The Ideal Wife(75)

“Abby should have told you before she married you,” Boris said. “I scolded her for not doing so, and I think I gave her the notion that she had played a dastardly trick on you. She has obviously been afraid to tell you. Maybe she has good reason. Who knows? But you are going to find out anyway, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” the earl said.

“Rachel is our stepmother,” Boris said, “mother of Clara and Beatrice. She married our father in defiance of her own and lived to regret it almost from the first moment. He gave her several severe beatings. She finally ran off with someone else and surfaced here as Mrs. Harper.”

“I see,” Lord Severn said. “I thought the lady was dead.”

“Well, she is not,” Boris said, “and Abby should stay away from her. She is not like she used to be. She used to be a poor abject creature. Bitterness has changed all that. Rachel has learned how to look after herself at everyone else’s expense.”

“You know nothing of seven thousand pounds?”the earl asked.

Boris shook his head. “It went to Rachel?” he said. “Blackmail, maybe? Would Abby be foolish enough to pay the woman to keep all this from you? Is it that important to her that you have a good opinion of her?”He looked candidly at his brother-in-law for a moment. “Yes, I suppose it could be. Abby never did expect much out of life for herself. When everything came apart after our father’s death, I was afraid for her. She looked as if she had been turned to marble. I thought perhaps everything had died in her. Don’t hold this against her, Severn. She cannot help anything that has happened. Indeed, for as long as she could, she gave all of herself for the sake of the rest of us. Even for my father, damn him.”

“I love her,” the earl said quietly. “You don’t have to plead her cause with me, Boris. I love your sister.”

“Well, then,” Boris said, “perhaps there is some justice in this world, after all.”

“The question is,” Lord Severn said, “how much do you love her?”

His brother-in-law looked at him sharply.

“We have been too long away already,” the earl said. “I will make this brief. Abby has concocted a masterly plan whereby I am to hire a card cheat, pay him to see to it that you win a fortune, and then watch you pay off your father’s debts with part of it and live happily ever after with the rest, quite unaware that you do not owe your happiness to Lady Luck.”

Boris’s jaw hardened. “You know what my opinion of that ridiculous idea is likely to be,” he said.

“We would never have got away with it,” the earl said. “But Abby does not know that. She thinks it a quite splendid scheme.”

“She would,” Boris said. “Have you discovered yet that she is somewhat lacking in common sense?”

“Sometimes her heart rules her head,” Lord Severn said. “It is the quality in her that I love above all else, I believe. Her scheme is going to work, Boris, down to the last detail.”

His brother-in-law laughed. “I would have known even without the warning,” he said. “Clearly it is out of the question now, Severn.”

“Do you still wish to buy a commission in the army?” the earl asked. “It was your ambition, was it not? I think you are not too old. If it is what you still wish, then you will win precisely enough to pay off your father’s debts and to buy a pair of colors. You will be astounded and ecstatic at your good fortune. And afterward you will make your own way in the world.”

Boris’s manner had stiffened again. “This is my concern,”he said. “I will not brook interference, Severn, well-meant as I know it is. I am not your concern.”

“But Abby is,” Lord Severn said. “I am going to do this for her happiness, not for yours. And if you love her, if you wish to repay some of the love she lavished on you and your family, then you will let me do it. I know this will mean sacrificing some of your pride. But remember some of the sacrifices Abby has made in her lifetime.”

Boris clenched his teeth. “The devil!” he said.

“Remember that your father was hers too,” Lord Severn said, “and my father-in-law.”

“You have me backed quite firmly into a corner, don’t you?” Boris said, his voice revealing his frustration.

“I’m afraid so,” the earl said. “I will play quite unfairly, you see, when Abby’s happiness is at stake.”

“I don’t understand,” Boris said. “You have known her for less than two weeks.”