Over the past year, Richard had sold his own personal possessions, including his hunting lodge and stables to clear the debts. With severe budgetary measures and estate reform, he was managing, just barely, to keep the family seat afloat. He’d had no choice but to curtail his mama’s spending—not that she’d listened to his explanations. Her preference was to shoot the messenger.
“The accord between you and Mama doesn’t make either of you right,” Richard said wearily. “I couldn’t risk the estate on a canal scheme, and you know it. My man of business and I researched the proposition thoroughly. The chance of such a venture yielding profits was extremely low.”
“But this onedid. And because you didn’t listen to me, I’m bloody doomed! Why should I have to marry some nitwit becauseyoudidn’t do the right thing?” Wick’s high cheekbones reddened. “Why am I the one who must suffer in all of this?”
Richard could scarce credit his brother’s twisted reasoning. Nor the fact that Wick believed that he was the only one to face unpleasant consequences. Richard had dismantled his stables, the breeding program he’d spent years building. All that remained, that he could not bring himself to auction off at Tattersall’s with the rest, was his personal mount Aiolos.
He was not a sentimental man, but he hadn’t been able to part with the Thoroughbred. Guilt panged. Now the old boy was trapped in stables as dilapidated as Richard’s own lodgings, their exhilarating gallops through the countryside curtailed to sedate trots in Hyde Park.
“Your debt is your own failing—not mine,” Richard said quietly. “You had choices other than marriage. Years ago, I offered to purchase you a commission or set you up in a respectable profession.” With Wick’s easy charm, good looks, and ready wit, he could have been anything he wanted. “But you refused.”
“Can you honestly see me marching to the drum? Or preaching some sermon or mucking about in the courts? I’m agentleman.”
“You’ll be a dead gentleman if you don’t pay Garrity off soon. And this time, brother,” Richard said flatly, “I cannot help you.”
Wick said nothing, his expression mulish, yet his hand trembled as he reached for his teacup. Fear stiffened his normally indolent posture. Richard pressed his advantage home.
“There’s still time to remedy the situation. Turbett and his daughter will be at a house party in Hertfordshire two weeks hence. He’s secured us invitations as well. He’s willing to give you a final chance to come up to scratch.”
“Securedusinvitations?” Sarcasm dripped from Wick’s words. “He’s in trade, for Christ’s sake. I sincerely doubt we’d aspire to attend an event thrown by one of his mercantile cronies.”
“Nonetheless, we will be going.” As much as Richard detested house parties, he would go to secure Wickham’s future. And, he thought with resignation, to deal with his own. He might have staved off disaster, but the estate would need more income to ensure its long-term health.
“The host of the party, Billings, is a wealthy banker. He has a daughter,” he said.
Wick’s expression lost its surly cast, and for an instant, he resembled the younger brother Richard had always known.
“Never sayyouare considering matrimony?” Wick’s brows shot toward his hairline. “You, whose portrait currently appears next to the word ‘bachelorhood’ in the dictionary? You, who once said you’d rather clean all the stables in the kingdom than be leg-shackled to a female?”
After the fiascoes with Miss Belton and Lady Keane, Richard had sworn off respectable females. That business had taken place years ago, however. He was no longer a greenling who expected a lady to want to marry him for any reason other than his title. Marriage for him would be a bloodless exchange: her money for his status. He’d lead by example and teach Wick that courtship could be a pragmatic endeavor free of sentimental complications.
“One does what one needs must,” he said severely.
“God’s blood, I do believe you are serious,” Wick breathed.
“I am. So you see, brother, we’re in this together.”
Wickham shrugged, but at least he offered no further argument. Richard took the other’s acquiescence as a good sign, and it renewed his resolve to see Wick settled. He would personally deal with any obstacles to his sibling’s future contentment—which meant that a certain troublesome miss had better stay out of his way.
Chapter Three
Guilt, Violet discovered to her dismay, had a way of disrupting one’s concentration. God knew that she didn’t need further intrusions upon her focus, yet thoughts of Carlisle assailed her in the week following the Yuletide ball. Never a sound sleeper, she tossed and turned more than usual at night. Her appetite was diminished. During her daily activities—lessons, shopping expeditions, even rides through the park—she found herself wrestling with her conscience.
Was what happened my fault… when he was being such a boor?
Her sense of fair play invariably won out. For no matter how arrogant and condescending Carlisle had been, he didn’t deserve the ridicule he now faced.
Every gossip and tattle rag in Town seemed obsessed with his downfall. He’d become the butt of jokes—in fact “The Butt of a Joke” was the caption used over a caricature of the viscount sitting on his derriere in a fountain, knees splayed, being drenched by a torrent of champagne. Other similar cartoons includedHow to Make a Splash in SocietyandPride Goeth Before a Fall. Worse yet, the lampoons depicted Carlisle as a scowling giant, his rough-hewn features viciously exaggerated.
Every time Violet encountered the consequences of her impulsivity, her insides twisted.Act in haste, repent in leisureas Mama had been wont to say. She was ten when her mother died, and at times like this she missed the other more than ever. For Mama had been the one person who’d truly understood Vi’s nature; she’d never lost her patience or gotten exasperated with her middle child’s antics.
Heavens, my girl, you’re like a pot about to boil over,Marjorie Kent would say with a warm twinkle in her eyes.Let’s put that steam to work, shall we?
Then she’d send Violet off to do some chore. After weeding the garden or milking the family cow, Vi would always feel better.
But Mama wasn’t here now, and Violet was so ashamed of what she’d done that she couldn’t bring herself to confide in her other family members. The thought of their reaction—theI-told-you-solooks and lectures, not to mention the increased chaperonage—bolstered her motivation to keep the matter under wraps. Which made her feel even guiltier.
When Emma had asked about the telltale red champagne splattered on Vi’s skirts, Vi had mumbled some shoddy excuse, saying that she’d walked by the scene of the accident. Even though Em let the matter drop, Vi’s distress manifested itself in worse than usual distraction, which her sister and the others, not knowing the true cause, remarked upon with growing annoyance.
