To Love a Tormented Earl - Bridget Barton Page 0,36

soon. He gave me to understand he shares Whitmore’s surgeon, and the latter is most concerned about it all.’

‘Why did they leave Bath?’ Max wondered.

‘For the London season. Gardner was rather scandalized. It would seem Miss Whitmore received an invitation from an aunt to have her debut along with a cousin. She accepted rather than remain in Bath for her father’s health.’

‘Whitmore might have remained behind, if his daughter was in care of a family member.’

‘The man was far too ill to be left unattended,’ Roberts said.

Max frowned. It seemed there existed a frivolous side to Miss Whitmore he found difficult to reconcile with his personal knowledge of the lady. It was most discomfiting.

‘And was her season a success?’ he found himself asking.

‘None of the gentlemen I spoke to addressed that, old chap,’ Roberts said. ‘But as she remains unmarried, I would have to think not.’

‘Her father’s illness has no doubt dissuaded suitors from calling,’ Max mused.

‘And the fact that she’s put her hunt for a husband above her father’s wellbeing,’ Roberts said, tugging on his moustache.

Max bristled. He disliked the criticism against Miss Whitmore, but he could find no reasonable argument to gainsay it.

‘One might go so far as to infer that the lady seeks marriage in order to escape her duties as a daughter to an invalid,’ Roberts continued.

Max made a sharp scoffing noise. ‘I see no evidence to support such a claim,’ he said when Roberts gave him a wide-eyed look of surprise. ‘There are no other children to care for Whitmore. No doubt prospective suitors are reluctant to pursue her for they know they shall have the burden of his care should they take her to wife.’

Roberts shrugged and Max expected him to let the matter drop, but he did not.

‘Bircher said something else.’

Inhaling deeply, Max said, ‘And what is that?’

‘There are rumours...of financial trouble.’

Max frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Bircher was not as forthcoming about that,’ Roberts said. ‘But apparently he heard tell rumour of Miss Whitmore selling several valuable items, as well as land from their country house.’

‘Land? But what of their tenants?’

Roberts shook his head. ‘He did not go into detail. But the impression he gave is that those who know the Whitmore family suspect it is on the verge of financial ruin. The girl’s dowry isn’t above one thousand pounds. Of course her son will inherit the family estate, but if she’s been selling off parcels of land...’

Max was seized with the sudden urge to settle an annuity on Miss Whitmore, or perhaps to simply gift her a large sum, that she might have the interest payments. She deserved better than this infernal gossip, which no doubt had contributed to her failure in the previous seasons and would continue to do so, until she became a spinster doomed to care for her ailing father until he died. And what then? If the family fortune really was so diminished, where would Miss Whitmore be in a few years?

A horrid image of Miss Whitmore, impoverished and living alone in some wretched garret filled Max’s mind. And that was not the worst possibility. He shied from allowing more dire imaginings to develop in that regard.

It was a detestable fact, however, that Max was cut off from his own wealth, and quite incapable of gifting Miss Whitmore anything. He lived on a small sum he had taken with him to Portugal. Without Roberts’s half-pay as a lieutenant relieved of duty, they might not have been able to afford the residence they shared on Portman Square at all.

The gentlemen arrived at their townhouse and Max alighted from the carriage in a tumultuous mood. His heart was in a state of confusion. He marched up to the drawing room and began to pace the now-familiar path from one end of the room to the other.

Miss Whitmore’s future was no concern of his, and yet he could not stop troubling himself over it. She was assisting him, yes, and for that he was grateful, but he could not set aside the reason he had chosen her for his agent in the first place. The lady was courting disaster with some sort of illicit affair. Whether rumours were destroying her chances for marriage or not, the lady herself was endangered by her own actions. There was no sense lamenting his inability to give her money—how preposterous to even wish to do so.

And yet. And yet.

He felt for her. She was a young, unmarried woman without the benefit of a family’s protection.