Free Loving Lucy by Lynne Connolly Page B

to feed all of them.”
    Startled, she looked up to meet Mr. Chumleigh’s clear Moore gaze. “Yes,” he agreed. “I thought you’d see it. He’s circulating what money he has left between the portions. It only stays there long enough to satisfy creditors, then it moves on. But the creditors are getting increasingly hungry, and that won’t last long. He needs more money.”
    “Will he feed his plantation with it?”
    “As he sees it, he has no choice. He has invested so much already he won’t want to let go.”
    “Good money after bad,” Lucy breathed. She looked up, fixing Mr. Chumleigh with a hard, blue stare. “My money.”
    “I very much fear so,” the lawyer said regretfully. “What your mother saw was only part of the estate, the part that was temporarily solvent. When I saw the total balance, I knew there had to be more, but I regret, it took me a week to notice it, and by then you were betrothed. You may still wish to go ahead, my lady, but - “ he let the last sentence hang in the air.
    Lucy stared at him, unseeing, remembering. Her head whirled with the new knowledge, but she forced herself to think. She knew she could trust Mr. Chumleigh, so the papers were undoubtedly real. The risk she had taken in coming here was more than rewarded by what she had discovered. Sir Geoffrey must be desperate for money by now, and this season had set himself to find a rich wife. And he’d found one. Or had very nearly done so.
    All her fondness for him, based on respect and trust, began to crumble away, to be replaced by indignation. He had used her, taken her for a fool. Did he love her? She no longer cared if he did or not, but the cold tendrils of anger began to wind themselves around her heart. This was calculated deception, cold blooded plotting on his part.
    “I wonder if he had me in mind all along?”
    She heard Lord Royston sigh. “I don’t think so. It was well known in the clubs he was hanging out for a wife, but he spread his interests so widely there was a book running on which one would be the recipient of his hand.”
    “Did you bet on me?” She turned to him, mouth twisted in self deprecation, but her bitterness was for herself.
    He shook his head. “No, I didn’t bet on anyone. But you were in the front running from the start.”
    “Oh, God.” She stared back at the papers. “There’s no doubt?”
    “None at all.”
    Not for a moment did she consider this was anything but the truth. If Mr. Chumleigh hadn’t been involved, she might have had her doubts, but he was not such a fool as to risk his reputation and his clientele on such a foolish effort to deceive her.
    “What will you do?” Lord Royston asked her.
    Her answer was instant. “Cry off of course.” With a pang she thought of his attentions to her which made her feel so protected, so loved.
    She must have betrayed some of what she felt, because Lord Wenlock put his hand out and gently covered her own where it lay on the table. She looked up and tried a small smile. “Thank you.” Then she turned to Lord Royston. She knew what was due. “And thank you too. I don’t know how you feel about this, but I appreciate your efforts in making me see. I could have lost everything.” She didn’t just mean her fortune.
    He smiled slightly, and a flash of understanding passed between them, the first for years. “I had to try. Your mother ignored Mr. Chumleigh’s efforts to contact her, so he turned to me. I had no luck with her ladyship either, but I had to try to see if you would talk to him.”
    “I appreciate it,” she said gravely, and looked at him properly. Perhaps the shock of this terrible discovery heightened her awareness, but the antagonism fell away, and she remembered the boy she had played with and saw the man he had become. He wasn’t her enemy at all. He had never mentioned her fortune or marrying her for it because he didn’t want it. “Have I wronged you?”
    He smiled. “Maybe. But with Bernard constantly