Justin made a quick bow. “Mr. Mossant.” He returned to his full height but declined to offer his hand. A cloud of smoke hung in the air. “I’d like to speak to you about your daughter, Miss Mossant.”
“Rhododendron?” Mr. Mossant furrowed his brows. “I thought you came to look at the art. You’re not here to purchase from my collection?” The man’s English was perfect but for a slight French accent.
Justin cleared his throat. He’d heard of these sorts of parties but never witnessed one in person. Upon the rustling of clothing, Justin turned and inadvertently witnessed one of the ladies straddling the gentleman behind him.
“Yes. The eldest Miss Mossant. I’m here to ask for her hand,” he clarified. His heart raced. He clenched his fists.
Had the Mossant women known what he’d find here? Had Mr. Mossant exposed his daughters to such despicable behavior? Bile churned in his gut.
Until that moment, he’d not realized the respect due to Rhoda’s mother. She’d removed her girls from their father’s influence.
Justin suppressed the urge to pummel his future in-law into a speck of dust.
“Bah!” Mr. Mossant lifted the woman’s leg off of him and slapped her dimpled bottom. She slid to the floor as he pushed himself off the settee. “I’ve made it clear from the beginning. Her dowry is two thousand pounds. Not a farthing more. All you nabobs come looking to take what’s mine. Well, take the girl, but don’t get ideas about anything else.”
The man swayed as he rose to his full height. At that moment, he remembered the enigmatic glance he’d seen pass between Rhoda and her mother. Yes, they’d known. They’d known what he would find.
Justin ran a hand through his hair and then thrummed his fingertips against the top of his thighs. This man was Rhoda’s father.
Thisdisgusting piece of verminwas Rhoda’s father.
Justin reached inside his coat and extracted the contracts he’d obtained from his solicitors while passing through London. With steady hands, he opened them up on a nearby table. “I’ll have your permission in writing then.”
Mr. Mossant stumbled across the room, located a pair of spectacles, and amazingly enough began reading through the legal document. “Blah, blah blah.” His fingers skimmed the lines. “Very well, so she told you of the two thousand pounds.” He looked at him sideways. “Fucking hell. You bastard. You’re doing it to win the wager, aren’t you?” He reached for a pen, dipped it in ink, and then drew a line through the dowry amount. “You won’t be needing this once you’ve collected. Wiley bloke to come up with the idea. Taking a risk, though, aren’t you, leaving her in London while you come all this way to speak to me? Knowing that someone’s likely to beat you to the winnings in the time it’s taken you to come after a mere two thousand pounds.”
Red clouded Justin’s vision.
“You know of the wager? You know what’s being said about your own flesh and blood, your daughter, and yet you remain here doing nothing to defend her honor?” This villain didn’t deserve to have daughters.
Justin nodded. “Remove the dowry then. This has nothing to do with the wager and everything to do with protecting not only Miss Mossant, but your other daughters and your wife as well! Good God, man, don’t you realize they’re about to be chased out of London, out of thetonforever? You’d simply sit by and watch that happen without doing anything to help them?”
“I could care less what happens to them.” Mr. Mossant finished perusing the document and then signed with a flourish. “You see all that I have here?” He gestured to the room, the house. “It will all go to my brother’s sickly scamp. A good for nothing whiny rat. Time after time, my wife presented me with only daughters. And simply because she had some difficulties birthing, she refuses me. She’s taken the girls and run off. They are not my problem. Let them rot in the gutters for all I care.” And then he reached for a long thin pipe and inhaled deeply.
Justin wanted to lay the man out flat. No, he wanted to shake him first, give him a piece of his mind, and then lay him out flat.
Instead, he took up the signed document and blew on it to be certain the ink had dried. Satisfied it wouldn’t smear, he folded it neatly and returned it to his pocket. “Good day. I’ll find my own way out.”
An hour later, Justin returned to the village and located an out of the way table at the local pub for something to eat and drink. He didn’t wish to speak to anybody. He needed to think.
The meeting with Miss Mossant’s father had left him more than a little unsettled.
“You look hungry, my lord.” A pretty barmaid leaned over the table to get his attention, her ample bosom level with his gaze. How would she know to ‘my lord’ him? He shook his head in disgust.
“An ale and stew, if you have it.”
Women didn’t normally act so brazenly around him. Ah, but he’d not worn his collar today.
She winked and flipped her hair. “Anything for one so fine as you. Will you be needing a room for the night?”
Justin grimaced.
What he needed to do was meet with the solicitors regarding his financial situation. This was the niggling that bothered him.
He took a swig of the bitter ale and pulled the contract out of his pocket.
No dowry.
It shouldn’t trouble him, the lack of dowry, but guilt pricked his conscience.
