Felkirk held up a hand, as if to stem the rising tide of confusing arguments. ‘Am I to understand you? You are willing to marry my sister-in-law, if she would accept you?’
If he could not explain the whole story to Felkirk, he could at least give the man one small bit of truth. ‘It would make me the happiest man in England to take Margot de Bryun as my wife.’ He spoke slowly, to add clarity as well as gravitas. And he was relieved that there was not a tremor or a slur over the name of his beloved.
There was another significant pause before Felkirk said, ‘Will your family say the same?’
In such moments, there was no point in giving ground. ‘I assume you mean Larchmont. If you ask the question, you know the answer.’
‘Your father is notorious for his strong opinions,’ Felkirk said, as diplomatically as possible.
‘His opinions do not concern me,’ Stephen replied. ‘I would be more interested to know the opinion of your family. Since you are married to the woman’s sister, I assume I will be welcome in your house. And your brother married a cit’s daughter.’
‘The circumstances in both cases were unusual,’ Felkirk said, but did not elaborate.
‘In this case, they are not. I wish to marry Margot for love. The rest is immaterial.’
‘Other than her unwillingness to see or to speak to you, of course,’ Felkirk added. ‘Or to tell any of us what is the matter so that we might know whether we do greater harm than good by yoking her to a man she despises.’
She had loved him once. That he had managed to ruin that...
Idiot. Dullard.
And that was his father speaking again. He would stand squarely against such a marriage—that was all the more reason to press onwards. ‘I have no wish to make her unhappy by forcing this union. I simply wish for her to realise that she will be happy, should she marry me.’
‘And to bring her to this realisation, you wish to trick her into accepting you?’ Felkirk said with a frown.
It was not a trick, precisely. He merely wished to nudge her in the direction she secretly wished to go.
‘The choice is still hers,’ he said. But he knew her well enough to be predict her reaction. She would marry him. After they were together, he would find a way to make her believe that he had nothing to do with the necklace. Once she realised that they were both victims of a hoax, it would be as it had been and they would be happy.
For now, he smiled at Felkirk as though eager to meet his doom. ‘At least, we will see, soon enough, if she cares whether I am living or dead.’
* * *
‘But surely, you must see that this is best for all of us.’ Justine was using the tone she had taken throughout their childhood to bring her difficult sister into line.
Margot gritted her teeth to resist responding. What she had hoped would be a quiet Sunday visit with her sister and brother-in-law was turning into a lecture on what she must do to salvage her reputation. Now that Margot was fully of age, Justine had no right to make such demands. Her life was her own. She could ruin it if she wished.
That was an especially petty argument and another reason to remain silent. She had not wanted ruin. But neither did she want to wed Fanworth.
Justine tried again. ‘If he can be persuaded to behave honourably, we can end this quietly. Your good name will be restored and you will have married into one of the most respected families in England.’
‘If I can be persuaded to take him, more like,’ Margot said. She doubted she would have to make such a decision. If the plan hinged on Fanworth behaving honourably, there was no need to bother with it.
‘If he can be made to offer, of course you will say yes.’
‘Do you mean to answer for me, as well?’ Justine had taken far too much on herself already. ‘I did not ask you to send Will to him, angling after a proposal.’
‘You did not have to ask,’ Justine said. ‘He did it for my sake.’ She reached out to take her sister’s hand. ‘I cannot stand by to see you destroyed over this foolish shop, just as it very nearly destroyed me.’
‘It was not the shop,’ Margot argued. ‘Mr Montague was at fault for what happened to you.’
‘But if you had been here, to see the looks polite women gave me, as I walked down the street...’ Justine’s voice broke. ‘I will not live to see the same thing happen to you. You will marry the marquess and retire to his home in Derbyshire. That is even further away than Wales. No one will know of the scandal and you might start anew.’
‘And what would become of the business?’ Margot said. Justine seemed to be ignoring the practicalities.
‘We will close this place and never think about it again. It has brought nothing but bad luck to our family and we will do well to be rid of it.’
As always, Justine was blaming the building and its contents for any and all of their troubles over the last twenty years. It was nonsense, of course. But better that she fault the shop than take any part of the blame on herself, for things she had no control over.
‘If only I had refused, when you told me of your plan of taking over de Bryun’s,’ Justine said, the first tear trickling down her cheek, ‘I might have kept you safe.’
Now they were returning to Margot’s least-favourite subject, the need for her older sister to control everything and make any and all sacrifices necessary to save the family. But it was unusual to see her so upset that she resorted to tears.
Gently but firmly, she withdrew her hand from Justine’s, then returned it to cover her sister’s hands to console her. ‘You cannot fix everything, you know. You certainly cannot fix this, just by marrying me off to Fanworth and selling the shop. Especially since I am of age now and unwilling to do either of those things. I will stay away from him and be sure that he stays away from me. By next summer, all will be forgotten.’
Unless, of course, the marquess had her arrested for the theft of the Larchmont rubies. She must hope that the week’s silence since their last meeting was a sign he deemed it better to forget certain details than to risk her blurting ugly truths about his character as part of a Newgate broadside.
Justine was readying her next argument when they heard the sound of footsteps in the hall and her husband appeared in the doorway. At the sight of his tearful wife, Will Felkirk gave Margot a grim, disapproving look, as if to blame her for Justine’s distress. Then he came and sat at her side, close enough so their thighs touched and extricated her hands from Margot’s so he might hold them himself.
His wife stared up at him with watery eyes. ‘You have spoken to him?’
Will paused a moment, then glanced at Margot and nodded. ‘The matter is settled.’
Margot breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Good. The sooner we can all put this nonsense behind us, the better.’
‘I put it to him quite simply. He will marry you, or I will meet him at dawn.’
‘A duel?’ At this, the normally stoic Justine dissolved into sobs.
‘It will not come to that,’ Margot insisted, alarmed at her sister’s extreme reaction.
‘You will marry him, then, if he offers?’ Will said, clearly relieved.
‘Not if he was the last man on earth,’ she replied, not bothering to think.
‘He is not the last man on earth. He is a marquess,’ Justine snapped, tears still streaming down her face. ‘Now stop acting like an honourable match with the son of a peer is a fate worse than death.’
‘I cannot stand to be in the