“But”—Felding brightened again—“in this case, with your wife having abandoned you, and being thought dead, with you having taken a second wife, and there being issue thereof, I imagine we can speed things up quite a bit.”
“Good,” the earl said savagely. “Good!”
“I will begin inquiries immediately,” Felding said, taking out a pen and notebook and scribbling some notes.
The earl went to his desk and returned with two envelopes. “This is for you—a bonus for a job well done in advance,” he said.
Felding blushed. “Thank you, my lord, but it’s really not necessary….”
“And this is for whomever you judge worthy and helpful. I want this done as quickly as possible,” he said, handing him the second envelope. Both were full of thousands of pounds.
“This will certainly expedite matters,” Henry Felding said.
It was just past eleven when the Dragmore carriage with its bold crests pulled up to the front doors of Clarendon.
The Clarendon estate was in Kent, some five hours by coach from London. It sprawled over twelve thousand acres, most of the farmland leased to tenants due to the mismanagement of the various dukes. The mansion itself had been built in the Tudor style during the reign of Henry VII, and added on to subsequently during the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and then time and again. As such, it was a huge, sprawling, confused affair—quite ghastly, in fact. Nick had never been impressed by the place.
He was determined to inform Patricia of his plans and get any confrontation over with. He had traveled all evening to do so. He alighted from the carriage purposefully and was greeted by pale, sweating servants, no doubt still in the same state of shock that he’d been in when Patricia had materialized upon his own doorstep earlier that day. He reckoned that she had probably arrived five or six hours ago.
“My lady is asleep,” he was informed somewhat disdainfully by the butler, whose name he could not remember.
He stood arrogantly in the grand hallway, a cruel smile on his lips. “Then awaken her. I expect her downstairs and in the library in fifteen minutes. If she is not there then, I shall come and get her myself. Even if I have to drag her from her bed.”
The butler scurried off.
The earl strode down the hall, flinging open doors, looking for the library. He was greeted by a grand ballroom, a music room, a small withdrawing room, a vast parlor. He finally found the room he was looking for and poured himself a French Bordeaux. It had aged well.
Patricia appeared in twenty minutes, not fifteen, and was not the least sleepy-eyed. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded haughtily, sure of herself in her own domain.
He eyed her in her velvet robe. “I have news I wish to discuss.”
“Here? Now? In the middle of the night?”
“Here, now, in the middle of the night. I am divorcing you, Patricia.”
She went white.
“I give you fair notice now. Although I shall point out that you do not deserve any fairness from me, I have no intention of being shackled to you for the rest of my life. You will have your estate and a healthy allowance, but Clarendon is Chad’s. I will allow you to reside here until his majority, however.”
“You miserable bastard!” she hissed. “I don’t want a divorce! The scandal! However will I survive?”
“Patricia, you are surely not thinking clearly,” he said. “You have already created quite the scandal, by resurrecting yourself from the dead.”
“But I have the perfect story! How I escaped the fire but lost my mind from the horror of it!” she cried wildly. “I will be Society’s Darling, you shall see!”
“Frankly, I don’t give a damn,” he said. “You cannot stop this divorce, not after abandoning me and your child.”
“But I lost my memory,” she said with a sneer, eyes cool and calculating now.
He turned to her, smiling. “Do you wish to come up against me? Do you think you can possibly win?”
She just looked at him smugly.
His smile increased, showing white, even teeth. “Patricia, if I do not get this divorce, I shall make your life a living hell.”
She stared, nostrils flared and eyes dilated.
“Once you despised me—for my red blood.” His teeth showed white again, and he took a step toward her. “That same blood still fills my veins. My ancestors used to covet blond scalps like yours, Patricia. They used to hang them, raw and bloody, from their belts.”
