Nicholas: Lord of Secrets

“She most assuredly is not,” Wilton snapped. “I am guessing, Reston, that your father’s circumstances have robbed you of the natural prudence a man in your position should show. Let me speak to you as a father, though, when I tell you she forfeited her dowry years ago, when she brought scandal and shame to this family. She made her bed, so to speak, knowing full well I could not countenance the option she chose. If you want her, you’re welcome to her, but you will pay for the privilege.”

“I will pay?” Nick knit his brows in the expected display of consternation, and he took a long, perhaps worried-looking sip of his tea.

“You will.” Wilton smiled evilly. “You’ve boxed yourself in with your promise to your papa, young man, and Leah can get you out of that box, if I allow it.”

Beelzebub’s pizzle, the man was unnatural. “So what are your terms, my lord?”

“Your own finances are reputed to be improving, Reston.” Wilton’s pinkie finger was back in evidence. “If you are provided an instant countess, they will likely continue to grow, particularly as you take your seat and gain influence in government. For that privilege and Leah’s role in it, you will compensate me a certain sum.”

He named a figure, and Nick rendered in return a virtuosic display of restrained, gentlemanly dismay.

“If I provide that sum,” Nick said after a suitably awkward silence, “you will approve of a marriage by special license?”

“If you provide the sum prior to the wedding, yes.”

“I see.” Nick nodded, and nodded again as if thinking furiously. “Well…”

“Well.” Wilton rose. “Why don’t you have your solicitors get to work on it, and when you have a draft of something, have them send it along to mine. I really cannot spare this interview a great deal more time, you see, because your suit will stand or fall exclusively on the basis of your ability to meet my terms.”

Because, Nick tried not to grind his teeth audibly, Leah’s happiness means nothing to this man.

“It is fortunate,” Nick said, keeping his seat, “my solicitors, in view of my unseemly haste, have already been busy.” He withdrew the sheaf of papers from his breast pocket, reached across Wilton’s desk for a pen, and scribbled a figure onto the document in duplicate. “If you’d take a moment of your time, my lord, I think you’ll see that your terms are met herein.”

Wilton resumed his seat, but not before Nick saw a flicker of surprise and avarice in the man’s eyes. Nick passed him both copies of the contract and sat back, keeping a guardedly hopeful expression on his face.

By tremendous effort of will.

“How ill is your father?” Wilton asked as he perused the contract.

“Mortally.”

Wilton glanced up fleetingly, but with enough arrogance that Nick could see what the man thought of sons who valued deathbed promises over money and freedom.

“The terms appear to be in order, Reston.” Wilton sat back. “I’m impressed.”

“So you’ll sign that contract?”

“When you produce the required consideration, my boy. Once I sign this, she’s yours, and you have what you want. I don’t get what I want until you provide the funds.”

“If I provide those funds, you’ll sign?”

“With enthusiasm. Lady Emily deserves to have her sister out of this household before she makes her come out next year.”

Nick withdrew another sheaf of papers from his breast pocket. “Then here is your consideration, my lord.”

“That hardly looks like the sum you’ve agreed to,” Wilton observed, but his voice shook a bit, enough that Nick knew he had the element of surprise in his favor.

“The contract calls for funds, as cash, drafts, or other negotiable instruments, at my discretion, provided they find their way to your hands prior to the day of the ceremony. I have here bank drafts, my lord”—Nick paused and tossed one across the desk—“in increments of a thousand pounds, some cash, some bearer bonds, and other negotiable instruments, exactly as the contract specifies.”

Wilton picked up the draft and studied it. Nick tossed him another bank draft but added a sardonic arch of his eyebrow, indicating that even Nick, on bended knee, was not going to tolerate a gross insult to his honor.

“You have to be the most eager bridegroom to grace the kingdom in years.”

“I am,” Nick said as Wilton picked up a pen. “But not so fast, my lord.”

Wilton dropped the pen and eyed Nick speculatively.

“We need witnesses. If you can trouble yourself to share another cup of tea, I’ll send around to my town house for my man, and perhaps you can provide a second witness?”

“On such short notice?”

“Very well. I can provide two witnesses, then. Shall you pour?”

Wilton barked for his running footman, and Nick spent a very tedious half hour drinking tepid tea with his future father-in-law. The longer the man talked, the less Nick had any use for him. His conversation was a string of criticisms aimed at his older daughter, his sons, his Regent, his neighbors, the French, the Americans, and by the time he started on the Irish, Nick was ready to kiss the butler for interrupting.

“Callers, my lord,” the butler said, and something about his manner, a panic behind the reserve of an upper servant, must have communicated itself to Wilton. “The Marquis of Heathgate and Lord Valentine Windham.”

Wilton’s eyebrows shot up, and he swung his gaze to regard Nick closely.

Good. Even a rabid fox should be able to perceive when the hounds were in full cry.

“What would Heathgate be doing lounging about your town house with a duke’s son?” Wilton asked.

Nick shrugged and prepared to lie through his teeth. “They are acquaintances and probably thought to take me up in anticipation of lunch at the club. I assume they volunteered for this duty out of respect for me, and the demands I put on my man of business. Will they do?”

“They’ll do,” Wilton said, the only answer he could give. To refuse men from two families that outranked his would be to offend them both, and Nick as well. Even to Nick, though, Heathgate’s presence was a surprise. The second witness arranged the previous evening would have been Valentine’s older brother, Gayle, Earl of Westhaven.

“Lord Heathgate.” Wilton bowed. “Lord Valentine.” Around his betters, Wilton’s manners improved. He briefly, and with every appearance of respect, explained the need for witnesses, and presented the documents to his guests.

“This is a happy occasion, Nicholas,” Heathgate remarked. Big, dark visaged, and taciturn, the man would scare small children when he was in a foul mood—and grown men as well. “You are satisfied with the terms you’ve struck?”

Nick permitted Heathgate his posturing, as it was all for the cause. “I am, though the earl has driven a hard bargain.”

Heathgate grimaced as he glanced over the documents, no doubt seeing that the earl had in fact required coin to part with his daughter, a display of disrespect for the lady, if nothing else.

“Unusual terms. And you, Wilton? Are you satisfied with these terms? They hardly devolve to your credit.”

“They devolve to my benefit,” Wilton corrected him evenly. “And with all due respect, Heathgate, you need not consider the particulars of the document. Your role is to verify the parties are signing the thing freely and voluntarily.”

Heathgate’s arctic-blue eyes bored into Wilton’s, and Nick considered the stage had lost a talent when Gareth Alexander ascended to his title. “You sign this freely and voluntarily?”

“I most assuredly do,” Wilton said with a touch of hauteur.

“Shall I review the consideration offered?” Heathgate asked. From Wilton, it would have been rude. From Heathgate, who was unapologetically up to his lordly elbows in trade, and whose rank was superior to Nick’s and Wilton’s, it was simply playing by the rules.

Wilton nodded, not meeting anybody’s eyes. “If you please.”

Heathgate prowled to the desk, took the stack of money and notes from Nick’s hands, and sat down, leafing through item by item, until he looked up and arched an eyebrow at Nick.