Читать книгу The Regency Season Collection: Part Two - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 58
ОглавлениеThey were at Dunstan House and the curtains across the French doors of her room were billowing wide. Like the sails of the Cameron ships on the wind as they raced for the Americas, cargos laden and a blue horizon seen in every direction.
Her father sat in a chair reading, his glasses perched on his nose and a bright floral cushion on his lap. Amethyst’s mind searched for an answer as to why they were here and why she was in bed at this time of the day, half a dozen vials of medicine lined up on the table beside her.
Of a sudden the room spun in small and rapid circles, making her blink. Squinting, she reached out, hoping to find balance. Something was not right just beyond thought, the time, the place or the company.
‘Papa.’ The word was thick in the dryness of her mouth, but her movements had alerted him and, dropping the book on the floor, he reached over to take her hand.
‘How do you feel?’
Daniel. He was gone. The ball. Gerald. The wild ride in the carriage home. Too fast.
‘How long...since the ball?’
‘Three days. This is the first time you have known me.’
‘Only...you...here?’ Her eyes perused the corners of her chamber, searching. When her father nodded Amethyst allowed the heaviness of her lids to close and she slept.
* * *
She knew she was calling his name in the dark and through the night. But Daniel Wylde, the sixth Earl of Montcliffe, would not come because he no longer trusted her, no longer cared.
A cold compress was pressed to her forehead and she touched her father’s hand.
‘Tired.’ She could barely keep her eyes open. ‘I feel so tired.’
‘Then I will stay with you until you sleep and when you wake up again I shall still be beside you.’
His words were quietly spoken, yet were so very genuine. She could not remember a time when her father had let her down or failed her. ‘I love you, Papa. You have always been here.’
‘And I always will be, my jewel. Don’t worry. Everything will turn out just exactly as it should, I swear that it will.’
The dizziness was back, hovering at a distance, but closing in. She needed him to know something, but it was hard to think what it was now.
‘Daniel?’
‘Shush.’
‘He makes me...happy.’
The tears fell of their own accord, welling in her eyes and running warm across her cheeks.
‘And now...I have lost...him.’
‘No.’ All the reassurance in the world in that one simple word and as she fell back into sleep she smiled.
* * *
The next time she awoke it was dark and two candles on the mantelpiece laid a circle of light across the bed, the white of the counterpane so bright it hurt her eyes to look at. Holding up a hand to dim it, she was surprised by a small cut on her wrist, the blood around the wound dried and powdered. Her father was still beside her, in different clothes now and without the book.
‘They bled you. The doctors. I asked them if it was truly necessary but the humours are tricky things, they said, and the melancholy needed to be released from your body.’
Her father looked both exhausted and worried.
‘Lord Montcliffe?’
‘He left as soon as he brought you home from the Herringworth ball and I haven’t heard from him since.’
‘Did he tell you...anything?’
He shook his head. ‘Maisie and Mick were delivered the next morning and I brought you here the day after that.’
‘I see.’ And she did. Charlotte Mackay’s accusations played on her memory as did the speed of the carriage as Daniel had taken her home. She had acted appallingly, but high emotion, guilt, shame, shock and fright had played their parts, too.
‘The doctor administered laudanum to calm you down, my dear, but I do not think it agreed with you. I stopped the dosage the day before yesterday.’
That was why she felt nauseous then and slightly removed from the world. Her mouth was so parched she could barely swallow but all she could think about was the sense of betrayal in Daniel’s pale green eyes.
And the hurt.
The sick feeling in her stomach worsened. He must think her mad and deceitful, a woman who held no regard for honesty or manners; the wife of a man at the centre of a scandal that had rocked all of London. The kiss they had shared came back with full force: a moment in her life she would never forget, a gift of what it might be like to be with a man whom you truly loved.
She turned her face into the pillow and sobbed.
* * *
Daniel knew what the lawyer would say. He knew it before the legal retainer even opened his mouth and began to speak.
‘I am acting on behalf of the Honourable Reginald Goldsmith. He has instructed me to call in the loan your brother took out against your family estate and he would like the sum paid back in full by the end of this month.’
‘I see.’
Smythe shook his head and lifted a yellowing page. ‘I am afraid you do not, my lord. The sum is enormous.’ Turning the document so that it could be read with more ease, Daniel was stunned.
Five thousand pounds. A king’s ransom. So much more than he’d imagined Nigel to have gambled; a fortune that he had no way of getting his hands upon now that Amethyst Cameron had disappeared into the countryside with her father.
‘Is there any way I could stretch out the payments?’
‘Perhaps for a few months if you were lucky.’
‘But no more?’
The lawyer shook his head. ‘My client is taking ship to the Americas in twelve weeks because his only daughter has settled in Boston. He wants a clean break and he is more than hopeful that the debts should be discharged before he goes. Completely discharged,’ he emphasised the words again and wiped his brow. ‘Is there a problem with this, Lord Montcliffe?’
‘No.’ The glint in Smythe’s eyes was full of conjecture.
‘Your marriage to Miss Cameron should help. I have heard that the family is extremely wealthy. Timber, is it not?’
Daniel stood. He did not wish to hear any conjecture on his own personal life from a man for whom the words ‘appropriate’ or ‘confidential’ appeared to mean nothing. Taking his leave, he was glad Smythe did not engage in further conversation.
He walked along the river in a light rain, the water winding along with him, full of the noise and movement of commerce. Perhaps one of the Cameron ships was docking at this moment, ready to be discharged of its heavy cargo.
Amethyst Cameron.
He no longer knew what to make of her, the shifts of emotion exhausting. He had deposited her at home with her father after the ball and left immediately, her behaviour in the carriage so very deranged and Charlotte’s truths still ringing in his ears. The next morning he had sent back the greys. Even to save Montcliffe he could not be for ever tied to a mad and lying wife.
Gerald Whitely, at least, was dead. He had found out that through an investigator he had employed to make sense of it all. But still the whole ending had been maudlin and awkward.
Swearing, he conjured up her face on the night of the ball, her lightened hair showing up the velvet gold in her eyes. Beautiful and crazy. He had not heard a word from the Camerons since and on enquiry found that they had packed up the London town house and headed for their country estate of Dunstan House somewhere up north.
Good riddance, he should have thought, the whole episode so public and brutal. A lucky escape from a woman who was both deceitful and unstable. Yet underneath other thoughts lingered. Amethyst’s thinness. The way she smiled. The dimples that dented her cheeks and the careful diction of her words.
He had not made a public statement about anything though the ton was, of course, abuzz with the happenings. His mother had caught him in the breakfast room that very morning and made her opinions quite clear.
‘From what I have heard you are well shot of Mrs Whitely, Daniel, and you can now concentrate on the search for a far more suitable match. The Earl of Denbeigh’s wife, Lady Denbeigh, has been most direct with her wishes for her daughter’s future. From all accounts the young lady appears to be a well brought-up, softly spoken girl with an admirable fashion sense. Trade needs to marry trade and those from the ton should find a partner within the same ranks. It is these unwritten laws of society that keeps it all working, you see, and if you seek to change it for whatever reason there are always complications and sordid ones at that.’
She twirled the end of a light-brown curl around her finger. ‘Your man said you no longer have the greys stabled here in London. Are they at Montcliffe?’
‘No. I sent them back to the Camerons. They were part of the wedding settlement.’
‘But I had heard that they were worth a fortune.’
‘They are.’
‘Then I should have kept them if I were you. It would have been some payment for all the humiliation we have suffered since.’
The loud shout of a street pedlar brought Daniel back into the moment, an unkempt fellow playing a wooden flute and touting for a few pennies as he finished. Digging into his pocket, he dropped in an offering.
How the hell could he rescue Montcliffe? The edges of his world were flattening out and he was in danger of falling off the end of it unless he could come up with something.
A pawnshop sign opposite caught his attention and, checking to see that no conveyance was bearing down upon him, he walked across the road towards it, pulling off the heavy gold signet ring from his little finger as he went.
* * *
‘I think you should send back the greys, Papa. Lord Montcliffe can’t wish for the agreements to continue as they were, not after...what has happened, but we do need to ensure his discretion.’
Amethyst finally felt better today and had dressed to come down to the dinner table with her father, who watched her with a growing frown upon his face.
‘You won’t fight for your reputation, then, or for Lord Montcliffe?’
‘He was never mine to fight for, Papa. Surely you can see that?’
‘The first man who has made you live again and smile again and you give him up on a sigh? Your mother would have been disappointed in you.’
‘Why? Because I can understand that in the distaste of the ton lies a way to complete devastation? Daniel Wylde wanted me as little as Whitely did. The pair of greys arrived from him before a new day had dawned properly. Even Gerald gave me a few months.’
‘A few months of hell.’ Robert stood, his voice louder than she had ever heard it, ‘and the scars to prove it. The worst thing about it all was that I could do nothing as Whitely systematically wore you down into a daughter I didn’t recognise any more. After him you looked over your shoulder with a fear of life, love and happiness.’
He held up his hand as she went to speak. ‘Montcliffe gave you back something whether you admit it or not, Amethyst. For the first time in a long while you have seemed...happy. You took risks, you lived.’
She began to laugh because anything else was too awful to contemplate. ‘I agreed to the terms because I thought that was what you wanted, Papa. The doctor said you needed to be relaxed and rested if you were to survive your failing health and you have looked more robust since.’
‘I do not think your agreement to marry him was all about me, my dear. You called for Daniel Wylde when you were sick, again and again, and you begged for him to come back.’
‘It was the laudanum.’
‘No, it was the truth.’
‘What are you trying to say, Papa?’
‘That the Earl was the best thing that has happened to you in a long time and if you don’t do anything to make him understand the situation as you know it you will never be accepted into polite society again. That really would kill me.’
A gathering dread made her feel cold.
‘We will introduce better conditions.’ Her father’s voice held no question as he continued on.
‘Conditions?’
‘A year of marriage and fifteen thousand pounds every four weeks and then a lump sum at the end.’
She shook her head. ‘No more, Papa. We’ll simply stay here at Dunstan House. I never need to return to London again.’
‘Hiding, then? Like your hands in the gloves and your hair beneath the wig. You’re twenty-six, Amethyst, soon to be twenty-seven, and there are not too many of the good years to go. Child-bearing years, the chance of a family and of happiness is dwindling with each and every successive month you tarry. Even now—’
She stopped him. ‘I am not an old maid yet.’
‘But you might be if you are not careful. Then what would Susannah have to say? Flourishing, she instructed. Make our daughter flourish, were the last words she ever said to me. If you have your way of things there will be no chance of that.’
‘So you are saying?’
‘That the marriage between you and Daniel Wylde, the Earl of Montcliffe, goes ahead.’
‘No.’
‘The marriage goes ahead and you show Montcliffe exactly who you are. You tell him the truth about Whitely and the way he used you and hurt you.’
‘No, I can’t do that.’
‘Then I will call in each and every debt his estate owes and ruin him. Is that what you want?’
‘I don’t believe you are saying these things, Papa.’ Horror stripped her words back to a whisper.
‘If you tell me you have absolutely no feelings for Lord Daniel Wylde, I will stop. All of this. We will simply leave England and head...anywhere. But you must also remember that there is every good chance according to the best of London’s specialists that you will soon be completely alone and without my support.’
She was silent. She tried to speak, she did, from the well of sense and logic and reason she knew was inside her, but the words just would not come.
Relief passed into the lines of her father’s face. ‘Very well. I shall send Montcliffe a message tomorrow outlining the new conditions, Amethyst. If I have not heard back from him by the end of the week, I will go down to London myself and visit him. I do not think he is a person who would break his word on keeping the silence of our demands and I also know that Goldsmith will be calling in his own debts, too.’
‘My God.’
‘Are we in agreement, then?’
She could imagine Daniel receiving both her father’s and Goldsmith’s demands all in the same month. Pale green eyes rose in memory, the golden shards warm with humour at the ball and then icy with distaste in the carriage.
Once he had admired her, she could tell that he had. Once he had trusted her and lauded her honesty and truth. Once he had kissed her, sensuously, expertly, so that the blood in her temple had pounded in an unending and heavy din. More. More. More.
That was the worst of it. She had pressed her body back against his own as they had danced and known the hard outline of his sex. She had felt his breath mingle with hers, life-giving and wonderful, his lips so close, his smile just for her, the light of the chandeliers falling in quiet patterns across them, magical and bliss filled.
Oh, how he must be laughing now.
Crazy, deceitful Amethyst Cameron, trading her way into a betrothal that he did not wish for and refusing to let him go.
If she had any sense left, she would instruct her father not to take things further, then simply accept what had happened and move on.
To what? To where?
The quandary bewildered her. Without the Camerons’ money Daniel would have to sell Montcliffe Manor and she knew him well enough to understand that would be something he would hate to do. Marriage, then, to another heiress, another woman who might sweeten the pot with gold and property. And a hasty one at that given the timings.
Nay, she might still be the best of all evils if she threw down her cards in the right order and gave him space to play it out. Marriage was like business, after all, and both parties had to feel they had made a good deal or things quickly went sour.
‘I will agree to try again, Papa, but this time I will write my own conditions.’
‘Very well.’ The smile in his eyes was bountiful.
Taking a sheet of paper from an armoire on one side of the room, she proceeded to do just that.
* * *
Daniel could not believe what he was reading. The Camerons’ lawyer, Alfred Middlemarch, on the other side of the table sat very still, no expression on his face, a man used to the strange and fickle ways of the very rich.
‘And they want me to sign this today?’
‘They do, my lord, and most generous Mr Robert Cameron has been, there is no doubt on that. I do not think he wishes to draw out the procedure, so to speak, but wants a quick and expeditious process so that all concerned might move on in the right direction with their lives.’
The right direction?
Goldsmith’s lawyer had been to see him again yesterday with his own amended set of demands. Four weeks now and no longer the stated twelve to repay the debt. A coincidence? Daniel thought not. Other debtors, too, had foreclosed as word had spread of the poor financial status of the Wyldes. He could barely keep up with the sums mooted or the spiralling escalation of debt.
‘There is also a page of further conditions that Miss Cameron herself has penned. She asked me to give them to you under strict confidence and made me promise to reiterate that you were not to let anyone else know of them. Including myself. She has made me promise that I shall burn the paper as soon as you leave unless you wish to take it with you.’
The missive was sealed, the red wax engraved with the letter ‘C’, two yellow ribbons splayed out beneath it.
Pulling on the tabs Daniel brought the sheet into the light. The hand was neat and small, flourishes of fancy every so often at the end of a sentence.
If you are reading this I want you to know how sorry I am for all that has happened. It was not meant to be this way.
Your family’s well-being is as important to you as my father’s happiness is to me, so if this marriage is to go ahead I propose that:
You can build up a stable of breeding horses at the Dunstan stables that would be unlike anything else seen in England.
You have carte blanche on buying the livestock.
We will have as little to do with each other’s daily lives as you wish for.
My personal fortune will be at your disposal to ensure the future of the Montcliffe lineage and property as well as that of Dunstan House.
Yours sincerely
Amethyst Amelia Cameron
‘Damn.’ He muttered the word beneath his breath and the man opposite looked up.
‘I hope it is to your liking, my lord.’ The expressionless face of Middlemarch neither softened nor hardened. ‘Will you take it with you or shall I burn it?’
‘I will keep it.’
‘Very well. I do not wish to hurry you along, Lord Montcliffe, but...’
‘You are a busy man.’
‘Exactly. The Camerons have always been good clients and honest people. Their payments are regular and prompt and in all my years of working with Mr Robert Cameron I have seldom heard one bad word against him, professionally or personally.’
The Montcliffe family lawyer chose that point to turn from the window. Mr Athol Bailey was of the old school of law, but had allowed the Cameron’s legal representative to outline the terms of the agreement mooted in his office. For his own benefit Daniel thought, but also as a means to an end. The Montcliffe fortune was in danger of collapsing completely and the severity of the problem was not going to just go away. Bailey spoke now as he rounded the desk to sit in a leather chair to one side of it.
‘The word about town, Lord Montcliffe, is that other parties hold several loans against the Montcliffe estate and they are interested in settling them quickly. Lord Greyton’s representative, for example, is a colleague of mine and, whilst I hope I do not speak out of turn, I would say that the general opinion is that you are on the verge of bankruptcy. As your family retainer, my lord, and given the expenses that your mother incurs in her daily and general life, I would advise you to reflect very carefully about an offer that could only be conducive to the financial well-being of the Wyldes from now on and into the future.’
‘I see.’
For the first time that morning Bailey smiled and, looking over at the Cameron’s lawyer, Daniel spoke. ‘Will you take a message back for me? I would require an answer as soon as possible.’
‘Of course.’
‘Could you tell the Camerons that I agree to their proposals, but the small wedding will be held at Montcliffe Manor. I want only my bride and her father to be in attendance. No one else.’
‘Certainly, my lord.’
‘Could you also tell Miss Cameron that I shall be sending her a bill for the damage incurred to the roof of my carriage whilst she was under the influence of her fit of madness.’
‘Indeed, my lord.’ Middlemarch’s countenance did not falter as he handed over one of his inked quills. ‘Just here, if you may.’ He waited until the deed was signed before flipping over to another. ‘And here.’
Finally the old lawyer stood, depositing the documents into a well-worn leather briefcase. ‘I consider my business done and I would like to thank you both for allowing me the time and place to present this agreement. I hope you are as happy with the outcome as I know my clients shall be, Lord Montcliffe, and I wish you the very best for the future.’
* * *
Ten minutes later Daniel was back on the street and his mood was as black as the clouds he could see amassing over to the west. He had been played like a fish on the line, the bait of his own demise as imminent as the Camerons would know it to be. Until this past week he had not had one single debt of his brother’s presented to him. Did Robert Cameron have some dealings there as well to force his hand and hurry things up?
But why would he do so? Surely a dozen other down-on-their-luck lords could be cajoled into a union with Miss Amethyst Cameron and with far more ease, even given the scandalous nature of her first husband’s business.
His mind went back to the carriage ride home. She had acted like a crazed woman, with little sense or reasonableness, her shrill cries still ringing in his ears. He had never met another like her, that was the trouble, one part innocent and the other part as deceptive as hell. She was her father’s daughter on the one hand and her own particular mix of madness on the other.
Yet he had signed on the dotted line. For his mother and his sisters and a grandfather who barely knew the time of day.
‘More fool me,’ he muttered, pleased to see his town house materialise before him and also the possibility of a stiff drink. His lineage would stay safe and Montcliffe Manor would not need to be sold. Such protections would have to be enough. The dull ache in his thigh mirrored the pain in his head.
Charlotte Mackay arrived on his doorstep just as he did and this time there was no mother or brother anywhere in sight.
‘Might I come in just for a moment, Daniel? I realise that I am hardly the person you wish to see, but I would appreciate at least a moment or two of your time.’
Today she was dressed in a woollen cloak with the buttons done up tightly to her neck. With a quick nod he showed her through to his library, but he did not sit down as he waited for an explanation as to why she had come.
‘I am more than sorry for the scene at the Herringworth ball. I have been trying to get up the courage to allow explanation, but it has been hard.’ Swallowing she looked at him.
‘The allotted period of mourning society deems appropriate for a bereaved widow has been most...difficult and it is only in the past month that I have been allowed to enjoy my life again. As a result of everything I have come to the conclusion that a year of black clothes and dour conversation shows not only the nonsense of marriage but also my unsuitability to such a state.’
‘In what way?’ For the life of him he could not understand why she should be telling him this.
Her right forefinger tucked an errant golden curl up into the folds of her hat as she gave him answer. ‘I am committed to enjoying every single moment I have left to me, Daniel. After Spenser I saw that sometimes bad things can happen.’ Shaking her head, she went on, drawing herself up a little. ‘Your finances are in a poor state. I have heard that from many people and your brother’s problems at the card table are no longer a secret. As my own bank accounts are most healthy I thought perhaps as a friend I could offer you a way out of the mess you now find yourself in.’
He knew what was coming and he tried to stop her by holding up his hand, but she took little notice of the gesture.
‘I will pay off some of your debts in exchange for you and I becoming lovers again. I have missed you and I made a huge mistake when Spenser offered for my hand. But now there is an opportunity for us...’
‘No.’ He could say it in no other way than that.
‘No?’
‘Thank you, but I cannot take you up on the offer, Charlotte.’
‘Because you are angry at me for ruining your chances with Mrs Whitely?’
At that he laughed. ‘Hardly.’
‘Then why?’
He took his time in answering. ‘Spenser was an only child and the last of his family line. I have heard it said that his parents want you to reside with them in Scotland in return for the large sums of money they have bestowed upon you and which you accepted on your husband’s death. It seems Spenser Mackay’s mother thinks of you as a daughter?’
‘You sound like my mother, Daniel, and I do not want to hear this.’ Moving closer, she brought her fingers along the line of his cheek. ‘Scotland is full of sad memories for me and I want to feel again what I did, with you, in your arms, before it all went wrong.’
Once he might have been flattered by the offer she had just made him, but now all he could think about was the chaos of their past. ‘I think, Charlotte, that the time for us has gone.’
‘Kiss me then and tell me that afterwards.’
She did not wait for him to move, but pressed herself up against him, her lips brushing along his own, warm and full and remembered. The same smell of gardenias and the same feel of softness.
Shaking his head, he placed both hands on her shoulders and moved her away. Carefully. The clock in the corner boomed out the hour of three and apart from the sound of its heavy ticking there was silence in the room.
‘You won’t allow me in because of your brother? Nigel was a...dalliance. I knew as soon as we had slept together it was a mistake.’
He tried to smother the anger that he could feel building. ‘If it was not Nigel, then it would have been someone else, Charlotte, and by then I did not care enough anyway.’
‘You are refusing me?’
‘I am.’
‘But I love you, Daniel. I have always loved you.’ She was crying now, the tears running down her cheeks. ‘You were distant at the end of...us. If you had been more attentive, none of this would ever have happened. But we can change it and with only a little effort we could again be—’
‘Stop. The time for regrets is past and you have duties now to Spenser Mackay’s family and to your own.’
Rather than placating her, this line of argument made her wail louder. ‘Then both of us have lost and all for nothing, and you will regret this, I know that you will.’
Gathering up her reticule, she opened the door, his man coming forward immediately to show her out. When she was gone Daniel crossed to his desk and sat down. The letter he had received at his lawyer’s today rustled and he brought the sheet from his pocket. Amethyst’s demands juxtaposed against those of Charlotte’s made him feel his life was taking a less-than-salutary course.
Lucien’s voice in the corridor had him flicking the missive into a drawer as he waited for his friend to come into the room.
‘Tell me that was not Lady Charlotte Mackay in the carriage I just saw pulling away, Daniel, for I thought that affair was long since over.’ As he dropped into the leather chair nearest the desk he reached out for the decanter, upturning a clean glass and pouring a generous libation.
‘It isn’t what you think. We are friends.’ As he said it he wondered if Charlotte and he were even that.
‘She’s poison, damn it. She betrayed you with Nigel and she could so easily do so again.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you?’
‘Lady Mackay will be returning to Scotland to live. She just came to say goodbye.’
‘She still loves you. You can see it in her eyes. My guess is that she came to beg forgiveness as she tried to inveigle her way back into your bed with money and sex. The cloak she wore was a surprise though, buttoned as it was to the neck. Not her usual style.’
Daniel finished his drink before he spoke. ‘Let it go, Luce. There is no purpose in flogging the past.’
‘Maybe not, but your present difficulties can be laid squarely at the feet of Lady Mackay and rumour has it that Goldsmith is calling in his loan. Can you pay him?’
Daniel shook his head, helping himself to more of the same smooth wine. ‘There are others as well. Nigel was busier than I had thought.’
‘Pity Amethyst Cameron turned out to be such a duplicitous liar. I liked her before that. Francis told me to tell you that you should follow him to America. By his accounts there is a fortune to be made there.’
‘I don’t have enough time left to find it.’
‘Your mother?’
‘Is finally terrified. In the past few days and for the first time ever she is cursing Nigel to a most uncomfortable afterlife.’
‘At least she is recognising he is the architect of much of the Montcliffe misfortune. I could sell Cosgrove Hall. It is mine outright to do as I want with and it should fetch something even in its dilapidated state. At least the land around is arable.’
Daniel smiled. ‘I thank you for that, Luce, but it would hardly cover the first loan that was presented.’
‘Marry a girl whose family is flush, then, a young debutante who’d fall in love with you in a second. That would do the trick.’
‘I think any chaperone would be hurrying such prospects away from me. There is a big difference in thinking a family on the verge of ruin and the knowing of it. Besides, I am too jaded to be tiptoeing around such innocence.’
And he was, Daniel thought in surprise. Even the idea of such a bride made him feel...nervous. He was thirty-four next birthday and he felt older than that again. He didn’t want a woman he could hardly speak to or one who would be running home to her mother every time the going got tough. Which it would. His leg was aching tonight and he knew very soon he’d need to get a surgeon to look at it properly.
‘Did you find out anything more of Gerald Whitely then? You mentioned that you were looking into it the last time we met.’
Daniel nodded. ‘He died in the bed of a prostitute, it seems. Two shots to the head and no one ever held accountable. His crooked schemes of business were apparently funded by the Camerons’ money.’
Lucien swore. One of the riper expressions remembered from army life.
‘My thoughts exactly.’
‘I can’t see Miss Cameron being enamoured with someone of that ilk even after all that has happened and I am sure she could not have condoned his scandalous get-rich deals, either. As an impartial viewer I would also like to say that for the first time in a long while you seemed happy when you were with her.’
The words rang in Daniel’s head like a death knell as he struggled to change the subject to something lighter. He hadn’t been happy in so long, that was the problem. He couldn’t remember a time when he had truly laughed or enjoyed something just for the fun of it.
A band of yellow roses in golden curls came to mind, and lips that turned up at each end even when she did not smile. After Nigel and Charlotte, honesty was the yardstick he had measured people by and Amethyst Cameron had failed that test miserably in the end.
If the Camerons sent back an agreement to his terms, would he still go through with it, knowing all that he did? Was Montcliffe Manor worth such a sacrifice?
Charlotte’s presence today had unsettled him, but so had his mother’s constant tears. The carrot of building up his own breeding stable also sat at the back of his mind. With luck and good management he could begin to prosper and in a couple of years he might be able to pay back much of the debt. Amethyst had come to him stipulating her own terms, after all, so she would not be clinging on to something unsustainable either.
A marriage of convenience and with many of the terms in his favour? He could build up his breeding stock and begin again. A new life with the freedom of money and time. But even that prospect failed to allow him any renewed hopefulness and his shattered right thigh hurt like hell.
