Lady Lilias and the Devil in Plaid - Julie Johnstone Page 0,71
should be bothering the family anymore. And I conveyed to my man to deliver the message you requested: that you would hunt down any man who bothered them again and make his life one of misery.”
“Excellent. And the other request I made of you?”
The young solicitor smiled. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and a friendly face. “That actually turned out to be much easier than I expected. My sister is a seamstress, and with a little poking around and a few passed coins, she got the measurements for all the women in the Honeyfield family. Everything you requested has been ordered, and they will think it came from Lord Barrowe.”
“Very good,” Nash said, grateful they could use Lilias’s uncle to protect Nash’s identity. “Then our business is concluded. You’ve done excellent work.”
“It’s my honor, Your Grace.”
Nash rang the bell, and the butler entered the study. Unfortunately, his mother came along with him, and by the frosty look she gave him, he suspected that he’d done something else to make her unhappy.
As the solicitor followed Sterns out of the study, his mother sat across from him. “What was that about?” she asked.
“Business,” he replied, then got up and poured himself another drink.
When he turned back toward her, she was frowning. “I don’t suppose you were talking to your solicitor because you have plans to make an offer for a lady?”
“You are correct not to suppose that.” He knocked back his drink, welcomed the numbing burn, and set the glass on the desk.
“You are imbibing too much,” his mother said, her voice cold and tone chastising.
He was tempted to pour another just to see if she would show real emotion. Become irate? Throw something at him? She so rarely displayed anything beyond the most muted responses.
“Are you playing at being my mother now?” he asked. “It’s a bit late. I’m all grown up.”
“It is never too late,” she said, her tone full of haughty disdain, “for you to become the duke your father and I expected you to be. You owe me.”
And there it was. She thought he owed her for Thomas’s death. But hadn’t he already given his life? His happiness? His peace? He opened his mouth to say all that, but he shut it just as quick. Penance. The word reverberated in his mind.
“What is it you wish me to do, Mother?”
She looked as him as if he ought to know. “Why, wed, of course.”
The thought made him flinch.
“Your greatest purpose is to wed a woman who will strengthen the Greybourne bloodline and produce many healthy sons.”
“Was that your greatest purpose?” he asked, her choice of the word healthy striking somewhere dark in him. He had never liked that they had undermined Thomas’s confidence in himself simply because he was born with one leg shorter than the other and weak lungs.
“Partly, but we are not discussing me. I have a wife in mind for you. Her family line is impeccable.”
“She sounds like a perfect breeding specimen.” He didn’t bother to curb his cynicism.
“I’ve told her father you will come to supper.” It was a cold, detached statement.
“When?” he said, forcing himself to accept his fate and pushing any feelings about it away.
His mother gave a rare smile, purely triumphant. “Tomorrow.”
“Who is this paragon of purebred lines you’d have me wed?”
“Her name is Miss Eloise Balfour. She’s the daughter of Dr. Balfour.”
Nash frowned. “Our family physician?”
His mother nodded.
“I’m surprised and gladdened to discover you don’t consider her beneath the family name, given she’s not of the ton.”
“She has other things that recommend her,” his mother replied in a pinched tone.
What the devil is going on here?
“Such as?”
“Her mother produced six sons, all healthy.”
“I see.” His old anger at how they viewed Thomas as a problem to be managed and fixed flared once more. “Are you concerned, Mother, about getting an unhealthy grandchild?”
“Of course, I’m concerned,” she snapped. “Sins of the past always taint the future.”
His sins. She meant his sins.
And perhaps she was right. It didn’t matter that the prospect of meeting Miss Eloise Balfour did not make him feel anything. What mattered was atonement, and he was apparently far from finished atoning.
Lilias stood outside of her mother’s closed bedchamber door with her fist raised to knock, but she lowered her hand, heart pounding, and stared at the dark wood. She was tortured by guilt. She could not wed Owen, but how could she willingly make her sister and mother’s life more difficult? Why must things be so complicated?