Surrender to Sin Page 31

  Red Ritchie was engaged in directing the work of a young draftsman whose task it was to meticulously draw each and every new object that came into the house; Red insisted upon thoroughly up-to-date inventories of all his possessions.

  Red welcomed his daughter’s interruption. “Abby, love! What did you buy? Higgins will draw it for you, won’t you, Higgins?”

  “Only a book,” said Abigail. “But I think I might have a buyer for the new coach, Papa.”

  “But I wanted you to have that carriage, Abby,” Red complained. “It was meant for a duchess. All right, Higgins, run along. That’s enough for the day.”

  Abigail waited for the young man to depart. “The buyer is very motivated. He offered me fourteen hundred pounds. That’s twice what you paid, isn’t it?”

  Red’s expression underwent a radical change. “Oh, well done, Abby!”

  “I knew you’d be pleased. He’ll come and see you tomorrow, he said.”

  “I wanted to get you something special for your birthday,” he said wistfully. “I may have to ask this fellow for more money. Do you think he would pay two thousand?”

  “Almost certainly,” Abigail said, smiling. “He seems to want it very badly.”

  “Then I might buy you a nice little phaeton for your birthday,” he said, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “You could drive me to the warehouse of a morning.”

  Abigail felt a stab of guilt. Soon she would be leaving her father’s house forever. Then he would live alone in his enormous Kensington mansion where no one ever visited him, and she would be miles away in Hertfordshire. How could she possibly tell him that she was planning to abandon him for a feckless young wastrel who didn’t pay his bills? His practical Glaswegian soul would neither understand nor forgive.

  “I suppose I could learn how to drive,” she said, trying to sound cheerful.

  “Of course you could,” he said warmly. “Won’t you look smart in your new phaeton, Abby! Just like one of these aristocratic ladies.” Suddenly, he smacked his forehead with his open palm. “Wouldn’t that have been something, if I’d only thought of it sooner? I could have had a Roman chariot made for you! Then you might have arrived at Carlton House in style! I wonder,” he mused, “if I promised Colfax a fortune…He might have something on the lot that could be modified…”

  “No, Papa,” Abigail said firmly. “Even if you could, I could never learn to drive in one evening. It would not be so stylish if I overturned!”

  “You are right,” he agreed, chewing his lower lip. “I ought to have gotten you driving lessons before. But, you know, in your mother’s day, respectable young ladies never took up the reins for themselves. It’s quite a recent development.”

  They went into the sitting room at the back of the house for their tea, which consisted of sandwiches and single malt, followed by hot, buttery scones. The tall French windows looked out onto the back garden, which had always been Abigail’s special project. It made her sad to think that her last view of it should be a winter view, with very little of spring’s promise in evidence.

  “I shall be leaving for Carlton House in very short order, I’m afraid,” her father told her at the end of the meal. “I want everything to be perfect for His Highness. I wouldn’t put it past those idiots at the warehouse to misdirect the deliveries, break half the bottles, and drink the other half themselves! If all goes well, Abigail, and the Regent is pleased, we’ll have the royal mark on the bottle, see if we don’t. That will give us just the boost we need.”

  “I’m sure His Highness will be pleased with everything,” said Abigail, frowning. “But…do you think we need a boost, Papa? Has there been a decline in revenue?”

  He brushed crumbs from his waistcoat. “Naught for you to worry about, Abby.”

  Abigail bit her lip. “I did hear you were threatening some delinquent accounts with debtor’s prison. That can’t be good for business. Gentlemen don’t respond as they should to such threats. Has custom fallen off so sharply that you are having to ask the gentlefolk to pay?”

  Her father looked at her sharply. “Who’ve you been talking to?”

  “No one,” she stammered. “It was just something I heard.”

  He stood up angrily and shoved his chair to one side. “I couldn’t help it, Abby! I saw his name on the books. One of your hoity-toity cousins, by God. One of those high-and-mighty Wayborns! After the way they treated your poor mother, God rest her soul, I’ll be damned if I extend any credit to that race of hypocrites. Not a farthing! Oh, they took my money quick enough when I married Anne, then turned their backs on her as if she’d been a leper!”

  “But those are the Derbyshire Wayborns,” Abigail said quickly. “Mr. Cary Wayborn is from Surrey. He’s nothing to do with Mama. It’s a completely different branch of the family.”

  “Well, he’s an insolent young pup,” Red grumbled. “He wears an earring, for the love of God. What is he, a pirate? He wants a beating, if you ask me.”

  “Papa!” she protested. “He’s my cousin, after all.”

  “You don’t know him, Abby. He’s a worthless young man without a penny to bless himself with, and he wouldn’t know good scotch if he sat on it. He couldn’t pay his bill, so he returned an entire case of single malt, untouched! What sort of a man orders a case of good whisky and then doesn’t drink it?”

  Abigail debated telling him that it was really her own scotch that Cary had returned, but she lacked courage. In any case, it would not improve her father’s opinion of the man she’d married. “He’s a gentleman, Papa. You know what they’re like about getting bills. And you sent him several, I believe, with red ink all over, as if he’d been an innkeeper or something.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it,” he said, swinging around to glare at her.

  In a way Abigail was glad she had aroused his suspicions; it encouraged her to tell him what she might otherwise have been too cowardly to reveal. “Well, I have met him actually. We are distantly related, you know.”

  For a moment Red observed his daughter as she sat twisting her hands together, unable to meet his gaze. “Met him? Met him how?”

  “I stayed at his house in Hertfordshire,” she replied, trying to sound casual.

  He stared at her. “What? Abby, I rented you a perfectly good house.”

  “Yes, sir. You did. It was Mr. Wayborn’s house. Did Mr. Leighton not tell you?” she quickly added, hoping to deflect some of Red’s growing annoyance onto the attorney.

  “He did not. He said it belonged to some clergyman friend of his, a Dr. Cary.”

  “You must have misunderstood, Papa. Dr. Cary is Mr. Wayborn’s cousin, but he does not own the estate. It’s a very handsome and extensive property,” she went on, choosing details most likely to impress her father, “encompassing several rich farms and many beautiful, productive orchards. The house is the most charming example of a Tudor manor I have ever seen. It has been in Mr. Wayborn’s family for hundreds of years. He is very well-respected in that part of the country.”

  Red grunted. “So he owns a bit of land, does he? I daresay it must be entailed, or he would sell it off to pursue a life of unfettered extravagance.”

  “Indeed it is not entailed,” Abigail was happy to inform him. “It was left him outright by his grandmother. I believe it is something in the neighborhood of ten thousand acres. As you know, Hertfordshire is some of the richest farmland in all England.”

  “If he’s so rich, why doesn’t he pay his bills?” Red demanded.

  “You offended him, Papa,” she said gently.

  Red snorted unpleasantly. “Did Mr. Weston offend him too? And Mr. Hoby? As far as I can tell, the only place the man’s paid up is Tattersall’s.”

  Abigail suppressed a smile. Of course, Cary would pay for his beautiful horses, and let everything else go to the devil. “How would you know that, Papa?” she asked suddenly, as an unpleasant thought entered her mind.

  “No one has ever returned so much as a thimbleful of my sco
tch,” he grumbled. “This arrogant pup returned an entire case! Naturally, I made it my business to buy up all his debts in London. You say I offended him. Well, he offended me! Nothing will content me until I see him in debtor’s prison.”

  Abigail gasped. “Papa, you can’t!”

  “No, I can’t,” he glumly agreed. “For they wouldn’t sell me his debts. Not a one of them from Jermyn Street to Bond. Not even your friend at Mr. Hatchard’s shop. They all seem to think he will make good one day.”

  Abigail’s heart swelled with pride. “What does that tell you, Papa? They know Mr. Wayborn is a gentleman. No matter what he owes, they will not betray him.”

  Red was unmoved. “What does it tell me?” he snarled. “He’s got you all fooled, that’s what it tells me. I had ample time to take Mr. Wayborn’s character when he returned my scotch. Very high-and-mighty he was in his purple coat, too! He said my Glaswegian swill wasn’t fit to be drunk by English gentlemen!”

  “You should not have sent him all those bills, Papa,” she blurted without thinking.

  “You take his side against mine?” Red bellowed, incensed by his daughter’s disloyalty. “You hardly know the man. Well, I may not be a fine gentleman like Mr. Wayborn, but I am your father, Abigail, in case you’ve forgotten. And I didn’t raise you to be a lady so’s you’d look down your nose at me.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa,” she said quietly. “I’m not looking down my nose at you. It’s business. What you did was not good for business. No gentleman would ever tolerate such treatment from a tradesman. You could only succeed in provoking him. What is the first rule of business?”

  Red looked away. “Never make a decision based on emotion.”

  “I know you did it because of Mama, and I love you for that. But Mr. Cary Wayborn is not to blame for what the Derbyshire Wayborns did to Mama. And you can’t blame him for being angry with you when you went out of your way to offend him.”

  Red made no reply.

  “I also had an opportunity to take Mr. Wayborn’s character. I thought him very…gentlemanlike,” said Abigail, conveniently forgetting Cary’s frequent lapses in propriety when he was alone with her.

  Red flung up his hands incredulously. “Gentlemanlike? God and Highlanders, child! The man’s got an earring. Oh, I daresay he makes a lovely lady’s lapdog. I daresay he knows how to make himself agreeable to women. Did he make himself agreeable to you?”

  Abigail knew she was now on very dangerous ground. “He was a very attentive landlord and host,” she said cautiously. “He…dined with us occasionally.”

  “Did he? I shall have to send him a bill for those dinners!” said Red. “Come to think of it, I had Leighton pay out half a year’s rent. As you are certainly not going back to that house, I shall demand a refund.”

  “You don’t care about the money,” she accused him. “You’re just being vindictive.”

  “If I didn’t know better, lass, I’d say you were smitten with him.”

  “Papa, please.” Abigail’s face was red as fire.

  “Great God!” he choked. “That’s it, isn’t it? The impertinent wretch has been making love to you! Mark my words, child. A man like that is only interested in one thing from a girl like you.”

  “Well, some men are very passionate,” she stammered defensively.

  “I was talking about your fortune!” cried Red, appalled.

  Abigail realized she had made a critical error. “If his view is marriage, I see nothing wrong with that,” she added quickly.

  “So his view is marriage, is it?” Red tucked his hands behind his back and took a stroll about the room. “I’ll just bet it is. Oh, Abigail! How could you be so foolish? The man is an obvious fortune hunter.”

  “He doesn’t know I have a fortune,” she protested. “He thinks I’m somebody called Smith. He hasn’t the least thought of marrying into a fortune.”

  “That is what all fortune hunters say!” her parent responded derisively. “Depend on it; he has found you out. He’s plotting to get his hands on your money. My money!”

  “That is not rational,” she pointed out. “If he knew I was your daughter, and he was a fortune hunter, he would have paid his bill. By no means would he have returned your scotch.”

  Red was hard-pressed to explain Cary’s behavior. “He must be trying to throw us off the scent,” he said, after a moment. “Oh, my poor lass! Has he imposed on you very badly?”

  “Mr. Wayborn is not a fortune hunter,” she said firmly. “If anything, he does not care enough about money. His family have all pressed him to marry a rich wife, for the good of the estate, but he refuses.”

  “Good,” said Red. “In that case, I need not worry. You are quite safe from him.”

  Abigail was stung by her father’s sarcasm. “He is too proud to marry for money.”

  “He has convinced you, I see. Tell me, when he discovers your dark secret, do you imagine his pride will prevent him from marrying you? Perhaps he has other, less amiable qualities which will make the arrangement palatable to him. Such as greed, perhaps?”

  For once, Abigail refused to be cowed by him. “You think him a mercenary, but you do not know him. He has many fine qualities. Indeed, in some ways I think he is quite heroic. Did you know that, when he was only eighteen, he left University and enlisted in the ranks? He fought in Spain for nearly two years. He might have been killed.”

  “I wish he had been! That he should not have lived to trifle with my child!”

  “Do you not think it heroic?” Abigail insisted. “He might easily have stayed at Oxford and never known a moment’s danger.”

  “What does it signify, child?” he said impatiently. “You don’t need a hero. You are not standing in the path of an advancing army. The only danger you are in is the danger of making a foolish match. What you need is a steady, sensible, dependable fellow with a good head on his shoulders, plenty of money of his own, and, of course, a title. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to your mother, and you owe it to me. After all, I have invested a great deal in your upbringing, your gowns, your jewels, and your education. I have spared no expense. I will not see you throw yourself away on something as paltry as a hero.”

  “You think I ought to have married Dulwich instead, don’t you?” Abby cried. “Well, he was a fortune hunter. You were going to pay him fifty thousand pounds!”

  “A bargain price! Don’t forget, he stands to inherit an earldom when Lord Inchmery dies. I don’t mind fortune hunters, Abigail, provided the man has something to offer in exchange. A man with a title needn’t be ashamed of holding out for a rich wife. Nobody likes to see an impoverished earl, after all. It hurts the whole country. Dulwich turned out to be all wrong for you, but that doesn’t mean we give up. It was your mother’s wish that I return you to the sphere she was forced to quit when she married me. I promised her.”

  “Mama would want me to be happy,” she protested. “And I am convinced she would not hold Mr. Wayborn in contempt. For that matter, he is her relation. He is a gentleman. His brother is a baronet. And if his estate is not perfectly solvent now, it will be in my power to make it so. When you married Mama, you performed a similar service to her father, I believe.”

  This proved to be her most incendiary statement thus far. “How dare you compare your sainted mother to this worthless scoundrel? I swear to almighty God, Abigail, if you marry this man over my objections, I shall have no choice but to cut you off. When I said I’d not extend him a farthing in credit, I meant it. He’ll never see a penny from me, living or dead. I’ll make certain he knows it too. I daresay his interest in you will take a little turn when he hears that.”

  Abigail closed her eyes. Here was the rift she had dreaded more than anything, but now that the blow had fallen she felt curiously calm. There was nothing more to fear. “I have money of my own, Papa,” she said quietly. “I am twenty-one. I am free to choose my own husband, surely. That is the law. Naturally, you are free to do as you please with your own money.”<
br />
  This was not the reply Red had expected. In all her life, Abigail had never seriously opposed him. Any difference of opinion between father and daughter had always been settled in his favor with very little fuss. He found her sudden show of determination quite disturbing.

  “Abby!” he said plaintively. “I cannot believe you are quarreling with me over this worthless young man! We who never quarrel, but are as close as father and daughter can be. You have always been the most dutiful of daughters. I can only take this as a sign of the man’s unhealthy influence over you.”

  “We never quarrel, Papa, because I always give in,” she answered with the same eery calm that threatened his peace in a way tears and hysterics would not have done. “And I have always given in because I want you to be happy.”

  “And now you no longer care if I am happy, is that it, lass? I’m only your father.”

  “I’m sorry if you are unhappy, sir,” she said, amazed by her own indifference.

  “Abigail, you will not defy me!” he railed. “You may be twenty-one, but I am still your father. I know what is best for you. When you have had time to reflect on this regrettable business, you will see that I am right. You will thank me for keeping you from making such a bad bargain.”

  “Marriage is not a bargain, Papa.”

  “No, it is speculation! Would you put your entire future at risk simply because a good-looking man paid you a little attention? I know the sort of man he is, too: so conceited he can never rest until every girl in the room is in love with him. I suppose you think he loves you.”

  Abigail sighed. No, she could not claim that Cary loved her. He had never said so.

  Her father sensed capitulation in her sigh. “Don’t be too unhappy, Abigail,” he said with a relish she could not help but despise. “You are not the first girl to be taken in by that chancy young man, I’ll warrant. But he will soon be got over. I will buy you the prettiest phaeton I can find. You shall have driving lessons, and a pair of snow-white high-steppers or high-flyers or whatever it is you young people call horses these days.”