Chapter Four
Samuel tried not to tap on the table.
“Will you stop tapping on the table?” Frank muttered irritably from behind a large notebook splattered with ink. “You are fast becoming the most irritating of the family, you know.”
Samuel glanced over at Benjamin, who was flirting with one of the waitresses at the hotel while their parents weren’t looking.
“Yes, even worse than him,” came his sister’s voice over her scribblings with a drafting pencil.
That was not a good sign. By general agreement, the Chance family—at least, the Aylesbury side—knew that Benjamin was the most irritating. It had always been that way. Samuel could hardly recall a time when it was not.
And now he was worse?
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, leaning back in his chair and sitting on his hands. It appeared to be the only way he could stop himself.
A whole day. More, seven and twenty hours. That was how long it had been since he had last been sitting with Miss Rosemary Morgan.
Not that it was her presence itself that he was missing, obviously, Samuel tried to reassure himself. He was in no danger there! No, it was the fact that another day had almost completely passed, and he was no closer to finding a wife.
He needed a wife. That money would disappear off to some distant cousin, Samuel knew, whom Great-Aunt Tessie had never met and certainly would not like. And he had plans for that money. Big plans—plans that would require a wife.
And speaking of the need to find a wife…
“And when, p-precisely, are we going to meet this wife of yours?” his mother asked, turning her attention back to the table. “I am g-glad you are wed, of course, but to have n-never met her…” She shook her head.
“I suppose you got her in trouble,” muttered his father.
Samuel flushed. “Not at all!”
“Then I d-do not understand w-why we have n-not m-met her.” The Dowager Marchioness of Aylesbury was not usually one to raise her voice, but there was an element of pique in her tone. “But st-still, I am g-glad of her. I examined the f-f-family t-tree, and the heir is m-my second cousin, Ebenezer.”
Though Samuel had never heard of the man, his mother’s obvious distaste was enough. “An unpleasant man?”
“A slave owner,” said his father shortly. “An owner of those nefarious mills in the north, the ones that only employ children. A brigand.”
A brigand? Strong words from his father.
The dowager marchioness’s breath hitched. “B-B-Benjamin Chance, p-put that woman d-down!”
The waitress flushed beetroot red, scampered away from their table, and left Samuel’s brother sighing as he leaned back in his chair.
“Honestly, Mama, it was a conversation.”
“It was just inviting scandal, that’s what it was,” snapped their father with a stern look. “Why can’t you be more like your brother?”
Samuel winced as Benjamin muttered curses.
Why can’t you be more like your brother? Yes, it was a valid wish for any parent…though as soon as his mother and father realized he had completely lied about the existence of a wife to gain access to a fortune… Well. They may reassess their preference of sons.
“My lord?”
Samuel looked up. A footman from the hotel was standing beside him with an arrogant expression on his face. “Yes?”
“A note for you, my lord,” said the footman quietly.
As expected, Samuel’s father looked up. “Ah, another post has arrived?”
“No, my lord. This was delivered…personally.”
“‘Personally’?” repeated Samuel, bemused.
He had no acquaintance in Brighton, did he?
From what he could recall, the family had never been to Brighton.
Been through it, perhaps, but never stayed.
It was only Great-Aunt Tessie’s will reading which had brought them here at all. So who could it have been?
“‘P-Personally’?” repeated his mother, her eyes lighting up. “S-Samuel, is it from your w-wife? W-Why are you h-hiding her from us?”
“Yes, why?” asked Benjamin with a wry grin. “Or are you hiding us from her?”
“Frank!”
The name was uttered in almost a shriek from their mother, and Samuel knew precisely why. It was because his sister had come down for afternoon tea before their parents, and so she had been seated by the time the dowager marquess and marchioness had joined them.
That meant they had not seen, until now, precisely what his sister was wearing…
“What have I told you about wearing trousers in public!” hissed their father, his brow furrowed. “Honestly, you’ll never find a husband if you keep this up!”
“Trousers are far more practical for my work.”
“What work could you possibly be doing here, at the Regent’s Hotel, that would necessitate that?”
Samuel allowed the family’s conversation—well, hushed argument while the other guests in the dining hall of the Regent’s Hotel stared at them curiously—to wash over him as he slowly opened the envelope that had been presented to him.
His brother may only have been teasing when he’d asked why Samuel was hiding her, but perhaps he was right. Perhaps this note was from his soon-to-be wife…
It was short. It was sharp. And it was to the point.
Sir My lord,
I require a conversation. Now. I am outside.
Miss M
Well, she clearly could not waste money on paper. Samuel supposed he had to be grateful for something.
He rose from his seat just as Frank threatened to take off her trousers right there, right then if her father was so worried about her wearing them.
“I have an errand to run,” said Samuel.
“I’ll come with you,” said Benjamin with a snort of laughter at their father’s now puce expression. “I’ve got something to see to myself.”
Samuel’s heart sank as the two brothers walked together out into the wide hall of the hotel. The last thing he needed was for Benjamin to see Miss Morgan.
“Or rather,” added his brother with a wink as the waitress with whom he had been speaking so fervently appeared, pink-cheeked, by a servants’ doorway. “I have someone to see to. I’ll see you for dinner?”
He did not want for a reply, disappearing off with the giggling woman who, Samuel saw in a flash of gold, at least wore a wedding ring. Well, they would have to hope she was a widow, though goodness knew what their father would do if Benjamin was discovered.
That was his brother’s problem. He had enough of his own.
Miss Morgan was standing just outside the hotel, bundled up in that same old coat and the two raggedy scarves.
“You look…cold,” Samuel said lamely. Dear God, he was Eton and Cambridge educated, a noble, a peer! Did he not have better conversation than that?
The trouble was, the mere act of looking at Miss Morgan was enough to clear all thoughts from his mind.
“I am cold,” Miss Morgan said curtly. “Will you walk with me?”
“Of course.”
Samuel held out his arm, as he would have done for any of his cousins, or sisters, or even his mother. Miss Morgan ignored it, marching forward at top speed as though they were being chased by something quite dreadful.
It was only when he managed to catch up with her—not an easy feat, even for his long stride—that he wondered whether she was walking at such a pace to keep warm.
His stomach twisted. Oh, one knew of the less fortunate. One knew of them. Lilianna always did a great deal for several families she knew, and their cousin Thomas and his wife financially propped up an orphanage that was working wonders.
But actually seeing the poor, up close, as it were… Well. That was simply not something that one did.
It wasn’t something he had ever done.
“I thought we’d walk along the beach,” Miss Morgan said as she stepped out to cross a street without intimating why. “It’s where I go. To think.”
“I tend to think while riding. Or playing billiards at Dulverton’s,” said Samuel without thinking.
A crease appeared across her forehead, he noticed, when Miss Morgan frowned. Just between her eyes. “What’s a Dulverton’s?”
“It’s a private members club in London. For gentlemen. All us Chances are members there.”
Miss Morgan snorted, though Samuel could not understand why. After all, most gentlemen were members of clubs. Weren’t they?
They turned around a corner and there it was: the beach. In the dying sunlight of the day, the ocean was speckled with gold, its gentle tide a beautiful accompaniment to the screeching of the seagulls.
“I so rarely see the sea,” said Samuel, desperate to fill the silence and utterly unsure what else to say. “Our homes are a smidgen landlocked—though my cousin Jessica recently married the Baron Llyne, whose estate looks out over the Kent coastline.”
Miss Morgan slowed her pace and settled into a regular step as she glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “Your homes? Plural?”
“The family’s homes,” he corrected, with a sense of pride and yet somehow, of awkwardness. “I come from a large family.”
Well. It was all very well, discussing one’s estates with other gentlemen who had estates. It was quite another thing to mention them to a person who, from what Samuel could tell, would only be able to eat when he himself fed her.
Quite different, indeed.
She did look a tad thin, Samuel thought as his eyes cast over her. Even in the voluminous coat and through the numerous scarves, he could see her collarbones. His gaze meandered down. She wore no gloves. Her hands were pale.
“I have questions.”
Samuel’s focus snapped back up to her face—her beautiful face. Her face, he corrected himself firmly. This whole scheme wasn’t going to work if he was going to allow himself to be distracted all the time!
“I thought you might,” he said aloud. “Ask, and I will answer in the most truthful way I can.”
Miss Morgan smiled as she glanced at him, their feet crunching on stones. “So you will not necessarily tell the truth?”
Blast. She was a clever one, then. Samuel would have laid money on the fact that more than half the people in England would not have picked up on that.