behind his back, substantial paunch jutting. He was warming his posterior before the blazing fire. His smug stance said that he held all the cards and Tess, a skilful gambler herself, was rather afraid that he was correct. She was in a bind. There was no doubt.
Play for time.
“Let me understand you properly, Lord Corwen,” she said.
You noxious toad …
“You are proposing that I should give permission, as guardian to my twin stepchildren, for you to wed Lady Sybil Darent and if I do not—” her tone dropped by several degrees from cold to frozen “—you will foreclose on a private loan you apparently advanced to my late husband and oblige my stepson, Lord Darent, to sell off all unentailed parts of his estate. To you, of course.”
You vile, grasping beast …
Corwen smiled, a lupine smile that left his small eyes cold. “You have it precisely, Lady Darent.”
Tess tapped the lawyer’s letter against the palm of her hand. News of the loan had come as a shock to her but she could not afford the scandal of challenging Corwen in the law courts and he knew it. She wanted to take him to court because she knew he was a charlatan who had tricked the elderly Marquis of Darent into signing away half his estate in exchange for the loan. Towards the end of his life Darent had been almost insensible from excess laudanum and would have signed almost anything put in front of him. There were plenty of scandalmongers who said that was precisely how Tess had persuaded Darent to marry her in the first place.
“I’ll pay the loan off myself.” Her heart thumped in her chest and the words stuck in her throat but she forced them out. Forty-eight thousand pounds was no small sum and she hardly wanted to throw it away on Lord Corwen, but three widow’s portions, a successful gambling career and some careful investment had made her a rich woman and she could easily afford it. It was also the least painful option for her stepchildren. She would die before she saw either of them fall into the power of this man.
But Corwen was shaking his head, smiling a dissolute smile that made her skin crawl. “I will not accept your money, Lady Darent. The debt is against the Darent estate. And as I say—” he cleared his throat but it did nothing to disguise the thickness of lechery in his voice “—I wish for marriage to Lady Sybil and then I will cancel the debt entirely.”
“Lady Sybil is fifteen years old.” Tess could not keep the distaste from her voice. “She is a schoolgirl.”
And you are disgusting.
“I am prepared to wait a year provided that we may come to terms now.” Lord Corwen rocked back on his heels. “Sixteen would be a charming age for Lady Sybil to wed. I saw her on her most recent visit from Bath. She is a delightful young woman. Fresh, biddable, innocent …” His voice caressed the final word.
Tess set her teeth. Not long ago, a mere ten years, she had been a bride herself when not yet out of her teens. Twice. And Corwen, predatory, hiding his dissolution under that unpleasantly avuncular manner, reminded her all too forcibly of Charles Brokeby, her second husband. A tremor shook her deep inside. Sybil must never, never, be subjected to what she had endured.
“And you are …” She looked at Corwen, at his fat jowls and the lines of dissipation scored deep around his eyes. “Forty-five, forty-six?”
Corwen frowned. “I will be seven and forty next year. It is a good age to remarry.”
“Not to my stepdaughter,” Tess said. “She is far too young. I cannot permit it and, anyway, I share the responsibility for her upbringing with Lady Sybil’s aunt and uncle. They would agree with me that such a marriage is out of the question.”
Disconcertingly, Corwen did not appear taken aback. Perhaps he thought her protests only token. Since he was threatening to foreclose on a loan of approaching fifty thousand pounds, Tess imagined he thought he could dictate his terms at will.
“Perhaps you are jealous.” Corwen’s tone dropped to intimacy. Shockingly his hand had come out to brush away the curls that had escaped Tess’s blue bandeau. He was running a finger down the curve of her cheek.
“It cannot be pleasant to be eclipsed by a child only fourteen years younger,” he murmured. “And my dear Lady Darent—”
Tess knocked his hand away. “I am not your Lady Darent, dear or otherwise.”
Corwen laughed. “Is that what rankles? A few years younger and I might have suggested you become my mistress in payment instead.”
“And,” Tess said, “I would have been as little flattered then as I am now.” She could feel the panic fluttering in her chest. Corwen was standing far too close to her. He was a big man, fleshy and broad, and his proximity was threatening. She felt the breath flatten in her lungs. For a second she could see Brokeby standing there, reaching for her, smiling that horrible smile. The shudders rippled through her body. Then the vision was gone and she was standing once again in her sister’s drawing room with the autumn sunshine warming the bright yellow walls and creating a spurious sense of cheer.
She moved sharply away from Corwen, although the length of the Thames would be insufficient distance from so repellent a man.
Corwen’s face suffused with colour. “I offer your stepdaughter marriage, madam. You should be grateful for that. And if you think her relatives will object, then I rely on you to persuade them.”
“You want to wed a girl who is still in the schoolroom,” Tess said coldly. “Do not dress it up as something respectable when it is not.” She looked at him. “Let us be quite clear, my lord,” she said carefully, her fingers tightening on the lawyer’s letter until her grip threatened to crumple it. “I am in receipt of your request for Lady Sybil’s hand in marriage. I refuse it. I also refuse to sell any part of the Darent estate on behalf of my stepson, in order to meet this debt. I have offered to pay the full amount myself. You have refused. So you will have to take this matter up with my lawyers. I shall tell them to expect to hear from you.”
Corwen did not move. For a moment Tess thought he had not understood her. Then he took a step closer again.
“I believe you have not heard what I am saying, madam,” he said. “I will wed Lady Sybil.” His lips curled. “In a couple of years her aunt will be launching her in society. It would be a great pity for Lady Sybil’s debut to be marred by the sort of rumours and scandal that cling to your character.” He paused. “You had the upbringing of her for five years before her father died. A word here and a whisper there—” he shrugged “—and Lady Sybil is tarred with your brush. Her moral character is questioned, her reputation placed in doubt. Suddenly …” he said, smiling with evident relish, “no respectable man will have her, and Lady Sybil’s future is ruined.” He inclined his head, eyes bright now. “Do you take my meaning, Lady Darent?”
The blood chilled to ice in Tess’s veins. Corwen stood, legs splayed, chest thrust out as though he commanded the room. Commanded her to give him her stepdaughter in marriage or he would besmirch Sybil’s reputation out of revenge.
And she had given him the means by which he could do it—she, with her tarnished character and her name for scandal. She should have realised how that might be used against her, but then she had never anticipated the cold calculation of a lecher like Lord Corwen.
Despair slid along Tess’s veins. It was her marriage
