Chapter 13
They found Lady Theresa sitting with Millie and Lady Lisbeth in the saloon. She had her embroidery in her lap but was setting no stitches.
“I know I should not say so, but I cannot be sorry,” she was saying. “The number of times I begged Ricard to be rid of the man are beyond counting, and—”
She broke off as Leaf strode in, Nic following in her wake.
“Good afternoon, Aunt,” Leaf said brightly. “How glad I am to have found you.”
“Oh, good afternoon, dear. Lord Monterris.” The lady cleared her throat and lifted her chin, defiant at having been overheard. “You have need of me?”
Leaf sat next to her aunt, leaving Nic to sink into one of the chairs opposite. From the other sofa, Millie gave him a questioning look, while Lady Lisbeth went on setting tiny stitches on a handkerchief.
“Yes, Aunt, I have something to ask you,” Leaf said. “About Papa. And His Grace.”
“What… what about them, dear?”
The lady’s determined smile looked so painful Nic could almost feel her stomach sinking.
“They had a contract to marry, did they not?” Leaf took her aunt’s hand, trapping her. “Do tell me what happened. You can well imagine how curious we are to discover we’re the second Monterris-Serral contract in two generations.”
“What?” Millie cried, reaching for Lady Lisbeth’s arm. “Did I hear that right? Uncle Charborough and His Grace?”
Lady Theresa turned a frown upon her stepdaughter. “You need not crow so, Millie. Such interest doesn’t become you.”
“But, Lady Theresa, if it is true, then it is a very great surprise,” Lady Lisbeth pointed out while Millie flushed. “Is it really so?”
Lady Theresa squirmed beneath their collective gazes. “Yes,” she said at last. “It is true, but it did not go ahead and so is not spoken about. In truth, I had completely forgotten until you mentioned it.”
Unconvincing words, her smile overbright. Leaf pressed on. “I assume Mama knows,” she said, pinning the lady with her sharp gaze. “But why have I never heard anything about it before now? Was the contract not made public?”
At Leaf’s question, Lady Theresa glanced at Nic.
“Not outside of the families, no. There were whispers, of course, because they were very close, but it all faded when it came to nothing and they’ve barely seen each other these twenty years.
I pray you will not ask me more questions; I know very little.
I was only newly contracted then myself and hardly a member of the family. ”
“But, Aunt, everyone says our families hate each other. Is this why?”
“I am sure I don’t know.” Lady Theresa sniffed and took up her embroidery, sticking the needle in hard.
“I myself have always been very kindly disposed to His Grace. It was he who vowsmithed your uncle’s first marriage contract, you know, and so carefully that dear Ricard was saved from disgrace when the Wivenwoods ruined themselves.
To think he might otherwise have gotten stuck married to that woman. ”
Millie leapt to her feet, red-faced, and shot a disgusted glance at her stepmother as she strode out.
In her wake, Lady Theresa sniffed and stabbed her embroidery again.
“She is always so touchy, though anyone in their right mind would agree the family is better off without the Wivenwood connection.”
“Aunt, I still don’t understand,” Leaf said, ignoring this. “Why didn’t Papa and His Grace marry in the end? What happened?”
“Oh, I don’t know. People used to say they were in love, you know, but I’ve never seen a more hot-and-cold pair.
Obsessed with each other, yes, but it was impossible to tell one day to the next whether they loved or hated each other.
It looked about the same.” With a smile at Leaf, she added, “Your papa has mellowed a lot since he married dear Cynthia and well has it been for him.”
“But why didn’t it go ahead?”
Nic did his best to look like part of the furniture as Lady Theresa’s gaze once again edged his way. “We really shouldn’t talk about it. Your father would very much dislike it if he knew.”
Leaf grasped her aunt’s hand again, her gaze beseeching. “Oh, Aunt, you cannot be so cruel as to leave us guessing. I will have to ask him myself.”
“Oh no, don’t do that. He can get so very unpleasant about it.
” For a moment the lady looked genuinely fearful.
“As long as you don’t tell anyone that we’ve been speaking of it, I will tell you what I know—but mind!
It isn’t much more than I have already said.
” Finding three pairs of eyes fixed intently upon her, Lady Theresa wriggled uncomfortably.
“I believe there were disagreements as to who would step down, that being the only way the heads of families can marry, you know. Either my dear Ricard would be the Marquess of Charborough or Lord Francis would be Duke of Vale, and I understand it wasn’t a pleasant time.
That is all I know.” She held up her hands in surrender.
“So ask me no more questions, I pray. And none of you—you too, Lizzy—can say anything.”
All three gave their assurances and the lady relaxed back into the sofa. “My, what a strange day this is shaping up to be. Although we seem to be having a lot of them and I can’t say I’m enjoying it.”
“Master sa Vare told me that strange moods are common in lock-ins,” Lady Lisbeth said, smiling over her own stitchery. “Though he also says he’s never been in one quite like this before, and that for all the grief, he’s enjoying it very much.”
“Oh, he said that, did he?” Lady Theresa smiled roguishly upon her. “A feather in your cap to be sure, my dear.”
Lady Lisbeth flushed and threw a wary glance Nic’s way. “Oh no, ma’am, I am not so vain as to take credit for such a statement, but he is a very charming companion. So considerate, you know, and attentive. Don’t you think?”
“Sadly, what I think is of little moment, since it is your father you must convince, but yes. I admit I find Master sa Vare altogether charming. He would make an excellent husband.”
Nic had never been more in agreement with her. Unfortunately, the smug knowledge that he was himself the likely cause of Dashiell’s recent enjoyment was soon shattered. What did it matter when the vowsmith was far more likely to marry Lady Lisbeth?
Nic stood abruptly. “Well, thank you for enlightening us, Lady Theresa. Now I’m afraid I have things I must attend to.”
Upon murmurs of “my lord,” Nic escaped into the hallway, but no sooner had he drawn a deep breath than Millie was upon him.
“Lord Monterris,” she hissed, gripping his arm. “Where is Leaf?”
“She’s still—”
He broke off as Leaf followed him out.
“Leaf.” Millie let Nic go and grabbed Leaf’s arm instead. “Quick, let us find somewhere safe to talk.”
Having bundled them into a nearby sitting room, Millie closed the door and began pacing the rug, her cheeks flushed. Nic watched her, anxiety swirling in with the wine dregs in his stomach.
“Millie, whatever is the matter?” Leaf glanced at Nic. “Aunt Theresa was monstrous, but no more than usual.”
“Oh, she is always beastly, I know,” Millie said. “But this time she has gone too far because she knows she is lying.”
“Lying? What about?”
Millie spun to face them. “About Papa being grateful for the contract His Grace smithed. The one that saved him from my mama. You think my father travels all the time just for business?” She spat an angry laugh.
“That is what Lady Theresa would like to think, when in truth he has never stopped seeing Mama, never stopped loving her. He told me years ago that he tried to have the contract changed, but that the duke had reason to hate him and so would not do it.” She looked to Nic then, and her expression softened.
“I do not blame your father, though, not really. It would have been a great risk to his reputation to make changes to a contract years after the fact. If only he had been less precise in his initial wording, instead of naming her particularly as the daughter of Sir Bertram Wivenwood.”
If I could believe it was a mistake, Lord Ricard had hissed. Nic found a fist gripped his heart. “He loved her and had to give her up?”
“There was no choice. Once her name reverted to Miss Caroline Wivenwood throughout the net, she shared in her father’s disgrace and was cast out by society. Uncle Charborough put his foot down and insisted Papa marry again to hush up the talk and… he did.”
“Oh, Millie.” Leaf wrapped her arms around her cousin, pulling her close. “I am so sorry. What an awful story. Poor Uncle Ricard too. I never knew.”
“No, of course you wouldn’t. He only told me when I married Lord Radlay. Marriage seems to make one immediately adult enough to be told things one was too childish to know the day before. It’s very odd. Even Mama never mentioned it in any of her letters, nor during the few times I’ve seen her.”
Nic’s thoughts kept sliding back to the argument he’d overheard, to Lord Ricard’s anger. “So that is why your father hates mine.”
“I’m afraid so, my lord, yes,” Millie said.
“You don’t need to ‘my lord’ him, Millie,” Leaf said. “He’s one of us now.”
Millie managed a laugh at this. “Certainly more than Lizzy has been of late, mooning over Master sa Vare at every moment.”
Nic dared not glance Leaf’s way. “I am certainly not doing that.”
“Exactly so, but yes. I don’t know whether that is the entirety of the reason—I’d never before heard of this contract between Uncle Charborough and His Grace, for instance, but I would say what happened with Mama is at least some part of why he didn’t want your contract to go ahead.
He even told me that he was so angry after he lost her that he tried ruining some of your father’s business dealings for a while. ”
Nic bit his lip. Had his father just been heartless, or deliberately cruel? And had that been the reason his contract to wed Lord Charborough fell through?
“What year was your mother’s contract nullified, Millie?”
“Seventeen eighty-seven,” Millie said. “I wasn’t yet one year old.”