He'd barely straightened before Vander strode to a chair and dropped into it. "As you know, Miss Carrington is now my duchess."
Sir Richard seated himself neatly and pressed his knees together. "I offer you my heartiest congratulations," he said, his face positively wreathed with happiness, quite as if he wasn't on the verge of filing a lawsuit. Vander's solicitor didn't seem to know precisely what the lawsuit would assert, but Sir Richard was famous for using the court to conduct personal feuds. He'd already sued Vander over a horse he bought from the Pindar Stables, though the suit had never made it farther than their respective solicitors' offices.
After a moment, Sir Richard said, "Look here, Duke, you aren't still chafing about that lawsuit a few years ago, are you? I was misled by my stable master, who insisted that the horse's droop ears meant he couldn't possibly be the product of Matador. He was incorrect, and I fully accepted the evidence submitted by your stables."
Vander didn't bother to answer. Sir Richard had claimed that a horse from the Pindar Stables had come with falsified papers, an allegation that Vander's solicitors had promptly squashed.
Now Sir Richard began to go on and on about droop ears and thoroughbreds, doing nothing more than proving himself an ass.
"Your lawsuit was frivolous," Vander finally said, cutting him off, "and cost me more than fifty pounds to counter."
Sir Richard blathered about the prevalence of unfair practices and a man's entitlement to breach of warranty.
Vander cut him off again. "My solicitor tells me that you are likely considering another lawsuit, resulting from my marriage to Miss Carrington and ensuing guardianship of young Lord Carrington."
Sir Richard's face cracked into a smile. "Your Grace, it is clear to both of us, I'm sure, that your eleventh-hour marriage to Miss Carrington-scarcely a month after she was jilted by another man-was cobbled together to enable you to absorb my ward's estate, which not coincidentally runs alongside your own."
"In fact, that was not part of my reasoning," Vander said.
Sir Richard scoffed. "Shall we be honest between ourselves, Duke? You married the woman to get your hands on the unentailed estate, and I do not blame you for it. However, you understand that there will have to be compensation. I had the expectation of living in this house and enjoying the lands for at least ten years and quite likely longer, given the frail health of my ward. As it happens, my lands also adjoin the estate, to the east of here."
Vander knew he was rough around the edges for a duke. He had a darkness that came straight from his childhood, bred from an instinct that had warned him that his father's mind was not just chaotic, but dangerous.
That instinct was urging him to squash Sir Richard like a maggot. He stretched his legs, contemplating the situation, allowing the silence in the room to grow. There was no way in hell that Vander would pay him off.
The real question was whether he should thrash Sir Richard now or wait to see whether the ass carried through with his implicit threat of a lawsuit.
Better to wait, he decided, eyeing Sir Richard's fastidiously groomed face. The man seemed unafraid, which was interesting. Perhaps he knew enough about fighting to offer a proper challenge.
More likely, his lordship was under the illusion that the spring dagger concealed in his pretty walking stick would protect him.
"I will pay you nothing," Vander stated. He added a silent self-congratulation; he had managed to keep his tone even.
Sir Richard had groomed his eyebrows to a point, hence surprise-feigned or otherwise-made him resemble a pet rat Vander had once had as a child. "Are you quite certain, Your Grace? I will bring a suit of law against you, as I'm sure you are aware, in Berkshire, where I am not unknown." He paused just long enough to make it clear that the justice of the peace was in his pocket.
If Vander remembered correctly, the Honorable Mr. Roach had been justice of the peace for some fifteen years. The beast inside Vander growled softly, thinking of the many people who had likely been abusively treated in that period.
Sir Richard wasn't just a man with a feeling that the world owed him, paired with a reckless disrespect for the law.
He was a villain, the sort who would slip a dagger between a man's ribs and continue on to the opera, completely unperturbed.
Vander nodded, as if he were actually considering Sir Richard's threat. He could kill him, of course, but that was messy, unproductive, and might lead to trouble. Even dukes were not encouraged to make themselves judge, jury and, especially, executioner.
And his conscience occasionally reminded him that he had no right to play those three roles.
"We both know it would be best to avoid the courts," Sir Richard added, his voice oily with confidence. "It might be different if Mia were a great beauty; you could claim to have been stricken with Cupid's arrow at first sight." He chuckled quietly. "But given her limited charms and your parents' scandals . . ."
That did it. Vander was going to kill him. It was just a matter of when. He leaned forward, wielding his body's leashed power as a weapon. "If my wife's name passes your lips again, I will become extremely angry, Sir Richard."
One of those absurdly pointed eyebrows rose again. "I applaud your loyalty. It's such a rare quality in your family."
The man had a death wish.
And Vander was damned sick of being blackmailed. "I want you out of this house today." It was good to realize that he was in complete control of his temper. There were a few moments with Mia when he almost started bellowing like a madman, but here he was, confronted by a veritable weasel, and he was in no danger of going off like a half-cocked pistol.
"I shall bring suit against you today," Sir Richard hissed. "I shall make your name a byword, not that it isn't already. After all, isn't your marriage incestuous? Oh, wait, your mother wasn't married to your bride's father."
"Will you remove yourself on your own feet, Sir Richard, or shall some of my men assist?"
Sir Richard rose and went to the fireplace, silent for a moment. When he turned about, as trim as a china figure on a music box, he said with an appealing catch in his voice, "I feel that we have got off on the wrong footing, Your Grace."
"Do you?"
"I merely wish to be compensated for the losses that you inflict upon me by a marriage calculated to disinherit me."
"As I said, my marriage was not contracted with the Carrington estate in mind," Vander reminded him.
"Are you saying you're in love?"
"It's none of your damn business why or who I marry, any more than it's the business of the courts." Vander rose.
"It's my business now." Sir Richard's face darkened. He lost the air of an Elizabethan and looked like the rodent he was. "You are stealing my estate. Did you really think I wouldn't fight back? That I would simply hand over the keys with a smile?"
"I can do without the smile." Vander prowled forward, noting the way that Sir Richard was fingering his cane. If only he would pull out a blade, Vander would be perfectly justified in beating the living daylights out of him.
But Sir Richard had to strike first; Vander had given up on fisticuffs except as a matter of self-defense.
"Everyone will know!" Sir Richard was growing shrill. "Do you think that anyone in polite society will acknowledge your homely wife, given the disgraceful relations between your parents?"
Vander's fist tightened and gladness unfurled in his chest. If there was ever a man who deserved a beating, it was Sir Richard.
The man fell back a step and, sure enough, he pulled out his tinsel-dagger. "Don't touch me!" he shrilled. "I'll sue you for assault and battery. And I'll tell the world that you attacked me merely because I was brave enough to speak the truth: you married a fat wallflower in order to steal an estate from an orphan."
A second later the tinsel-dagger was in Vander's hand and poised at its owner's throat.
"You have just said a great many things that displeased me," Vander remarked.
"My servants know you're here," Sir Richard gasped. "You can't kill me."
"I don't plan to. Unless you neglect to offer a groveling apology, that is. My wife is a lovely, intelligent woman. She has the kind of curves that a man longs to find in his bed. I may not have been the first to wish to marry her, but I am the one who succeeded." To his total astonishment, he discovered that he meant every word.