As Owen rode back toward the tollhouse just before the road that led into London, he cursed his latest bit of misfortune. Namely his obligation to marry Lavinia Hobbs. Damn it. He wasn’t even left to handle it how he saw fit. He should have known that not only would his father meddle in his affairs with Lady Lavinia, but his mother would, too. To the tune of planning a ball with Lavinia’s mother, the duchess, for the express purpose of inviting Owen and giving him a chance to court the duke’s daughter. His parents should bloody well know he didn’t need their help courting anyone, let alone some boring little drip of a duke’s daughter, no matter how “difficult” she might be. But hadn’t that always been his parents’ attitude when it came to Owen? He never made the right decisions himself, did he? Never quite measured up to his father’s expectations. No. His father had made up his mind about Owen a long time ago. Well, he bloody well would measure up this time. Whether Lavinia Hobbs liked it or not.
So the lady wanted to fancy herself in love? Very well. Owen was more than confident in his own charm. He’d had ladies declare their undying love for him after just one night in his bed. Certainly, he couldn’t take an innocent to bed, but that wouldn’t keep him from being charming. In fact, the lady he’d spent the last two nights with assured him of his appeal when he left her bed this morning, reminding her that he never spent more than two evenings with the same female companion. There were far too many others to meet and choose from. But she’d seemed pleased with his performance, too. They all were. How much different could the chaste courting of a “difficult” young lady be?
As he neared the tollhouse, Owen drew up the reins to signal Apollo to stop. The horse tossed his head and slowed accordingly. There was a small queue at the tollhouse and Owen waited impatiently behind a rickety cart filled with vegetables and occupied by a poor farmer.
When the farmer finally was next in line, the sounds of raised voices caught Owen’s attention. Apparently, the farmer and the gatekeeper were having a disagreement about something. Owen maneuvered Apollo closer to hear the conversation.
“But I can’t afford it,” the farmer said. “Last time we came through, it weren’t so much.”
“I don’t set the prices,” the gatekeeper replied. “Parliament’s decided to raise taxes. That’s all I can tell ye.”
“But I won’t have any more money till I can get me goods ta the market in London.”
“Ain’t me problem,” the gatekeeper replied. “And ye’re keeping this fine gent behind ye from passing. Out of the way if you can’t make the toll.”
The farmer glanced at Owen. Shame marked his haggard features. “I’m sorry for the trouble, me lord, but me daughter’s sick and me wife wanted me ta take her to the surgeon what lives near St. Paul’s.”
Owen glanced into the back of the man’s rickety cart to see a thin child lying on an even thinner bed of hay, amongst the vegetables. She was wrapped in a dirty old blanket and coughing as if her lungs might explode.
Owen swallowed the lump in his throat. He pulled his purse from his inside coat pocket, loosened the string, fished inside, and tossed the farmer a sovereign.
“This is far too generous of ye, me lord,” the man said with tears in his bleary eyes.
Owen nodded at him. “Think nothing of it, sir. Just see to it that your daughter receives the care she needs.”
“I surely will, me lord. Me wife thanks ye and I thank ye.”
Owen glanced back into the cart in time to see the little girl close her eyes and drift back to sleep.
Owen paid his own toll and kicked Apollo’s flanks to set the horse in a gallop toward town. He needed to get back immediately to prepare for the ball. But as he rode, he knew for certain that child’s image would haunt him.
CHAPTER SIX
That evening, Owen stood in the Duke of Huntley’s town house at a bloody ball planned in anticipation of him wooing the duke’s daughter, and Owen had yet to see the lady in question.
And he was bloody well getting impatient. Owen was used to being the one making ladies wait for his arrival, not the other way around. As a result, he was becoming increasingly surly. He glanced around the large, crowded ballroom. Where was a footman with some brandy when one needed it?
“Where is this blasted girl?” he whispered to his sister, Cassandra, who had just arrived with her husband, Swifdon, at her side. Cassandra had floated in looking fresh and pretty in lavender silk, her blond hair piled atop her head and a stunning row of diamonds around her neck. Cassandra had never been a disappointment to their parents. Quite the opposite, actually, she’d been their favorite child. Right up until she’d tried to marry a mere captain in the army, regardless of the fact that he was the second son of an earl. Until, that is, Julian’s older brother was murdered in France and the captain conveniently turned into an earl overnight. Cassandra and Julian had been devastated, but that unfortunate turn of events had recaptured the Monroes’ interest and approval. Funny, that. But despite the difference in their sex and circumstance, Owen had always loved his younger sister, even if they hadn’t been particularly close as children. He would do anything for Cass and she, him. He didn’t doubt it.