Page 43 of Heiress Gone Wild

“It was before she was a duchess, and no, she didn’t actually get arrested, but it was a near shave. She’d been on some march for the vote, and she and some of her friends got hauled in by a constable. No fear of that happening nowadays, of course.”

“No, I don’t suppose a constable would dare to drag a duchess off to jail. And there’s no need for her to march anyway, is there? Surely a duchess has more effective, less overt ways of swaying public opinion.”

“Quite so. If her letters to me are any indication, she’s been working on Jamie and his lot mercilessly.”

“Jamie?”

“Torquil’s brother-in-law, his late sister Patricia’s husband. He’s in Parliament. He was in the Commons, but he lost his seat after one term—if I’m remembering Irene’s letters correctly. A few years later when his father died, he took his father’s seat in the Lords, so Irene still works on him about the vote every chance she gets.”

“He lost his seat in the House of Commons because of the duchess’s suffragist work?”

“No, I believe it was because he married someone notorious. Not the duke’s sister. I’m referring to his second wife, Amanda, who had some scandal attached to her name.”

“Don’t talk to me of scandals,” she said, holding up her hand with a groan. “I’ve heard enough of those during the last six days to last a lifetime. Tell me about your other sister instead. What’s she like?”

“Clara?” His grin vanished, his countenance becoming thoughtful. “Clara’s a bit of a dark horse. She’s quiet, shy, with a sphinxlike ability to hide what she’s thinking. God only knows what she thinks of me nowadays.”

“What do you mean?”

He was silent a long moment. “Do you remember that first night aboard ship, when I told you about my father?” he asked at last.

“That he disinherited you? Yes, of course.”

“That wasn’t the whole story. When my father booted me out, he told me I’d never amount to anything, and when your father and I struck silver, I knew I had the chance to prove my old man wrong. I couldn’t give up that chance.”

Marjorie frowned, puzzled. “Why should you have had to?”

“Because I’d already told my sisters I’d come home. Irene was getting married, and she didn’t want to run the paper once she became a duchess, so she asked me to take it over. Clara didn’t want to have anything to do with the newspaper business in those days. Like you, she wanted to have a London season, find a husband, get married—all that. So, for her sake, I agreed to come home and run Deverill Publishing. But the truth is... I didn’t want to do it.”

“But why not? It was your dream. Weren’t you jumping at the chance to have it back?”

He gave a short laugh and looked away. “You’d think I would have been, wouldn’t you? But once you’ve had a dream snatched from you, it’s damned hard to give it a second chance.”

Marjorie understood at once. “Yes, one doesn’t want to get one’s hopes up only to be disappointed again.”

“Exactly.”

“But why would you have reason to think that would happen?”

“Because even though Irene ran the paper, our father still owned it, and I knew he’d fight me tooth and nail. Oh, Irene said she’d make sure that didn’t happen, that when she got back from her honeymoon, we’d stand against my father together—all three of us. But if that failed—which was quite a likely thing, in my opinion—our father would have booted me out of the company again, and none of us would have been able to stop it. And besides—”

He broke off, still staring out the window.

“And besides...?” she prompted.

“Oh, let’s be honest.” He looked at her, and in his eyes, there was a glint of the same defiance she’d seen the first time he’d talked about his father. “After nearly four years in America, I didn’t have much to show for it. My pride just couldn’t stomach coming home to be under my father’s thumb, to watch him smirk and hear him crow. When Billy and I struck silver, it was like the answer to a prayer.”

“Except that you left your sisters in the lurch.”

He sighed, his defiance vanishing. “Yes,” he admitted. “Clara, in particular. She got stuck running things on her own. As I said, she’s always been shy, and the idea of being in charge must have been terrifying to her.”

“Do you think she’s holding a grudge about that?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “She writes to me, says what happened is all water under the bridge. She still runs the company and seems to enjoy it, she married Viscount Galbraith, and loves him madly, so...”

“So, all’s well that ends well,” Marjorie finished for him, watching him closely. “Right?”

“I’m not sure,” he confessed. “I let her down. I made her a promise, and I broke it. I don’t like breaking promises.” He took a deep breath and looked at her again. “Which brings me to you.”

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