“Because I’ve been grossly bestrayed by my own father.”
“You mean betrayed.”
David nodded. “Indeed.”
“But your father’s been dead over a month now…Good lord, did he leave his fortune to someone else?”
“Not exactly.”
Christopher leaned toward David. “Then how were you betrayed?”
“Of all the properties the Paxtons possess, I shall not inherit the very one that means the most to me.”
“Paxton House in London?” Knowles asked.
“No,” David replied.
Lord Finchley looked askance at him. “He couldn’t give away Tonton Abbey. It’s entailed.”
David’s eyebrows folded. “How long have you known me?”
“More than twenty years,” Finch answered.
“Since we were eight years of age,” Knowles said.
“And do you not know where I have always been the happiest?”
“Oh, yes!” Lord Finchley brightened. “Darnley Lodge.”
David nodded morosely. “Ever since I was a wee lad, that was where I wanted most to be. That’s where I learned to ride. Papa and I would always go there without the women and girls. Just the fellows.”
“The shooting there was the best,” Christopher Perry acknowledged.
“It still is,” David said. “But I won’t get to enjoy it.”
“Who the devil did you your father bestow it upon?” Lord Finchley asked.
David poured another glass of brandy and took a long swig. “Some She-Devil who bewitched the old fool.”
“He left the lodge to a woman?” Perry asked, his dark eyes narrowed to slits.
David nodded, the set to his head as grim as one in mourning.
“A doxy, no doubt,” Lord Finchley said.
“It does seem so, though Papa was never in the petticoat line.”
“Your father was the most honorable man I’ve ever known,” Knowles said.
“So sorry this has rather ruined your Christmas. You must come with Perry and me to Glenmont for Christmas. I know you usually go to Darnley.”
David sighed. “There’s a massive problem about Christmas.”
“What would that be?” Perry asked.
“I’ve gotten a posthumous letter from my father begging me to spend this last Christmas at Darnley.” He snatched up his glass and downed the rest of the dark liquid.
“Will the doxy be there?” Lord Finchley asked.
David shrugged. “I don’t actually know. I don’t even know why Papa insisted that I spend the Yule at Darnley, but how I can refuse this last request? As angry as I am, he was my father. And throughout my life, he was a very good father.”
“Oh, definitely. A very good father,” Lord Finchley agreed.
The two others nodded in agreement.
“I don’t understand how he could betray me like this. He knew how much Darnley meant to me.”
“He couldn’t very well give away Tonton Abbey. It’s been in your family for centuries,” Lord Finchley said.
“Not to mention it’s entailed,” Knowles added.
“Why did that conniving, depraved, fortune-seeking, low-class wench have to get any of our property?” David grabbed the decanter and poured out another glass of brandy.
“Perhaps,” Knowles suggested, “you can have the will broken.”
“I have certainly discussed that with our solicitor. While he believes Papa was of very sound mind, and all is in order with the will, with everything witnessed properly by our long-standing Darnley servants, he will comply with my wishes to try to contest it.”
“How?” Knowles asked.
“The solicitor is engaging a barrister to examine the situation at my behest.” David took a long swig. “I also feel betrayed by our Darnley servants. I would have trusted them with my very life.”
Knowles shrugged. “All they did was obey your father’s request to witness the will. Perhaps you’re being too harsh on them.”
“Rotten luck, old fellow,” Lord Finchley said.
The two others nodded in unison.
“What if you’re forced to spend Christmas with that…that harlot?” Knowles asked.
David’s mouth thinned almost to a grimace. “I almost relish the prospect. I assure you I’ll take away everything that’s not nailed to the house. And you can be assured every animal in that stable will be moved to the stables at Tonton. She’ll get none of my possessions!”
“Such a dreary Christmas, old fellow.” Lord Finchley patted him sympathetically.
Chapter Two
The closer his coach drew to Darnley, the sadder David became. In all of England, there was no place he preferred over the wooded, rolling landscape that surrounded his family’s former hunting box. Just seeing the swell of beech-studded land that signaled Darnley’s approach had always sent a smile to his face and a quickening to his pulse.
But not today. Today he thought only of all he’d lost. It was hurtful enough losing his father, but knowing the man he’d loved most on earth had betrayed him in his dying days was as painful as losing that man all over again. He was mourning his father twice.
He mourned, too, all those memories they’d shared here at Darnley over the past eight-and-twenty years.
Coming here was one of the most painful things he’d ever had to do. How could his father have made such a demand upon him? Just peering from the frosty coach window at this beloved land stung.
In his melancholy state, he witnessed an occurrence that jarred him from his own misery. A young mother walking along the lane, a basket of greenery in one hand and her son beside her, slipped on the muddied surface and went sprawling into a ravine.
David signaled his driver to stop. He leapt from the coach and sprinted to the bottom of the ravine.
There a remarkably pretty blonde was struggling to get up, her lad attempting to help her. David hurried to kneel beside her. “Are you hurt?”
She looked at him, a dazed expression on her flawless face. “I believe I am,” she finally managed.
“Could your leg be broken?” he asked.
She shook her head. “My ankle.”
“Would you allow me to…” He couldn’t believe he was asking a perfect stranger if he could lift her skirts, shove down her stockings and gawk at her bare ankle. A genteel woman, at that. He could tell by her refined voice.
Still staring at him, she merely nodded.
That she had a child meant she was a married woman. Or had been a married woman. A quick glance at her left hand revealed she wore no wedding ring. Thankfully, she was not an innocent maiden.
“Left or right?” he asked.
“Right.”
He inched up the mud-splattered dress that had been sunny yellow, and then he delicately rolled down her right stocking, not permitting his hands to rise past her knees. When the smooth, pale skin of her ankle became exposed, he saw that it was already beginning to swell. “It’s either sprained or broken,” he proclaimed. “Either one causes great swelling and pain.”
He turned his head to examine it from every angle. “It doesn’t appear to be broken, though the bone could be cracked.” It was a wonder his voice didn’t tremble. This woman’s slender but shapely bare leg had a profound effect upon him. He hadn’t been so physically affected by the innocent touch of a female since he’d been at Eton. What in the devil had come over him?