At Morgan’s look of alarm, Ashe chuckled quietly. ‘It is a foolish man who casts a slur on Havelock’s honour these days.’
‘I don’t, and never have, challenged my friends to duels.’
‘You shot off half of Wraxton’s ear,’ put in Chepstow.
‘He wasn’t my friend.’ Havelock folded his arms over his chest and glared across the table at Ashe. ‘And it wasn’t me he insulted. But...a lady.’
‘Oho! And I thought you said you weren’t in the petticoat line.’
‘I’m not. Never have been. It wasn’t like that—’
‘From what I heard,’ put in Ashe mildly, ‘if it hadn’t been you, it would have been her husband who challenged him.’
‘He should have done,’ snapped Havelock. ‘Only...’ He sighed, and pushed his fringe out of his eyebrows irritably. ‘I lost my temper with him first.’
‘Never mind,’ said Ashe soothingly. ‘At least someone shot him. That is the main thing.’
‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ admitted Havelock, as the waiter returned with a tray of wine and clean glasses. Meeting Wraxton had been nothing like the first duel he’d fought. Wraxton would have killed him stone dead if his pistol hadn’t misfired. And therefore he’d wanted to kill him right back. If it hadn’t been for a freakish bout of hiccups throwing his aim off, causing him to nick the man’s ear rather than put a hole through what passed for his heart, he would have done. And would then have had to flee the country or face charges for murder.
Seeing how close he’d come to bringing dishonour on his family through sheer anger had pulled him up short. Since then, he’d made much more effort to keep a rein on his temper.
Although few people were foolish enough to think they could get away with goading him, after the affair with Wraxton. The tale had got about that he’d deliberately marked the man. That he was a crack shot.
Which just went to show what idiots most people were.
‘I only wish,’ he said, pouring himself a generous measure of wine, ‘my problems now could be solved by issuing a challenge, picking my seconds, then putting a bullet into...someone. But the fact is I need to get married,’ he said glumly. ‘And soon. But I don’t want to end up shackled to some harpy who will make my life a misery by constantly nagging at me to reform. And the thing with women,’ he said, lifting the glass to his mouth, ‘is that you never can tell what they’re really like until after they’ve got you all legally tied up.’ He took a gulp as he recalled just how many times he’d seen it happen. One minute they’d been blushing brides, tripping down the aisle all sweetness and light, and the next they’d become regular harpies, henpecking the poor devil who’d married them into an early grave.
‘Well, the answer, then, is to make sure of the woman’s character before you wed her,’ said Ashe with infuriating logic.
‘And just how am I supposed to do that in the limited time I have available?’
‘Marry someone you know well,’ said Morgan as though it was obvious.
‘God, no!’ Havelock seized his glass and threw the rest of its contents back in one go. ‘I can’t face the thought of actually living, in the same house, with any of the girls I know really well. And anyway, they wouldn’t oblige me by marrying quickly. They’d want a big society affair.’ He shuddered. ‘Not to mention a massive trousseau, and so forth.’
‘So, to be blunt, you want a girl who will take you exactly as you are, and won’t demand a big society wedding.’
‘Exactly.’
‘You are looking for a mouse,’ put in Morgan. ‘A mouse so desperate for matrimony she’ll take what little you’re prepared to offer.’
‘That’s it,’ he cried, startling the sneer from Morgan’s face. ‘That would work. Morgan, you are a genius.’
‘You’d better be prepared to accept someone plain, then,’ returned Morgan, somewhat taken aback by his enthusiasm for a suggestion he’d made with such sarcasm. ‘And probably poor, as well.’
Havelock leaned back for a moment, considering. ‘Don’t think a plain face would put me off, so long as she’s not a complete antidote.’
‘Just a moment,’ put in Ashe. ‘Though, for whatever reason, you have decided to marry now, and in such haste, you must not forget the matter of succession. All of us, except perhaps you, Morgan,’ he said, giving the nabob’s son a dry smile, ‘have a duty to marry and produce sons to take over our responsibilities in their turn.’
‘Point taken,’ said Havelock before Ashe could state the obvious. It went without saying that he’d have to find someone it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship to bed.
‘I notice you haven’t denied needing a girl with a sizeable dowry,’ said Morgan, looking at him through narrowed eyes. ‘Is that why you need to marry in such a hurry? In need of an heiress, are you?’
At that point Chepstow, who’d got through two drinks to Havelock’s one, let out a bark of laughter.
‘Just because I’m not one of the dandy set,’ said Havelock, self-consciously putting his hand to his neckcloth, which he’d knotted in a haphazard fashion much, much earlier that day, and no doubt looked even further from the apparently effortless elegance attained by the other men about the table, ‘that don’t mean I haven’t a tidy income.’
Morgan eyed the pocket of Havelock’s jacket, which had somehow got ripped half off during the course of the day, and then lowered his gaze to his muddied boots, which he hadn’t stopped to change after the devastating interview with his lawyers. He’d walked and walked whilst trying to come up with a solution, before he’d noticed he was passing his club, and decided to come in and see if anyone else could come up with any better ideas.
‘I don’t need a woman to bring anything but herself to the union,’ he finished belligerently.
Once again it was Ashe who defused the tension, by summoning the waiter who’d been hovering at a discreet distance, and asking him to fetch ink and paper.
‘What we need to do, I think, is to make a comprehensive list of exactly what you do need, before we set our minds to the problem of how you may acquire it.’
‘There,’ cried Chepstow triumphantly. ‘Didn’t I say that Ashe was the very fellow to help? I’ll just...’ He half rose from his chair.
Havelock only had to glare at him for a second or two to take the wind out of his sails. A gentleman didn’t bail out on his friends when they’d gone to him for help. Havelock had stood by Chepstow every time he’d needed help getting out of a scrape. Now the boot was on the other foot, he expected a similar show of loyalty.
Chepstow subsided into his seat with an air of resignation and, in a hollow voice, asked the waiter, who just then arrived with the writing materials, to bring them another bottle of wine.
‘So,’ said Ashe, dipping the pen into the ink, ‘you do not require beauty, or wealth, in your prospective bride. But you do require a compliant nature—’
‘A mouse,’ repeated Morgan derisively.
Ashe shot him a reproving look over the top of his spectacles.
‘Undemanding. And not one of the circle in which you habitually move.’
At Havelock’s shudder, Ashe wrote, not of the upper ten thousand on his list.
‘Any other requirements?’ He paused, his hand hovering over the paper.
Havelock