Startled, he turned to look. ‘I thought you’d have heard by now.’
Sir Chase smiled, but made no reply.
Stephen sauntered to the table, studied the remaining brandy and gulped it down in one go. Then, moving from one piece of furniture to the next and sliding his fingertips over the surfaces, he hopped through what he saw as the main events of Caterina’s twenty-three years in a verbal hotchpotch that reflected his own needs more than hers. ‘Well, I allowed her to come down here from Derbyshire to live with my brother’s widow. Caterina and her aunt are very close. She lives up at Sheen Court now, since she became Lady Elyot.’
‘Yes, I know Lord and Lady Elyot and his brother Lord Rayne well.’
‘Oh, of course. Well, Caterina was seventeen when she came out. Made quite a stir at the time. Very much sought after. You can imagine.’
‘I can indeed, sir. Offers of marriage?’
‘Oh, Lord, yes. Plenty. She accepted the Earl of Loddon first.’
‘Then what?’
‘She cried off at the last minute, the minx. Heaven knows what the real cause was. And what a fuss that provoked!’ He stroked his hair again. ‘Second engagement to Viscount Hadstoke. We told her she was fortunate to have an offer after that, title, wealth, big…er…well, anyway, she ducked out of that one with just two days to go. I was sure that would be the end of her chances. High risk, you know. A non-starter. She didn’t seem to care, but I did, and so did her sister.’
‘Why is that, sir?’
Stephen stopped pacing to spread his hands, helplessly, though he did not answer the question regarding Sara. ‘Well, how does it look, I ask you? Talk…gossip…plenty of offers of carte blanche, but no more offers of marriage after that. Well, that’s not quite correct. The Earl of St Helen’s offered for her last week, but she won’t even look at him. It’s her last chance. I’ve told her so, but she refuses to set her cap at any man, and that’s that. An earl!’ He glared at the ceiling.
‘I see. And she doesn’t give you any particular reason?’
With a snort of derision, Stephen’s retort was predictable. ‘Oh, girlish dreams of love and all that silly stuff. No doubt her reasons make sense to her, but really, Sir Chase, who can afford to pass up offers of that sort? Her sister is ready for marriage right now, but until Caterina is off my hands she’ll be disappointed. No self-respecting father would allow the younger one to marry before the elder one. That’s the way round it should be. That’s the way it’s always been.’
‘I’ve known it to happen.’
‘Maybe. But not in my family.’
‘Then the pressure on Miss Chester to marry must be quite intense.’
‘It is. Well…er…what I mean is…yes. To be quite fair, I don’t suppose I’ve helped much by filling the house with four squalling bairns. Don’t get me wrong, Sir Chase, I’m fond of my family, all of them, but four infants in a house this size is enough to put any young woman off unless she’s the motherly sort. And I don’t think that Caterina is. She wants to practise her piano and her singing. Did I tell you she has a fine voice?’ Not stopping to notice the expression on his guest’s face, he continued. ‘Oh, yes, she’s invited to sing in all the great houses, you know. Takes it very seriously. Yes, indeed.’
‘And your son, Harry? You mentioned he’d returned to Liverpool.’
‘This morning on the early mail, back to his uncle. He’s learning banking. My late brother’s business, you know. Lady Elyot’s first husband.’
‘That’s not quite what he told me when we met in London, sir.’
Stephen Chester’s expression sharpened, his eyes suddenly wary. ‘Oh? What did he tell you?’ he said, coughing between sips of brandy.
‘That he owned two banks in Liverpool. Money no object.’
Stephen stopped his pacing and slammed down his glass. ‘Wait till I get my hands on him,’ he muttered. ‘He’s determined to see me on the rocks. As if I didn’t have problems enough.’
There was an uncomfortable silence during which both men saw these problems from rather different angles, Sir Chase concentrating more on Caterina than on her siblings. She kept rejecting totally unsuitable marriage proposals, yet was desperate to regain the peace she had once known in which she could develop her talents. This was no place for a woman of her sort.
Her father, in his blinkered state, had done less than justice to her talents by not explaining how, in her years of living in Richmond, her voice had been trained by the finest singing teacher in the country, the Italian Signor Rauzzini, until his death last year. That had been a terrible blow to Caterina, for he had nurtured her voice, proclaiming it to be the finest mezzo-soprano he’d heard in one so young. She still had singing lessons and was greatly in demand, but the pressure of having to find a husband to please her parents and sister was having a noticeable effect on her. Her Aunt Amelie had offered to lend her the prized phaeton so that Caterina could escape more often from the domestic pandemonium.
Sir Chase Boston doubted very much that young Harry Chester would be the ruin of his father, but he did not intend to let Chester off the hook when the debt was so substantial, for debt-collecting was what he had come for, not to offer sympathy. The father would deal with his son as he thought fit and the fright of it might help to knock some sense into both their heads. But he himself was beginning to see that there was perhaps more to be gained from Chester’s misfortune than twenty thousand guineas plus the price of the phaeton and pair. ‘Well, then, sir,’ he said, glancing at the inferior brandy, ‘shall we do a few sums to begin with? For the carriage, I would say about…’
‘Er…’ Stephen Chester put out a hand as if to ward off the sound of debt ‘…do you think…er?’
Impassively, Sir Chase waited. He had learned how to be patient, how not to show his hand too soon, as this man did.
‘Er…that there might be another way? An alternative?’ It was as if he was talking to himself. ‘I simply don’t have that kind of blunt, any more than my birdwitted son does. The Buxton house would not sell for anything like enough. To be honest, it’s far more than I would have believed.’ He looked around him, anxiously chewing at the side of his finger. ‘And I’m not sure what I can do about it. Let me think. The dowry, Caterina’s dowry. Well, it looks as if that may not be needed after all, although I shall need something for Sara—but then, if the dowry is reduced, her chances will be even less, won’t they? In fact, they may even disappear altogether,’ he added, habitually accepting the darker side.
‘This dowry. Is it substantial, sir?’
‘Hah! Anything but substantial,’ said Mr Chester, gloomily. ‘So far, Caterina’s face and family have been her fortune, but that won’t always be the case, will it? I’d say her chances have all but slipped away unless she finds somebody to fit her exacting requirements.’ There was more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
‘And you would not consider making an exception by allowing your younger daughter to marry first, simply to take the cost of her off your hands? You must admit, sir, it would make a difference.’
‘No, Sir Chase. I could not do that.
