Dishonourable Intent

‘Yes, my lord.’ Watkins glanced hopefully about him. ‘Can I get you a drink before I leave?’

‘That won’t be necessary.’ The younger man managed a civil rejoinder. ‘Thank you, Watkins. I shan’t be needing anything else tonight.’

‘No, my lord.’ Watkins backed somewhat unevenly towards the door, and, alone again, he reflected that the old man really ought to be retired. He had to be seventy, if he was a day, and had worked for the family since he was a boy. But without his job at the Abbey it was difficult to think how Watkins would survive.

A huge mahogany desk occupied a central position by the windows, and, flinging himself into the worn leather chair behind it, he stared somewhat broodingly into space. Here he was, William Henry Robert Gervaise Quentin, 9th Earl of Lingard, and he couldn’t even afford to give his staff a decent pension.

An hour later, bathed and shaved, and with his too long dark hair brushed smoothly behind his ears, he drove the short distance between Lingard Abbey and his grandmother’s country home at Mulberry Court. He was trying hard to feel more optimistic, but the thought of the evening ahead was putting a definite strain on his temper. It was all very well to acknowledge his limitations in the comparative anonymity of the Abbey, and quite another to consider the alternative with his grandmother’s matchmaking in prospect.

Mulberry Court glowed in the amber light of the summer evening. An attractive manor house, with its origins dating from the sixteenth century, the house and its extensive grounds had been entailed upon his aunt’s eldest son. Unfortunately, his cousin Edward had died of leukaemia when he was in his teens, and in consequence the entail was now endowed upon a distant relative of his late grandfather.

It had always been a source of great disappointment to Lady Rosemary that her favourite grandchild was not in line to inherit the estate. The monies devolved from the properties and the like would have enabled him to restore the Abbey without having to resort to a form of legal prostitution, and the old lady did everything in her power to make his life less fraught.

Except when it came to marriage, and the provision of the next Earl of Lingard, he reflected wryly as he parked his estate car to the right of the front door. In Lady Rosemary’s opinion, nothing could compensate for the lack of a wife and family, and she was hopeful that with the right woman he could achieve both ends in one.

A housemaid opened the door at his approach, and he guessed his grandmother had been watching for him. She and her guests were enjoying pre-supper drinks in the orangery, and the pleasant scent of citrus was in the air.

“Will!’ His grandmother came to meet him as he halted in the doorway, reaching up to brush dry, papery lips across his newly shaved cheek. ‘My dear,’ she said approvingly, ‘I was beginning to wonder if you were coming. Emma and her parents are waiting eagerly to meet you.’

He could feel his features tightening into a polite mask, and he made an effort to relax again. ‘Hello, Rosie,’ he teased softly. ‘Don’t waste any time, will you? Are you afraid I might do a bolt if I’m not hooked?’

Lady Rosemary’s smile weakened. ‘I do hope you’re going to behave yourself, Will,’ she countered severely, speaking in an undertone, so that the four other people dotted about the glass-covered verandah were unable to hear. ‘Emma is not at all like Francesca Goddard, and I won’t have you behaving as if she is.’

He sighed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He paused. ‘And by the way, Francesca still calls herself Francesca Quentin.’

‘She would.’ The old lady almost snorted the words.

‘You know why, of course: she finds it useful. I’m surprised she hasn’t attempted to retain the title, as well.’

She was scathing, and Will knew a moment’s regret that this was so. He wondered if his parents, had they still been alive, would have regarded Francesca’s behaviour with less censure. But they’d died in a freak boating accident when he was barely a teenager, and from then on his grandmother had been his guardian.

And from the beginning her attitude towards Francesca had always been vaguely hostile. He knew the old lady had never really considered Francesca good enough for him, and in any case she had had another, more socially and financially suitable candidate in mind. Unfortunately, he had been thinking with his heart and not his head in those days. He’d been crazy about Francesca; he’d wanted her; he’d wanted to marry her, and as far as he was concerned that had been that.

‘Anyway, come along,’ declared Lady Rosemary now, tucking her arm through his and turning to face her guests. ‘Here he is, everyone. This is my grandson, William Quentin. Will, allow me to introduce Sir George and Lady Merritt, and their youngest daughter, Emma.’

Will had met people like the Merritts before. Sir George was a self-made man, a latter-day baronet, whose life peerage owed more to the worthy causes he supported than to any particular quality he possessed. He was several inches shorter than Will, with the rotund belly of a serious drinker, while his wife was thin to the point of emaciation, and obviously subscribed to the maxim that one couldn’t be too thin or too rich.

Their daughter, he saw thankfully, was something else. Of all the young women his grandmother had produced for his inspection, Emma Merritt was by far the most attractive to date. Slim—without her mother’s angularity—with straight silvery blonde hair that curved almost confidingly under her jawline, and wide blue eyes, she was quite startlingly good-looking, and he was impressed.

He caught his grandmother’s eye on him at that moment, and he could almost see what the old lady was thinking. Lady Rosemary would take great pleasure in seeing her grandson married again, and introducing Emma as the new Countess of Lingard would restore her faith in her own beliefs. She wanted to see him settled; she wanted to know he had a family. Will guessed she was already considering how she could sponsor the children their union would produce.

Children?

Will’s lips twisted with sudden cynicism, and Sir George Merritt regarded him with a certain amount of dismay. ‘It’s a great pleasure to meet you, my lord!’ he exclaimed hastily, and Will struggled to regain his equanimity before disclaiming the older man’s form of address.

‘Quentin will do, Sir George,’ he amended smoothly, earning a relieved smile for his trouble. ‘Or Lingard, if you prefer. I seldom use my title among friends.’

Lady Merritt preened at the compliment, even as she protested his magnanimity. ‘But you should,’ she said coyly. Though we are flattered to be here.’ And Will wondered with unwilling irony whether she was protecting his interests or her daughter’s.

‘My grandson has always been a law unto himself,’ put in Lady Rosemary swiftly, perhaps aware of Will’s response. ‘When he was at college, he called himself Will Quentin, and no one knew his background.’ She exchanged a speaking look with him again. ‘I keep reminding him he has responsibilities he can’t ignore.’

‘To do with his rank, you mean,’ Lady Merritt agreed, nodding. ‘But, of course, we all have our particular crosses to bear. Take George, for instance: you can’t imagine how often his services are called upon. There’s always some charity dinner or benefit in the offing. He’s become quite a popular after-dinner speaker.’

‘I don’t think that’s what Lady Rosemary was talking about,’ Emma interposed then, with a knowing smile. ‘Perhaps—he—’ she refrained from using either of the alternatives ‘—would rather people accepted him for himself,’ she ventured, in an attractively breathy tone. ‘I’d hate it if I thought my friends only cultivated me because I was your daughter, Daddy.’

Will had to smile at her audacity. In a couple of sentences, she had defused all their arguments, without causing any offence to anyone. She was obviously not as dumb as her appearance might have suggested, and he felt a little more optimistic about the evening ahead.

‘Oh—well—’ Sir George was the first to answer her. ‘If you put it like that, my dear, I suppose I have to see your point.’ He put an approving hand on her shoulder. ‘Aren’t I a lucky man—er—Lingard? A daughter with brains as well as beauty.’

‘An unusual combination,’ murmured Will drily, though after meeting Emma’s artful gaze they weren’t quite the sentiments he’d have chosen. Nevertheless, she was amusing, and far more interesting than some of the vapid débutante types he had had to deal with in the past.

The housemaid who had admitted him now reappeared carrying a tray of cocktails, but Will managed to avoid accepting one of his grandmother’s concoctions. Instead, he sidled over to the table and helped himself to a measure of vintage Scotch, surveying his fellow guests over the rim of his glass.

He saw now that Archie Rossiter, one of his grandmother’s elderly admirers, was dozing in a cane chair beside the winter cactus. Archie had been Lady Rosemary’s doctor until he retired a couple of years ago, and he could always be relied upon to even the numbers, if required. He was a pleasant old man, if inclined to be a little forgetful these days. There was a whisky glass beside his chair, too, and Will guessed he’d been imbibing long before anyone else arrived. His lips twitched. Good old Archie! They might have had their differences at times, but he felt a certain amount of affection for the old man.

‘Are we that boring?’

The voice came from close at hand, and he realised that while he had been studying Archie Rossiter Emma had left her parents talking to his grandmother, and come to join him.

‘Boring?’ he echoed, aware of her meaning but giving himself time to think. ‘Why should you think that, Miss Merritt? The evening’s hardly begun.’

‘Oh, I know that.’ She regarded the cocktail she was holding for a moment, and then tilted her head to give him the full benefit of her wide-eyed gaze. ‘And my name’s Emma, not Miss Merritt. That sounds almost as dull as you probably think we are.’

Will arched one dark brow. ‘You don’t know what I think.’

‘Don’t I?’ Clearly, she thought she did. ‘You probably didn’t want to join us for dinner, did you?’

‘Why should you think that?’

It wasn’t a denial, and he could tell from her expression that she knew it. ‘Because Daddy was so insistent that he needed a few days in the country. You can never get him out of the office when we’re at home.’

Will endeavoured to follow her conversation. ‘And where is that?’ he asked politely. ‘Home, I mean? You’re not from this area, I gather.’

‘Hardly,’ said Emma flatly. ‘Or we wouldn’t be staying at Mulberry Court. No, actually, we live in Cambridge. My father has business interests there.’

‘Does he?’

Will forbore to ask what those business interests might be. He seemed to recall his grandmother mentioning something about microchip technology, and the uses to which it could be put in mobile phones and fax machines. According to Lady Rosemary—and this was the important thing so far as she was concerned—Sir George was incredibly wealthy, and eager to acquire for his youngest daughter the kind of pedigree money couldn’t buy.

‘Lady Rosemary told us you studied at Cambridge,’ Emma continued, and he wondered exactly how much she knew of the unholy alliance to which her father aspired. ‘Unfortunately, I wasn’t clever enough to go to university,’ she added. ‘So Daddy sent me to a finishing school in Switzerland instead.’

Will’s mouth flattened. ‘I can’t believe you couldn’t have found a place at university if you’d really wanted to,’ he remarked drily, and was rewarded by a mischievous glance out of the corner of her eye.

‘Well, who wants to spend hours studying stuffy old books when one could be out riding or swimming or watching polo?’ she declared smugly. ‘It was so much more fun in Lausanne. You wouldn’t believe the things we got up to.’

Will thought he probably could, but he didn’t comment, and presently she began to talk about the history of Mulberry Court and how much she enjoyed exploring old buildings. After what she’d said about the stuffiness of books and study, Will doubted she had any real interest in the subject—not in an objective way, at least. But he knew what was expected of him, and politely suggested she might like to visit the Abbey while she was here, and he knew from the enthusiasm of her acceptance that he was right.

By the time Mrs Baxter, his grandmother’s housekeeper, came to announce that supper was ready, he felt he knew virtually all there was to know about Emma’s life up to that point. He knew the schools she’d attended, the subjects she’d enjoyed most, and her tentative plans for the future. The fact that she was keen to fall in love and get married, and subsequently have a large family, had been relayed to him in that attractively breathy tone, and he doubted few men would remain immune to such appealing candour.