shall see you again. You will be calling on Miss Winslow, I dare say.’
‘Most definitely,’ her brother replied in clipped tones. ‘If only to keep an eye on all the scaff and raff who cluster around heiresses.’
Richard blinked. Then anger welled up—it was a very long time since anyone had accused him of being a fortune hunter. And even then, at least he had been well aware of the chit’s fortune! This time …
‘No need to summon the butler. I’ll find my own way out.’ David executed a perfunctory bow and left.
Left alone, Richard said several things he had suppressed when Almeria left the room—and a few more for good measure. While he’d known that Thea must at least be respectably dowered, the term heiress suggested a great deal more. And while Almeria’s penchant for dropping stray heiresses in his path had caused him considerable embarrassment on occasion, he couldn’t recall that it had ever put him in danger of his life before. There had been a definite glint of gun metal in Winslow’s eyes.
He took a deep breath. And then there was Thea herself. Something had wrought a change in her that went far beyond years. Far beyond the change from a young girl on the eve of her come-out to a young woman. Thea-the-girl had been exuberant, bubbling over with mischief. Thea-the-woman seemed half-lost in shadow … only there had been that flash of light when their hands met—as though something had awakened inside her.
And as for her blasted, hitherto unsuspected fortune—Winslow was right; it would have the fortune hunters out in force.
By the time Almeria returned to the drawing room, he had managed to reduce the situation to its proper proportion. Almeria was matchmaking. No more. No less. He rose as she sailed into the room, saying airily, ‘I must have forgot to make clear to you that Dorothea will be my guest for the Season! ‘Tis positively shocking how forgetful one becomes as the years advance!’
Despite himself, Richard nearly grinned. ‘Quite shocking,’ he said gravely. Not that he, nor anyone else, would dare suggest to Almeria that she was advanced in years. Although she must be slipping if she expected him to believe that all this had not been carefully prearranged.
Occasionally a little unsubtlety was called for.
He settled for being extremely unsubtle.
‘Almeria—what the deuce are you up to?’
‘Up to?’ she said with a lift of her brows. ‘Why should you imagine I am up to anything? Really, Richard!’
‘Fudge,’ he said bluntly. ‘Don’t waste your breath, Almeria. Instead, tell me precisely what is the extent of Thea’s fortune. I was not aware she had one.’
Almeria looked a little conscious. ‘Her godfather’s fortune. Not the sort of thing one counts on, although he always intended to leave it to her, but after all, he might have married. And it is not a terribly big fortune as these things go, of course.’
The prickle at the back of his neck escalated into outright alarm bells.
‘Just how not-terribly-big are we talking about here?’ he pressed.
‘Only fifty thousand,’ said Almeria with an airy wave. ‘And derived from trade, of course!’ This last with a faint grimace.
Fifty thousand? Only fifty thousand? Hell and damnation! With that much at stake, it wouldn’t surprise him to hear that Almeria already had the special licence in her reticule and a tame bishop in the back parlour.
The suspicion that he had stepped into a well-laid and very sticky trap was unavoidable.
But he could make one or two things plain.
‘Almeria—let us be quite clear. Although I intend to marry, I am not in the market for an heiress, and—’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Almeria settled her skirts with a swish as she sat down. ‘Naturally when Aberfield asked that I chaperon Dorothea, I thought of you—since you were going to visit me anyway …’ She looked more than a trifle evasive.
‘Was I?’
Richard couldn’t recall his plans including anything of the sort. Almeria’s summons to visit her as soon as he reached town had arrived several days ago quite unheralded. However, that wasn’t to say that Almeria’s plans …
She glared at him. ‘Since I was intending to invite you—’
The moment she had an heiress staying with her—that went without saying.
‘Richard, you must marry sensibly!’ she said crossly. ‘You need a wife, the right wife. Especially now that you have bought that property in Kent. One assumes you intend to get an heir!’
Wisely, Richard held his counsel. There was nothing to gain from encouraging Almeria. No matter how right she happened to be.
‘And as for leaving these things to take care of themselves,’ she said, returning to an earlier theme, ‘I would have thought the danger of that was made plain by the appalling mess Max has—’
‘Enough!’ He controlled himself with an effort and said in a gentler tone, ‘Almeria, I cannot possibly remain here if you are to criticise Max and Verity. He is happy. Does that count for nothing?’
Goaded, Almeria snapped, ‘And how long can it last before she does something disgraceful?’
Enough was enough. ‘Like what? Cuckold him? Is that what you mean?’
Her colour rose. ‘Exactly!’
He shrugged. ‘Then he would have to cope with it. In his own way.’ Seeing Almeria’s mouth open, he added, ‘Just as our father did, in fact.’
Her mouth closed.
‘Did you think I never realised? That summer I broke my leg and stayed with you here, I knew then.’
Almeria was scarlet. ‘At least my sister was discreet!’ she said furiously. ‘I do not say that I approved of her behaviour, but she did not bring any disgrace upon the family!’ With which she rose, swept past him and left the drawing room again. The door shut with the sort of controlled click that was a well-bred woman’s alternative to slamming it. Settling back in his chair, he took a measured sip of brandy and muttered a few things that it was as well Almeria couldn’t hear. What the devil was he to do now?
He had to wonder if every god in the pantheon had conspired against him. His laudable plan of reconciling Almeria to Max’s marriage was clearly misfiring. Instead of accepting his own delight in the match, the mere sight of him was enough to stir up all her outrage at the ruin of his supposed expectations. Worse, she was now about to fling fifty thousand pounds’ worth of heiress at his head. Although probably not with Aberfield’s blessing.
In fact, Aberfield would probably succumb to apoplexy if he knew what Almeria was up to. A viscount, and a wealthy one at that, Aberfield didn’t have a seat in the cabinet any more, but he wielded a fair amount of influence with those who did.
Almeria was howling at the moon. Aberfield would never accept a match to a younger son, remarkable only for living within his means, his fortune respectable but no
