His Lordship's True Lady (True Gentlemen #4)(72)
Worth and Jacaranda, for example, were besotted. Rosecroft doted on his wife publicly, and she on him.
“Lily Ferguson is in fear of a marriage to her cousin,” Rosecroft said. “Which cousin my lady wife will refer to only as The Noddypoop. I gather you are to foil this plot, and I am to assist you.”
Worth had begged off this evening, claiming that business had overrun his schedule. Hessian happened to know that the business in question was a teething infant.
“Can you fly, Rosecroft? I’m coming to believe that nothing short of angelic powers will see Lily Ferguson free of her uncle’s machinations.”
Rosecroft muttered something that sounded Irish and profane.
Tresham had a set of rooms at the Albany, and thus Hessian and his escort had much of Mayfair to cross on foot in the dark. This was fortunate, for Hessian had no idea where to begin his tale.
Lily’s tale, in truth.
“Here’s what I know,” Rosecroft said, “which I gather is the sum of what my wife was able to pry from dear Lily’s grasp, even when aided by the formidable truth potion of tea and chocolate cakes: Walter Leggett has bungled management of Lily’s fortune. He seeks to keep his penury and ineptitude quiet by marrying Lily to his heir. Lily would rather marry you.”
“Which does not mean that she’s enamored of me. I’m simply the lesser of several evils.” And Hessian couldn’t shake the notion that something worse than a mere reversal of fortunes was behind Walter Leggett’s scheming.
“Women who spend an hour behind a closed door, sending twice for more cakes, aren’t discussing how best to bring about matrimony to the lesser of several evils, Grampion. How can I be of service?”
What a kind, tempting offer.
“You must talk me out of kidnapping Lily Ferguson.” Hessian had spent the past two days in thought—his seventeen days were down to fifteen—and no clever plan, no impressive legal maneuver had occurred to him.
Though every obstacle, risk, and impediment had.
“Why talk you out of it? By the time the grandchildren show up, an elopement would make for a good tale and add a dash of derring-do to the family legends. Lily’s of age, and so, my friend, are you.”
This was not the advice Worth would have handed out. “For me to abscond with the lady opens the door for Walter Leggett to further mishandle her funds. We’ll be years prying any coin from his grasp, if any coin yet remains.”
This reasoning was a factor, because Hessian yet held out hope that Lily—Lilith, his Lily—was entitled to some funds from her mother’s estate.
“You don’t care half a rotten fig about the money.”
“Lily might, but you’re right. I also have responsibility for three small children, as you know. Scandal attached to my name is an opening for their aunt, Roberta Braithwaite, to snatch the youngest child, Daisy, from my control.”
“You’re an earl,” Rosecroft scoffed. “The aunt won’t get a hearing from any court of competent jurisdiction for several years, and by then, the child will be all but grown and quite attached to her dear guardian.”
True, as far as it went. “Your Bronwyn will make her bow in about ten years.”
“Go on.”
“When Bronwyn was conceived, you’d have been mucking about in Spain, chasing the French across the mountains, and trying not to die of dysentery.”
“Your point?”
Gone was the cheerful companion who’d while away an evening stroll in good company. In his place was a growling former soldier ready to make a good showing with his fists.
“You are not Bronwyn’s father, and whatever the legal arrangements, whatever the truth of her patrimony, you are already worried about the reception she’ll receive when she makes her come out ten years from now. She’s an unusual girl with an unusual provenance. Even with an army of ducal relations behind her, she’ll face a challenge.”
Rosecroft marched along in silence until they came to the next corner. “The widow would not prevail in court, but you’re right: She could make Daisy’s life difficult. Eloping with Lily might, possibly, devolve to Daisy’s discredit. Maybe.”
“I cannot gamble with that child’s happiness on a maybe, and Lily would not want me to.”
“You still haven’t told me how I can help.”
They passed a brothel on St. James’s, the scent of hashish wafting on the night air. Lily might have ended up in such an establishment, but for her uncle’s intervention. That thought alone kept Hessian from cleaning his dueling pistols.
“Please assure me that this conversation will be held in strictest confidence, Rosecroft.”
“I will overlook the slight to my honor, because you’re in love, which equates to being half-daft in the newly smitten.”
If this was love, this endless anxiety, this constant muddle and heartache, Hessian would rather have a toothache, a megrim, and a touch of the Jericho jig.
“I will convey to you a story,” he said, “of a family well situated but not titled…” He sketched Lily’s past, her mother’s indiscretion, the early years of limited contact, the death of the foster parents, and the years in service at the coaching inn. “And Lily was retrieved from the coaching inn, because the legitimate sister eloped at the age of seventeen with a house steward. She reportedly died in a coaching accident on the way to Scotland with her intended.”