Читать книгу The Regency Season: Forbidden Pleasures: The Rake to Rescue Her / The Rake to Reveal Her - Julia Justiss - Страница 20

Chapter Twelve

Several days later, Alastair passed through the entry gates and rode down a long, tree-bordered lane. Around one bend, set like a jewel against the hill behind it, its long columned facade reflected by a symmetrical pond before it, stood the huge Palladian mansion that was Graveston Court.

After turning his mount over to a waiting lackey, he was admitted by a grim-faced butler, ushered through the marbled entrance down a corridor flanked with what appeared to be Grecian antiquities, and shown into a beautifully appointed parlour. The Duke would be informed of his arrival, the butler intoned before bowing himself out.

So this was the prison in which Diana had been trapped for so many years, Alastair thought. He paced the room, whose arched windows, flanked by gold brocade drapery, echoed the Palladian influences evident in the mansion’s facade. More antiquities—vases embellished with Greek battle scenes, Roman busts and bas-relief carvings—were set on pedestals or artfully arranged on shelves.

The scale was oppressively overwhelming, everything about the room and its opulent furnishings designed to dazzle the visitor and intimidate him with a sense of his insignificance, compared to the wealth and rank of his host.

At length, losing interest in examining the various treasures, Alastair took a seat on the lavishly embellished gold sofa, and waited. And waited. And waited some more, his anger beginning to smoulder.

Of course, he had arrived without notice and the new Duke would have many pressing matters to attend to, taking over the reins of such a large estate. However, leaving him tapping his fingers this long, without an offer of refreshment or any other courtesy, was, Alastair felt sure, a deliberate insult.

Any deference to rank Alastair might once have felt had long since been dissipated by the refusal of his uncle, the Earl of Swynford, to support his younger son, Alastair’s cousin and best friend, after the scandal that had embroiled Max at the Congress of Vienna. A deference already worn thin by his army service, where experience and ability was worth far more in battle than rank or title, and his own previous dealings with a Duke of Graveston.

So he was not feeling particularly amiable when the Duke finally deigned to make an appearance.

After exchanging the obligatory bows and greetings, the Duke said, ‘So, Mr Ransleigh, to what do I owe the honour of this visit?’’

The sly smile accompanying those words gave Alastair the distinct impression that the Duke knew exactly who he was and why he was here.

Which shouldn’t come as a surprise. In order for Graveston’s solicitor to have found Diana so quickly, the new Duke must have had his own spies hidden among the household at Graveston, some of whom had trailed her when she fled to Bath after her husband’s death. If those informers remained in the city to watch her, they would have already sent word to the Duke about his relationship with the widow.

If the Duke wished to be coy, not revealing what he already knew, he could play along, thought Alastair, his irritation building. ‘As a friend of the Dowager Duchess, I wished to approach you about a family matter. Gentleman to gentleman, without recourse to involving the sheriff or the courts.’

‘Gentleman to gentleman,’ the Duke repeated, raising an ironic eyebrow. ‘Do proceed.’

‘The Dowager, naturally distraught over the death of her husband, needed time away to compose herself. She seemed to doubt that you would agree to provide her with the support and assistance to which she is entitled as your father’s widow.’

The Duke’s smirk of a smile compressed to a thin line. ‘I’m surprised the doxy is intelligent enough to understand that. Support her?’ His raised voice had a derisive ring. ‘She left Graveston Court voluntarily; let her support herself. I’m sure she wheedled enough baubles out of my father to keep herself in furs, gowns and sweetmeats for the rest of her life.’

‘Nonetheless,’ Alastair countered, holding on to his temper, ‘she’s still entitled to her dower.’

The Duke’s eyebrows lifted again. ‘She can certainly apply for it. Any claims submitted on that account will be referred to my solicitor.’

‘She was your late father’s legal wife. Your man might obstruct, harass and delay such a petition, but in the end, the law will see she gets what she’s entitled to.’

The Duke laughed outright. ‘Oh, I certainly hope she gets what she deserves! My father’s legal wife—ha! Only think, he set aside my mother, who lived only to please him, for her. And what an ideal duchess she made! Incapable of running the household. Contradicting my father in front of his guests. Disputing the gentlemen’s opinions and ignoring the ladies, to whose company she should have directed her attention and remarks. Well, he had little enough joy of her. Just the one brat, after eight years of marriage.’

While Alastair bottled up his mounting ire and disgust, Graveston continued. ‘Ah yes, the brat. I shall very much enjoy helping him discover what it’s like being the son of a displaced mother!’ He smiled, anger glittering in his eyes. ‘I’ll enjoy even more having her know he’s experiencing that delight, and she’s responsible.’

Diana had warned him, but he hadn’t believed it. ‘You would punish a child?’ Alastair asked incredulously, revolted.

Graveston shrugged. ‘Not punish. Just...instil in him a proper recognition of his place. He’ll survive. I did. It will make a man of him.’

A man like you? he thought. No wonder Diana wants to keep her son away.

‘He’s a Mannington brat, for all that, even if he is half hers. Perhaps we can beat that out of him. One can try.’ He smiled again, as if relishing the prospect. ‘He will need to be trained to his role—to serve my son and heir. Which brings me back to a matter more important than the spurious claims of my father’s former wife. Since you seem to be on such good terms with her, perhaps you’ll inform her if she does not return the boy voluntarily, and soon, I shall have the Court of Chancery order it.’

‘She would appeal such a demand. You can’t know for sure they would rule in your favour.’

‘Can I not? When the head of an ancient, venerable family of vast resources magnanimously offers to support a half-brother, even though he’s the spawn of a nobody? Worse than a nobody, a woman whose odd and irregular behaviour forced her husband to banish her from Society. Who fled her home before her husband’s body was scarcely cold, instead of remaining to greet the heir and see proper tribute paid to her late master. Not to mention, as any number of witnesses can testify, a mother who paid practically no attention to her son from his early years until his father’s demise. Do you really think she has any chance to hang on to him? If you’re such a friend