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“Never mind that!” Ella exclaimed. “Where will my aunt live? Where—”
“She’ll live in the country, as she always has,” the viscount shouted. “I suppose I shall have to accept the truth that no one can know that my wife carries a cuckoo. You don’t think I can bear to see her countenance, do you? She’ll go to the country, and you’ll go with her, unless I decide to throw you to the street.”
Fiennes took one step forward and caught the back of the viscount’s collar, hoisting him upwards so only his lordship’s toes touched the ground.
“What the devil!” the viscount cried in strangled tones. His high collar was caught under his chin, his neckcloth plunging forward like a frothing waterfall.
Fiennes gave him a hard shake. “You will behave in a respectful way to your wife, daughter, and niece, or I shall make you do so.”
Ella’s uncle managed a croak of a laugh. “You may think you’re going to marry my daughter, but not if I withdraw my consent. They all told me, the Regent told me, that Fulvia is the most beautiful woman in London. She can have anyone.”
“Don’t be an utter ass,” Fulvia said dispassionately. “We are all in Lord Peregrine’s hands, Father, though it seems you are too stupid to realize it.”
Fiennes shook the viscount once more and then opened his hand. His lordship’s knees buckled but he caught himself on the back of the settee and popped upright like a jack-in-the-box.
“I should check on my aunt,” Ella said. Shock had ripped through her body so many times in one night that she felt as if she’d been beaten.
“No, that is my task,” Fulvia said, turning without further ado and walking away.
“Don’t leave my presence without—” the viscount bawled, caught sight of Fiennes’s face, and cut off the sentence.
“You will behave respectfully to your family,” Fiennes said, slowly, as if he were addressing an elderly person who needed to read his lips. “Do you understand?”
“You think I will take instructions from a mere baron?” the viscount retorted, his lip curling. “A baron whose father was granted the title due to his ability to sell fruits and vegetables? The St. Trevelyon viscountcy goes back for generations.”
Ella gritted her teeth. “When do we have to leave the house?”
“I am being abominably treated,” her uncle said petulantly. “My future son-in-law has treated me with all the respect that one gives a blighted criminal, at the same time that I have endured the greatest betrayal of my life, learning that the serpent I nursed in my bosom, the wife whose chastity was everything to—”
He caught Fiennes’s glance and broke off. “I am hard used. My friends will weep for me.”
“Your friends think you a fool,” Fiennes said, his voice hard. “They take you for your money and will keep taking from you until you and your family are vagrants, cast out on the mercy of the road.”
“You are a hard man,” the viscount said sullenly.
“How long do we have?” Ella asked again. “How long will this Clod Tyrwhitt give us before he takes possession of my parents’ house?”
“Two weeks!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SURPRISE!
The viscount headed toward the door without another word.
Ella’s mind reeled. How was she to move the household in a mere two weeks? What would happen to the furniture? Her father’s books?
Fiennes touched her shoulder. “Are you all right, Ella?”
The question was irrelevant. She took a deep breath. “Could you please marry my cousin in the next week?”
His jaw tightened. “If need be.” His voice grated.
“That would be most helpful,” Ella told him. She had a sour, ugly feeling in her stomach at the idea of that marriage, but it didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered, really.
She startled as the viscount slammed the door to the drawing room behind him.
