His lips twisted. No doubt she did. The woman might be cold and cruel, but she was also frighteningly cunning, with a need to have her talons in every aspect of the dukedom. And after her elder sons’ stealth in selling out everything they could manage right from under her, there was no doubt in Quincy’s mind that the sting of nearly losing everything had transformed that need for control into an obsession.
Nothing mattered to her more than appearing capable, in control. In power. She would hold her head high and pretend those jewels were the real thing with her dying breath if it meant she would not lose her status.
Still he remained silent. Finally, when the air in the room was so thick he imagined he would be able to quite literally cut it, she snapped.
“Not going to answer my question then?”
“About Clara?” He shrugged, studying his nails insolently, even as he weighed his answer. He could admit the truth, that Clara had refused to reveal the subject of their troubling conversation. But would it be like offering up the tender underbelly, inviting attack?
Or would pretending to know what had been said give him the greatest advantage? Mayhap showing a solid front with Clara would work in his favor.
In the end he went for vagueness. His mother would latch onto the negative, he knew, and her defense would guide his offense.
“I think you must know the answer to that,” he said. “Else why ask at all?”
She let loose a sound of disgust. “The girl is weak.”
Yet another attempt to bait him. It was with effort this time, however, that he kept his emotions in check. Breathing slowly and deeply, forcing a relaxed pose he didn’t feel in the least, he said, “Actually, she is the farthest thing from weak. But you would not know anything about that, would you?”
“If you are implying I’m weak—”
“Oh, now, don’t put words in my mouth, Mother,” he drawled.
She closed the lid of the jewelry box with a snap that reverberated through the air and turned to face him. “Enough of this. I’m assuming you’ve come to warn me away from upsetting the girl. Well, you’ll be waiting a good long while before I do such a thing. If you think I’ll let her become the next Duchess of Reigate, you are very much mistaken.”
“Worried you’ll no longer have a puppet in place?” She stilled, a small tell, and he grinned, more a baring of teeth than anything. “You don’t actually think I missed your little play with Lady Mary, do you? Come now, Mother, it’s not wise to underestimate an opponent.”
That finally seemed to break her tightly held control. “You’d do best not to underestimate that fiancée of yours,” she snapped. “She’s hiding something; I know it in my bones.”
“I don’t give a damn if she is,” he shot back, surprised to realize just how much he meant it. No matter his curiosity regarding what gave her such intense pain, it didn’t matter to him in the slightest what was in her past. He wanted, above all, to be her future.
What was this? No, he had no intention of having a future with Clara. He had no intention of having a future withanyone; at least not yet, not until he was much older, with most of his life behind him. He had too many places he wanted to see, too many adventures he wanted to experience. With the sale of Swallowhill to Lord Fletcher, he had every intention of enjoying his life with no obligations except to himself and his own pleasure.
But now that the idea of Clara as his wife had taken hold, it would not be easily shaken.
Blessedly, his mother was wholly unaware of the chaos reigning in his mind. “I do,” she said, her voice dripping ice. “Do you think I want some strumpet as the next Duchess of Reigate, for some scandal in her past to one day come to light and tarnish our entire heritage?”
“Enough!” Quincy roared, surging to his feet, forgetting his determination to keep his emotions in check in the face of her abuse of Clara. “You will listen to me,Your Grace,” he snarled. “I want you gone from here at dawn. I don’t want you speaking one word more to Clara, much less breathing in the same air as her.”
She gaped at him, a stunned understanding shadowing her cold eyes until they appeared to be filled with the icy shards of a deep winter. “She has gotten her claws in you, hasn’t she?”
He slashed a hand through the air. “Clara doesn’t have it in her to manipulate me in such a way. You, on the other hand,” he bit out, “have no other reason to oppose my marriage to her than your own need to have someone easily controlled at the helm.”
Her expression didn’t change, but he saw the flicker of something in her eyes. Not guilt; she would never feel guilty for even something as heinous as this. No, it was more of a recognition, and a regret that he had seen so quickly to the heart of the matter.
He drew himself up to his full height. “I want you gone at daybreak. You can stay at the London house for as long as you like. But beyond that I want no further contact with you. You can reach me through my solicitor.” He bowed, a shallow, mocking thing. “Good day, madam.”
He turned to go, expecting to feel relief at finally cutting her from his life completely. Instead he was only aware of a hollowness deep in his chest, and a simmering anger that she had stolen his right to a loving mother.
Her voice, however, stopped him when he would have opened the door.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked me about her,” she drawled.
He gripped the knob, refusing to look at her again. Yet he couldn’t help asking, “Ask you about who?”
“Why, Miss Willa Brandon, of course.”
Chapter 16