‘You won’t be needing the rent so very much now you are marrying into my family. Julia’s dowry will enable you to buy half-a-dozen Scottish properties, I dare say, if you had a hankering for them.’
‘I’ll not be squandering your daughter’s money on foolishness of that sort,’ he said testily. A man should take care of his womenfolk, not marry them for their dowry then fritter it away. Making free with his wife’s money would smack too much of what his father had done—marrying an heiress then gambling away her entire fortune. Something he’d sworn he’d never do.
Not that lifting the mortgages would be a bad thing, if he could do it.
And he would like to improve conditions for his tenants, too. But...
‘I had no thought of that when we—that is when I—’
The earl held up his hand in a peremptory gesture. ‘Spare me the details of what you were, or were not, thinking when she took you out to the orangery.’
‘Aye, sir.’ For the first time that night, he felt his cheeks heat in a flare of embarrassment. He’d been too long at sea, too long without a woman to have been thinking of anything but the glorious release the siren in the blue-silk gown had appeared to be offering. He just wasn’t used to being surrounded by so many females, all revealing so much flesh. There’d been nothing but delicate arms, and slender necks, and tantalising bosoms wherever he’d looked, ever since he’d arrived. And all of them belonging to gently reared girls who were out of bounds. He’d been so frustrated, what with one thing and another, that by the time a mature, available woman—or so he’d believed—had offered him the opportunity to do something about it, he hadn’t stopped to think.
He’d just followed her out to the orangery like a lamb to the slaughter.
‘Whig, I suppose, are you? Like so many of your countrymen?’
‘Aye, but—’
‘Good, good. You’ll be taking up your seat in the House, in due course. When you do, it may interest you to know I have the ear of—’
‘No. My lord, it is very good of you to take a concern in my future, but I must tell you right now I have no head for politicking.’
‘Then what do you plan to do, now the war is over? England doesn’t need so many ships. Nor so many captains. Do you intend to return to your ancestral lands and take up the reins of estate management?’
Alec hadn’t thought about it. He’d still been in the process of gutting his last ship when he’d received that letter from Lizzie which had brought him hotfoot to Ness Hall. Getting married and restoring his ancestral home had been the last thing on his mind.
‘You didn’t expect to be pressed into marriage, did you, by Gad!’
It was as if Lord Mountnessing had read his mind. Not only that, but his cold expression had melted into something approaching sympathy, the words sounding downright apologetic. Having given them both a hearing, he’d clearly decided to blame his headstrong daughter.
And it was her fault. All her fault.
Yet he couldn’t just stand here and let her take all the blame. It wouldn’t be the act of a gentleman.
‘I did not, no, but I can only say what I always say to men pressed into the Navy. This is my life now. No point in complaining. Just have to make the best of it.’
He felt her stiffen at his side. Probably in outrage that he should speak of making the best of marriage, when she must consider it ten times the disaster he did.
‘Quite so,’ said the earl drily. ‘Julia—’ he turned to his daughter ‘—I need to speak with Captain Lord Dunbar in private.’
‘Oh, no, Papa—’
‘Oh, but, yes, my girl,’ said the earl firmly. ‘You need not fear I am about to tear the poor fellow to shreds. But we do need to deal with all the dull, legal matters with our lawyers. Settlements, and so forth.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘But nothing. I am too disappointed in you to bear looking at you tonight. Tomorrow, when I have come to terms with your behaviour, you may say whatever you wish. I dare say I shall even be able to consider forgiving you once my anger has cooled.’
‘Thank you, Papa,’ she said in a small, penitent voice. He glanced sideways at her downbent head. If he were a doting father, her pose would have wrung his withers.
As he was not, it made him want to wring her neck.
‘We will announce your engagement tomorrow, at the Hunt Ball,’ Lord Mountnessing continued. ‘Too many people saw you coming in from the garden in a state of disarray for us to prevent gossip. But at least we can turn it into the kind that nobody will very much mind. And then everyone can attend your wedding before they return home. We can fit most of them into the chapel. We even have a bishop on hand to perform the ceremony—’
‘Uncle Algernon?’ Lady Julia’s head shot up, and she wrinkled her nose.
‘And there will be no problem procuring a licence. So we can hold the wedding the day after tomorrow.’
‘Oh, but—’
He turned a wintry stare on his daughter. ‘If you are going to say something about not having time to shop for bride clothes, or anything of that nature, then I have to tell you, my girl, that you should have thought of that before you dressed up like a trollop and all but ruined a man who has so far served his country in a brave and commendable fashion.’
Nothing commendable about deflowering his host’s daughter though, was there? Angry with her though he was, still it rankled to hear the man scold her, in his hearing, whilst remaining silent in regard to his own conduct. He’d rather the man had ordered him flogged.
For Lord Mountnessing had been a remarkably generous and understanding host. He hadn’t batted an eyelid when he’d shown up two days ago without an invitation, demanding to see his sister. Instead, after hearing a brief, and strategically censored, version of what had brought him here, Lord Mountnessing had told him he was welcome to stay for as long as he needed, to get the business with the wayward girl settled to his satisfaction. True, he’d then proceeded to serve him up as a sort of after-dinner entertainment to stimulate the jaded palates of the lords, poets, and bishops already in situ. Nothing like having a serving naval officer, who could provide eyewitness accounts of battles they’d only been able to read about in the papers before.
Though he found it hard to speak about his part in any of the actions in which he’d been involved, he felt he owed it to his host to repay his hospitality by at least answering any question put to him as honestly as he was able. And so, each evening after dinner, when the ladies withdrew, Alec had rendered accounts of various engagements in which he’d fought, drawn verbal sketches of the more famous among the officers with whom he’d served, and attempted descriptions of the various countries where he’d dropped anchor.
It generally ended in them all raising their glasses to him. Which he’d hated. His answering toast had always been to all the other gallant officers and men who’d served with him. Aye, and died, too, in defence of their country. Though the memory of all the friends he’d lost over the years wasn’t all that left a bitter taste in his mouth. It was the fact that these pampered, soft gentlemen felt a sort of patriotic glow from just drinking a toast to the men who’d actually gone out and done the dirty work. That they felt a part of an action they’d never seen, just because he’d told them about it. And though possibly one or two of them might have followed the course of the war against France, the general level of ignorance of the others had been hard to stomach.
They hadn’t cared, not really, that men like him had spent their entire adult life fighting so that they could lounge about their clubs and country estates,