The Wicked Ways of a Duke(8)

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Mrs. Morris interrupted, “this news is most exciting—we’re all overwhelmed by it, I am sure, but we must allow Miss Bosworth a few moments to recover herself.”

“I’m all right now,” Prudence said, sitting up straighter in her chair. “I want to hear about the will.”

“No, no, your landlady is quite right. Forgive me for being much too precipitate.” He gestured to the table between them. “Perhaps we should have tea now?”

“I hope it’s not gone cold,” Mrs. Morris said as she returned to her seat and reached for the silver teapot. “I was just bringing in the tray when I saw you faint, Prudence. Then I had to run for the smelling salts, and it took me forever to find them.”

“I’ve never fainted before. I hope I did it gracefully.”

“Yes, dear. You sank right down into your chair, one hand to your forehead in the proper manner, just as we were always taught. Sugar, Mr. Whitfield?”

“Yes, thank you,” he answered, but shook his head as she held up the milk jug. “Taught?” he echoed as he accepted a cup of tea. “Girls are taught how to faint?”

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Morris assured him as she poured another cup for Prudence. “We were always practicing when I was a girl.” She handed the sandwiches and tea cakes around as she began to explain the necessary precepts of a gentlewoman’s education to Mr. Whitfield. Prudence paid little attention to the conversation. She ate her food and drank her tea and tried to comprehend this amazing thing that had happened to her, but a strange sense of unreality pervaded her mind.

One million pounds.

She couldn’t conceive of such a sum. It was too much. It was enormous. And to have that much money every year? Why, even Lady Alberta Denville didn’t have a fortune that could compare. With that thought, a burst of joyous glee shot up within her like a rocket. She set aside her empty plate and teacup with a clatter and jumped out of her chair, a squeal of delight escaping her as if she were a five-year-old on Christmas morning. Before she knew what was happening, she was whirling Mrs. Morris around the drawing room, her dance steps more exuberant than graceful.

“I’m richer than Lady Alberta,” she singsonged as they galloped across the carpet. “I’m richer than Lady Munro. I’m rich, I’m rich, I’m the richest girl I know! Oh!”

Her landlady laughed with her, stifling the merriment only long enough to issue a warning about their proximity to the potted fern.

“If we tumble it over, I’ll buy you a new one,” Prudence promised, and began singing again as they took another turn across the carpet. “I’m richer than Lady Alberta…”

“Miss Bosworth?” Mr. Whitfield called to her over her faulty soprano. “We must discuss the conditions of the will.”

She glanced at him as she twirled Mrs. Morris in a circle. “Conditions?”

“There are certain things you must do in order to receive the full inheritance. For one thing, you are required to marry.”

She stopped, letting go of Mrs. Morris so abruptly that the poor lady went spinning away and nearly demolished the potted fern. “Marry?”

“Yes. In your life, is there…” He paused delicately. “…is there perhaps some suitable young man?”

“No,” she answered, trying to catch her breath and consider the ramifications of this newest development. “There’s no one at all. That is to say,” she amended at once, a bit embarrassed that she had not a single suitor to her name at present, “I have been very occupied with…with other things. Work, you see.”

“I see.” Mr. Whitfield took up the sheaf of documents from the settee. “Your father has stipulated that you be given one year to find a suitable husband. During that time, a generous allowance will be portioned to you each month from the income of the trust—for clothes, living expenses, and such—but at the end of the allotted time, you must be married, or the inheritance goes to various relatives of his wife.”

“Wife? My father married?”

“Yes. A New York heiress named Elizabeth Tyson. She died a few years ago. She and Mr. Abernathy had no children of their own.”

“So my father left all his money to me?” She shook her head. “But he never even knew me. Never wanted to know me,” she added with a hint of bitterness.

“Blood ties are often stronger than we think. Which brings me back to the point. Your father badly wanted heirs of his own blood. Once you marry, the income of the estate is yours, and your husband’s, of course, for your lifetime, then it passes to your direct heirs. The man you choose to wed must be approved by the trustees. I am remaining in London until that situation is resolved and you are married, and then I shall return to New York. Your income after that will be managed by our London offices. I hope you will find our firm satisfactory in—”

“Wait.” Prudence held up her hand to stop him, trying to take it all in. “You must approve my marriage?”

“Yes, but I am sure that with the guidance of your aunt and uncle, you will make a suitable matrimonial choice, one we can wholeheartedly endorse.”

“My aunt and uncle?” Prudence’s ebullient joy faded a little. “They know of this?”

“Of course. My first task upon arriving in England was to locate you, and I journeyed first to the home of your uncle in Sussex, assuming you lived with him and his wife. But when I called upon them, they informed me that you were living out. Naturally, they would not tell a perfect stranger your exact whereabouts without knowing the reason for my inquiry. They are delighted by your good fortune and will be arriving in London shortly to assist you.”

“Assist me?” Prudence did not like the direction this conversation was heading. A knot began to form in her tummy, a typical reaction to thoughts of Aunt Edith, and one that threatened to overshadow the joy of the present moment. “Assist me with what?”

“Your introduction into society, of course. Your aunt will act as your chaperone.”

Prudence suppressed a groan. The last person in the world she would choose as a chaperone would be Aunt Edith. After her mother’s death, when she was fourteen, she had lived with her mother’s brother, his wife, and their two daughters. For three years she had been the illegitimate poor relation, the burden, the obligation, and being reminded of that by the women of her uncle’s household had made life so intolerable that she had moved to London to make her own way in the world.

“Can’t Mrs. Morris act as my chaperone?” Even as she said it, she knew how impossible a notion that was.

“My dear Miss Bosworth, with all due respect to your friend…” He paused to give a nod to the other woman. “…you must marry well, and to do that, you need introductions into a higher echelon of society than that to which you’ve been accustomed. Your uncle is a squire, and your aunt the cousin of a baronet. These connections provide you with the necessary entrée.”

Prudence knew that was probably true, but she still resisted, hoping for an alternative. “I should like to make a different choice.”

“Have you other suitable connections?”

She thought of her friend Emma, who had also lived in Mrs. Morris’s lodging house until her marriage one month earlier. Emma had wed her former employer, a viscount. “I am acquainted with Viscountess Marlowe. She is, in fact, a friend of mine.”

“You know Emma and Marlowe are in Italy for their honeymoon, dear,” Mrs. Morris reminded her. “They won’t be home until June.”

Prudence looked hopefully at Mr. Whitfield. “I don’t suppose I could wait until then to make my come-out?”

The attorney shook his head. “I should strongly advise against that course. The London season will be coming to an end, and you do have only one year in which to make a suitable match. Also, there is the matter of the newspapers. Journalists will learn of your situation very quickly. You cannot hope to keep it a secret. Within days you will be much talked of, your attentions sought by all manner of people, many of them not the right sort. Being a young lady, you are blissfully unaware of the more unsavory aspects of human nature. You need your relations to protect you.”

“I have been living out since I was seventeen. At twenty-eight, I hardly think I need protecting now.”

“Miss Bosworth, there is an enormous amount of money at stake, and money is a strange thing. It brings out the worst in people. In choosing your future spouse, you need people whose judgment you can trust, people upon whose advice and guidance you can rely.”

She had no intention of relying on Aunt Edith’s guidance about anything, especially about someone to marry. Still, to go into society, she did need a chaperone. And Uncle Stephen had always been kind to her. “I suppose you are right,” she said, resigning herself to the inevitable. “They are family, after all. Living with them is probably the best course. At least until Emma returns in June.”

“If you’re not married by then,” Mrs. Morris put in. “With your dowry, you won’t lack for suitors!”

Prudence’s spirits brightened at once. “That’s true. Why, the gentlemen will be queuing up outside my door now!”