“Yours as well, Your Grace,” she stammered, her cheeks mottling once again with bright color.
He nodded, uncomfortable, as yet unused to accepting condolences over a brother he had hardly known. It was a situation he had found himself in during his interviews with the solicitors and men of business associated with the Reigate title over the past days. Each mention of his loss was a new cut to him, a reminder that he had not known Sylvester as he ought to have. The sting of it was made worse by the realization that he never would know him now, or any of his brothers.
Even as he struggled with this, however, his question regarding the girl’s presence during such a volatile meeting remained unanswered. Surely his mother didn’t care for Lady Mary. The duchess had never been one for softer emotions, after all. Yet the passing of so many years and the loss of so many children might change a person. Perhaps she loved this girl who would have married her son and taken her place.
The idea of viewing his mother in such a pitying light was as foreign to him as breathing underwater. He shifted in his seat, looking to her, trying to attach this new, more tender idea of a mothering person to the duchess. Her hard eyes and stiff posture, however, made that a near impossibility.
“You must see what has to be done then,” she said, her sharp voice obliterating the remnants of his generous attempts to dust. “It will be the mere matter of editing the contract, supplanting one name for another.”
Clara made a small sound in her throat at that. When he glanced over, her eyes were wide on his face, her fingers, still tucked in his, tightening. He frowned and turned back to his mother. “I don’t understand.”
The duchess rolled her eyes, making no effort to hide her disgust. “You always were slow. Surely you must see, after viewing the evidence of your brothers’ wastefulness, what has to be done. Sylvester’s marriage to Lady Mary was an important lifeline for our family’s solvency. That has not changed. And Lady Mary is eager to take her place as Duchess of Reigate, something that she has been groomed for since infancy.”
He shook his head, his eyes flying to Lady Mary and back to his mother. Surely she could not be saying what he believed her to be saying.
That pitiful hope was dashed in a moment.
“You shall wed Lady Mary.”
“No.”
There was no hesitation in the word. It broke through his lips, all the revulsion of the idea present in it. On the ride from the solicitor’s he’d prayed as he hadn’t before, begging for a solution to save the dukedom. But not this. Not marriage to a stranger, who looked as if she might faint if he breathed wrong.
“No?” His mother’s sharp voice pierced the haze of shock that enveloped him.
He turned to Lady Mary. “I am so very sorry. I mean no disrespect. But I cannot marry you.”
The girl’s eyes were huge in her face, though what emotions filled them he could not guess. She inclined her head in a jerking sort of nod, looking down to her lap.
“You will marry her,” his mother bit out, forcing his attention back to her. “I demand it.”
Beside her, Lady Mary made a strangled noise deep in her throat. Pity joined the horror swirling in him.
“Mother, stop it,” he rasped. “Can’t you see you’re upsetting the girl?”
“Iam upsetting her?” The duchess’s eyes snapped furious fire at him. “You refuse the girl andIam upsetting her?”
“Enough. Let us continue this another time.”
His words fell on deaf ears. “I have already begun the process of having the documents redrawn. They will be ready for your signature by this evening.”
“Mr. Richmond agreed to such a scheme?” Surely not. The man would have said something.
“Richmond? Of course not; the man was always loyal to your father, even after his death. Do you take me for a fool?”
Relief filled him, and with it a bit of the devil as well. “Do you really wish me to answer that, Mother?”
She glared at him but for once didn’t rise to the bait. “You will sign those papers, and you will wed Lady Mary. The future of our family depends on it. Would you refuse to offer the girl a place in our family? Would you refuse to save the dukedom?”
“The dukedom will be fine.”
“With what, the pittance you brought back from America?”
“It is not a pittance, madam,” he gritted.
“It may regrow our coffers, but Lady Mary brings the promise of property, and the status to bring us back to the glory we once were. You would not be so selfish as to refuse such a thing.”
Dear God, she talked of the girl as if she were cattle. As she spoke, Lady Mary only seemed to shrink more into herself.