Chapter Two
January 3, 1840
T homas Chance was attempting to think of a solution to the laundry of St. Thomas’s. And he would have done, too, if his head hadn’t been attempting to unscrew itself from his neck.
He groaned in agony. Then he groaned again, in the desperate hope that the agony would be frightened away.
“You bring it upon yourself,” said Alexander, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief as he spoke with a tone of delight.
Thomas groaned again, then opened his eyes to glare at his younger brother. “You’ll bring it upon yourself if you’re not careful.”
“I told you whisky after port was a bad idea,” said his brother, wagging a finger and a grin on his face. “And what did you say?”
Thomas groaned.
“Yes, something like that,” said Alexander, snorting as he entered the library and dropped onto the sofa with a book in hand. “And I said—”
“‘You’ll regret it in the morning,’” muttered Thomas, sinking deeper into the armchair, which was as far as he’d managed to get that morning. “And you were right, damn you.”
They were always right. There was something infuriating about having two younger brothers, both absolute dolts, who managed to be right about this sort of thing. Most infuriating.
And he would tell them how infuriating they were, he was certain, once this pounding headache had disappeared and the light stopped making his eyeballs ache.
There was a snapping sound and Thomas winced. “Can you not be quiet?”
“I don’t think so, no,” mused Alexander. When Thomas opened his eyes, his brother was holding a large atlas he had apparently snapped shut. “There’s not much point, either.”
Thomas frowned. “There isn’t?”
“Certainly not,” said his other brother, striding in with a smug look on his face. “Father is on the hunt for you, and I can tell you now it won’t be a quiet conversation.”
Bringing a hand over his eyes and wishing to God he had not drunk a single thing last night, Thomas groaned.
Of course Father was on the warpath. Of all days to have a hangover worse than death, it had to be the one Father decided to… What was it Mother had said just the other day? “Have it out.”
“I don’t have anything to say to him,” he muttered to the floor.
The snort could have been either of his brothers, but the snicker was most definitely Alexander. “You know what he’s like—holier than thou—”
“Not that it’s very difficult, when Thomas is the thou .” Leopold grinned. His rangy, athletic frame was mostly hidden by his jacket, but there was a strength in his shoulders in particular that made him dangerous in a boxing ring and impossible to shove. Not that his brothers didn’t regularly try.
Thomas glared, but it did not appear to make much difference.
“He’s the head of the Chance family, and it’s a great deal of responsibility,” reprimanded Alexander, though there was a glint in his eye that told Thomas quite plainly that he thought the whole thing amusing. “We’ve heard all the stories, about how hard he had to work to keep his brothers in line—”
“I always thought Uncles Frederick, George, and John got the worse end of the staff in those stories,” Thomas said, interrupting. That was it, push the conversation onto someone else. “After all, they could not be all bad—”
“You’re worse,” Alexander said bluntly. “Spending everything—forging Father’s signature!”
The last few words were spoken in a hiss, as though at any moment their father would walk in on them. Which, as it was his library, was very possible.
“And spending Maudy’s dowry… You’re a fool, Thomas, and you can’t keep hiding what you’ve done forever,” said Leopold in a similarly low voice.
Thomas rolled his eyes—anything to distract himself from the acute discomfort he felt at their accusations.
Well, not accusations . What was the word for it, when someone accused you of something terrible, and they, to your own detriment, were actually right?
“I never intended for it to get so out of hand,” he muttered, carefully examining his thumb.
Anything rather than look up at his two younger brothers. Barely men, and here they were, castigating him for something that was entirely not his fault! How could he have known he would grow so invested? How could he have predicted how difficult it would be to walk away?
“The family fortune is gone and it won’t be long before Father finds out,” Leopold was saying quietly. “He might throw you out.”
Thomas snorted with a shrug. “I’ll go to my club.”
“And pay for your room and board with what money?” The bluntness of Alexander’s words scraped across Thomas’s already painful conscience.
They were right. Damn them.
And the guilt Thomas had pushed aside for months, the knowledge he had been a complete fool, the certainty that it was all going to come out, the one thing his father feared and loathed in equal measure—scandal—about to roost in the Chance household yet again…
It was all his fault.
Thomas shifted uncomfortably in the armchair. “I’ll fix it.”
“I think the time for that ended last year,” Alexander said seriously. He had moved now from the bookcase he had been perusing and was now standing a few feet from the eldest Chance brother with a somber look. “Look, Thomas—”
“I don’t need your help,” Thomas said automatically.
The very idea! He was the eldest Chance brother—the eldest son of the eldest Chance brother. Father and his three brothers had produced countless children, but he was the most responsible.
The most irresponsible , a quiet voice in the back of his mind muttered.
Thomas ignored it. He also ignored the glances his two brothers exchanged. “Look, I said I’ll fix it—and I don’t need you to berate me. You can’t berate me more than I berate myself!”
“Clearly not enough,” said a deep voice.
Thomas rose to his feet, his legs forcing him upward before his mind could engage. It was one of the things one did when the Duke of Cothrom entered a room.
“Good morning, Father,” said Leopold quietly.
“How are you today, Father?” asked Alexander, his voice taut. “I was just thinking, a ride would be—”
“Out,” said William Chance, Duke of Cothrom, in a low voice.
He did not need to repeat himself or explain he meant for one of them to stay. Desperate as Thomas was to catch his brothers’ eyes, they did not meet his gaze as they left the library, closing the door behind them and leaving him to face their father.
Thomas swallowed.
It was ridiculous, really. William Chance had been a prim and proper young man, by all accounts, and had aged into a prim and proper gentleman with graying whiskers and a sharpness about the eyes. Though he had gifted all of his sons his height, he alone was starting to soften in the middle as the years crept up on him. He was not a harsh man, nor a cruel one. In many ways, he had been a loving and present father.
But there was something about his fury that burned through the silence that made Thomas feel he was five years old again and had been caught stealing butter from the kitchen.
The fact that it had been for the stable cat had been irrelevant. Sons and heirs of dukes, he had been reminded at the time, did not steal. The very thought!
William Chance, Duke of Cothrom, expected his sons to be above reproach. And now…
Thomas cleared his throat. “Look, I can explain—”
“I very much doubt it,” said his father stiffly. “Sit.”
Legs folding under him without conscious thought, Thomas hated how he returned to a state of childhood whenever his father gave him that look. It was the look that said: I know what you did, and I know you’ve tried to hide it, and I cannot decide which is more disappointing.
“You,” said the Duke of Cothrom slowly as he lowered himself onto the opposite sofa, “have spent all my money. Correct?”
Wishing the floor would swallow him up, never to return him to consciousness, Thomas forced himself to meet the man’s eyes then immediately wished he had not. He nodded.
“When I gave you equal access to the estate as my son and heir,” his father said, “it was because I trusted you. I expected great things from you. My solicitors advised against it…”
Thomas swallowed.
“I didn’t even think to keep an eye what you were doing. I didn’t think it necessary. You have let the family down,” his father said quietly. Thomas almost wished there was malice in his tone, anger, fury—but there was naught but disappointment. “Especially your sister. No dowry, I have discovered.”
The knot in his throat would not disappear, no matter how many times he swallowed. “I can—”
“Explain, you said. I don’t think so. There is nothing you can do to—”
“I intend to marry a fortune.”
Thomas was not sure what had possessed him to say it. The thought hadn’t occurred to him, it had spilled from him, pouring from a place inside he had not known was there.
The Duke of Cothrom raised an eyebrow. “Marry. You.”
“To a fortune, yes,” Thomas said hastily, spotting the prospect to at least attempt to show willingness. “I am of age, I am your heir—heirs need heirs, so I should marry. Why not marry money? Fill the coffers of Cothrom with—”
“With someone else’s money,” interjected his father, rolling his eyes. “Like your Uncle John.”
Thomas hesitated, unsure if his father was censuring him. “Uncle…Uncle John?”
His Uncle John, Marquess of Aylesbury, was an absolute rogue—in the best sense. He was probably Thomas’s favorite uncle. The man knew his way around a deck of cards like a rascal and always had the most hilarious stories to share of when the four Chance brothers had been younger. He was, ever since Thomas could remember, devoted to his wife.
And he married her for money?
“Aunt Florence—he married her for her dowry?”
For a moment, his father hesitated. Then he gave a curt nod. “It was agreed beforehand. Between them, I mean. A marriage of convenience.”
Thomas nodded, though he wondered why on earth his uncle had bothered. Would it not have been easier, surely, to just pick a suitable one, one noble enough to interest and rich enough to suit, and marry her?
“Well, you are to be married, then,” said his father with a sigh. “To whom?”
Thomas blinked. “To whomever.”
The Duke of Cothrom rolled his eyes again. “I see. Well, I am going to give you something that should aid you in your quest to find a pliable and wealthy bride—and it may just give you a sense of responsibility too, something of which you are in dire need. I discussed it with your mother, and she has given me her full support in the matter.”
Trying not to let his irritation show, Thomas attempted to appear intrigued. “Oh?”
“ Oh , indeed,” his father said testily. “It is irregular, but I have spoken with my solicitors and with the House of Lords—”
“House of Lords?” Thomas repeated, eyes widening. “But why would—”
“—and they agree that though it is unusual, there is no technical reason it cannot be done,” continued his father tautly. “I signed the paperwork this morning.”
Thomas waited for his father to explain, but all the man did was look at him. It was a careful, considered look, and it made him most uncomfortable. “Well? What is it, this gift?”
The Duke of Cothrom smiled. “I’m giving you the duchy.”
Four hours later, Thomas could still not understand it.
“You are quite sure you did not misunderstand,” Alexander said slowly, handing him the deck of cards to shuffle in the refined air of the card room at the Bath Assembly Rooms hours later. “You could have misheard him. Perhaps he said—”
“He was most definite,” said Thomas, still in shock. “He’s rescinded the title, passed it on to me before he dies. I…I am the new Duke of Cothrom.”
It was impossible. It was ridiculous. It was madness!
It had been done that morning. His father had shown him the paperwork, explained it all, then left him, hardly able to think…as the Duke of Cothrom.
Thomas dropped the deck of cards onto the table between them, then dropped his head into his hands. “What on earth am I going to do?”
“Do? Be the Duke of Cothrom, I suppose,” said Alexander with a wry laugh. “Oh, come on! You were always going to inherit someday. Frankly, if our father and his brothers had not had such an unconventional arrangement to begin with, the three of us would have been born with titles from the start.”
“Yes, but we weren’t and I didn’t expect to become the duke. Not now!” Thomas lifted his head and looked at his brother. “I thought Father—I hope Father will live another twenty, perhaps thirty, years! But now I’m the duke? What does that make him?”
His brother shrugged. “Wait until this news gets out in the ton . You’re going to be absolutely bombarded.”
“‘Bombarded’?” Thomas repeated.
Words hardly made sense anymore. How could they, when the unthinkable had happened?
“Well, I am going to give you something that should aid you in your quest to find a pliable and wealthy bride—and it may just give you a sense of responsibility too, something of which you are in dire need.”
Responsibility? He was the new Duke of Cothrom. His father had said something about meeting tenants, talking to the steward, organizing his sister’s next ball, ensuring the invoices on the desk were paid—a litany of problems that were now, apparently, his.
How did one go about being a duke?
It wasn’t something Thomas had ever particularly worried about. It was an eventuality, yes, but it would happen so far ahead in the future, he had not given it a second thought.
“Your Grace,” said a voice.
And the worst of it is, the very worst, is that—
“Cothrom.”
—that I can’t ask my father for help , Thomas thought darkly as he leaned back in his chair and pulled a hand through his hair. The man wouldn’t help him. The whole point was to make him feel ridiculous and start shouldering responsibility. But how could he—
“You’re going to have to get used to that,” said Alexander with a snort of laughter.
Thomas blinked, frowning at his brother. “To what?”
“To answering to your title.”
“No one said my—”
“‘Your Grace,’ ‘Cothrom’—two new ways people will talk to you.” Alexander wiggled his eyebrows. “Would you like to start practicing?”
For a moment, Thomas could do nothing but stare. Then his lips parted in a laugh, the whole nonsense of the situation pouring through him.
Him, a duke!
“Now that’s the response I expected,” Alexander said meaningfully, pulling the deck of cards out of Thomas’s unresisting hands. “You really are a dolt, you know that? Do you know how many men in Society would kill to have a duchy fall into their lap?”
Thomas chuckled, shaking his head ruefully. “I suppose quite a few.”
“Maybe more men of Papa’s generation should step aside, let the younger bucks take charge,” mused Alexander, as though he’d been put in charge of re-organizing Society. “After all, we can’t all wait around forever for the heads of families to—”
“ Alexander !”
“Well, I can’t believe I’m the only one who has thought it.” The youngest sibling grinned. “I’m sure Leopold will now consider it, with him becoming the heir and all that.”
Thomas would have punched his brother lightly in the arm, but that would been moving, and he couldn’t be having with that. Besides, he probably shouldn’t. Dukes did not go around hitting brothers.
He was a duke. The Duke of Cothrom! He was powerful now, respected—he could have any heiress he wanted, likely as not just for the asking.
Everything was going to be fine. He would marry well, restore the family coffers, and then he could go back to St. Thomas’s and—
“Father said something ridiculous about your wedding.”
Thomas’s laughter faded. Alexander was looking at him with a sharp, almost too-knowing look, and he had spoken quietly in case they were overheard. Not that it was likely. The card room at the Assembly Rooms had filled up fast, every table packed with gentlemen playing whist and poker and a whole host of other games. Smoke filled the place along with the scent of deep, rich red wine.
“Your wedding,” his brother repeated with an arched eyebrow.
Ah, yes. He still had to find an heiress to marry.
“If you were going to marry an heiress, say…oh, next week,” began Thomas, leaning forward over the card table. He lowered his voice, though the noise of the room sufficiently muffled their conversation. “Any heiress you could have. Which one would you choose?”
For a moment, Alexander just stared. Then he said slowly, “You’re pulling my leg.”
“I’m the Duke of Cothrom now,” Thomas said with a grin, power rushing through him, heady like the finest port. “I could marry anyone .”
“Give over—”
“I’m serious. I need to wed, and I can’t imagine any Society mama saying no to me, can you?” Thomas felt a lightness in the limbs, the sense of giddiness reaching his head.
Well, why not? Pick someone, anyone, and let the whole disaster pass him by. He’d want a pretty woman, naturally. Can’t marry someone you don’t want to look at.
“You are honestly asking my opinion of what woman to marry—like you’ve entered a haberdasher’s and are considering a row of silks for a cravat?”
Thomas ignored the incredulous tone of his brother. He wouldn’t understand. How could he? He hadn’t spent the family funds. He didn’t have to marry a fortune. He wasn’t a new, shiny duke.
“Heiresses in the ton —heiresses in Bath, if possible,” Thomas insisted. “Pretty enough to look at, well connected enough to suit—”
“You’re talking absolute—”
“I’m serious, Xander. If it’s the only way I can restore the family fortunes, restore Father’s trust in me…” Thomas had not intended to let his true feelings show, but he couldn’t help it. His pain, the self-loathing at the fact that he had managed to get himself into this situation, slipped out.
He met Alexander’s eye and did not look away. His brother examined him for a moment, then sighed and turned to look through the door into the main Assembly Rooms.
“Heiresses,” he said with an air of finality. “Right. Well, I suppose there is Marjorie Dalton.”
Thomas moved the name about in his mouth, as though he were tasting a fine wine. “Miss Dalton…?”
“Lady Marjorie, the Earl of Burnell’s daughter,” his brother corrected him sternly. “The junior branch of the family—you know the Daltons well enough. Her dowry is forty or fifty thousand, so I hear. Nice enough family, beautiful, charming, if you ask me…”
Alexander kept talking, but Thomas found it hard to concentrate. A few steps behind an older lady his mother’s age or older, a young woman had just stepped across the doorway wearing a soft-blue gown. The swish of the material accentuated the lightness of her movements, the delicacy of her waist.
And a memory stirred. A memory from not too long ago, and another one too, that was harder to place.
“Miss Ainsworth,” Thomas said without thinking.
“—and she—who? Oh, Miss Ainsworth. Yes, I suppose she is an heiress,” said his brother lightly. “But Lady Marjorie, she—”
“Miss Ainsworth—an heiress?” Thomas stared at his brother. Surely not. He’d never heard such a thing. “Truly? She doesn’t have a fortune, does she?”
Alexander shrugged. “Would you call five and forty thousand pounds a fortune?”
Thomas swallowed . Yes, he would. From memory, she had not been that bright—a little vacuous and eager to please. Interesting .
“But Lady Marjorie—”
“Well, I can make the decision easy enough,” said Thomas firmly. He wasn’t going to permit any feelings—not that he had any, he hardly knew the women on the ton outside of his family—to get involved. This was a marriage of convenience, even if he didn’t see the point in explaining that to the lady in question. Whichever one she would be. “Ready?”
He pulled a shilling from his waistcoat pocket.
His brother’s mouth fell open. “You—You’re not going to make the decision about the woman you marry based on a coin toss?”
Thomas shrugged. “Why not? There is surely an equal likelihood of me getting along with either woman. They’re both young, pretty, rich—”
“Thomas!”
“It doesn’t matter to me which woman it is,” he said, trying to forget the way his father had looked at him that morning. “I will restore the family fortune, and make sure Maudy has her dowry. You have a better idea?”
Alexander frowned but said nothing.
“Heads it’s Lady Whatsherface—”
“Lady Marjorie,” said his brother, a strange look passing over his face. “But—”
“Heads it’s Lady Marjorie, tails it’s Miss Ainsworth,” said Thomas, straightening his back as he turned the shilling over and over in his hand. It was warming to his touch and he could feel his pulse thrumming against it, quickening in pace as he beheld the coin.
This was it. His whole future was about to be decided, and by the toss of a coin. But was it truly any different, really, than Society’s usual methods?
Thomas tossed the coin.
His eyes followed it, unblinking, as it soared up in the air between them and then started its descent downward. Pulse thundering, ears unable to hear anything as the roar of his pulse echoed—
The coin landed.
On its side.
“Blow me,” said Alexander slowly.
Thomas stared, unable to believe his eyes.
“What are the chances of that?”
“I…I would guess a chance in a million,” said Thomas quietly, hardly daring to pick up the coin. It was still warm as he removed it from the table, his mind spinning.
He tossed it again. The impossible did not happen a second time, and it took a moment to realize that it had therefore selected for him a bride.
He leaned over. “Tails.”
“Well, there you have it!”
Thomas looked up and saw his brother grinning.
“Well, it’s a very good jest,” Alexander said, “but you’re not actually going to—where are you going?”
“To speak with my future bride,” said Thomas airily, with far more confidence than he felt. “I’ll see you at home.”
“But, Tommy—”
Ignoring his brother’s frantic words, the new Duke of Cothrom strode out of the card room and into the hustle and bustle of the Assembly Rooms. The place was packed; as usual, too many people had been let in, and Thomas’s gaze raked over lords and ladies and footmen and gentlemen and—
There. There she was.
The woman he supposed to be her mama no longer in sight, Miss Ainsworth was standing by one of those pillars—and it was the pillar that jogged his memory. Yes, it had only been a few days ago, hadn’t it? He’d spoken to her briefly by a pillar. What she had said, he could not recall, nor any of the answers he had given. He’d spotted Packham on the other side of the room, reminding him of the fifty pounds he owed him.
She was alone, which suggested no one wished to speak to her. Perhaps her conversational skills were as dull as he recalled. Perhaps he would be bored stiff in her company. Perhaps her companionship would be intolerable.
But that was what gentlemen’s clubs and his siblings and cousins were for. She could have her life under his roof, and he would have his, wherever he might go.
Well, no time like the present. Miss Ainsworth, and her five and forty thousand pounds, would soon be his.
Thomas made sure to hold his head up high—like he’d seen his father do—as he strode across the room. Pushing past people who attempted to gain his attention, he firmly ignored them, keeping his focus fixed on the woman who was about to solve all his problems.
When he reached her, however, he noticed three things.
Firstly, he had not prepared anything witty or charming to say, which was most remiss.
Secondly, Miss Ainsworth was alone and therefore gave him all her attention.
And thirdly, Miss Ainsworth was far prettier than he had remembered. In fact, she was beautiful. A lavender scent wafted around her, intoxicatingly sweet. Golden hair cascaded into a plait woven with gold thread then piled upon her head in a way that drew the eye—his eye—to the curve of her neck, then lower to the curve of her—
Thomas jerked his head up from where it had been, staring agog at her breasts, to see her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright.
Speak, man!
Allowing a broad grin to spread across his face, Thomas said, “I… Uh…”
How did she do it? Completely dazzle him, and just by staring! Staring, leaning against a pillar, a pillar he very much wanted to pin her against and taste—
“Hello,” said Miss Ainsworth quietly. “Your Grace.”