. What ails you?”
“I’ve come to inform you that I have chosen a wife.”
“About damn time.” The irritability in his father’s voice didn’t waver, but there was finally a burst of interest in his eyes as he waved George to the empty chair beside him. “Sit, sit. Is she from one of the families Forbes sent you?”
George distantly recalled consigning that missive to the fire. “Ah,” he said. “No.”
“Oh? Then is she good stock?”
The same capped lady offered George a glass of water and he shook his head. “As to that,” he said, examining the shine in his boots that had been sadly dimmed by the dust, “I am unsure.”
“You don’t know her name?”
“Not her maiden name.”
“She was married?”
“Yes, sir.”
His father’s gnarled knuckles whitened as his fingers clenched around the blanket on his legs. “Good God, boy, have you forgotten yourself?”
“I trust I have not.”
“A widow to be your wife, the future Viscountess Worthington?” He gave an angry laugh. “What, does she bear your child and want your name for it? Stupid chit. I won’t have it.”
George’s nostrils flared as he struggled to keep his temper. “I would recommend you do not speak ill of her. No, she does not bear my child, but if she did, I would most certainly do the honourable thing.”
“Then what is it? Who was her husband? Surely you haven’t fallen in love with the girl?”
“Not so much a girl, Father. She is five-and-thirty.”
“What is this madness?”
George gave a thin smile. “I mean to have her if I can.”
“How so? Has she bewitched you?”
That,George thought, was entirely possible.
“She is as yet unaware of my intentions. I came to inform you first, as I felt was your right.”
Spittle flecked the corners of his father’s mouth. “Who is she?”
“Lady Augustus Spenser.” Her full title, her dead husband’s name, sat unpleasantly on his mouth, and he understood anew why she had urged everyone with whom she had an acquaintance to use her Christian name. Far better she offer that intimacy and be addressed by the name she owned, rather than the one she had been forced to use.
“Lady Augustus?” His father’s face tightened still further. “That—thatwhore?”
George sat very still in his chair, seconds away from striking his own father. “You will not refer to her in those terms.”
“You can’t be serious,” his father said, still flushed with anger. “Everyone knows she has fewer morals than a gutter rat, and she might have married the younger brother of a duke, but consequence can’t shield her now. If you marry her, you will risk ruining our good name.”
“If she consents to marry me, then I will be a lucky man indeed, and you will treat her to the respect she is due.”
“If you marry her, I won’t receive her. Either of you.”
George curled her lip. “A coward’s answer.”
