Counterfeit Earl. Anne Herries

and I do not lightly break my vow.”

      “You are a stubborn young fool,” the Earl said and sighed. “You will forgive me if I sit down? I am past seventy and too old to stand for long. Besides, the journey tired me.”

      Jack knew a moment of concern as he saw beneath the older man’s mask and sensed how much of a strain he was under.

      “Forgive me, sir. You are not well. I had not realized.”

      “It is merely age,” the Earl said and frowned. “I dare say there are less than five years left to me at most—that is why it is imperative that we talk.” He looked straight at his grandson. “I know you have no love for Viscount Stanhope. I do not blame you. My son has lived as a wastrel, and will, I have no doubt, die with his sins upon him. He does not repent and swears he will not as he draws his last breath.”

      “My father cursed me when I left his house,” Jack replied. “I am aware that he is ill. Mama told me that he cannot live long when I called on her in London. If you have come to beg me to see Stanhope, you have wasted your time, sir. He would spit in my face and accuse me of having come to gloat at his deathbed.”

      “I dare say you are right,” the Earl said. “I am not such a fool as to waste my breath on a lost cause. It was my duty to see Stanhope. I have advised him to make his peace with God at last. I could do no less.”

      Jack nodded. The Earl had seemed a distant figure when he was younger. Unbending, a stern disciplinarian who descended on the house only to make his displeasure known, but he was a just man by all accounts.

      “No one could expect more, sir.” Jack looked him in the eyes. “If it was not for my father’s sake—why have you come?”

      “To remind you of your duty to the family,” the Earl said. His faded blue eyes were seemingly without warmth or feeling. “You have been sent back to England for one purpose. Since your father has only months—or weeks—to live, you must make sure of the succession. You must marry and get yourself an heir before it is too late.”

      “I am seven-and-twenty, sir,” Jack said, a faint smile in his dark eyes. “I do not think the case desperate just yet.”

      “Your life has been in danger since you went to the Peninsula,” the Earl replied. “Now that you have returned to England, you could be killed in a fall from your horse or take a fever and die of it in days. Until you have at least one son, there is a danger that the title will die with you. We have no male relatives. Therefore it is your duty to make sure of the succession.”

      “I have no wish to disoblige you, sir,” Jack said, his mouth set hard. “But at the moment I cannot promise to do as you ask. I have no desire to marry.”

      “Your desires are of no importance.” The Earl glared at him. “I thought I had made myself plain. This is a matter of duty. Your own wishes are secondary. You owe this to me as the head of the family.”

      “Forgive me, sir, but you do not know what you ask.”

      “If you are thinking of love…”

      “I was not,” Jack said. “And I know what you were about to say—that I should make a marriage of convenience and take my pleasures where I will. You above anyone should know that the idea of such behaviour is abhorrent to me. I have a mistress who suits me well enough for the moment. She is a lady of good birth, married to a man who neglects her. Should I take a wife, Anne and I would part by mutual agreement and as friends.”

      “At least you have some sense of decency, which is more than Stanhope ever did,” muttered the Earl, a grudging approval in his eyes. “Why will you not do your duty, Jack?”

      “If I were to marry, it would naturally be to a girl of good family, an innocent, respectable girl—and that I shall not do.” Jack’s face was hard, his mouth set in a stubborn line. “My hands are stained with the blood of innocents, sir. My touch would defile a decent girl.”

      “Ridiculous!” snapped the Earl. “You are a damned fool, Jack. I shall hear no more of this nonsense. If you wish to inherit my personal fortune as well as the Heggan estate and title, which is of course entailed, you will do as I ask.”

      “Titles mean nothing to me,” Jack replied. “As for money—Sir Joshua left me more money than I shall ever spend. I have ever lived by my own code of honour, and it is all I have left to me. Do not ask me to deny it for the sake of a fortune, for I shall not do so.”

      “By God, sir!” The Earl’s eyes glinted. “If I were a younger man I should thrash you.”

      Jack smiled oddly. “You might try, sir—but if you were a younger man and not my grandfather, I might be forced to kill you.”

      “Damn you! Where did you get your stubborn nature? Your father was a weakling, a drunken wastrel who gambled away his life and his fortune. Your mother a cold beauty with no heart.”

      “Would you have me trapped into the same kind of marriage as they had?” Jack asked. Then, before the Earl could reply, “And, since you ask, I believe I resemble you in character more than either of us had previously imagined.”

      “Perhaps.” The Earl inclined his head stiffly, the faintest flicker of a smile in those faded eyes. Jack’s remark seemed to have softened him. “We should not quarrel, Denning. Is there nothing I can do to change your mind?”

      “At this moment? Nothing.”

      “Then I may as well go back to Stanhope. The servants will neglect your father if I am not there to remind them of their duty. I believe they hate him to a man.”

      “Can you blame them?”

      “No, I do not blame them, but I will not have him neglected. He shall die peacefully in his own bed, if not at peace with himself and his Maker.” For one brief moment there was a flicker of emotion in the Earl’s eyes. “I beg you, Jack. Find yourself a wife—not just for my sake, not just for duty, but for your own good. To live and die alone is a fate I would not wish on my worst enemy.”

      Jack turned away, walking over to the window to gaze out at the sky, which was clouding over. For some reason he did not understand, a girl’s innocent face had come into his mind.

      “If I found a woman of the right birth, a woman who could bear me near her knowing what I feel, that I am tainted to the core and can never love her, then I might oblige you. I am not unaware of my duty to you, Grandfather.”

      “I pray that you will find such a woman,” the Earl said. “Indeed, you are often in my prayers, Jack. I sincerely hope that you will find peace soon.”

      “Would that I could!” Jack muttered. He did not turn, for he knew that his face must reveal the inner torment he felt. “Would that I could…”