Chapter Seven #2
How indeed? An involuntary grin forced its way onto his face.
“She will be both pleased that I am at last ‘settling down’, and chagrined that she was not informed about our nuptials and invited to attend.” He paused as he pictured Marianne’s rather square face.
She took after their late grandfather in looks, whereas he had inherited his features and build from his handsome father and possessed the darkly saturnine appearance of the Carlyon family.
“Oh dear. Do you think she will like me?”
“She will guess that I’ve married you for your fortune. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I had to do so. Let us hope she doesn’t divine the reason you have accepted me.”
Her cheeks took on a delicate blush which only served to enhance her looks and stir him still further.
The thought that at least for now he was going to enjoy being married crept over him.
He’d never yet been faithful to one woman for more than a month or two and he doubted he could do it now. For a wife.
She frowned. “I find it rather ungentlemanly of you to mention my condition in that way. It is, after all, a perfectly natural process.”
He grinned, delighted at her repartee. “But you must remember, my dear Georgiana, that if I were a gentleman I would not have been willing to marry you and give a name to your child.” He restrained himself from calling the child “your bastard.” The last thing he wanted to do was really offend her.
She had the look of someone who might take offense over something small.
Instead of being offended, she burst out laughing.
“Well, your professing that you are not a gentleman can only be a good thing, I would say, as I myself am not a lady in the strictest sense of the word. My grandfather started off poor and made his fortune in the East India trade, and my father carried this on and increased his holdings by dint of wise investments. So you see, I come from very humble beginnings and have no actual claim to being a lady of any sort.”
Her forthrightness astonished him again.
Most young ladies would have been desperate to hide antecedents such as she had.
Perhaps the possession of her considerable fortune had imbued her with a disregard for all things upper crust. He joined her in laughing.
“We should be well matched then. I confess myself curious as to the identity of your illustrious and ingenious papa. Might I enquire about him further? Although I don’t believe I have ever encountered another Frampton. ”
Her face clouded. “My papa was Mr. Percival Frampton of The East Indian Tea Company, although tea is by no means the only commodity his company…my company as it is now… trades in.”
“The business is not named after your family?”
She shook her head. “Goodness, no. My grandfather, whom I never knew as he died long before I was born, was a great forward thinker, or so my papa told me. He had ambitions for my papa and didn’t want the hint of trade adhering to our family name.
Although why he should be so ashamed of having made his own fortune, I don’t know.
So much better than inheriting it from one’s ancestors.
So much more praiseworthy. I myself am very proud of what he did, and also of my papa. ”
“Would your papa be proud of you now?” He spoke the words before he had time to think, and straightaway regretted them for their blatant accusatory nature. It was going to take careful play on his part to tame this particular young lady.
She frowned. “I know his sister, my Aunt Patience, is not. However… my dear papa was made of different stuff to my aunt, who has never married nor known the delight of true love.” Her voice died away.
Realizing this was a moment for a show of compassion, Fitz slid his hand across the table to cover hers. “You loved this young man of yours who left you in such a precarious position?”
She pressed her lips together and frowned as though considering this deeply. “I did…at the time, but that is all past now. I would rather not speak of him, if that is all the same with you.” She pulled her hand free of his. “I would rather learn more about you. Tell me about your family.”
The landlord interrupted them again, as he arrived to clear away the now cold soup and deliver the main course of boiled beef and vegetables.
When they were alone once more, Fitz obliged her request as she began to pick at her food in a rather desultory manner.
He remembered, even though he’d only been twelve at the time, how Marianne had been sick for weeks when expecting Harriet and quite off her food.
That must be it. Still, despite her lack of appetite, which could just be nerves, she had a glow about her that spoke of robust health.
Exactly what one would want in a wife. And she was living proof of her fertility. What more could a man ask for?
Perhaps he could assuage her understandable fears and make her laugh again.
“If you think your family is a little below par in the nobility stakes, then I must assure you mine harbors its own scandals.” He took a bite of the beef, which was good.
“My mother, who, on first acquaintance, you would not think was once as reckless as you, caused a great scandal when she eloped with my father. She was only eighteen years old, you see, and he was a younger son with few, if any, prospects. They galloped off to Gretna Green to be married by the smith there, as my grandfather, being a duke and very aware of his own importance, would never have countenanced her marriage to the younger son of a viscount.”
Her eyes widened.
He smiled. “My father, God rest his soul, was an army officer like me, although he rather foolishly chose to marry a young lady with no fortune attached to her, despite being the daughter of a duke. Or at least, a fortune she would only have inherited had she married someone her father approved of. Which he most certainly did not.”
Her eyes grew even wider. “Good heavens. Your grandfather is a duke? I had no idea.”
Fitz sighed. “He is. Well, he was. He died recently and my uncle has inherited the title. Much good any of that’s ever done me.
My mother produced Marianne and then me, with seven years between us, before realising that life as the wife of a poorly paid army officer was not one she wished to lead.
She decamped back to my grandfather’s country estate when I was just a baby.
I saw next to nothing of my father until I was an adult. ”
Her beautiful eyes twinkled at him. Perhaps she was feeling that his story had somehow levelled the ground between them.
Laying down her fork, she leaned a little towards him, eyes alight with mischief now. “They say every family has a skeleton in its cupboard. Do you think your mother is that skeleton?”
This made him laugh. He took another swig of his wine.
“I doubt it. She might have been then, but she’s not now.
To see her nowadays, you’d imagine she was the most straight-laced and upstanding of women.
She doesn’t like to be reminded of her reckless youth.
I’m told by many how much I resemble my late father, and I think she finds that both embarrassing and delightful at the same time.
I’m sure her whole family considers me to be the black sheep of the family, much as my father was of the Carlyon family. ”
She nodded. “And your grandfather, did you get on with him?”
He sighed. “Better than with my uncle, the new duke. In some ways, he was the father I never had as a boy. But he was eighty-six, so his demise was not unexpected. I was sorry not to have been able to say goodbye. I was in Cornwall, you understand, when he went. An apoplexy, so it was very quick. He was bedridden for a day or two then slipped away in his sleep. By the time I had the news he was already buried in the family crypt. My uncle inherited the title, but he’s not young.
He must be in his late fifties by now. He has a huge brood of daughters and just the one small son, who will inherit the title in due course.
Judging by the size of my uncle’s girth and the redness of his face, sooner rather than later. ”
A frown flitted across Georgiana’s face. “I am sorry for your loss. I still feel my own father’s loss keenly after four years, so I can imagine how you must be feeling with your grandfather so recently departed.”
He shook his head. “As I said, it was expected, and he’d had a good life.
Far longer than his three score and ten.
” He chuckled. “My uncle will have been relieved. I believe he thought my grandfather would never die. He also thought he’d never get himself an heir as his first wife produced nothing but all those girls.
He remarried a few years ago now and the new young duchess has managed just the one boy, and yet more girls. ”
He chuckled again. “I laugh every time I think of my uncle with his nursery and schoolroom full of girls. Not that his lack of a son would have put me in the line of succession because it wouldn’t have.
As you are probably aware, a grandson through the female line cannot inherit.
So I’ve been at liberty all along to laugh at my uncle’s predicament without fear of offending him.
” He shrugged. “Quite frankly, I give little for who I offend.” Only that wasn’t quite true, was it?
Because he realized he didn’t want to offend her.
Her frown deepened as though something puzzled her. “Your story sounds more than a little familiar to me. Might I ask what title it is your uncle now holds?” Her eyes had gone very wide.
“My Uncle Jasper is the fifth Duke of Denby.”
Her mouth dropped open.
What had he said?
Her face had paled. “Then I must inform you that I am well acquainted with your uncle’s oldest daughter, Lady Fanny Fitzwilliam, for we were at school together.
Oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “But of course. Your mother gave you her surname when you were born. That is why you are called Fitzwilliam! How small the world is.”
Fitz found his own mouth had dropped open to match hers. “You know Cousin Fanny?” The oldest and most fun of his uncle’s large brood.
She nodded. “We were at Miss Baker’s school together in Cheltenham.
We were best friends while there and have remained so ever since.
” A delighted smile crept across her face; the sort of smile he would have liked to have caused himself.
“And now I find we are to be related. I have to say, Fitz, that if I could have chosen whom to marry, I would happily have chosen my dear Fanny’s cousin.
How wonderful it will be to now be her cousin as well. ”
Fitz regarded her apparent delight with a jaundiced eye.
Clearly she could never have heard a word about him from Fanny, or she would not be so cock-a-hoop.
In fact, had any of his family benefitted her with a description of him, she might even have changed her mind before the wedding, baby or not.
As he’d already admitted to her, if anyone could have been called the black sheep of the Fitzwilliam family, it would have to be him.
He was, as his mother had said on many occasions, far too much like his late father.
A rake, a bit of a vagabond, and a self-confessed womanizer.
The question was, did he want to give up any of those things for this slip of a girl?
Would he even be able to, should he decide in the affirmative?
And, more to the point, why was he even considering such a situation after only having known her a bare couple of hours? Was he addled?
The dessert arrived, a rather sparse cheeseboard, so Fitz put away such philosophical thoughts for later.