“Fah, Cuz. You sound like a merchant, not a viscount. Gentlemen aren’t meant to grub for guineas in dreary factories and counting houses. That’s what tradesmen are for.”
“You think it vulgar to possess a comfortable fortune, rather than living off the gaming tables or the charity of relatives?” His restrained, quiet tone told the marchioness Drake was growing more vexed by the minute. Neville was twice a fool to mistake his cousin’s cold, contained wrath for weakness.
Neville ignored the warning signs. “Old fellow, you are too modest. A comfortable fortune?” He gestured about the dining room, recently restored to its former glory. “Why, you have one of the vastest fortunes in England. You’re prudent to stay clear of London, though. Prinny might try to touch you for a loan.”
The marchioness glowered in Neville’s direction, but he took no notice. “Of course, it isn’t vulgar to possess a fortune—only to have earned it.” He laughed immoderately at his own jest. No one else joined him. “I can’t think why you went to all the trouble, when you might have married an ugly little heiress with an uncouth tradesman for a father.”
“By all means, feel free to pursue that course yourself, Neville.” Drake’s tone sharpened. “I prefer to build something beneficial and lasting, by my own initiative.”
“I fear I am not temperamentally suited to such earnest labor. I am one of society’s lilies of the field. I sew not. Neither do I spin. Yet King Solomon in all his glory had not so richly embroidered a waistcoat as mine.” Neville sprawled back on his chair, displaying an expanse of that waistcoat.
The marchioness thought it in rather questionable taste for mourning. Still, she was not altogether displeased with Neville. He’d provided her with excellent leverage to use on his cousin.
“There sits the heir to all your hard-won wealth, Drake.” She waved scornfully in Neville’s direction. “How long will take him to run through your fortune? Six months? A year?”
“I expect to live a long, healthy life, Grandmother.” Drake’s words sounded clipped and precise, his voice menacingly soft in volume, like the first rumblings of thunder.
“What my cousin means, Grandmama, is that he expects me to be worm food when he is enjoying a vigorous old age. Staggering about the countryside. Minding his mills and mines. Wolfing down heaping bowls of boiled cabbage and tripe. And celibate—is that not also part of your regimen, Cuz?”
“For pity’s sake, Neville, stop plaguing the poor man,” snapped Phyllipa.
The marchioness looked at Clarence’s widow with a faint glimmer of interest. She hadn’t thought the vapid creature capable of snapping.
“Drake is our host,” Phyllipa continued primly. “He has just lost his only brother. Besides, your bickering will upset poor dear Grandmama.”
“Fiddlesticks!” exclaimed the marchioness, when no pithier oath came readily to mind. “There’s nothing I like better than a good family row. It’s obligatory to quarrel after a funeral. Keeps everyone from dwelling on morbid thoughts of mortality.”
Neville raised his glass to her. “What a philosopher you are, Grandmama.”
“Save your oily tongue, coxcomb! I’ve been flattered by men more skilled in proper subtlety than you’ll ever be.”
His grandmother caught Drake in the ghost of a smile. She had no intention of letting him get complacent. “Your cousin has a point, Drake. No one cheats death forever. What becomes of your fine enterprises when you’re gone? You need sons to inherit your title and carry on your work. Come back to London with me and take your pick from this season’s marriage market.”
“I’d sooner swim in a cesspit.” Drake wrinkled his aquiline nose expressively.
“Exasperating cub!” The marchioness was not used to being flouted. “Were you counting on Jeremy to supply you with heirs? Now you’ll have to do the deed yourself, my boy.”
Drake rose abruptly from his chair. The “boy” cut quite an imposing figure these days, his grandmother grudgingly admitted. Though his long, angular face gave him a gaunt look by times, he had the lean muscularity of his late grandfather. A far cry from the sickly child whose life the family had despaired of.
“Consider this discussion closed, Grandmother. I am not a child you can cane into submission. Now, if you will excuse me, I mean to go for a ride before I retire.”
“Oh, Drake, you can’t be serious!” Phyllipa gestured toward the room’s large windows, each composed of over a hundred small panes. Judging by the force with which the rain thrashed against them, it was being driven by a fierce westerly. “Hear that wind. It’s raining fit to sink Noah’s Ark.”
Already halfway to the door, Drake shrugged his wide shoulders. “Never fear, Phyllipa. I have yet to dissolve in water. Besides, I prefer the impersonal hostility of nature to Grandmother’s cherished family quarrels. Good night, everyone. I trust the lack of company won’t spoil your enjoyment of my port, Neville.”
He closed the door quietly, but firmly, behind him.
Tipping his chair back, Neville hoisted his feet up to rest on the edge of the highly polished mahogany table. “Not in the least, my dear fellow,” he chuckled in reply to his absent cousin. “Not in the least.”
For twopence, the Dowager Marchioness of Cranbrook would have garrotted her grandson with the string of his own monocle.
Drake was well soaked by the time he reached the stables. The chill rain had not cooled his smoldering temper, though.
“Evening yer lordship.” One of the stablemen touched his cap in greeting, surveying his master with obvious puzzlement. “Is there aught I can do for you tonight, milord?”
Compared with Silverthorne’s dining room, the stables looked invitingly tranquil. Drake inhaled the soothing aroma of leather, horses and sweet dry hay.
“I fancy a ride before bed. Saddle up the Spaniard.”
The big black stallion strained eagerly to get out into the storm. Pointing his mount toward an expanse of open countryside, Drake rode into the darkness. Gusts of wind drove the rain into his face, taking his breath away. Rivulets of water ran down his cheeks like tears. Abandoning a lifetime of painstaking civility, he gave himself up to the savagery of the storm. Fury and anguish warred within him, as he allowed himself the luxury of experiencing raw emotion for the first time since receiving word of his young half brother’s death.
For fifteen years he had striven with might and main to resurrect Silverthorne from the ashes of his late father’s ruin. To what end? For Neville to mortgage it to the hilt and gamble it all away? For Phyllipa’s nasty little Reginald, to do who knew what? Whatever else his grandmother might be, Drake admitted she was no fool. He had been relying on Jeremy to provide him with an heir. Now, if he hoped to salvage his life’s work for the future, he would have to perform that odious chore for himself.
He’d gone to London once before, in a flush of youthful naiveté, and there been so abominably used as to sour him on the idea of matrimony ever since. Why could Jeremy not have taken a wife before rushing off to fight Napoleon’s armies? What had possessed him to take up a commission in the first place? Heedless. Imprudent. Unreliable.
Suddenly, Drake pulled his mount up short and headed back home. He’d let his self-control slip quite enough for one night. He had no intention of handing everything to Neville on a silver platter by catching his death of ague. Before he returned to a warm bed and a scalding cup of Mrs. Maberley’s cambric tea, however, Drake had one stop to make.
A