‘I don’t want a woman with any family to speak of,’ he said with feeling.
‘You mean...no titled family?’ The nabob’s son shot him a glance loaded with sympathy. ‘Wouldn’t want them looking down on you.’
Before Havelock had a chance to get up, seize the fellow by the throat and give him a shaking, Ashe put in mildly, ‘Morgan is not aware of how very well connected you are, Havelock. I am sure he meant no insult.’
No, Havelock sighed. He probably didn’t. And anyway, he’d already decided to forgo the pleasure of indulging in a decent set-to with anyone within the walls of this club.
‘Look, I’m related to half the bloody ton as it is,’ he explained to the bemused Morgan. ‘What with stepbrothers, and stepsisters, and all the attendant stepcousins and aunts and uncles and such like all thinking they have a right to poke their nose into my affairs, I don’t want someone bringing yet another set of relatives into my life and making it any more complicated, thank you very much.’
He saw Ashe write the word orphan on the list.
Morgan nodded. ‘Makes sense. And an orphan, a girl with no family to support her, is all the more likely to agree to the kind of bargain you seem determined to strike.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
Chepstow poured a large measure of wine into Havelock’s empty glass and nudged it towards him.
‘I am sure Morgan meant nothing you need take offence at, Havelock,’ reproved Ashe in the reasonable tone that so many men found damned supercilious.
He was beginning to understand why.
Havelock folded his arms and glared across the table.
To his credit, Morgan met his look without blinking.
Ashe removed his spectacles and set to polishing them with a silk handkerchief he produced from an inner pocket of his tailcoat. ‘May I make a suggestion?’
‘I wish you would. It’s why I came in here, after all. See if anyone could help me find a way through this...morass,’ said Havelock.
‘Well, for myself,’ said Ashe diffidently, ‘I could not stand to be married to a woman who did not possess a keen intellect.’
‘Lord,’ said Havelock, aghast. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with a bluestocking!’
‘Oh, come,’ said Lord Chepstow, his devilish grin returning for the first time since they’d sat down. He then proceeded to offer a variety of suggestions about what exactly a man could do with a bluestocking, her garters, and various other items of apparel before descending into a spate of vulgarity that, though a little off the topic at hand, did at least serve to lighten the atmosphere.
When they’d stopped laughing, had wiped their eyes, topped up all their glasses and called for another bottle of wine, Ashe brought them all back to the point.
‘You mustn’t forget that this woman, whoever she may be, will be the mother of your children, Havelock. So, as well as considering what kind of woman you could tolerate living under your roof, you should also ask yourself what kind of children do you want to sire? For myself, I would hope my own offspring would have the capacity to make me proud. I would hate to think,’ he said, giving Havelock a particularly penetrating look, ‘that I had curtailed my own freedom only to produce a brood of idiots.’
Havelock ran his fingers through his hair yet again. ‘You are in the right of it.’ He sighed. ‘Must think of the succession. Very well, put that on your list, Ashe. Not completely hen-witted.’
Since Ashe was taking a sip of wine it was Morgan who picked up the pen and wrote that down.
‘I want her to be kind, too,’ declared Havelock with some force. ‘Good with youngsters. Not one of these women who think only of themselves.’
‘Good, good, now we are really getting somewhere,’ said Ashe, as Morgan added these further points to the steadily growing list.
‘It’s all very well making a list,’ put in Morgan, tossing the pen aside. ‘But how do you propose finding a woman who meets all your requirements? Put an advertisement in the papers?’
‘God, no! Don’t want the whole world to know how desperate I am to find a wife. I’d have every matchmaking mama within fifty miles of town descending on me with their simpering daughters in tow. Besides...’ he shook his head ‘...it would take too long. Much too long. Only think of having the advertisement put in, then waiting for women to reply, then sifting through the mountain of responses, then having to interview them all...’
Morgan let out a bark of laughter. ‘You are so sure you will have hundreds of replies, are you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Havelock testily. ‘I’ve had women flinging themselves at me every Season for the past half-dozen years.’
‘And during summer house parties,’ put in Chepstow.
‘There was that Christmas house party, wasn’t there,’ Ashe added, ‘where—’
‘Never mind that!’ Havelock interrupted swiftly. ‘I thought we’d agreed never to speak of that episode again.’
‘Then there was that filly at the races,’ said Chepstow.
Morgan laughed again. ‘Very well. You have all convinced me. Havelock is indeed one of those men that society misses regard as a matrimonial prize.’ Though the way he looked at Havelock conveyed his opinion that there was just no understanding the workings of the female mind.
‘And you wouldn’t believe some of the tricks they’ve employed in their attempts to bag me,’ he said bitterly.
‘Couldn’t you simply settle with one of these women who’ve shown themselves so keen to, um, bag you? That would save you time, wouldn’t it?’
Havelock gave Morgan a cold stare, before saying, ‘No. Absolutely not. Can’t stand women who flutter their eyelashes and pretend to swoon, and flaunt their bosoms in your face at every opportunity.’
Modest, he noted Ashe write on the bottom of the list, out of the corner of his eye.
‘And anyway, the girls I already know, the ones who have made it plain they want me, have also made it plain they want a damn sight more from me than I’m willing to give. I’d make them miserable. So then they’d make damn sure they made me miserable.’
Ashe dipped his pen in the inkwell one more time, and wrote, not looking for affection from matrimony.
Morgan frowned down at the list, sipping at his drink. ‘What this list describes,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘is a woman who is willing to consider a businesslike arrangement. Someone from a respectable family that has fallen on hard times, perhaps. Someone who would like to have children, but has no hopes of gaining a suitor through the normal way.’
‘Normal way?’
‘Feminine wiles,’ supplied Morgan helpfully.
‘Oh, them,’ huffed Havelock. ‘No. I definitely don’t want a wife who’s got too many feminine wiles. I’d rather she was straightforward.’
Honest, wrote Ashe.
‘Good grief,’ said Chepstow, peering rather blearily at the list. ‘You will never, ever, find a woman who has all those attributes, no matter how long you look.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Morgan. ‘There are any number of genteel poor eking out an existence in London right at this moment. With daughters aplenty who’d give their eye teeth to receive a proposal from a man of Havelock’s standing, from what you tell me. I’m tolerably sure that he could find one or two