Chapter Four
Richard climbed from the carriage before his family’s ancestral home, torn between pleasure that his father had sent a carriage to bring him from London and thinking that he’d rather have the money the ride cost. A carriage ride might save time now but did little for a man’s future.
As a second son, Richard took particular interest in his future.
He also had a good idea why he’d been summoned home and had no desire to hurry into the mediation to come, and so would have been happy to arrive by post. Undoubtedly, his older brother, Viscount Wilmington, three years older than Richard and both titled and entitled, still stewed over the firing of Mrs. Younge.
Richard and Darcy had given Thomas a perfectly sound reason for removing his choice of governess, that reason being that Mrs. Younge had permitted a fortune hunter to court Georgiana.
More than that, Georgiana was Richard and Darcy’s ward, not Thomas’s.
They’d already bowed to his wishes in hiring Mrs. Younge.
They needn’t bow again before discharging her.
All Thomas cared about, however, was the woman’s bloodline.
As far as he was concerned, being the great granddaughter of a duke on her mother’s side and the granddaughter of an earl on her father’s made Mrs. Younge a wonderful person.
Fortunately, Richard’s father, though Earl of Matlock, didn’t share Thomas’s obsession with noble lineages.
Like as not, Father would side with Richard in the upcoming mediation.
Richard had never fully comprehended the obsession with noble forbearers shown by some members of his family, such as his brother Thomas and their father’s sister, Lady Catherine.
Richard knew he and their younger sisters were only half-siblings to Thomas, being born to the Earl’s second wife, but even so, sometimes Richard felt as if he and Thomas weren’t even related, possibly because they never seemed to find common ground on anything.
Not that Richard truly cared what Thomas thought.
His brother’s good graces might make life easier, but Richard almost longed to be free of them.
He’d felt a low, simmering anger for his brother ever since Thomas had elected to remain in London while his lady wife lay dying after birthing their third son.
The Viscountess had deserved better than the way Thomas had treated her, in life and in the hour of her death.
Richard strode up the wide stone steps to the grand front door of his family’s country seat, secure in the knowledge that Thomas had no power over Georgiana’s care.
The familiar face of the family’s butler bowed to him as he entered an entrance hall that always seemed cold, a sensation created by eighteen-foot ceilings, ancient gray stone walls and an almost obstinate lack of light.
“Pickney,” Richard greeted, handing over his outerwear. “Is the family about?”
“You are the only one here, sir. His lordship requested your immediate attendance upon arrival, if you’re not too fatigued from your journey.”
Fatigued indeed. “Not at all. Show me to my father.”
Richard followed Pickney deeper into the house and soon found they headed not to his father’s office or even the library, but to the far back corner of the massive structure and a small parlor resplendent in dark green, even darker wood, and animals stuffed in various supposedly natural poses.
As a child, Richard had been fascinated by the quails, various waterfowl, minks, foxes and even the antlered head of a deer.
Now, after serving on the Continent, he found the room macabre.
Pickney knocked and opened the door. “My lord, Colonel Fitzwilliam is here.”
Lord Matlock looked up from a large leatherbound volume. “Ah, good. Thank you, Pickney. That will be all for now. We’ll ring if we need anything.”
The butler bowed and headed back down the long hallway.
Before Richard could cross the small space to greet his father, Lord Matlock said, “Close the door, if you would, Richard.”
Richard complied, using the moment his back was to the Earl to grimace.
This wasn’t to be a mediation, then, but a lecture about aggravating his older brother.
For so long as Richard could recall, the general tactic of their family was to appease Thomas, to avoid his fits of pomposity.
Richard did not agree with that approach but knew where his father came by the strategy.
The Earl had grown up that way. Everyone handled his sister, Lady Catherine, with the same method. Including Richard.
Assuming a bland expression, Richard turned back from the closed door and crossed to bow. “Father, it is good to see you. Thank you for sending a carriage. It made the journey much more pleasant.”
“Yes, well, I required you here when I wished you here. I made certain the others are away.”
Richard paused in the act of sitting, then completed the movement a heartbeat later. “The others are away?”
Usually, their father sent Thomas away before lecturing Richard, to spare him Thomas’s gloating, but why send Richard’s sister Abigail away? Abigail, who’d been widowed young, kept house for their father and could be counted on to at least appear impartial, even if she generally sided with Richard.
The Earl closed his book, resting wrinkled hands atop the worn leather.
“This is to be a very private conversation. I desire no interruptions, and I wish for you to have time to think on what I will tell you before speaking with your siblings. Especially Abigail. She knows you too well and is too astute to fool.”
“Why would I need to fool Abigail?”
The Earl looked away somewhere over Richard’s shoulder. His gaze grew abstract, deep lines etching his brow. “You recall that your mother’s first husband had a brother? Mr. Wansley?”
Richard nodded, at a loss as to the choice of topic. “Vaguely. I seem to recall she didn’t care for him.”
“Yes, well, last week, Mr. Wansley died in debtor’s prison.”
Richard absorbed that. “Did he not inherit a respectable sum when Mother’s first husband died?”
“He did, and squandered it all, as she always said he would. She knew people, your mother. Saw them for who they were and understood them.” The Earl let out a sigh, pain clouding his eyes.
“You miss her,” Richard said softly.
“Acutely.” His father focused on him. “I cared for Thomas’s mother, but I didn’t choose her.
My father did. Someone of the right lineage, the correct standing and with an appropriate dowry.
Still, it saddened me when attempting to give me a second child took her.
” A wistful smile, one Richard had seen there many times, settled on the Earl’s face.
“But your mother…I loved her. Passionately. Not a day passes that I don’t think of her. ”
“I know.” Richard wished he thought of her, too, but all he possessed were brief, fleeting memories of a woman with blue eyes that sparkled. A wide, laughing smile. And the horrible screams, when he was five and she died bringing Thomas’s, his and Abigail’s younger sister into the world.
The Earl cleared his throat. “Regardless, now that Wansley is dead and no longer a threat to you, there is something you should know.”
Richard frowned. “What do you mean, no longer a threat to me?” How could the brother of his mother’s first husband threaten him?
“There is no easy way to tell you this, Son. Your mother already carried you when she and I married. You are not my natural born offspring. Mr. Wansley was your uncle.”
Richard stared at his father. “I don’t understand.”
“There isn’t much to understand. Your mother and I were in love. Had been since, well, for so long as either of us could recall, but your grandfather chose Thomas’s mother as the next Countess of Matlock and so I, a dutiful son, married her and tried to love her as a husband should.”
Richard swallowed. “And…and my mother?”
“Spent three years mourning the loss of our love, and then married your father.” The Earl grimaced. “Shortly thereafter, Thomas’s mother died and, as you know, my father was already gone by then. Still, nothing would have changed, but then your father died as well.”
Richard stared at his father…rather, the Earl of Matlock. Unable to find words, he shook his head.
“If your mother bore your father’s child, your uncle would be its guardian and trustee.
We were afraid he would keep your mother from any child and be a poor parent.
We were certain that he would control the money in such a way that there would be none left for the child.
Thus, your mother didn’t wish him to know she carried your father’s child.
The money wasn’t the issue, the welfare of the child was what she cared about.
” The Earl met his gaze. “Your welfare.”
“So, you got the woman you love, in exchange for…” Richard couldn’t bring forth the words, ‘for pretending to be my father and to love me.’
The Earl’s visage firmed. “I got the woman I love and a wonderful son, whom I also love, and two daughters.”
“My half-sisters,” Richard realized. Not his full siblings. And to Thomas, he truly was nothing.
“Your sisters, as you are my son.”
Richard wanted to believe that, but so many things, little things, began to fall into place.
“Is that why you never press me to marry?” The Earl had insisted his eldest son wed, and Thomas had selected a woman of excellent breeding, but a sadly weak constitution.
As for Richard’s sisters, both had married young and well.
If station, connections, and wealth were the criterion.