Page 22 of Go, Rogue

Chapter

9

“It was June, you know,” Catherine begins, “when I was officially, finally engaged. We’d held the Betrothal Ball weeks before, but my cousin, the new Earl of Chester, was in no hurry to get the paperwork in order. Mother and I waited and waited but nothing ever came. Not until that awful heat wave. You remember, the one where it felt like you were wading through wet blankets just to breathe?”

“Aye,” McGann says. “I remember.”

“Right about that time, Janet, my lady’s maid, you’ll recall, woke me with a note from the solicitor, Mr. Wilson. He sent an identical one to Mother, so I knew it must be something about the marriage contracts or Chester House.

“We’d been waiting on some definitive news of both ever since Sedgwick, or Chester, rather, my cousin, came to town. Sedgwick decreed I would marry by the end of the season and that we depart Chester House, but he’d never given us any other details, nor a sense of timing.

“Or so I understood, anyway. Just as I understood he had every right to do it. After father died, it was all his: the money, the title, the land, all of it. So, it wasn’t so much the declarations that stung—we knew what was to happen—it was the not knowing when that drove me to distraction.”

“Losing your family money and home didn’t sting?” McGann asks, and Catherine’s brow furrows in response.

“It did, of course,” she says after a moment. “I was furious when I found out, but that was a year prior. I’d known since the reading of the will that Father left us with nothing.

“He’d always been angry, you know, that I wasn’t a boy. An heir. And he’s always disliked me for it, but I didn’t realize how much until he died and I had to sit in that stuffy solicitor’s office and hear, in front of everyone, how little he cared about me.” She takes a gulp of her wine. “He’d made no provision for mother and me at all, as if we did not merit so much as an afterthought.”

“His death was an accident, was it not?” McGann asks. “Perhaps with more time—”

“It would be nice to think so, wouldn’t it?” She tries to smile at him, but she can tell it’s unconvincing. Not a real smile at all. “But he made plenty of provisions for the new heir. Sedgwick inherited a great deal of instruction and forethought and planning. Reams of it. But nothing for us. So, no, I don’t think it would have been different had Father more time.” She takes another long draught of her drink. “I know it’s hard to believe a man wouldn’t care about his wife or child, but—”

“Nay,” he cuts her off. “That, I can well believe.”

She glances up at him, waiting for him to elaborate. But he doesn’t say more, so she continues. “Well, then, you’ll understand how it felt, to know that I’d have no portion of my own except a dowry that Sedgewick would set. My future husband would have access to more funds at the new earl’s discretion, but not me. Nor Mother. Nothing for her, even though it was her money that made the earldom solvent in the first place. As far as Father was concerned, she could eke out a living on the little she had inherited from her own marriage contracts.

“Knowing what little he thought us worth made me feel so small. Unimportant. And,” she searches his eyes, “exposed, if you understand what I mean. Father’s disregard for us was right out there for everyone to see. And then, when Chester didn’t bother to tell us anything at all except for those declarations—I’d marry, Mother and I would move—it felt as if it were happening all over again. That we didn’t even merit a note or a visit or an explanation of any kind. So, you can understand,” she looks at him and he nods, “how we might be anxious. We’d no real knowledge of what he’d planned for our futures at all.”

“Aye,” McGann says. “I can well understand being at the arse-end of a relationship with a peer.”

“Can you?” she asks but he doesn’t answer. Only waves her on to continue.

“So, I opened the note,” she says, “hopeful for some details on what was to become of us. I’d urged mother to write to the solicitor after the reading of the will but he’d never replied to her. Nor had Sedgewick. Sorry, Chester, rather.”

“And what did it say?” McGann asks. “The note?”

“There was only one line. ‘The betrothal papers have been signed,’ it read. And nothing more.”

“But that’s ludicrous! How could the man not say more?”

“Exactly!” Catherine feels a real grin sneak across her face at his commiseration. “That’s what I thought too. So, I had no choice, really.”

She watches McGann’s eyebrows rise. “You had no choice but to what, Menace?”

“To go and see Mr. Wilson, of course. And when I did, can you believe he tried to ignore me? He left me standing there on the doorstep. In all that dratted heat!”

“You are impossible to ignore. Had you an appointment?”

“No. I don’t think he would have taken one. He wasn’t my solicitor; he was Chester’s. And ladies are not supposed to visit a solicitor at their offices. We’re meant to sit at home and wait until one deems it convenient to come to us. It’s enraging. What happens if said solicitor refuses your correspondence as Mr. Wilson did to mother?”

“He’s a bloody fool, then.”

“I quite agree.” She nods her head emphatically and watches as little flecks of gold flutter around her head at the movement. “So, I went there myself and I waited. By the time the clerk finally let me in… well… Violet would say I was very sweaty by that point because I’d been left standing on the doorstep on what must have been the hottest day of the year. Mother would say I’d perspired, but I rather think Violet has the right of it. Sweat is the only correct word for the results of that temperature. And the inside of the office only made it worse. It was somehow hotter there, in the warren of desks and papers and dusty air, than outside. So much so that Janet waited in the carriage while I made my way inside. The less bodies in that small room the better. And the worst of it was, Mr. Wilson was nowhere to be found.

“The clerk tried to send me home, but I had no intention of going. Not after all that. I was prepared to wait the man out. And I’m glad I did, because then I saw him, through a little side door, with the Local Adonis, of all people.”

She looks up to see McGann nearly choke on his wine.