Chapter Two
“You cannot be serious, Your Grace. Surely there must be some other solution.”
Gabriel Everstone, Duke of Ashford, leaned back in the leather chair across from his solicitor’s desk and regarded the older man with the sort of calm that had served him well in both Parliament and his estate business.
Mr. Blackwood’s distress was evident in every line of his normally composed features, from his furrowed brow to the way his hands worried at the documents spread between them.
“I assure you, Blackwood, I am entirely serious. The terms of the will are quite clear, are they not?”
“Clear, yes, but hardly reasonable!” Blackwood shuffled through the papers with agitated movements. “Your brother’s stipulation that you must marry within one month of assuming guardianship of his daughter is unconscionable. Surely the courts would...”
“The courts,” Gabriel interrupted smoothly, “have already reviewed the matter. The will is legally sound, and the terms, while unusual, are not unprecedented. I have exactly fourteen days remaining to secure a bride, or young Maura will be placed in the care of her maternal grandmother.”
The silence that followed this pronouncement was heavy with implications they both understood perfectly.
Lady Armstrong shared the same strict ideas about child-rearing as Gabriel’s grandmother; a style characterized by strict discipline, minimal affection, and rigid social conditioning.
A style that had shaped his own mother’s behaviour and had made her a woman who had never shown him so much as a moment’s genuine warmth.
“But surely,” Blackwood said desperately, “you could petition for an extension? Explain the circumstances? The magistrate is a reasonable man—”
“The magistrate is also a close friend of Lady Armstrong’s.” Gabriel’s voice carried the weight of bitter experience. “I have no doubt that she has been working diligently to ensure that any petition I might make would be viewed with appropriate scepticism.”
He rose from his chair and moved to the window overlooking Lincoln’s Inn Fields, watching the late afternoon bustle of London legal life.
Clerks hurried between buildings with their arms full of documents, their wigs slightly askew in the autumn breeze.
The normalcy of it all seemed oddly at variance with the upheaval currently threatening to destroy his carefully ordered world.
“There is, of course, another consideration,” he said without turning around.
“If I fail to marry within the required time frame, I also forfeit the majority of my brother’s estate.
The funds that would have supported Maura’s upbringing, her education, her eventual dowry; all of it reverts to Lady Armstrong’s control. ”
“My goodness.” Blackwood’s voice was hollow. “I had not… that is, I hadn’t fully considered…”
“That she would then control both the child and the fortune? Indeed, it’s rather elegantly designed, isn’t it? My brother always did have a talent for thorough planning.”
The bitterness in his own voice surprised Gabriel.
He had thought himself past such emotions where his younger brother was concerned.
He had believed that William’s death in that carriage accident six months ago had finally put an end to their long-standing antagonism.
Apparently, his brother’s final gambit had succeeded in stirring those old resentments after all.
“Forgive me, Your Grace, but I must ask….why would your brother include such a stipulation? Surely he knew that you had no immediate plans to marry!”
Gabriel turned from the window, a humourless smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“On the contrary, Blackwood. William knew exactly what he was doing. He believed, with some justification, I’m afraid, that I had become too set in my ways, too comfortable in my bachelor existence.
This was his attempt to force me into what he considered a more respectable mode of living. ”
What he didn’t say, what he couldn’t say, even to his most trusted legal advisor, was that William had also known about the string of increasingly desperate marriage proposals Gabriel had been receiving from ambitious mothers and their daughters.
His brother had been convinced that Gabriel was frittering away his ducal duty by refusing to select a suitable bride from among the eager applicants.
The irony was that William’s scheme might actually succeed where gentler persuasion had failed. Not because Gabriel had suddenly developed a desire for domestic bliss, but because he absolutely refused to allow an innocent child to become a pawn in his family’s dysfunction.
“Have you considered… that is, are there any ladies of your acquaintance who might be amenable to such an arrangement?” Blackwood’s voice carried the delicate tone of a man treading on extremely sensitive ground.
Gabriel returned to his chair, clasping his fingers as he considered the question.
“That depends rather on what you mean by ‘amenable.’ If you’re asking whether any of the marriage-minded ladies currently circulating through London ballrooms would accept my proposal, the answer is undoubtedly yes. Several dozen of them, in fact.”
“Then surely...”
“However,” Gabriel continued, “if you’re asking whether I could tolerate being married to any of them, the answer is emphatically no.”
He had endured enough society functions to know exactly what sort of wife the ton would consider appropriate for him.
Beautiful, certainly, but not so beautiful as to overshadow his own consequence.
Well-connected, but not so elevated as to challenge his authority.
Accomplished in the feminine arts of music and painting, but not so educated as to offer opinions on matters of substance.
The very thought of spending the rest of his life making polite conversation with such a creature made him feel vaguely ill.
“I require,” he said slowly, working through the idea as he spoke, “someone who will not view our marriage as an opportunity to remake either my household or my character. Someone who will not spend my fortune on frivolous entertainments or bore me senseless with gossip about people I care nothing for.”
“A practical sort of lady, then. Someone who understands the nature of the arrangement.”
“Precisely. Someone who has her own reasons for entering into what would essentially be a business partnership.” Gabriel paused, struck by a sudden thought. “Someone who might value the security of my name and protection more than romantic sentiment.”
It was not an entirely pleasant realization; that he was essentially planning to purchase a wife rather than woo one, but practical considerations had always governed his decisions. This would simply be another negotiation, another contract to be structured in a way that benefited all parties.
“Do you have anyone particular in mind, Your Grace?”
Gabriel was quiet for a long moment, his thoughts drifting unexpectedly to the bookshop encounter from earlier that day.
The young woman with the intelligent eyes and quick wit, who had spoken of choosing one’s own path with such quiet passion.
There had been something about her, a quality of contained strength, that had intrigued him far more than any of the simpering ladies he encountered at society gatherings.
But she was clearly a woman of limited means, probably dependent on family or employers for her support. Exactly the sort of person who might view marriage to a duke as a miraculous escape from circumstances beyond her control.
The thought was followed immediately by a wave of self-disgust. Was he really considering hunting down a woman he’d spoken with for some minutes in order to proposition her? What sort of man did that make him?
“No,” he said firmly. “No one in particular. But I shall make inquiries. Discreet inquiries, you understand.”
“Of course, Your Grace. And if I may suggest...time is rather of the essence. Fourteen days is not long to arrange a courtship and wedding, even under the best of circumstances.”
Gabriel nodded grimly. “Indeed. Which means I cannot afford to be overly particular about the romantic niceties. I need a woman who will accept a straightforward business proposition and fulfill the basic requirements of the marriage contract without expecting… additional complications.”
“Additional complications?”
“Love, Blackwood. I’m referring to love.” Gabriel’s voice was dry. “I find myself in the rather unique position of needing to avoid any bride who might develop inconvenient emotional attachments.”
It was a harsh assessment, perhaps, but Gabriel had learned long ago that emotional entanglements led inevitably to disappointment and pain.
“I see.” Blackwood’s tone suggested he didn’t entirely approve, but was too professional to say so directly. “And what of the child? Young Maura will need a mother figure, someone who can provide appropriate guidance and affection.”
For the first time since this conversation began, Gabriel felt a genuine pang of uncertainty.
His memories of childhood were dominated by cold efficiency and emotional distance.
His own mother had provided him with everything he needed for physical comfort and social advancement, but very little in the way of warmth or understanding.
Was he condemning Maura to the same fate? Would a marriage of convenience inevitably produce the sort of sterile household that had marked his own upbringing?
The alternative, however, was to hand the child over to Lady Armstrong, whose idea of appropriate guidance made his own mother look positively nurturing by comparison.
“The lady I select will be kind to Maura,” he said finally. “That will be a non-negotiable term of our agreement.”
“And if she agrees to be kind to the child but proves… less than maternal in practice?”
It was a fair question, and one that Gabriel had no satisfactory answer for. But then, he reminded himself, he had managed to survive his own childhood without permanent damage. Maura was made of sterner stuff than most and she would adapt, as most children did.
“I will ensure that she understands the importance of the child’s wellbeing,” he said. “Beyond that… one cannot manufacture maternal instincts where they do not naturally exist.”
“No, I suppose not.” Blackwood gathered the papers on his desk into a neat stack, clearly preparing to conclude their meeting. “Will you be requiring any assistance with your… inquiries?”
Gabriel considered the offer briefly, then shook his head. “I think this is a matter I must handle personally. Too many intermediaries would only complicate an already delicate situation.”
What he didn’t say was that he intended to begin his search in the most unlikely of places.
Not the ballrooms and drawing rooms where ambitious mothers paraded their daughters, but among the ranks of women who had been overlooked or dismissed by society.
Women who might have their own compelling reasons for accepting an unconventional arrangement.
Women like the mysterious miss from the bookshop, whose name he still didn’t know but whose face he couldn’t seem to forget.
“Very well, Your Grace. But please remember that you have only fourteen days. The magistrate will require proof of the marriage ceremony before he finalizes the guardianship arrangements.”
“I understand.” Gabriel rose from his chair, suddenly eager to escape the confines of the legal office and the weight of decisions that seemed to grow heavier with each passing hour. “I shall be in touch within the week.”
He was halfway to the door when Blackwood’s voice stopped him.
“Your Grace? Forgive me for speaking out of turn, but… are you quite certain this is the path you wish to take? Perhaps if you spoke with Lady Armstrong directly, explained your willingness to provide for the child’s welfare…”
Gabriel turned back slowly, and something in his expression must have warned Blackwood against pressing the point further.
“Lady Armstrong,” he said quietly, “is the reason my brother felt compelled to include such extreme measures in his will. She has already made her position quite clear regarding my fitness as a guardian. This marriage is not simply William’s whim, but it is the only way to ensure that Maura grows up free from her grandmother’s… particular style of guidance.”
The memories that rose with those words were not ones he cared to examine closely. His own encounters with Lady Armstrong had been mercifully brief, but sufficient to understand exactly why William had been so desperate to keep his daughter away from the woman.
“I see,” Blackwood said again, though his tone suggested the opposite. “Then I wish you the very best of luck, Your Grace.”
Gabriel nodded curtly and made his escape, stepping out into the gray London afternoon with relief.
The weight of the conversation settled around his shoulders like a heavy cloak as he walked toward his waiting carriage, but beneath the pressure of practical concerns, he was surprised to find himself thinking once again of intelligent brown eyes and the sound of a woman’s voice discussing radical philosophy.
Perhaps his search would not be as difficult as he had initially imagined. Perhaps, in fact, it had already begun.