“Let me understand you,” he said, breaking into the argument. They both turned to look at him. “You don’t wish me to marry and you don’t wish me to sire an heir. Could it be you would rather the line dies with me?”
“If you die,” she snapped, “it would pass to your uncle.”
“A man who has no heir of his own,” George said. The anger lashed in his voice now, a caught snake seeking something to bite. “Tell me, Mama, do you really hate me so much you would rather I died than continue the family name?”
She sucked in a breath, but any hope that she might unbend, even a little, and show him some softness, quickly died. “You were never supposed to inherit,” she said, her voice too quiet, but all the more potent for it, like drifting smoke. “You were never supposed to carry the name you hold now.”
“Anne,” his uncle said pleadingly, but George fixed his gaze on his mother’s face, and all the spite, all the anger, she carried there, too. Lord knew there was plenty between the both of them to infect this entire Manor.
“Leave,” he commanded, authority ringing in his tone. “If you would rather not be treated as my mother, that can be arranged.”
“I amnotyour mother,” she spat. “And you are not my son. You are anabominationthat your father forced on me as an exercise in humiliation. You are the reason behind every bad thing that has happened to this family—first Arthur, my darling boy, then Frederick. Mere months after you came back, we lost Frederick. And now all we have isyou.”
George didn’t flinch. The vitriol was hardly unexpected, though she had never said any of those things directly. But the accusation that he had been the reason behind his brothers’ deaths, however unreasonable, however unjustified, stung, flicking raw at wounds that had never entirely sealed.
“Get out,” he said, rising. “And you,” he flung at his uncle. “You may accompany her.”
His uncle took his mother’s arm. “Come now, Anne,” he said, leading her to the door as she cast him another poisonous glance. “We wouldn’t want to upset the Duke.”
“You mistake me,” she said. “I have every intention of upsetting the Duke. He should notbethe Duke.”
“Regardless,” George said levelly as they reached the door. “I am.”
Peters opened the door, ushering them through, and closed it once more. George closed his eyes. He should have known the encounter would go that way. His mother had never been patient nor understanding, and she had done her best to both control and thwart him at every turn, ever since he had first inherited the title.
God knew he would rather have had Frederick back. He poured himself another glass of brandy and tossed it back. Then another. Peters came to the door once more.
“Shall I bar the Dowager entry to the Manor, Your Grace?”
George looked at Peters for a long moment. He was young for a butler, barely forty, with thinning hair and a long, aristocratic nose. He’d been promoted to butler several years ago, when the previous butler retired, and although this was the third Duke he’d served, George had no reason to doubt his loyalty. Or his discretion.
“No,” he said with a sigh. “That would set London talking.” He swirled the liquid in his glass contemplatively for a moment. “More than it already is, at any rate.”
Peters said nothing. There was littletosay; George had cultivated his reputation in part because that was what was expected of him, but also because he knew it would infuriate his mother. It was childish and immature, but at the same time he had learned all he could about running an estate and running a Manor, and he treated his servants as fairly as he could. This entire situation was a problem.
“Did you pay the girl?” he asked after a moment. “Extra, for her trouble.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Thank you. That will be all.”
His butler closed the door behind him and alone at last, George stared at the dregs in his glass, wishing, not for the first time, that he did not bear the weight of a title on his shoulders.
* * *
“Dear me,” Aunt Susan said as she wrapped her shawl more firmly around herself with shaking hands. “Dear me, they’re late.”
Sybil stared at the front door with dislike. Maybe if she willed it hard enough, she wouldn’t have to go to London, where thetonand all their judging remarks lay.
Since she fled from the side of that footman by the river, since she had sneaked back to Thomas’ house and returned to London at first light, she had been living with Aunt Susan. It had been a wonderfully quiet year; Aunt Susan, so far from encouraging her to flirt, had discouraged any young gentlemen from visiting. Her idea of fun was a gentle stroll together, or a game of cribbage in the evening. And yes, perhaps Sybil had been a trifle bored, but at least there was nothinginappropriateabout Aunt Susan.
The very thought would have made her want to laugh, if she wasn’t staring at the door with such vehemence as Aunt Susan flapped around her.
“How terrible,” she said, tittering. “Your mother has never been punctual, but to think she’s this late when your stepfather—”
“He will barely notice my presence,” Sybil interrupted. Maybe if she narrowed her eyes at the door, it would burst into flames. Anything would be better than her mother stepping through the door—after a full year of avoiding her. Of blissful, if slightly dull, quiet.
All destroyed because apparently, it was a lady’s duty to marry.
