Stroke of Genius (32 page)

Grace was trying, bless her, but her heart wasn’t in the sport. She frowned down at her bobber with furious intensity. Once or twice, he caught her glancing toward the sounds of labor coming from the cottage. Hawke was going at something hammer and tongs.

Richard sighed and tamped down the resentment that welled in him. The past couldn’t be undone. He must look to the future.

A unique opportunity had presented itself and though the thought had soured his belly when it first came to him, it had taken firm root in his mind since then. He was Dorset. People depended upon him. He could not in good conscience indulge his own vanity. He’d swallow his gall long enough to see this plan through.

He’d marry Grace Upshall and for her dowry, he’d demand a working version of her father’s improved thread spinner. He’d have a dozen replicas made and his estate would prosper for the next generation, producing both the wool and the finished yarn. It was an elegant solution that would provide steady work for his crofters and a chance to corner a goodly piece of the textile market for the marquessate.

And then with an heir, the estate would flourish for generations after him.

As for Grace, he’d treat her well. She’d have his name, his wealth, his protection. He’d give her no cause for complaint. She seemed intelligent and even-tempered. In time, they might even come to be friends.

Richard glanced down the hill toward the cottage and then forced his attention back on his casting. He couldn’t seem to find the right rhythm for fishing this morning, but his other plan was proceeding nicely.

One way or another,
Clairmont
would gain an heir of rightful blood.

* * *

“I’m sorry. I’m just no good that this,” Grace finally conceded, pulling her line and the soggy worm at the end of it from the water. “Pray excuse me.”

“Certainly, but I’m glad you stayed most of the morning, Grace,” Richard said. “The rest of the party is arriving today so this may be one of our last chances for a bit of peace and quiet. You will save me a dance this evening?”

“Of course, my lor—Richard.”

Even though they’d agreed to informality, she couldn’t stop the reflexive curtsey in time. There was no harm in that. He’d be happy to see her continue to do so even after the wedding. It was good for a woman to reverence her husband.   

At least publicly.

“Do you play chess, Grace?” He caught her hand, brought her knuckles to his lips and pressed a perfect courtly kiss to them.

“Yes, though my father accuses me of over-using my queen’s rook.”

    “Then I’m forewarned. Perhaps we can steal away for a game at some point in the next few days.”

Her hand stiffened in his, but she didn’t withdraw it. He wondered how she’d come by the reputation for such beautiful hands. They seemed perfectly ordinary to him, but once the
ton
got something in its collective mind, there was no turning it.

“I should like that,” she said.

“I’ll walk you back to the house, daughter,” Mr. Makepeace said. “Don’t want to take all his lordship’s trout the first day. Thank you, Dorset. That was fine sport, damn fine sport. Are you coming now, too?”

“Not just yet. Till this evening, Grace.” He dipped in a shallow bow and then waved them on.

After they’d wandered as far as the stables, Richard abandoned his fishing gear for one of the servants to retrieve later and marched down the hill to Hawke’s cottage.

The artist was still hard at work when Richard pushed through the unlocked door. A female figure emerged from the tall stone before him. Long-limbed and graceful, she extended a bow arm, preparing to draw the string back. The tilt of her head and slant of her lips was unmistakable.

Hawke was doing far more of Grace Makepeace than her hands.

But then, Richard already knew that. 

“Diana the Huntress,” Richard said, walking toward the piece.

Hawke turned and look at him with no deference in his gaze. Well, that was to be expected. Hard to respect the man one cuckolds.

“Beautifully done.” Richard approached the statue in progress and ran a hand over the cold stone shoulder. “You have quite a gift.”

Hawke nodded his acceptance of the compliment.

“Miss Makepeace makes an admirable virgin goddess, doesn’t she?” Richard said.

“Yes, my lord.” Hawke turned back to the marble and chipped away, clearly annoyed at the interruption.

“So do you hope to make me think this is why she was here all night?”

Hawke’s hammer stopped in mid-swing.

“Do you really imagine I don’t know everything that goes on here at my own estate?”

Hawke’s lips thinned, but he didn’t speak.

Good.
He could be discreet.

“Walk with me, Mr. Hawke,” Richard said. “There’s something I’d like to show you.”

Hawke laid his tools aside and removed the leather apron he wore over his serviceable knee-length shirt and work trousers. He clapped his hands together and marble dust shimmered in the shafts of sunlight streaming into the cottage. Hawke retrieved his walking stick and followed Richard into the warm mid-morning.

They climbed the hill in silence. It was refreshing. Usually people clamored around a marquess, offering favors or begging for one. Hawke merely walked beside him in his canting stride. As they neared the manor, Hawke slowed.

“My lord, I’ve been working. I’m not fit to enter your house thus.”

“You’re fit enough,” Richard said. “At least, I trust you are. Tell me about your limp. Does it cause you any special debility?”

“If you call pain a debility.”

“Have you sired any bastards?”

He frowned in surprise. “None that I’m aware of,” Hawke said.

“But not for lack of trying, I’m told. According to some counts, you seem poised to cuckold half the peers of England.”

“It seems you take an interest in what happens off your estate as well,” Hawke said. “If you know my sexual habits, you know I favor married women, so any issue would, of necessity, not be bastards in the legal sense. I wouldn’t hang that label on a child.”

Richard nodded. “How touching. Such a noble sentiment probably comes from bearing the name of bastard yourself.”

Hawke bristled. “Have a care, my lord. I don’t suffer insults.”

“Since when is the truth an insult? Besides, I’ve always believed the fault lies with the bastard’s father, not the bastard himself.”

They passed through the neatly manicured gardens. Richard preferred the well-ordered French style to the helter-skelter mayhem that passed for an English garden. When they reached the breakfast room door, Richard waited for Hawke to open it for him. Since he didn’t seem inclined to honor either his host or his host’s title, Richard opened the door for him. Hawke shrugged and preceded him in. 

Sometimes, it was necessary to stroke an adversary’s ego in order to turn him for one’s purposes. Richard would lull him into complacency before he revealed his plan.

    “This way, Hawke.” Richard quickened his pace and forced Hawke to keep up with him as he moved through the public rooms of the manor. If it pained the artist to move quickly so much the better.

The pain Richard anticipated causing was undoubtedly greater.

Finally, he threw open the door to the portrait gallery and stalked down to the larger-than-life painting at the far end.

“I’d like you to meet someone, Hawke.” He waved a hand toward the last portrait in the long line of over-blown art works. “Christian Sinclair Royce, 7th Marquess of Dorset. He was my father.” Richard paused for effect. “And, I believe, yours.”

Chapter 34

 While he waited for Galatea to choose him, Pygmalion was forced to wrestle with a few unpleasant truths. About himself.

Crispin gaped dumbfounded at the painting.

“The likeness is striking, isn’t it?” the marquess said. “You see now why I stared a bit rudely when we first met at Almack’s. It was as if I’d met Hamlet’s ghost.”

For Crispin, it was almost like looking into a magic mirror and seeing himself a decade or two in the future.

“Of course, there’s no way to positively prove paternity—” the marquess began.

“I have proof,” Crispin said woodenly as he reached to trace the monogram beneath the painted figure’s booted foot. CRS.

Cris.
Just when he thought he’d given up wanting to know.

“The only thing I have from my mother is a handkerchief with these initials embroidered in gold.” Crispin could have drawn the florid curling decoration around the letters with his eyes closed. “It’s the same unique embellishment. The same monogram.”

“Careless of him to leave a hanky lying about where one of his doxies could nick it.”

The punch was thrown before the urge to do it even passed through Crispin’s brain. It connected with Dorset’s jaw and sent the marquess sprawling on the thick Turkish rug.

Crispin didn’t care if Dorset was a peer of the realm. He leaped onto him, straddled the man’s chest and rained a storm of blows on him, which the marquess managed to barely fend off by covering his face with his forearms.

“
Pax
!” came the muffled shout. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have insulted your mother.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Crispin rolled off him and struggled to his feet, his thigh throbbing. “She didn’t deserve what he did to her.”

“Which was?”

“After he begot me? Nothing. Nothing at all. He never gave her a bit of help. She died alone . . . in a whore house, old at twenty-five.” He was tempted to spit on the painting, but he’d already trounced the marquess. Defacing his family’s heirlooms would add insult to injury and Dorset couldn’t help who his father was any more than Crispin could.

The marquess rose shakily to his feet. He evidently wasn’t going to call for his servants to restrain Crispin and turn him over the magistrate, even though he’d be within his rights to do so. However, Crispin noticed Dorset was careful to maintain a healthy distance between them.  

“If it’s any consolation, you were fortunate not to know him,” Dorset said. “He was charming and urbane and unspeakably cruel. I think he drove
my
mother a little mad.”

Crispin was silent, eyeing the marquess. “It would have been a simple thing to keep me from seeing this portrait. Even now, I have no claim on you or this estate. Why are you telling me this?”

“Your leg is twitching and I suspect you’ve loosened a couple of my teeth. Come, Hawke. Let us sit like reasonable men and discuss how we may help each other.”

Crispin followed him to the pair of burgundy leather wing chairs flanking a massive fireplace. He sank into the seat gratefully and massaged his thigh.

“Your jaw is bruising. Expect you’ll want a beefsteak for it,” Crispin pointed out with a certain amount of satisfaction. “Beyond the closure of finally knowing my true parentage, I can’t see what there is to discuss. To be honest, I’ve done well for myself. I have no need of your help.”

“Let us say that I am in need of yours.” Lord Dorset pulled a key from his pocket. Then he opened a cleverly hidden deep drawer in the table beside his chair. He drew out a decanter of liquor and two small glasses. “Sherry. A rather pleasant vice I’ve recently acquired. Join me.”

It was not a question. Hawke accepted the jigger and knocked back its contents.

“After we met at Almack’s, I made some inquiries,” Dorset said. “You are indeed wealthier than most of the earls I know, so money will not entice you to help me. Other than your peccadilloes with married women, you have no vices I could use to convince you—no gambling debts, no opium addiction.” Dorset sipped his sherry, savoring the flavor. “That surprised me, by the way, given the level of pain you obviously live with.”

“What is it you need me to do for you?”

“I’m going to give you an opportunity to spit in the old devil’s eye, Hawke.” Dorset refilled Hawke’s glass and raised his in mock toast to the portrait of their mutual sire. “The man made a bastard of you. How would you like to put a bastard of your own in line for his title?”

Hawke suspected it wasn’t only Lord Dorset’s mother who was a little mad. “What are you suggesting?”

Dorset drew a deep breath. “Ten years ago, I suffered an accident. I bought a green-broke Arabian stallion and the damn thing kicked me in the groin. I’ll skip the gory details but suffice it to say the incident rendered me . . . incapable of continuing the Dorset line.” The marquess downed the rest of his sherry. “Spare me any sympathy you may feel. I am Dorset. And I need none of your pity. I do however need you.”

Crispin looked back up at the picture of his father. It was damned inconsiderate of him to die before Crispin could give him the beating he deserved. Was there a way to pay his father back for the years of privation and neglect? Did he even need to deliver retribution for his mother any more? His memories of her were hazy, but he suspected she wouldn’t want him to spread around any misery on her account.

“I intend to marry Miss Makepeace,” Dorset said, as if merely speaking the words would make it so. “After the ceremony, I will explain to her the nature of my ailment and the arrangement you and I have reached.”