Blame It on Bath Page 0,17
Lady Howe agreed to that.”
Tyrell dipped his head in acknowledgment. “The new Viscount Howe left my offices disappointed.”
“So twenty thousand is tied up in this loan,” said Gerard slowly. “The balance—some eighty thousand pounds—is hers already. How is it invested?”
“Safely,” replied Mr. Tyrell.
He grinned. “Excellent. Thank you for your time, sir.”
He left the solicitor’s offices and headed across town. Tyrell had answered his first question about Katherine Howe’s money, but that alone wasn’t enough. Her family was beginning to sound as shrewd as his. Howe must have been a slippery fellow for Hollenbrook to demand so much of him, and his heir sounded little better. Gerard wasn’t afraid of bold actions, but he tried to avoid stupid ones if at all possible. What sort of man, precisely, would he be facing in Lucien Howe if he married Katherine? Gerard certainly didn’t intend to just turn his back on twenty thousand pounds. He headed up Oxford Street, on his way to Cavendish Square, where he rapped the knocker of the Earl of Dowling’s home.
As expected, he was admitted at once, despite the early hour. The butler showed him directly to the countess’s bedchamber, where the lady was still in her dressing gown. “Gerard, you naughty boy,” she cried, holding out her hands to him. “You’ve been in town several days and not come to see me!”
He laughed, kissing her cheek. “But here I am now—and surely sooner than Edward or Charlie.”
She made a face and waved one hand. “Edward will call in due time. I expect he has a list of tasks to accomplish, and somewhere on that list is written ‘Visit elderly aunt.’ Come, sit, we must have tea—and breakfast, if you are hungry.”
Gerard pulled out a chair for her. “Then you may wait a while. Edward always attends to business before pleasure, and visiting you brings nothing but pleasure.”
She laughed and settled into the chair he held for her. Without asking, Gerard plucked up a fluffy shawl from a nearby chaise and draped it over his aunt’s shoulders. She gave him an exasperated glance but left it around her. At her gesture, he took the chair opposite her.
“Now, what do you want to know?” she asked, when her servants finished laying out breakfast and bowed out of the room. “I know you and your brother never have time for an old lady unless you need something.”
“I’ve always time for the most beautiful lady in London,” he protested. “More likely you haven’t got time for me, with all your beaux around here. I don’t know how Dowling stands it.”
Margaret smiled. Even at seventy she was still very handsome. Her hair had faded from golden blond to pure silver, and her face had settled into a webbing of fine lines, but she was as slim and erect as in her bridal portrait, painted some forty years ago. It was hard to believe she had almost been a spinster, unwed until she was thirty, when her older brother Francis, Gerard’s father, unexpectedly inherited the dukedom of Durham. Overnight Margaret became one of the most eligible ladies in England, with a generous dowry from her brother, and snapped up the Earl of Dowling in a matter of weeks. “Beaux! Those are my grandchildren, you scamp.”
Gerard laughed. His cousin Philip, Margaret’s only child, had four sons, all under the age of twelve. “I daresay those aren’t the only ones who call.”
“Your brother Charles is the only handsome fellow who is not my son or grandson who calls on me regularly,” she said, pouring a cup of tea and setting it in front of him. “And even he comes only to share the gossip.”
“Charlie?” He was honestly astonished that his indolent brother found time to call on their aunt—but then again, Gerard had decided sometime ago that anyone who tried to decipher Charlie’s actions and motives was asking for madness. “He forgot to mention he’d seen you.”
“Every other Tuesday he comes, always with a lovely bouquet of flowers.” She fixed a glance on Gerard’s empty hands, which he instinctively put in his lap beneath the table. Margaret laughed. “Don’t be silly. I’m delighted to see you, with or without flowers. But I know you, young man; Charles comes because he has nothing better to do with himself. You, on the other hand, always have something to do and can hardly wait to do it. So I ask again, what do you want?”
“I think I came to apologize for taking you for granted,” he said, humbled