Hecate took another bite of eggs, which needed salt. “He’ll look a fool if he takes that route. Men don’t sue for breach of promise.”
“Society expects the Bromptons to flout convention. Johnny can legally bring the claim and even prevail. You are not well liked, and more than one gossip will be delighted to see your reputation tarnished by scandal.”
Litigation, particularly between family members, was grist for gossip in itself. Johnny would make a convincing jilted suitor, and Papa would abet him every step of the way.
Hecate put down her fork. “You’d drag the whole family through the expense and spectacle of a lawsuit?”
Isaac dusted his hands over his plate. “Of course not. All I want, all I have ever wanted, is my daughter’s happiness. But she’s headstrong and misguided, unnaturally preoccupied with financial matters rather than raising a family. Along comes a handsome fellow of significant potential with the fortitude to court her, and she sees the error of her ways. Ten years on, though, and the situation has been left too late. She chooses money over the worthy man, even to the point of putting the family through litigation. One fears for her wits.”
The problem with the Bromptons was that they not only built castles in Spain, they described those edifices so convincingly, that others began to believe in them as well. Impressive fabrications of dishonesty and subterfuge, built on a foundation of lies.
Phillip, trying so hard to learn Society’s ways, would recoil from scandal.
But he would not recoil from Hecate herself, would he?
“Then I suppose we will entertain the gossips in the well-established Brompton tradition,” Hecate said, “but you can expect your allowance to cease the instant Johnny goes to the courts.”
“There, you see? My dear daughter can think only of money. An unnatural woman. Fortunately, I anticipated that response and have saved accordingly. I cannot say Edna and her brood or the others have shown similar foresight. Johnny tells me he’s prepared to deal generously with them. They are family, after all.”
To hate Isaac would only allow him purchase on Hecate’s soul he did not deserve, but she had underestimated him.
“You are saying that Johnny will claim my fortune through marriage or by an award of damages. Either way, I will lose control of a substantial part of my money.” And of her freedom. Marriage obliterated that freedom outright, but scandal circumscribed a single woman’s existence just as tightly. No invitations, every outing a gauntlet of stares and whispers, employees leaving without notice, merchants declining orders…
Hecate put another bite of eggs into her mouth. I am too tired for this. “Am I to be given any time to adjust to the potential change in my circumstances?” Either way, marriage or scandal, her circumstances would change.
“Time to pout, you mean? That is up to Johnny. I assume he’ll want to make a favorable impression at Horse Guards, look up some old friends, and generally take Town by storm before he resorts to any drastic measures. Reconcile yourself to a humbler existence, my girl, because you can sulk and fume all you want, but your tyranny over this family has ended.”
Johnny would spade the turf of public opinion, in other words. He hadn’t waited ten years for his chance only to bungle the race a few yards shy of the finish line.
“Excuse me,” Hecate said. “I have lost my appetite.”
“Making a sudden dash away from the breakfast table?” Papa mused. “I wonder what that could portend?”
Mean, vile, nasty man. Hecate left at a dignified walk and nearly plowed into Phillip two yards down the corridor.
He steadied her with a hand on each arm. “Hecate, good… What’s wrong?”
The concern, the immediate realization that something was amiss, undid her. She pitched herself against his chest as the first hot tear trickled down her cheek.
“They ruin everything,” she said, “and now they have found a way to ruin me.”
The ruddy blighters had driven his Hecate to tears. Phillip set aside his rage and ushered her into the nearest parlor, closing and locking the door behind them.
And to blazes with what Society would say about that. The Bromptons as a family were unlikely to be abroad much before noon, and several of them would start the day in beds other than their own.
“I’m sorry,” Hecate said, sinking onto a tufted sofa. “I’m tired, and I miss you, and I’m upset.”
Phillip passed over a handkerchief and sat beside her. “This has to do with Johnny?”
“And Papa. They’ve outmaneuvered me, Phillip. Stolen around my flank while I was planning horse races and menus.” She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief, and Phillip was angry all over again.
“They are your family, the people to whom you should be able to turn for aid in all circumstances.” And they had reduced her to tears and apologies.
She folded up the linen and speared him with a look. “Like your family has been there for you?”
Lord, they’d upset her badly. “When Tavistock learned of my existence, he put matters right as quickly as possible. That is how family ought to behave. Who upset you at breakfast?”
“Papa. I don’t want to call him that. Isaac. He wouldn’t admit to colluding with Johnny, but he intends to support Johnny’s claim on me right up to the courts and beyond, if necessary.”
When dealing with a fractious beast, Phillip usually took the approach of first deducing what inspired the animal to bad manners and contrariness. Herd politics might play a role. A tummy ache, fear, inexperience, or a simple need for time to absorb new surroundings could all come to bear. Rarely was an animal difficult for no discernible reason.
The Bromptons were driven by money, the lack of it, the lust for it. Sorting out their motivation took no effort at all. “They are after your fortune.”
She nodded. “And I would wish them the joy of it, except that in their hands, the money won’t last five years. Charlie and Eglantine’s children will come of age as paupers, Uncle Nunn’s beautiful estate—his memorial to his lady wife—will collapse from dry rot, and Portia and Flavia will become spinsters.”
And Hecate cared for those people, even as she loathed the man her mother had married. “You are like a yeoman,” Phillip said. “Nature has dealt you blow after blow, but if you don’t get out of bed each morning and strike back against the incessant rain, falling markets, and crumbling pasture walls, your family will suffer, and all those folk in the cities will have no bread at any price. So you get up, face the day, and carry on, tending your patch.”
“They are my family, Phillip. If I marry Johnny, the money will be frittered away. If I don’t marry Johnny, he will bring suit for breach of promise and demand my fortune in damages. Papa apparently has some papers I unknowingly signed that qualify as settlement agreements. I can repudiate them, but I’ve had ten years to do that and haven’t. I’m sure Johnny will make that point to a very sympathetic jury.”
“And then Johnny will fritter away the funds without even marrying you.”
Phillip had dropped off to sleep last night the first time, anticipating shared pleasures with his beloved. In his worst imaginings, he could not have conjured waking to this mare’s nest of intrigue, greed, and arrogance.