Page 18 of How to Wed a Courtesan

Evander tilted his glass to his lips and drained the brandy as the solicitor had done. It did nothing to ease the tension in his chest. He’d had many dealings with his father’s steward in overseeing their land. Never once had he mentioned dwindling wealth.

A sudden thought prickled through Evander like crackling ice. If there were no funds remaining to pay his father’s debts, he could not afford to purchase Huntly Manor. He could not make good on his promises to Lottie.

She deserved better than this. She deserved to be mistress of a grand estate while draped in the most fashionable gowns, visiting the finest establishments London had to offer and seeing an opera every damn night if she chose to do so.

That was what Evander had intended to give her. Now he could offer nothing but debt and a future of ruin.

Rage filled him all at once, for the father who had shirked his responsibility towards them for years in favour of his damnable adventure club, traipsing around the bloody world for trinkets while they all grew colder and more distant at his behest. And now this—to be left with nothing but the Westix title, which would, at best, give them only a few more months of living on credit.

Suddenly his father’s recent obsession with a missing ruby made sense. The Coeur de Feu was doubtless worth a fortune—one that might recompense their own, which had been so frivolously spent.

‘Bollocks he was unaware,’ Evander muttered.

‘I beg your pardon, my lord?’ Mr Edsby lifted his brows.

Evander shook his head, putting aside the bitter remark. ‘I need to think. Surely there is something that can be done?’

‘If I may be so bold, my lord...?’ Mr Edsby let the suggestion hang in the air, waiting for permission.

Evander regarded the solicitor with desperation. ‘By all means.’

‘You are still in possession of The Adventurer—the vessel the former Earl used in his travels. I am also aware he took considerable notes on his journeys.’

Mr Edsby turned in his chair to regard the shelves filled with his father’s journals, all stamped with that ridiculous adventure club compass.

‘I will not waste what little we have left and push my family into further ruin by leaving them to travel around the world myself.’

Evander took the other man’s glass from where it had been set on the edge of the desk and marched across to refill them both. If ever there was a call for a considerable amount of brandy, it was in this moment.

‘You misunderstand me,’ Mr Edsby said. ‘Your father went for fame.’ He accepted the glass with a grateful smile upon Evander’s return. ‘Fortune is far easier to come by across the ocean.’ His forehead wrinkled. ‘If you went with that purpose in mind, I believe you would find yourself quite a wealthy man once more.’

‘What of my mother and sister?’

‘Ah, now that matter is in good order.’ The solicitor set aside his drink to rifle through a stack of papers. Finding the one he needed, he plucked it from the pile and regarded it through the lenses of his spectacles. ‘Lady Westix had a trust set up in her name after she married your father. It has sufficient funds to cover her expenses for at least five years—six if she is frugal.’

His mother was not frugal. Nor was Eleanor. Five, then. Maybe even four.

Could Evander truly find a way to make a fortune through his father’s compendium of travel notes?

He reconsidered the notebooks with renewed interest.

Two days later, he had his answer. Based on his father’s reporting, and that of his fellow club members, who had all marked various locations throughout the journals, finding opportunities to make money abroad was not difficult. By Evander’s estimation it would take approximately six months. At most a year.

After explaining circumstances to his mother, he received her blessing. Both of them agreed to keep the matter from Eleanor, who would hopefully remain oblivious until his return.

Now he need only tell Lottie of the delay that would keep them from being together for a little while longer. Surely once she realised fortune would be at the end of the long wait, and she would be a wealthy countess, she would understand.

The days Lottie spent without Evander seemed to drag on for the span of a lifetime.

She continued her walks at the usual time every day, in the hope he would eventually join her.

The bend she rounded reminded her most of him. It was where he would wait for her in those weeks they had walked together and fallen in love. And near the place where they had given themselves to one another in body as they had in soul.

It made her breath quicken to think of it—how he’d touched her, how their bodies had joined so completely, creating sensations of love unlike anything she had ever dreamed possible.

Nearly a fortnight of walking around that notable corner of the trail had passed before she encountered a wonderfully familiar sight. A tall gentleman with auburn hair and a lean, muscular frame.

She cried out when she saw him, and raced the short distance into his arms. He wrapped her in his strong embrace, filling her with sensual notes of sandalwood that brought a swell of such joy and affection it seemed as though her heart would burst.