LITMIR.BIZ

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grandfather had seemed to hold it together, though his body was letting him down more and more often.

      ‘If you are going to lecture me about the evils of strong drink...’

      Daniel shook his head. ‘This evening I cannot find the energy to do so. If you wish to kill yourself by small degrees with your misplaced grief for my brother’s stupidity...’

      ‘Nigel was a good boy...’

      ‘Who mortgaged the Montcliffe property to the hilt as a payment for his escalating gambling habit.’

      ‘He was trying to save the estate. He was trying to make everything right again,’ she insisted.

      ‘If you believe that, Mama, then you are as deluded as he was.’

      His mother finished the glass of brandy and stood. ‘The military campaign in Spain and Portugal has made you different, Daniel. Harder. A man of distance and callousness and I do not like what you have become.’

      The sound of screams on a march from Hell with winter eating up any hope for warmth. Dead soldiers stripped of clothes and boots by others needing cover in the middle of a relentless freeze, and hundreds of miles left to reach the coast and to safety. Aye, distance came easily with such memories.

      ‘In less than six months the Montcliffe properties will be bankrupt.’

      He had not meant to say it like this, so baldly, and as his mother paled a compassion he had long since let go of spiked within.

      ‘I have tried to tell you before, Mother. I have tried to make you understand that Nigel finished what our father started, but I can no longer afford to say it kindly. The estate lies precariously on the edge of insolvency.’

      ‘You lie.’

      ‘The bank won’t lend the Montcliffe estate another penny and I have been warned that Goldsmith could call in one of Nigel’s outstanding loans before the end of this month.’

      ‘But Gwendolyn is to be presented in court and all the invitations to a soirée are written out. Besides, I have also just ordered several ball dresses from Madame Soulier. I cannot possibly curtail. If I do, others shall know of our plight and we shall suffer a very public shaming. Why, I could not even bear such a thing.’

      Turning, Daniel held his breath, the guilt of Nigel’s death eating at his equanimity. Years ago they had been close and he wondered if his time away from England in the army had left his brother exposed somehow. Lord knew his mother and sisters were unremitting in their demands. If he had been here, would he have been able to bolster Nigel’s will and made him stronger, allowing him a sounding board for good sense and bolder decisions in the economic welfare of Montcliffe?

      Taking a deep breath, he faced his mother directly. ‘There is only one way that I can see of navigating the Montcliffe inheritances out of this conundrum.’

      His mother wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at him. He had never seen her appear quite as old and lined.

      ‘How?’

      ‘I can marry into money.’

      ‘Old money?’ Even under duress his mother remained a snob.

      ‘Or money earned from the toil of hard labour and lucky breaks.’

      ‘Trade?’ The word was whispered with all the undercurrents of a shout.

      ‘The alternative is bankruptcy,’ he reminded her grimly.

      ‘You have someone in mind?’

      He could not say it, could not toss Amethyst Amelia Cameron’s name into the ring of fire his mother had so effortlessly conjured up, a sneer on her lips and distaste in her blue eyes.

      ‘Your father would be turning in his grave at such a suggestion. Marry one of the Stapleton girls, they would have you in a second, or the oldest Beaumont chit. She has made no secret of setting her cap at you.’

      ‘Enough, Mother.’

      ‘Charlotte Hughes, then, despite her foolish marriage. She has always loved you and you had strong feelings for her once. Besides, she is a lot more flush these days...’

      ‘Enough.’ This time he said it louder and she stopped.

      ‘You have no true understanding of the difficulties that face me, Daniel...’

      Her words were slightly slurred and he interrupted her. ‘Your line in the sand is in danger of being washed away by strong drink, Mother, and it would help if you listened rather than argued. If you made some sacrifice in the family spending and pared down on the number of dresses and bonnets and boots you required, we may have some ready cash to tide us over whilst I try to extricate us from this Godforsaken mess.’

      Already she was shaking her head. Sometimes he wondered why he had not just left and taken ship to the Americas, leaving the lot of them to wallow in the cesspool of their own making.

      But blood and duty were thicker than both fury and defeat and so he had stayed, juggling what was left of the few assets against what had been lost into the wider world of debt.

      If Goldsmith was to foreclose as Cameron had intimated he would? He shook away the dread.

      So far he had not needed to sell any of the furniture or paintings in the London town house and so the effect of great wealth remained the illusion it always had been.

      The avenues of escape were closing in, however, and he knew without a doubt that it was weeks rather than months for any monies left in the coffers to be gone. Nay, Cameron’s option of a marriage of convenience was the only way to avoid complete ruin.

      Upending her glass, his mother called her maid, heavily relying on the guiding arm of her servant as she stood.

      ‘I shall speak with you again when you are less unreasonable.’ The anger in her voice resonated sharply.

      Brandy, arrogance and hopelessness. A familiar cocktail of Wylde living that had taken his father and brother into the afterlife too early.

      He wondered if he even had the strength to try to save Montcliffe.

      * * *

      He met Lady Charlotte Mackay four days later as he exited the bank where he had spent an hour with the manager, trying to piece together some sort of rescue plan allowing the family estate a few more months of grace. And failing. His right leg hurt like hell and he had barely slept the night before with the pain of it.

      Charlotte looked just as he remembered her, silky blonde curls falling down from an intricate hat placed high on her head. Her eyes widened as she saw it was he. Shock, he thought, or pity. These days he tried not to interpret the reaction of others when they perceived his uneven gait.

      ‘Daniel.’ Her voice was musical and laced with an overtone of gladness. ‘It has been an age since I have seen you and I was hoping you might come to call upon me. I have been back from Edinburgh for almost a sennight and had the pleasure of meeting your mother a few days ago.’

      ‘She mentioned she had seen you.’

      ‘Oh.’

      The conversation stopped for a second, the thousand things unsaid filling in the spaces of awkwardness.

      ‘I wrote to you, of course, but you did not answer.’ Her confession made him wary, and as her left hand came up to wipe away an errant curl from her face he saw her fingers were ringless.

      He could have said he had not received any missives and, given the vagaries of the postal system, she would have believed him. But he didn’t lie.

      ‘Marriage requires a certain sense of loyalty, I have always thought, so perhaps any communication between us was not such a good idea.’

      Small shadows dulled the blue of her irises. ‘Until a union fails to live up to expectation and the trap of a dreary routine makes one’s mind wander.’

      Dangerous ground

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