And the old reprobate has the gall to assign my wife a maid, all without consulting me! Hawk stood silently, fuming.
Frances nodded, then turned to her father-in-law. “Thank you, sir,” she said, and he smiled at the obvious gratitude in her voice.
“You rest until dinner, my dear,” the marquess said, and patted her cheek. She looked toward her husband, but his face was a closed thundercloud.
As Frances followed Agnes out into the main entry hall, she heard Hawk say furiously, “You damned old bounder! You planned this whole thing, didn’t you? You wanted me married, so you pretended that affecting final illness! God, I don’t believe it!”
“You will forgive this pious old fraud, son?”
Frances stiffened, Hawk’s words flowing through her, but she continued to follow Agnes up the wide staircase toward the vast Eastern Corridor.
“Your rooms ... well, they’re called Lady Dawnay’s Rooms—and of course, they adjoin the earl’s suite.”
“Marvelous,” Frances said under her breath. She felt as though she’d wandered into Bedlam, and now she was, willy-nilly, one of the inmates. At least Agnes didn’t give her a lecture on pediments and pilasters.
In the Smoking Room, Hawk was still raging in fine form.
“Well, it’s the truth, isn’t it? All that damned illness of yours was just an act, a ruse.”
“A son should never underestimate his father,” said the marquess, not visibly moved by his son’s tirade.
“Now you cite me a damnable platitude!”
“Not really. I just made it up, but perhaps it is worthy of being remarked upon in future generations. Now, Hawk, there’s no reason for you to get so riled. Really, my boy—”
“No reason!” Hawk thrust his hands into his pockets and began to pace the length of the room. His father regarded his progress with mild interest.
“You manipulated me!”
“Well, yes, I suppose you could say that,” the marquess conceded. “In a more felicitous manner, perhaps. But it was time, Hawk, time for you to marry and set up your nursery. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”
“I’m twenty-six! Not exactly in my dotage with you and Mrs. Jerkins!”
“Nearly twenty-seven,” the marquess said.
“Another thing,” Hawk said, “how the hell did you know that she was Frances? There were three daughters. No one ordered me to marry any one of them in particular.”
Now, the marquess thought silently, studying his sons’ flushed face, I have set myself a problem by making her so warmly welcome. He said slowly, “Well, I knew that Frances was Ruthven’s favorite daughter. I imagined, well, perhaps Ruthven pressed a bit more in her direction.”
“Like hell he did! Didn’t you see her? My God, Father, she looks a fright, a hag! I was worried that when I brought her to meet you—on your death bed, of course—that you would have spasm at the very sight of her. Indeed, in deference to you, I was going to make her remove those ghastly spectacles.”
The marquess wondered if he should tell his son that he’d seen a miniature of Frances, painted only a year before. He’d hoped desperately that Hawk would select her from among the sisters. Interesting, he thought. Why had Frances donned the guise of a hag? —for that was indeed how she appeared. And Hawk hadn’t seen through it. Most odd, the entire situation.
“Why did you marry her if she repels you?” he asked. He hoped at least his son’s part of the puzzle would solve itself.
Hawk fidgeted with a fleck of dust on his blue sleeve. He flushed, and was furious with himself for doing it, for his father, that old dog, had the keenest eyesight imaginable.
“Why, Hawk?” the marquess asked again.
Hawk cursed, and flung his hands out before him. “All right, I’ll tell you. Her sisters, Clare and Viola, were both quite lovely as a matter of fact. And witty and charming. And they wanted, nay expected, that if I married them I’d introduce them into London society and allow them to hang on my sleeve. I just happen, Father, to like my life the way it is. Frances, for all her wretched appearance, was preferable. She is quite shy and timid. She doesn’t chatter. Can’t you just imagine beautiful silence at the breakfast table? She doesn’t like crowds or gaiety of entertainments. So, despite her looks, she is perfectly suitable, and she won’t ...”
Hawk faltered, and his father said in the driest voice, “And you expect to leave her here, don’t you, and continue with your ways in London?”
Hawk cursed again.
The marquess wanted to tell his son that his motives were those of a bourgeois, but he didn’t, for the simple reason that Frances was, according to Ruthven, beautiful, charming, witty, intelligent, and a handful. No matter his son’s motives, he had ended up with the right daughter. He suddenly wanted to laugh at his son’s folly, his blindness, his gullibility.
But Frances did look awful.