Chapter Two #2
The butler bowed and departed, leaving Montague with only one letter remaining.
Well, he thought darkly, at least it could not contain even worse news than that he had already read.
How very wrong he was.
Cousin,
This is it for me. The doctor says I have but days left, so by the time this reaches you, I might already be gone.
I know you and I never saw eye to eye. God knows I never made life easy for you. I regret that, now. You came to our home as a child, and I—
My mind wanders. I am sorry, in short, for how I treated you. It was abominable. It was unfair, and you had just lost your parents—
I am full of regret and I hope you can forgive me—and I hope it not for my sake, but for my boy.
I married nine years ago and our son is but eight years old. His mother died at his birth and I have done what I can with him and as my only living family, I beg you to take him in.
Raise him. Raise him better than my father raised you. Care for him better than I cared for you. Love him, if you can, for there is no one else in the world to love him.
Funds will be made available, I have written to your solicitor, all the practicalities.
Montague swallowed.
This could not be happening.
It was as simple as that. This could not be happening.
Words, phrases, swam before his eyes. I am full of regret and I hope you can forgive me—and I hope it not for my sake, but for my boy.
Raise him better than my father raised you.
Love him, if you can, for there is no one else in the world to love him.
Montague crumpled the letter into a ball and let it fall to the carpet beside his footbath.
No. Not after everything his cousin had subjected him to. Not after the way his cousin’s father had raised Montague—barely allowing him house space and making it absolutely clear he was not wanted and the beatings—the gall of the man!
No. Absolutely not.
Never.
After fuming silently for a while, the champagne seemed to clear from Montague’s head along with the rage. Hating that he was doing this, hating that he was even considering it, he picked up the crumpled ball of a letter.
He smoothed it out and tried to read it again, but not as a child once taken to a cold home and an even colder welcome.
No, he tried to read it as a man who had great wealth and great power and was absolutely not still angry about the way he had been raised.
Montague swallowed, his throat dry.
I married nine years ago and our son is but eight years old.
He hadn’t even heard of the wedding. Perhaps if circumstances had been different, he would have been invited. As it was…
A child.
A child! What on earth was Montague supposed to do with a child—a child of eight, not even old enough to be packed off to boarding school and forgotten about!
His palms hurt. Montague looked down and saw, with surprise, that he had clenched his fist so hard his nails had drawn blood across his palms.
Palms that had been whipped by an uncle who did not care. Palms that had been raw in the cold, no gloves permitted for the poor relation.
And now a poor relation would be knocking at his door and it would be his turn to be the uncle. His turn to decide whether a child laughed or cried.
His palms were bleeding.
Attempting consciously to unclench them, Montague allowed the only emotion he had forced out completely to slink slowly into his heart.
Grief.
So, Trefusis was dying. Perhaps he had already died with all possibility of a reconciliation dying with him.
He should be glad but try as he might, he could not feel it.
They had been but children. Set against each other by the old Earl of Trefusis, never allowed to find friendship, always punished if they worked together.
Trefusis was older than Montague by a few years but that had not mattered.
Montague’s uncle had always made it perfectly clear his son was not to associate with him.
Montague cleared his throat as though that could clear away the pain from the past.
It did not.
Well, damn. He had never liked his cousin, never been allowed to…and now he would be raising his cousin’s boy.
His cousin’s heir.
His own heir.
The last thought jolted out of nowhere, causing a cascade of impatience to soar down Montague’s chest. ‘No.’
The word had been uttered aloud before he had known his lips would form the syllable. It was abhorrent, the idea that Trefusis’s son would be Montague’s own heir.
He had never given much thought to it, in truth, but now he would be faced with the living and breathing remnant of a childhood Montague had always wished to forget.
Faced with the responsibility of bringing the boy up as not just the fresh Earl of Trefusis—dear God, that was a strange thought… but as Montague’s own heir.
Well, there was only one thing for it.
Draveham arrived within a minute of Montague tugging the bellpull. ‘Yes, my—’
‘How many eligible ladies live in Brighton, do you think?’ Montague said calmly as he stepped out of his footbath and wiggled his toes in the thick carpet.
For perhaps once in his entire existence, he had managed to startle his butler.
‘I… I beg your—’
‘I must marry as soon as possible and sire an heir. Preferably two,’ Montague said matter-of-factly, straightening out his breeches and tugging on his socks.
‘There is now an heir to my estate and I’m most definitely not the father.
If I am to ensure my succession, I need a son.
Sons. Plenty of them. How many women do you think I’ll be choosing from? Here, in Brighton?’
His butler’s eyes were popping. Good God, he should have done this years ago. ‘I—my lord would have a far greater choice in an environ such as Bath or London, or—’
‘No, I don’t want to waste time wandering the country. I want to be married before the month is out,’ Montague said calmly, picking up the champagne bottle and deciding to leave it in the ice bucket. ‘I’m going to head out to the Shirley Street Art Gallery to see what the options are like.’
With his butler spluttering behind him, Montague marched out of the drawing room and into the hall. ‘B-But—but my lord—ladies cannot be—this is not like ordering coal!’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Montague said with a laugh, pulling on his jacket and wishing to goodness that the day wasn’t getting even hotter. ‘Prepare those two guest chambers for me and have dinner ready for seven o’clock, I’ll be retiring early tonight.’
‘And that is because—’
‘I’ll be wife hunting tomorrow and wish to get an early start,’ said Montague with a grin.
Draveham’s jaw dropped. ‘But—but my lord—’
‘And write to my man in London and tell him I’ll pay anything—anything—for a Glenarm,’ added Montague, remembering the other cause of his irritation. ‘And have another ice footbath for me. You can put it under the dining room table.’
‘But—’
‘And are there any invitations to balls that I haven’t responded to?’
His butler was gaping, evidently unsure precisely what on earth had overcome his master. ‘I—yes, three, but you said you had no wish to prance about in public, you said—’
‘Reply to them all in the affirmative, even those which clash,’ Montague said with a sigh. Goodness, the lot of a bachelor about town was a hard one indeed. ‘I shall just have to work out a way to attend them all. That will be all, Draveham.’
‘But my lord—’
Montague stepped cheerfully out of his Brighton townhouse and started towards his favourite gallery in the town.
Well, he was now a father of sorts, with a ward on the way and a wife to be found.
The very idea shook him to his bones, though Montague was careful to retain an outwardly light smile.
A wife. Children.
Things he had never considered seriously, but with the news of the child about to arrive as his heir…
God, it was ridiculous. How long had he promised himself he would be the last Marquess of Laidley, that he would allow the title to die out rather than prolong the loneliness that being a marquess warranted?
But now the idea that his home would soon be invaded by the spawn of his uncle, the next generation of bullies…well, he would not allow that.
Allow a bully to inherit the title of Marquess of Laidley? Allow him to become the master of Draveham, of Mrs Draveham, of all the servants and tenants that the Laidley estate employed?
In his own way, Montague knew he was a god in their lives; influencing, even controlling, how they fared, good or bad, in plenty or in want. And the very thought of allowing the grandson of his uncle to play politics with people who had served the Laidley estate for generations…
No, it could not be borne. And that meant he’d need an heir of his own.
And that meant he’d need a wife.
All he’d have to do was find some pliant woman with no real ideas and preferably lots of siblings, marry her within a month and start putting babies in her.
How hard could it possibly be?