Free How to Master Your Marquis by Juliana Gray

that we shall be ruined by Christmas. Publicly disgraced, turned out of our house, and you will have only yourself to blame, Hatherfield.”
    “Me, sir?”
    “When all of these problems, all of them, might be solved by a simple matter, a very straightforward alliance of the sort that built the very fortune on which your inheritance was founded. My God, Hatherfield! It’s not as if I’m asking you to commit a crime! Marry a beautiful girl, get a child or two on her, and carry on as you like! Where is the hardship? You needn’t even see her, except in bed and at dinner, from time to time.”
    “What an alluring picture you paint.”
    “Two hundred thousand pounds, Hatherfield!” The duke was breathless. He stamped his cane again, just as the carriage whirled around the corner of Sloane Square.
    “Damn it, Father.” Hatherfield put his hands to his temples. How did the man do it? Beat like this against his conscience, against his sense of honor: beat and beat, until Hatherfield could no longer tell what was right and what was wrong. His duty as a son; his duty as a human being. In the close air of the carriage, cold and dense with Southam’s desperation, everything twisted and stuck together.
    Marry Lady Charlotte. Could he do it, if he had to? Marriage. A wife in his bed, Lady Charlotte between his clean white sheets, expecting his nightly arrival. Was the prospect really so dreadful?
    For an instant, the image of young Thomas’s sea blue eyes flashed in his head. Her face, hair loose, lines softened, lying against a pillow. His breath caught in his chest.
    “Can you not put him off until the houses are finished, Father? You can have half the profit. All of it, if you need it.” He’d have to start all over again, damn it all, but at least he wouldn’t have this ball of guilt lodged in his stomach. This dangling prospect of Lady Charlotte.
    The duke’s cane struck the floor of the carriage. “Next summer, you mean! As if that would help!”
    “It’s all I have for you. Investments take time and effort, unlike gambling.”
    “At least say you’ll think on it, Hatherfield.” The duke’s voice was unrecognizable: low and edgy, as if it might crack at any moment. “Think on it, my boy. My own son. For God’s sake. You could save us all. Two unblemished centuries of dukes, the pillars of Great Britain, on whom thousands depend for their livelihoods. Do you really want to be the one who destroyed it all?”
    Hatherfield didn’t reply. The monumental white facades of Eaton Square passed by, behind their black iron fences and scanty November gardens. The carriage turned down Belgrave Place, and still he didn’t speak, couldn’t speak; he forced down the boiling rage with a heavy iron lid, until the carriage rolled to a stop before the magnificent double-fronted house of the Duke of Southam.
    “Why do you put up with it?” he said quietly. “Why do you put up with her?”
    The duke’s voice snapped out as it always had, back to usual. “You will speak of Her Grace with respect, or not at all.”
    The carriage door swung open. Southam lifted himself from the seat. “You’re not staying?”
    “No. I’ll take the carriage to my own lodging, if you don’t mind.”
    “Your mother will not be pleased.”
    “Do present her with my compliments and deepest regrets.”
    The door slammed shut. The carriage moved off.
    Hatherfield slumped back in his seat and watched London slide by. His dash of morning joy had proved short-lived, after all.
    S tefanie drummed her fingernails along the edge of the leather briefcase on her lap. “You don’t think there’s anything the matter, do you?”
    Sir John Worthington lifted his head from contemplation of a packet of densely written papers. A morning shadow slipped across his face from the carriage window. “I beg your pardon?”
    “Lord Hatherfield. He wasn’t at breakfast.”
    “Oh, one never knows when to expect him. He knows my door is open, whenever he