they had been, that had gradually built a bridge of understanding, of sympathy, between them. Perhaps that link would never have been constructed when they had been close enough to irritate each other in person.
Giles cleared his throat. ‘So is Bath proving helpful with your gout?’
‘The damn quack has me on a reducing diet and has ordered my man Latham to hide the port and it seems to be working, confound it, so I suppose I must admit he has the right of it, the arrogant, expensive, devil. But the gout’s neither here nor there. I wanted to see you urgently and thank the Lord—or more probably Wellesley, or Wellington as he is now—for ending the war and bringing you home, otherwise I would have had to send for you.’
The warm feeling inside him, the pleasure at his father’s pride and the relief that this encounter was not going to be the fraught affair he had been steeling himself to deal with, drained away. There was trouble brewing or, judging by the bleak look in his father’s eyes, it was already brewed, thick and dark. ‘What is wrong, Father?’
The older man shifted in his chair and when he did answer, it was oblique. ‘It was a bad thing that the marriage to Palgrave’s chit fell through.’
That old history, coming so close on his encounter with Laurel that morning? The sensation of a chilly finger on his spine was back. ‘Father, it is nine years in the past. She was far too young to think of marriage. So was I, come to that. Even without that misunderstanding we might well have grown to find we were incompatible.’ They certainly would be from the evidence of that morning’s encounter. Although the memory of Laurel’s lips persisted. ‘I will set about finding myself a suitable bride as soon as possible, I promise you.’ Giles put as much energy and commitment into the promise as he could muster.
The Marquess shook his head. ‘You know her father and I had planned that marriage between you for years, ever since you were children. It would have united the two estates. Even after everything went wrong and you left the country and there was a coolness between the two households, it seems that Laurel’s father still cared a great deal about that alliance. And now, I find, I care about it again, too. It would solve everything.’
Why bring this up now? Surely he doesn’t think himself in such bad health that he is worrying about the next generation of heirs?
And if his father really was becoming agitated on the subject, then surely he knew as well as Giles that a marquess’s heir should have no difficulty securing an eligible match?
Giles found he was on his feet. He paced to the window and turned, his back to the light, so the irritation on his face would be hard to read. Even so, the words that escaped him were harsh. ‘Why the devil are we still talking about this? That fiasco is cold news, no one gives a damn about it.’ Except, apparently, him, judging by that sudden loss of control. That was an uncomfortable insight. At the time it had been infuriating and deeply embarrassing, but surely he had got over that by now? His duty now was to find a suitable bride and he certainly had no intention of being distracted by nonsense about Laurel.
‘Giles, sit down and listen to me. You have to do something within a few months or we risk ruin.’
Perhaps he had drunk too much last night, or had hit his head and was concussed, or this was all some kind of anxiety dream brought on by travel weariness and frustrated desire and worry about this meeting. Giles resisted the urge to pinch himself. ‘Ruin? How can we be facing ruin? This is ridiculous.’ He sat down. ‘I have to do something? Tell me.’
This time his father did not hesitate, just plunged in. ‘Five years ago I started to speculate. It seemed I had the knack for it. I made money.’
Giles had the strange sensation that the blood was draining out of his head towards his feet. ‘Yes?’
‘I went on investing, speculating.’ Now that his father had started confessing the words poured out. ‘What I should have done, of course, was to keep back my initial stake, put it into land or government bonds, kept adding a proportion of my gains to it as I went along. But I kept investing it all, making it work, or so I thought.’
He sighed and rubbed one hand over his face as though intolerably weary. ‘Then I lost, heavily. Cornish tin mines failed to produce silver, a Brazilian scheme fell through. It was one disaster after another. I put in more, tried to make up the losses. Before I knew where I was, everything had gone, Giles. Everything except the entailed lands.’
Everything. The title had never been a very wealthy one. An ancestor had been granted the spectacular honour of a marquessate for a very murky piece of assistance to the first King George. He had risen from a minor rural earldom to the upper branches of the aristocratic tree without the generations of slow accumulation of wealth that most of the great noble families had behind them. There were no estates dotting the length of the land, no great hoard of jewels dating back to the Tudors, just Thorne Hall, its lands and the trappings of a very comfortable lifestyle.
‘So, what did you do?’ Incredibly Giles was keeping his voice steady.
‘I sold off all the unentailed land to Palgrave, which met some of the debt. Then I borrowed the rest from him.’
‘How much do we still owe?’ This was a nightmare, had to be. He was going to wake up in a minute, sweating, in his bed in Lisbon...
His father told him, then into the appalled silence added, ‘The estate earns enough to service the loan, but not to clear it.’
All right, he was not, apparently, going to wake up. ‘Palgrave died just over a year ago, yes?’ Laurel had been out of mourning when he saw her, he realised.
‘He left letters for me and for his heir. Malden Grange and the land he bought from me are in trust to Laurel, with the new Earl as trustee. Malden was never the main house, so its land is not entailed. This man prefers the old place on the other side of the county, along with its mouldering castle ruins—he’s something of an antiquary, it seems—and he has his own properties anyway.’
The Marquess shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘He’s been damn reasonable about the whole thing and he’s been discreet, which is more important. Nothing has been said to Laurel and her stepmother, so they think he is simply being generous in allowing them to remain in the main house rather than moving to the Dower House.’
‘Forgive me, but I fail to see how this affects anything. The Earl’s tact is appreciated, but the debt is still to be paid off and the land is gone.’ Somehow he was holding on to his temper. He hadn’t been in England at his father’s side, where he should have been. If he had, then this probably would not have happened. But he had not been here. Another painful reality that must be lived with, dealt with.
‘In those letters Palgrave set out his intention for Laurel to inherit the land and property that is in trust, provided she marries within eighteen months of Palgrave’s death in accordance with the terms he set out. The balance of my debt to the estate would also transfer to her on her marriage—or, rather, to her husband. If she does not marry as directed then everything falls to the new Earl, with the exception of a generous dowry or allowance for Laurel, depending on whether she marries or not.’
Giles sat back, took a breath and summarised. He might as well have this clear in his head in all its horror. ‘So we are at the mercy of whoever Laurel decides to marry if we are unable to raise the money to buy back the land. Or if her marriage does not fulfil the requirements, then we are in debt to the new Earl.’ And at his mercy, or the husband’s, if either decided to call in the balance of the debt early. He kept that observation to himself.
‘Not
