A Baron for Becky (16 page)

The Marquis of
Aldridge had arrived shortly after noon, Hugh’s valet told him
while he had his bath and dressed for dinner. The marquis had read
in the library for a while, visited Miss Sophrania and Miss
Emmaline in the schoolroom, then called for a horse and directions
to Beckham’s farm.

Aldridge in his
daughters’ schoolroom? Whatever for? Not that he minded, of course.
Even if they were not gently-born virgins, a species Aldridge
avoided like the plague, at 10 and 8, they were safe from the man’s
incessant pursuit of women.

The Astley’s
exhibition had shown an unexpected side to his friend. Aldridge
mediating a quarrel between two girls, putting out a protective arm
when a carriage came too close, sharing the birthday cakes in a way
that gave each child precisely the same number of sugar roses. The
little girls all treated him like a favourite uncle, and Aldridge
was respectful, tender, and protective.

Even so, Hugh
went downstairs to dinner still trying to think of a reason why
Aldridge would want to visit Sophie and Em.

Aldridge was a
few minutes behind him, immaculately dressed in a dark blue coat,
grey breeches, and a silver and blue waistcoat, flamboyantly
embroidered. A sapphire-and-diamond pin studded his intricately
tied cravat, echoing the sapphire-and-diamond buckles on his
shoes.

“You are
welcome, Aldridge, of course,” Hugh began, “but I must admit, I
wonder why I am being honoured with your presence.”

How ungracious
that sounded. Aldridge couldn’t be blamed for Hugh’s fevered dreams
of Mrs Winstanley, after all. The man had been his host in London
for three years running, and was, besides, his last surviving
school friend. Hugh’s last surviving friend, in truth. The men he’d
known in the army were all gone, killed in the continuing war with
Napoleon. And he didn’t mix much with the neighbours, three of whom
were called John. Not, perhaps,
the
John—it was a very
common name—but still.

Aldridge did
not take offence. “I do have something I wish to discuss with you,
Overton, but it can wait until after dinner.” Not in front of the
servants, then.

Usually, Hugh
ate his meal in the study, to avoid the solitary splendour of the
dining room. It was nice to have company, someone with whom to
discuss the harvest, the war, the rioting in Manchester, and the
health of the King’s youngest daughter.

But after the
second remove, Hugh dismissed the serving footmen. If privacy
Aldridge wanted, privacy he would have. He slid Aldridge the port
and watched his friend focus too much attention on pouring himself
a glass. Aldridge sat back, holding the tumbler with both hands and
stared down into it, uncharacteristically silent.

“Well?” Hugh
asked.

Aldridge took a
slow sip before replying. “How much do you remember about our talk
in the tavern after Astley’s?”

Bits and
pieces. Surely he hadn’t told Aldridge everything? He was afraid he
had, but why would Aldridge raise this now?

“Why?”

Aldridge
answered with another question. “How much does it matter to you
that the title will go to the King when you die?”

“And the land,”
Hugh said, gloomily. Clearly he had told all and Aldridge
remembered the lot. “My uncle and my cousin renewed the fee tail;
the land goes with the title.”

Aldridge said
nothing, waiting for an answer to his question.

“Damn you,
Aldridge. I can’t change it. I’ve tried. The lawyers say breaking
the fee tail might take a hundred years and cost more than I could
ever pay. I’ve had them hunt every little twig of the family tree.
Nothing. I am the last of the Overtons.”

The wound was
always raw. The Overtons had never been prolific breeders, but
they’d held this land and served these people since Charles II had
rewarded a faithful ancestor at the Restoration. And Hugh would be
the last.

Aldridge
couldn’t possibly understand, with his younger brother and cousins
and second cousins and, for all Hugh knew, sixth and seventh
cousins. And who knew how many by-blows to prove he could do his
duty by the title when the scab-scratching louse finally settled
down.

“But you would
change it if you could.”

Hugh clenched
his jaw to keep from cursing his response, but Aldridge hadn’t
finished.

“I have an idea
that might answer your need. Just might, mind you. It’s a gamble,
but I promise you’ll not be worse off, and you might just win the
heir you want.”

Hugh’s cynical
snort was propelled by ten years of broken hopes. “So what have you
got? A gypsy remedy? I’ve tried them all. It won’t be prayer and
fasting, not from you. I know: you’ve a pregnant lover to offload.”
He choked on the joke when he saw Aldridge’s face.

“No.”

A flat and
uncompromising no. He’d not give his name to any bitch who’d whore
herself to the likes of Aldridge. “No, Aldridge. No. I’ll not do
it.”

“Hear me out,
Overton. Will you do that for me? It will be your choice in the
end, but hear me out.”

Hugh refilled
his glass, hand shaking slightly. Aldridge had only one woman he
wanted. But in her proper place—set up in a house in the nearest
town, where he could sink himself into her softness when not doing
his duty to his people and his stepdaughters.

He pushed the
port decanter back towards Aldridge, and Aldridge shot out a hand
to stop it tipping. Hugh had no choice. He could hardly turn the
man out of his house, and Aldridge wouldn’t go until he’d had his
say.

Aldridge took a
meditative sip of his port, then studied it as if the words he
needed were written on the ruby surface.

Hugh wasn’t
going to say anything. Aldridge wanted to talk? Let him talk.

And eventually
he did. “My mistress is with child.”

“Mrs
Winstanley?” Hugh was horrified.

That surge of
hope was just his cock talking. It didn’t rule him. Aldridge
couldn’t know... Or did he? Had he guessed? Did he hope to use
Hugh’s reaction to offload his leavings on Hugh and his
daughters?

His daughters.
“Do you think I would let a woman like her anywhere near my
daughters? How dare you suggest I should give them a harlot as a
mother!” He was on his feet, shouting. “A doxy’s bastard as
Overton? Over my dead body!”

“Well,
obviously,” Aldridge drawled, and something in the tone penetrated
Hugh’s fury. People who didn’t know him said Aldridge never lost
his temper. Hugh had been at school with him during the years he’d
struggled to contain the volcanic anger that, when it flared,
consumed everything in its path. Hugh knew that drawl. He knew the
white lines around the lips and the glitter in the eyes.

“Your dead body
is rather the point.” Aldridge was on his feet, too, leaning
forward over the table, his voice quieter than ever, his eyes chips
of brown glass. “And sooner, rather than later, if you continue to
insult Mrs Winstanley.”

He pushed away
from the table, throwing his energy into pacing the room punching
his fist into his other hand. Hugh, his own anger high, would have
preferred the punch directed at him, though a small voice cautioned
that Aldridge would undoubtedly win in a fair fight. Hugh was fit,
but Aldridge boxed with Jackson three times a week, fenced with a
master every day, and fought scoundrels in low dives for the sheer
joy of battle.

Might as well
live dangerously. “How can I insult a whore?” he asked.

Aldridge
stopped in his tracks, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“This was a
mistake,” he said at last. “You have always been a bit of a prig,
Overton. And a hypocrite. You’ll swive anyone who offers, but
you’ve another rule for the rest of the universe. I’ll leave in the
morning.”

He crossed to
the door, but stopped with his hand on the latch, and met Hugh’s
eyes. “You know nothing about what brought her to the life she’s
led; a life she has survived with dignity and grace. She shows more
honour in her least action than most women of the
ton
can
muster once in a lifetime. Brave. Honest. Clever. A devoted mother.
I’m leaving because you don’t deserve her. You aren’t fit to kiss
the hem of her robe.”

Hugh opened his
mouth to ask Aldridge why he didn’t marry this paragon himself, but
before he could speak, Aldridge laughed with a decide lack of
humour.

“God, she would
have sent that governess of yours packing the first time she raised
a finger to your little Emmaline.”

He was only
just in time to arrest Aldridge’s exit.

“Wait.
Aldridge, the governess hits Emma? What are you talking about? What
have you seen! You know what I think about hitting children.” He
and Aldridge had made a pact at school to never beat a child the
way they’d been beaten themselves. They’d been sleeping on their
stomachs at the time, after an escapade had come to the attention
of the masters.

“Ask your
daughter. My concern is my own child.” Aldridge put his hand on the
door, then heaved a sigh and turned back. “Look, Overton. Open your
eyes. The woman favours the older girl, who does her best to step
between the governess and the little one. Little Emmaline has
bruised knuckles, sits awkwardly, and flinches when the governess
looks at her. And she’s a hard-eyed, grasping, bitter, old bitch,
that one. I’ve seen her like before.”

His narrowed
eyes looked into a childhood populated by the succession of nursery
tyrants he’d described many times, before he returned to his
grievance, sneering, “But perhaps you don’t care. She isn’t yours,
after all.”

“But...”
Overton was quickly reviewing every visit he’d made to the
schoolroom, every time the girls had been presented to him in the
parlour or his study. Little Em had been quieter since the new
governess had arrived, a month before his London trip. Sophie had
taken to answering for her, and Hugh couldn’t remember when he’d
last heard Em’s sweet little chuckle. Em’s cheek was bruised just
last week. An accident while playing, the governess said. The
governess. She’d been all that was civil to him, even charming. But
the other servants didn’t like her, and—yes—he’d noticed the girls’
reserve, even after several months.

Aldridge, damn
him, was right. The clues were there, and Hugh had been too deeply
buried in his own misery to notice.

“I care.” And
he’d be checking with the housekeeper, who would tell him the truth
if he asked a direct question. And with the girls. He sighed. It
had taken him months to find a governess who would live all the way
out here. Now he’d have to find another.

Aldridge was
leaning against the wall by the door, his arms crossed on his chest
and his head tilted to one side.

“Damn it,
Aldridge, how can I marry someone with a secret like this? We’d be
living on a powder keg, waiting for someone to find out... If she
marries into the peerage, Society will tear her to pieces, and me
and my daughters with her. And your child. Set her up as a widow
somewhere.”

Aldridge
nodded. “I can do that. It’s what she’s asked of me, actually. But
she deserves better, Overton. She deserves to be treasured, to grow
old in the protection of a husband, with her children and
grandchildren around her.”

“Marry her
yourself, then,” Hugh scoffed.

To his
surprise, he caught a hint of longing, before Aldridge answered
thoughtfully, “I wish I could. I’d have to leave England, of
course...” One side of his mouth quirked in a half-grin. “...but I
could fake my death so Jonathan could have Haverford.” He laughed
at the shock on Overton’s face. “Yes, I’ve plotted it all out. I
don’t love Becky, and she doesn’t love me. But we’re fond of one
another, and marriages have been built on less.

“Still, she
won’t have me. She says I will make some poor woman a terrible
husband, and she’s right, of course. I cannot imagine sticking to
only one woman, and Becky—well, she is a faithful soul. Believes in
the sanctity of marriage.”

He crossed back
to the table and picked up his abandoned drink.

“And she says I
would hate her after a while, if I left Haverford for her. I
suppose that’s true, too. I’ve trained to be Haverford my whole
life. I don’t know who I would be, if not Aldridge, the heir.”

“Make her your
marchioness, then,” Overton suggested. “Your duchess, one day.
She’ll stomach your infidelities for that kind of title.”

“You’re wrong,
Overton. In any case, what you said about Society? I can think of
ways to bury her past, if she marries into the lower levels of the
peerage, but a duchess? When I choose a bride, the harpies and the
gossip rags will dig until they’ve uncovered every wart and fart.”
He shook his head again.

“It could be a
daughter. The baby, I mean.” Hugh was surprised to find he was
considering the outrageous proposition.

Aldridge
obviously understood. “I still have to present the idea to Becky,”
he warned. “She didn’t much take to you, Overton.”