He threw the blankets off. “I’ll been down shortly. Show them to the study.”
His mood did not improve in the time it took to throw on clothes, find his spectacles, and hastily tie a cravat. He tempered it, though, as he walked down the corridor to the study. It wasn’t Heywood’s fault John’s brother had run up debts. The man had a right to call them in. What continued to amaze John was the fact that every creditor thought they were the only individual to whom Walter owed money. His brother’s charade had been remarkably effective.
The butler opened the study door as John approached, Newton padding quietly beside him. John took a deep breath, held it for a count of five to keep his frustration at bay, and exhaled before he entered. “My lord,” he said as he bowed.
As he rose, he noted a woman by the window and recalled that Mosely had mentioned a daughter. Though why Heywood would bring his daughter to a meeting about what were, presumably, gambling debts, John couldn’t fathom.
She turned, an eyebrow raised, and stared at him, her gaze traveling from the tips of his toes to the still-tangled knots of hair he was suddenly conscious of. He could feel his anxiety building. He didn’t want to be the center of anyone’s attention. He didn’t want such scrutiny. Especially not from one of thehaute ton. He already knew how they viewed him.
Beside him, Newton growled, his body stiff, his hackles raised. John put a comforting hand on the deerhound’s neck.
Lady Luella regarded Newton with a condescending look before locking eyes with John and delivering a tiny, dismissivehmph.Then she returned to staring out the window.
John’s gut twisted at the brush-off. Newton’s growl deepened, and the deerhound took a step forward, placing himself between John and the intruders.
“Is that dog safe?” one man asked.
“Quite,” John responded, but he did cross the room and open the door to the garden. Reluctantly, Newton exited, but not before stretching up to put his paws on John’s shoulders. Standing on his hind legs, Newton was bigger than most men. Every “guest” in the room shrank back.
John closed the doors and took a seat at his desk, in front of which the two men sat. Lord Heywood was grey-haired with the look of a man who knew plenty of decadence and little work. His cravat, stuck with a diamond the size of a robin’s egg, was tied in an intricate knot beneath his double chin. His violet velvet coat stretched taut across his paunch.
The lawyer, by contrast, was lean in the way a fox was, and had the same predatory air to him. “Lord Harrow, I take it you know why we’re here?”
John nodded.
“Then I’m surprised you haven’t seen fit to address the issue earlier,” he said.
From the window, Lady Luella muttered, “Indeed.”
John drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to fool his body into relaxing. He wanted nothing more than to tell the condescending lawyer he was one of a hundred creditors so far, and that he could bloody well get in line. But until John had found his feet in London, he’d keep that information to himself.
“With respect, seeing to my brother’s obligations has been a time-consuming experience.” More than they could know.
“Regardless,” Lord Heywood said, “you’ve been in England for months. You should have made the time to visit your fiancée.”
John’s stomach dropped, and his jaw dropped with it.What the devil?
“P-p-pardon?” He flushed as he stumbled and cut short the rest of his question.What blasted fiancée?
He looked at Lady Luella, just as she turned to face him once more. Objectively speaking, she was beautiful. Her hair was a pale shade of blond. Her face was perfectly symmetrical. Her lips were full with a lusciousness that was echoed in the lines of her figure. But despite this, his blood ran cold at the sight of her. It was her eyes. They were hard and mean and had the same look to them he’d seen many times over in his life—always before a cruel insult was thrown his way.
Marriage to this woman would be a miserable thing.
Her father and the solicitor exchanged glances. The solicitor leaned forward. “Your brother entered into an engagement contract with Lord Heywood a year ago, the day before his…incident.”
The day before Walter died. The same day Walter had cleared out what little funds remained in the estate accounts. “My brother is dead.” John had inherited Walter’s debts, but surely not his fiancée as well.
“The contract your brother signed didn’t specifywhichViscount Harrow was to marry Lady Luella. Just that the Viscount Harrow would.”
Damnation.John removed the glasses from his face, cleaning a nonexistent smudge from the lens, buying time to gather his thoughts. Walter could not have made John’s life any more difficult had he planned it. “You have a copy of this contract?” he asked eventually, hoping there was an escape within it.
Lord Heywood’s face reddened. “Are you calling me a liar?”
The lawyer shook his head at his employer and reached into his satchel for a sheaf of papers, sliding them across the desk.
John scanned them quickly. It was a contract, and, from his experience, it appeared legally binding. At the bottom of the second page was a signature—unmistakably Walter’s.
He didn’t need to scan it a second time. That was the thing about a perfect memory. It only took one quick glance for the image to be burned permanently into John’s brain, a memory ready to be retrieved at a moment’s notice.
