“Sit down, Hampshire.” The command came with a small cough that Cheltenham turned away to disguise. When he faced David again, there was a sheen on his forehead that the dim light could not quite conceal. “I will not keep you long.”
David sat. His uncle’s gaze tracked him with an intensity that felt more like desperation than authority. There was something in Cheltenham’s eyes — a wildness he had never seen there, a cornered-animal quality that sat ill on a man who had commanded rooms all his life.
“There is a matter of some… importance that I must discuss with you.” Cheltenham’s hand went to the decanter and then stopped, the fingers hovering over the cut glass before he thought better of it. He withdrew them and laid them flat onthe desk instead, pressing down hard enough that David could see the tendons shift beneath the papery skin. “It concerns Frederica.”
David’s brow furrowed. “Is she unwell?”
“No. She is perfectly well.” Another cough, this one sharper, cutting across his words. “But she will not remain so without your assistance.” Cheltenham leaned forward, and in the lamplight, the hollows of his cheeks deepened into dark crescents. “There is a codicil to my will, Hampshire. It pertains to you — and to my daughter.”
He spoke the word codicil with the kind of weight that made David’s stomach tighten, the warmth of the evening, the memory of Nora’s smile, the lingering intoxication of the waltz — all of it contracting to a single, cold point.
“I do not understand, Uncle.” David’s voice sounded strange to his own ears, stripped of its usual ease. He pressed his hands to his knees to keep them from moving.
“You will.” Cheltenham reached for the brandy again and this time completed the motion, pouring with a hand that shook visibly, the amber liquid splashing against the inside of the glass with an unsteady sound that filled the silence between them. He did not offer any to David. “You will understand — and you will obey.”
The word obey hung in the room like gunsmoke.
David said nothing. The joy of the evening — Nora’s smile, the warmth of the waltz, the promise that had passed between them — was already receding, pulled back like a tide that would not return.
“You are my heir,” Cheltenham continued, and his voice had taken on the cadence of a man who has rehearsed what he is about to say. “You will take on the estate and the title when I pass from this life to the next. You will be both the Earl ofHampshire and the Viscount Cheltenham. Not every gentleman has such a privilege, my dear boy.”
He paused, and in the pause, reached for the brandy glass with that unsteady hand. He did not drink. He simply held it, turning it slowly, the amber catching the lamplight.
“I have my daughter, Frederica. Your cousin.” His eyes returned to David’s, and the wildness in them had hardened into something closer to resolution. “Yesterday, I added a codicil to my will. It states that you will marry Frederica. You will make her your wife. Then, and only then, will her inheritance come to her. If it does not, then it will be left to someone entirely undeserving.”
The shock sent David into turmoil, a faint ringing in his ears. He could not summon any response, his words dying away as the room around him drew inwards, sweat breaking out across his forehead.
“You – you cannot expect me to do this.”
His uncle did not look at him, his gaze fixed on the hearth and the gentle glow of the red embers. “I did not want to cause you harm, my boy. But this is required of you.”
David lifted his chin, a sudden fierceness in his chest. “Would you truly treat your daughter with such coldness? Would you use her in such an ill way?”
“Ah, but it is for her best, whether you wish to see that or not.” A sharpness came into his uncle’s voice, a hardness about his eyes as he looked again at David. “You have duty and responsibility, Hampshire. Will you truly turn away from that?”
Bile rose in David’s throat. The very thought of binding himself to his cousin out of a sense of duty rather than affection made him shudder, thinking of the love he had come to share with Lady Nora – a love so new and so fresh, it was breathtaking.
Perhaps never to be shared again.
“This is madness, Uncle! I do not need to marry Frederica. Can she not make her own match?”
“No.” Lord Cheltenham lifted his gaze towards David and held it steady. “She will never be permitted to make her own match, for she has no good sense in her for that. You will marry her, Hampshire. Else she will be without fortune. She will have no inheritance to speak of, not even a substantial dowry. Which gentleman would marry her then?”
“Then I will care for her myself, with my own fortune.”
To David’s astonishment, Lord Cheltenham threw himself from his chair, striding across towards him and jabbing one finger in his direction. “Should you do so, then the codicil states the manor house will be taken from you. It is not entailed. Do you think that society will think well of that? That they will not become eager to know what it is you have done to make you lose the manor house? My Frederica will have no home of her own – and whilst you might believe that you can take her into your home, think of what will be said of that also!”
Astonishment rose in David’s mind, his heart pounding wildly. He had never once seen his uncle in such a state, the fury in his eyes burning up any hint of resolve to set himself against this.
“You have a duty to care for my daughter once I am gone.” Breathing heavily, the air began to rasp out of Lord Cheltenham’s lungs. “I have made certain that you cannot step back from her.”
David’s eyes closed. “You know I would do nothing to disgrace the title nor our family.”
“Then you will marry her.” His uncle put out one hand, setting it onto David’s shoulder as he waited for his response. David opened his eyes, but the edges of his vision were still blurring. Two doors stood before him, each leading to a separate future, and he could not bring himself to open either one. Onewould lead him away from Lady Nora, the other would pull him towards her. One would bind him to his cousin, the other would leave her penniless and shamed.
How could he choose?
“I ask you this in the knowledge that you will choose rightly,” his uncle said, a wheeze in his breath now. “You may still find affection, Hampshire. One day, it might wind its way between you both.”
