before he died. And then my stepmother—’ He started in surprise as an ornamental tassel came off in his hand. He laid it down on the windowsill and, taking a step back from further temptation, turned towards Mary and kept his eyes fixed firmly on her as he took up his tale again.
‘My stepmother remarried. She...she was only the daughter of our village grocer. But she was beautiful. Her parents, I found out some years later, were so thrilled to have her elevated to the ranks of the peerage, that they pushed her into accepting my father’s proposal. She tried to make the best of it, but she was never very happy with him. Anyway, the minute Father died, she took up with the man she’d loved all along. A pretty decent fellow, actually. At least, he was good to me. Paid me more attention than my own father ever had, to tell you the truth, but that’s beside the point. He was a nobody, that’s what my own father’s family said. And they were correct. He hadn’t a title. Little money. No land, nothing of that sort, but...’
He turned and paced up and down, raking his fingers through his curls yet again.
‘It’s all such a tangle it’s hard to know how to explain it. You see, my legal guardians didn’t actually want me to live with them, but they didn’t want me contaminated by the man they called a commoner, either. So they sent me away to school. But you know what? My stepmother, my half-sister and her new stepfather were the only ones to show a real interest in me. Their letters kept me from... Well, school can be a pretty harsh sort of place. I got through because I knew how to defend myself. Thanks to the very man my guardians said I shouldn’t go near. He taught me to box.’ He glanced down at his fists, which he’d clenched the moment he’d mentioned his school.
‘It was to his home I went during school vacations. With him, and my stepmother and Julia I felt I had the nearest thing to a home. I was...very cut up when he died. And for his sake, I kept in contact with his sons. The sons my half-sister’s mother bore him.’
She blinked. He caught the bewildered expression in her eyes, at the end of one of his circuits of the room, and pulled a wry face.
‘I warned you my family ties are complicated. But that is only the start. You see, after he died, she—that is my stepmother—was left in slightly tricky circumstances. There was talk of taking Julia away from her and having her brought up by her father’s—my father’s family. Only she hadn’t been all that impressed by the way they’d treated me up to then. So when she got an offer of marriage from yet another titled man, she agreed, in an attempt to keep them all, Julia and her two sons, together as a family. Following it so far?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Well, although financially she did well, she was even more miserable with her third husband than she was with my father. Died giving him his heir. And then...well, for the next few years it felt as though every long vacation I went back to a different marital home as either the husband or the wife died and remarried. It was like living through some bizarre form of farce, with a different infant squalling in a crib, being introduced to me as my new brother or sister, by an adult I was supposed to call Mother or Father.’
‘Hold on,’ said Mary. ‘Why were you calling all these strangers Mother? I don’t quite understand.’
‘Well, nobody really wanted to take on Julia’s brothers, because of who their father was.’
‘The decent, but common man.’
‘That’s him. But they all wanted to keep Julia under their wing, because she has a great deal of money settled on her, and whoever has wardship gets to control it. And wherever she went, I went, too. Because—well, I didn’t have anywhere else to call home. And by that time I’d gained a bit of a reputation for being a hellion. Not the trustees or any of my father’s extended family thought it worth the bother of attempting to discipline me, or cross my will. If I wanted to take myself off to the wilds of Wiltshire, or Yorkshire or Devon so I could be with my half-sister, they were only too glad to see the back of me.’
Mary’s heart went out to him, or rather, the abandoned, unloved little boy he’d been. No wonder he went a bit wild. No wonder he made a point of going where he truly was wanted. Where he would be loved.
‘I...I see....’
‘No, you don’t.’ He shook his head and grinned at her. ‘My family connections are so incredibly complicated that even I cannot keep track of all the people who claim kinship with me these days. Suffice it to say that Julia is the only one of them I give a rat’s a— I mean, care very much about.’
She ought to have been offended by the way he’d almost slipped into vulgarity. But she was beginning to find his very clumsiness of speech rather endearing. In a way, he was treating her with a unique form of respect by saying whatever came into his head, rather than trying to bamboozle her with glib speeches. As was the way he pulled himself up, without her having to so much as lift a brow in reproof, either.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Go on.’
‘Thank you.’ He sat down in the chair he’d used before, leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands.
‘Now, the thing is, the woman who is currently standing in the place of Julia’s stepmother is about to get married again. And the man she’s marrying is...’ He scowled. ‘Well, put it this way. I wouldn’t want any innocent girl to have to live under the same roof as him. Julia’s fifteen now and pretty as a picture. And Lord... Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you his name.’ He frowned, rubbing his thumb across his nose. ‘Although, if people didn’t gossip about him, I never would have found out that he’s assuming nobody cares what becomes of Julia, given the way she’s been passed round like a parcel up till now.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Mary leaned forward, clasping her own hands. ‘By marrying, you are launching a rescue. You plan to provide a stable, safe environment for her to live in. That’s...’ she smiled at him a little mistily ‘...that is truly noble of you.’
He sat up straight again. ‘Is it? I hadn’t thought of it like that.’ He shook his head. ‘I just couldn’t think what else to do. I spent hours discussing Julia’s future with my lawyers, and hers. My first thought was to make an attempt to be declared her legal guardian. I’m pretty nearly old enough now, you see. But found out that would take too much time. Couldn’t very well drag her out of the house and take her back to live in my bachelor lodgings either, while the lawyers worked through all the red tape. It would look damned peculiar. Probably cause the very kind of talk I don’t want her exposed to. But if I got married, they said, and moved back to Mayfield, it would seem perfectly natural to invite her to live with us. Reunite the Durant family in the ancestral home, sort of thing.’
And if she didn’t marry him now, he’d have to abandon that plan. Start all over again trying to find someone else to become his convenient wife. For that was what he wanted, she finally saw. Just a woman to make his rescue of his sister appear respectable and above board.
Could she really let him down, this way, after he’d confided the delicacy of his sister’s plight to her? Could she let the girl, Julia, down, for that matter? She knew what it felt like to be all alone in the world, a burden to everyone, yet nobody’s responsibility. Though she’d never been in the kind of peril that faced Julia. She simply wasn’t pretty enough.
And then there were the Pargetters, who’d been so kind to her when she was just about at the end of her tether. They were banking on her to launch Dotty and Lotty into society. Give them the chance their beauty and vivacity deserved.
Could she trust him though, to keep his word? To grant her an allowance and treat her with respect?
From the way this interview had gone so far she thought, yes, perhaps she could.
And as for his temper, which seemed to flare out of nowhere—well, at least he regarded it as the bane of his life and tried to keep it in check.
And apologised when he couldn’t.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I will help you. Of course I will, now I understand what is at stake.’
‘Thank