The shock in her voice amused Marcus, though he hid it. Oh, the scandal of a woman who read and kept up on current events.
The duchess wasn’t finished. “She would be better off concentrating on holding her tongue and acting like a lady. She’s three-quarters of the way to becoming an eccentric. This is her third Season, and if she doesn’t find someone to marry, she’ll be a confirmed spinster.”
Which she made to sound the worst fate imaginable.
“As for you, I don’t know where to begin. Your comments at supper were scandalous. I was so angry with you, I couldn’t see straight. What do you mean bringing up such indelicate topics at the table? If you must talk so, you should at least wait until the ladies retire. What the ton will make of your behavior, I can’t imagine. I have a hard enough road sorting out a suitable wife without you behaving so recklessly at our first social engagement of the year.”
Mother nagged and grumbled all the way back to the house, and as was his habit, Marcus let it roll over and around him.
At least he could report back to St. Clair that he’d made contact with two persons of interest in the Fitzroy case. He’d extended a dinner invitation to Trelawney, and he had established his bona fides with Eddington.
Hopefully, in the days to come, he would find other points of interaction with them.
Then his mind drifted to Lady Charlotte.
She was a puzzle. There was more there than he’d first thought. She played cards like a mathematician, evidently read books like an Oxford don, and had a hard time keeping her opinions to herself.
That his mother, who had the sharpest tongue he’d ever encountered, would think Charlotte too outspoken made him want to chuckle.
He shook his head. Lady Charlotte had not fawned or flirted with him and hadn’t treated him with any deference. She’d been friendly and interesting. Far more interesting than anyone else at the party.
She dressed like an old maid, but there was something attractive about her at the same time that intrigued him. As if a woman of passions lurked behind the dowdy facade.
The coach lurched to a stop in front of his townhouse, and Marcus was out the door, ready to get away from such ridiculous musings. It was his mother’s fault, putting all this marriage nonsense into his head.
Why was it that the moment his mother told him he shouldn’t do something—even if he hadn’t formerly contemplated it—that thing became exactly what he wanted to do straight away?
It must be a flaw in his character.
CHAPTER 4
“IT’S THE PERFECT solution, I tell you. Why won’t you even consider it?”
Marcus prayed for patience as his mother banged the same old gong.
“No one would bat an eyelash. After all, she’s a widow with a small child. You need a wife. As I said, it’s perfect. We could have a small ceremony here and then put a little notice in the papers. No fuss, and everything would be so tidy.”
“Madam, please. We’ve been over this. I have no more wish to marry my brother’s relict than she to marry me.” Marcus scraped his quill against the inkwell, shook off the excess drops, and replaced the pen in the holder. No one matched his mother for bringing work to a standstill. He sat back in his desk chair. The letter to his steward at Haverly Manor would have to wait.
“How do you know? Have you asked her?” The rasp of exasperation colored her tone. At the rate she was yanking on the threads, her needlework would be a rat’s nest in no time.
“He has not. He has no need to ask.” Cilla came into the room, the baby in her arms. His sister-in-law’s hair was so pale a yellow as to be nearly white, her skin like alabaster, her eyes a vivid blue. She’d grown thin, too thin to Marcus’s way of thinking, since the baby had been born. Pining for Neville, no doubt.
Mother had wanted her to remain at the estate, but Cilla had begged to be allowed to come to London. “I don’t want to stay alone in the country. There are too many memories here. Everything is still too fresh.”
It had rankled Marcus that Cilla, a grown woman, widow of the heir to the Haverly title and estates, had thought she needed to ask permission of him or her mother-in-law to come or go as she pleased. He’d said as much at the time.
She now crossed the room to the desk, gently bouncing the infant. “Mother Haverly, I do wish you’d stop trying to push me off on Marcus. I do not wish to remarry. And I think of Marcus as he is, my brother. My daughter’s dear uncle.”
Marcus studied Cilla and then glanced at his mother. Cilla had been moldable when she had been chosen as his brother’s bride. Mother had seen someone she could manipulate under the more socially acceptable term “guide,” and Cilla had acquiesced, giving in to her mother-in-law’s “suggestions” in nearly everything.
But since Neville’s death, since Honora Mary’s birth, Cilla had been showing some signs of independent thought and even a touch of contrariness, alarming to Mother and interesting to Marcus.
She eased the lace cap away from the baby’s cheek. “I wanted to show you what Honora Mary can do now.” Tilting her up a bit, she said, “Show Uncle Marcus your new trick.”
Marcus had to admit the child looked better than when he had first seen her. Much less mottled and wrinkled. Her skin was the color of pink roses, and her hair grew in an absurdly cute tuft atop her head, like a thistle just gone to seed. He reached out, and she grasped his finger, drawing a smile from him.
Then she smiled back. At least he thought she did. Her mouth quirked up in odd directions, and her eyes locked with his.
“See, she’s smiling. Isn’t she a clever girl?” Cilla beamed, as if the child had just proven worthy to join the Royal Society of Astronomers.
Mother let her needlework fall to her lap. “Don’t you see it? You make such a nice family group. And it would save so much bother.”
“Enough.” Marcus disengaged his finger from Honora Mary’s tiny grip. Frustration made him reckless. All day the responsibilities and expectations of being the head of the house, the title bearer, had bound him and restricted him and weighed upon him until he was ready to pitch the entire enterprise into the dustbin and emigrate to the Americas. “We’ve both told you now that we have no desire to marry each other. If you don’t leave it, you’ll force me to do something drastic.”
Cilla and Mother both looked up quickly.
“Such as?”
He strove for patience, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Such as grab the first spinster I see and race to Gretna Green so you’ll stop hounding me?” He bowed, taking far too much pleasure in his mother’s shocked expression. “I have an appointment. I’ll change at the club and meet you at the ball.” Without waiting to hear his mother’s protests, he left his office. His office. The one room in the house where he should be able to get work done in peace and that the ladies insisted upon invading. Why couldn’t they use one of the townhome’s multiple sitting rooms, drawing rooms, or reception rooms and leave him alone?
Exiting the house, he felt as if a great weight slipped from his shoulders as he relegated the dukedom to the side and focused on the task ahead. Partridge met him in the mews, and they struck out for Piccadilly Road and Hatchards. Marcus noted a lightness in his step now that he was back in his comfortable role as agent for the Crown.