скачать книгу бесплатно
Mr Robert Cameron was a London merchant who was well heeled and wily. He owned most of the shares in a shipping line trading timber between England and the Americas, his move into importing taking place across the past eight or so years, and he was doing more than well.
However, when the door opened again and Cameron came through, Daniel was shocked.
The man of a little over a fortnight ago was thinner and more pallid, the bruising around his eyes darker.
‘Thank you for seeing me, Lord Montcliffe.’ Cameron waited as the servant departed the room, peering about to see no others lingered in the background of the substantial library. ‘Might I speak very frankly to you and in complete confidence, my lord?’
Interest flickered. ‘You may, but please take a seat.’ He gestured to the leather wingchair nearby for Cameron looked more than unsteady on his feet.
‘No. I would rather stand, my lord. There are words I need to say that require fortitude, if you will, and a sitting position may lessen my resolve.’
Daniel nodded and waited as the other collected himself. He could think of no reason whatsoever for the furtive secrecy or the tense manner of the man.
‘What I am about to offer, Lord Montcliffe, must not leave the confines of this room, no matter what you might think of it. Will you give me your word as a gentleman on that whether you accept my proposal or not?’
‘It isn’t outside of the law?’
‘No, my lord.’
‘Then you have my word.’
‘Might I ask for a drink before I begin?’
‘Certainly. Brandy?’
‘Thank you.’
Pouring two generous glasses, Daniel passed one over, waiting as the older man readied himself to speak.
‘My health is not as it was, my lord. In fact, I think it fair to say that I am not long for this world.’ He held up his hand as Daniel went to interrupt. ‘It is not condolences I am after, my lord. I only tell you this because the lack of months left to me owe a good part to what I propose to relate to you next.’
Taking a deep swallow of his brandy, Cameron wiped his mouth with his hands. Labourers hands with wide calluses and small healed injuries. The hands of someone used to many long hours of manual work.
‘I want to bequeath the pair of greys to you, my lord. I know you will love them in the same manner as I do and that they will not be sold on, so to speak, for a quick financial profit. Mick and Maisie need a home that will nurture them and I have no doubts you shall do just that. I would also prefer their names to stay just as they are as the Grecian ones suggested by Mr Tattersall didn’t appeal to me at all.’
‘I could not accept such an offer, Mr Cameron, and have not the means to buy them from you at this moment. Besides, it is unheard of to give a complete stranger such a valuable thing,’ Daniel replied, taken aback.
For the first time Cameron smiled. ‘But you see, my lord, I can do just as I will. Great wealth produces a sense of egocentricity and allows a freedom that is undeniable. I can bequeath anything I like to anybody I want and I wish for you to have my greys.’
Daniel tried to ignore the flare of excitement that started building inside him. With such horses he could begin to slowly recoup a little of the family fortune by running a breeding programme at Montcliffe Manor that would be the envy of society. But he stopped himself. There had to be a catch here somewhere, for by all accounts Cameron was a shrewd businessman and a successful one at that.
‘And in return?’
‘Your estate is heavily mortgaged and I have it on good authority that a hefty loan your brother took out with the Honourable Mr Reginald Goldsmith will be called in before the end of this month. He had other outstanding loans as well and I have acquired each and every one to do just as I will with them.’
‘What is your meaning?’ Daniel bit out, forcing himself to stand still.
‘Coutts is also worried by your lack of collateral and, given the Regent’s flagrant dearth of care with his finances, they are now beating a more conservative pathway in the management of their long-term lending. With only a small investigation I think you might find yourself in trouble.’
‘You would ruin me?’
‘No, my lord, exactly the opposite. I wish to gift you three sums of twenty-five thousand pounds each year for the next three years and then the lump sum of one-hundred-and-fifty thousand pounds.’
A fortune. Daniel could barely believe the proportions of the offer, such riches unimaginable.
‘I would immediately sign over the town house in Grosvenor Square as an incentive for you to honour the terms. Then, whenever Amethyst instructs me to do so, a property I own to the north called Dunstan House, with a good deal of acreage about it, shall be endorsed into your care, as well.’
Stopping, the merchant faced him directly. Sweat had built on his brow and his cheeks were marked with a ruddy glow of much emotion. ‘There is one thing, however, that you must do for me in return, my lord. My only daughter Amethyst is now twenty-six, soon to be twenty-seven. She is a clever girl and a sensible one. She has worked alongside me for the last eight years and it is her surefootedness in business that has propelled my profits skywards.’
He waited as Daniel nodded before continuing.
‘Amethyst Amelia was educated under the capable tutelage of the Gaskell Street Presbyterian Church School and I paid the teachers handsomely to make sure that she acquired all the skills a woman of the classes above her might need to know. In short, she could fit into any social situation without disgracing herself.’
Daniel suddenly knew just where this conversation was leading to. A dowry. A bribe. The answer to his prayers for the selling of his soul.
‘You are single and available, my lord. You have two sisters who are in need of being launched into society, a mother who has fine taste in living and a grandfather who requires much in the way of medical attention. All continuing and long-term expenses. If you marry my daughter by the end of July, none of this will ever be a problem again and you will have the means to right the crumbling estate of Montcliffe once and for all.’
‘Get out, you bastard.’ Daniel’s anger made the words tremble. That a man he was beginning to respect and like should think of coming into his life to blackmail him into marrying his daughter. For that was what this was. Blackmail, even given the enormous amounts mooted.
But Cameron looked to be going nowhere. ‘I can understand your wrath and indeed, were I in your boots, I might have had exactly the same reaction. But I would ask you to think about it for at least a week. You have promised me your confidence and I expect that, for if a word of this gets out anywhere my daughter’s reputation will be ruined. Hence, as a show of my own gratitude for your discretion, I shall leave you the greys regardless of your final decision.’
‘I cannot accept them.’
‘Here is a document I have written up for your perusal and I earnestly hope to hear from you presently.’
With that he was gone, his glass emptied on the desk and a fat envelope left beside it. Daniel was in two minds as to what to do: send it back unopened with a curt message containing his lack of interest or open it up and see what was inside.
Curiosity won out.
The sheet before him was witnessed by a city lawyer whose qualifications seemed more than satisfactory. It was also signed by his daughter.
‘Damn. Damn. Damn.’ He whispered the words beneath his breath. The girl had been told of all this and still wanted the travesty? Finishing his brandy, he poured himself another as he read on, barely believing what was written.
He was to marry Amethyst Amelia Cameron before the month was finished on the condition that he have no relations with any other woman for two years afterwards.
Shocked to the core, he took a good swallow of the brandy. Amethyst Amelia Cameron would allow her father to sell her for the promise of what? Under the law any daughter could inherit money, chattels and unentailed property from a dying father and he obviously loved her. Besides, she had experience in the business and had turned profits for many a year. Cameron had told him that himself. So what was it that she would gain from such an arrangement? They barely knew each other and, even given she was from the trading classes, an heiress of her calibre could garner any number of titled aristocrats who were down on their purse.
As he was?
‘Hell!’ Daniel threw the parchment into a drawer and slammed it shut, but the promises festered even unseen, malevolent and beguiling.
How on earth had Cameron known so much about his financial difficulties? Would Goldsmith truly call in his brother’s loans against Montcliffe before he was ready for them? If he did that, Daniel would be forced to sell the town house, the manor, the surrounding farms and any chattels that would fetch something. Then the Wyldes would be homeless, moneylenders baying for their blood and all the claws unsheathed.
If it was just him, he might have been able to manage, but Cameron was perfectly correct; his sisters were young, his grandfather was old and his mother had always found her gratification in the position the earldom afforded them in society and had freely spent accordingly.
Standing, he walked to the window and looked out over the gardens, swearing as he saw the two greys tied to a post by the roadside and his butler near them, looking more than bewildered.
He had left them just as he’d said. It was begun already. Daniel turned to the doorway and hurried through it.
* * *
‘I think he took my proposal very well.’ Robert Cameron sipped at the sweet tea Amethyst had brought him and smiled.
‘You do?’
‘He is a good man with sound moral judgement and a love for his family.’
Amethyst bit into a ginger biscuit, wiping the crumbs away from her lips.
‘So he signed his name to the deed?’
‘Not quite.’
‘He didn’t sign it?’
Her father looked up. ‘He told me that I was a bastard for even suggesting such a thing and said that I should get out.’
‘But you left the greys?’
‘I did.’
‘And he has as yet not sent them back?’
‘He has not.’
‘Then it is a good omen.’
Robert frowned. ‘I hope so, Amethyst, I really do.’
Amethyst tried her hardest to smile. Papa had become thinner and thinner no matter what she might get their French chef to feed him and he had taken to striding about the house at night...watching. He was scared and those that might harm them for their money were becoming braver. The daylight attack near Tattersall’s had made her father paranoiac about any movement in their street, any unknown face around the warehouse. Nay, he was eating himself up with worry and she could allow it no longer.
Papa wanted her to be protected and he desperately wanted her to trust in a man again. With time running out for her father Amethyst had allowed him the choice of her groom. Said like that it sounded abhorrent, but nothing was ever as black and white as one might imagine and right now she wanted her father to smile.
‘We shall wait a week. If Lord Montcliffe has not come back to us by then with an answer, we will visit him together.’ She injected a jaunty positive note into her words but everything in her felt flat.
Gerald Whitely’s face shimmered in her memory. The feel of his anger was still there sometimes, just beyond touch, his angry words and then his endless seething silence. A relationship that had blinded sense and buried reason, one bad decision following another until there was nothing left of any of it.
Cold fingers closed over the cross at her throat. Her father was the one person who had stayed constant in her life and she would do whatever it took to see that he was happy. Anything at all.
‘Your mother made me promise to see you flourish, Amy. They were the last words she spoke to me as she slipped away and I had hoped that you would, but after Whitely...’ He stopped, his voice wavering and frighteningly thin. ‘Lord Montcliffe will make you remember to laugh again. He loves horses and they love him back. Any man who can win the trust of an animal is a good man, an honest man, and I can see that in him when I look him in the eyes.’
She hoped her smile did not appear false as he held her hand, the dearness of the gesture so familiar.
‘Promise me you will try to give him all your heart, body and soul, Amethyst. No reservations. It is how your mama loved me and there is no defence for a man against a woman like that. Such strength only allows growth and wonder between a married couple and I know you have been saddened by love...’
She shook his words away, the reminder of bitterness unwanted. Her choice, cankered before it had even begun.
‘When death claimed Gerald Whitely, my love, I was not sorry. Sense tells me that you were not either.’
So he knew of that? Another shame. A further deceit that had not remained hidden.
‘It was the Cameron fortune Gerald was after, Papa. Perhaps Lord Montcliffe and he are not so unalike after all?’
But her father shook his head. ‘Whitely fashioned his own demise. Daniel Wylde is only trying to clean up after the mistakes of his brother and father and is doing so to protect the family he has left.’
‘A saint, then?’ She wished that the caustic undertone in her words was not quite so unmistakable.
‘Hardly. But he is the first man you have given a second glance to. The first man who has made you blush. Such attraction must account for something because it was the same with Susannah and me.’
Despite everything she smiled. ‘I imagine that Lord Montcliffe has that effect upon everybody whoever meets him, Papa. I was not claiming him for myself.’
‘Because you do not trust your judgements pertaining to the acquisition of a husband, given the last poor specimen?’
Her father had never before, in the year since his death, spoken of Gerald Whitely in this way. That thought alone lent mortification to her sinking raft of other emotions.
Failure. It ate at certainty like a large rat at a wedding feast. Once she had chosen so unwisely she felt at a loss to ever allow herself such a mandate again. Perhaps that was a part of the reason she did not rally against her father’s arguments. That and the yellowing shades of sickness that hung in the whites of his eyes.
Death held a myriad of hues. Gerald’s had been a pale and unholy grey when she had seen him laid out in the undertaker’s rooms. Her mother’s had been red-tinged, a rash of consequence marked into the very fabric of her skin and only fading hours after she had taken her final and hard-fought breath.
Amethyst’s nails dug deep into her thighs as she willed such thoughts aside. A long time ago she had been a happier person and a more optimistic one. Now all she could manage was the pretence of it.
It was easier to allow Papa the hope of joy in his final months, the illusion of better times, of children, of the ‘heart and body and soul’ love her father had felt for her mother and which he imagined was some sort of a God-given rite of passage. Once she had believed in such a thing as well, but no longer.
All she could muster now was a horror for anything that held the hint of intimacy.
Blemished. Damaged. Hurt.
Daniel Wylde would understand sooner or later the payment required for the Cameron fortune and she was sure he would feel every bit as cheated as she did. But at least Papa would go to his grave believing that his only daughter was safe and happy, the soldier earl he had chosen for her strong enough to ward off any threats of menace.
She leaned down and picked up a small coin from a collection on a plate, balancing it in her palm before flipping it over. If it shows heads this marriage willwork and if it does not... When the coin fell to tails she chastised herself for playing such silly games.
* * *
When Daniel returned from an outing later in the day his mother was ensconced in the drawing room at the Montcliffe town house, a glass of his finest brandy in her hand and a thoughtful look upon her face.
‘Have you been procuring new horseflesh, Daniel? There is a pair of magnificent greys in your stable and I just wondered...’
‘They were a gift, Mother. I did not purchase them.’
‘A gift? From whom?’ The silk in the gown Janet, Lady Montcliffe, wore matched her eyes exactly, a deep sapphire blue. A new possession, he supposed, thinking of the demand for payment that would come across his desk before much longer.
He could have been truthful, could have simply stated that there was a possibility he would be married and that the greys had been a pre-wedding present, but something made him stop. Anger, he supposed, and shame and the fact that to voice such a thing might make it feel more real and true.
With the Camerons he felt removed from society. In their company the preposterous proposed union made a sort of skewed sense that it didn’t here in front of his mother.
When he didn’t answer, his mother remarked, ‘Charlotte Hughes is back from Scotland. I saw her today at the Bracewells and she asked after you. She is looking a picture of health and wealth and was sporting a necklace with an emerald attached to it the size of a walnut.’
‘I am no longer interested in Lady Mackay, Mama.’ He stressed her married name.
