Page 12 of The Lady's Last Mistake
Unfortunately, the marquess had given him only until the first of January to select a wife.
“I’ve come about Father’s dinner tonight,” James said to change the subject.
“I haven’t heard about any dinner.”
His brother rose to his feet, looking suddenly eager to depart. “This is you hearing. And you’re to be there. No excuses. Eight o’clock.”
He groaned. “I presume several unmarried ladies and their mothers will be in attendance,” Grant said, pushing off from the edge of his desk as James headed for the exit.
“Our father is a hard man, I’m not ignorant to that. But you are two and thirty, brother. You should marry.”
Thorns pricked the underside of his skin. “Iwasmarried. How is it that everyone constantly seems to forget that?”
James cocked his head. Then came forward and clasped Grant’s shoulder. “No one has forgotten. We all loved Sarah. But it has been eight years.” He gave a small shake of his head. “It is time to move on.”
It wasn’t a new sentiment. The first person to suggest it, just three months after Sarah’s death, had received a broken nose and a cracked front tooth. He couldn’t even recall the man’s name. At that time, Grant had been visiting houses of vice nearly every night of the week to numb his incessant pain. His practice had been a shambles, his patients withdrawing to allow him time to grieve. But it was not acceptable for men to grieve for too long. He would recover, he'd been told, and find a new wife. Have more children. The comments had left him cold, and curious as to just how many men actually loved their wives.
He’d loved Sarah with blind passion. He’d worshipped her. She’d been beautiful, of course, but that hadn’t been his sole reason. There had been so many little things about her, like her subdued wit, her penchant for anything pink, and her truly awful singing voice. It had been horrendously off key, and she’d known it, so she would abuse his ears with little songs whenever she felt the urge to annoy him. Not that it ever truly did. And yet, eight years on, he found he couldn’t hear it anymore in his memory the way he once had.
James released his shoulder. “Besides, haven’t you grown tired of superficial liaisons?”
“No.” Not when they were the extent of what he was willing to risk.
Superficial rake. It was what Cassie had accused him of being when she’d walked in on Lady Brookfield showing him her mole. It was mostly accurate. He was superficial in manyways. He was a rake too, though he limited his number of bed partners to a healthy one-at-a-time—unlike many true rakes he knew.
Still, hearing Cassie accuse him of superficiality had struck with insult, while his brother’s acknowledgement of it had left nary a mark.
He straightened up and cleared his throat. “I’ll be at the damnable dinner, but I cannot promise I’ll be on my best behavior.”
He had a reputation to uphold, after all.
“You’d best try,” James said on his way out. “Just pick a wife and be done with it. Father is serious about this. He holds the power to reduce your income to a pittance?—”
“As I well know,” he interjected, the threat like the nick of a blunted razor.
“Enough for you to get by on bread and ale alone,” James went on.
“Yes, yes, do shut up and leave.”
His brother winked and did just that.
Christ. Bread and ale. Had he received even a solitary display of affection from his father over the course of his life, Grant might doubt the veracity of the warning. But the marquess did not make idle threats. And should Grant’s income dry up, he’d be left with nothing but his physician earnings. It wouldn’t be near enough to run this household and the free clinic. One solution he’d considered had been to leave Thornton House and live in Whitechapel at the Church Street clinic. He leased the entire building, which consisted of two floors and six rooms. But he’d already shoved that option into the rubbish. He wanted to be philanthropic, not poor—which hewould be, once his upper-class patients learned he was doctoring to the pestilence ridden masses.
It brought his mind back to Lady Cassandra. She knew all about Dr. Brown now. Unlike Hannah, Hugh Marsden, and the few others who knew about the clinic, like his driver Merryton and of course, Goodwin, Grant didn’t fully trust that Cassie would stay mum about it. Given her short temper and her impulsivity, he felt slightly precarious about the whole thing.
“Should I ready your bag?” Hannah asked as she entered the study. “It’s nearly noon, and I suspect you’ll want to check in on last night’s patient.”
She knew him well.
“Thank you,” he said as anticipation churned his stomach. As much as he hoped Cassie was not there, he couldn’t deny that it would be convenient. They needed to speak. And he would not shut up until he got the answer he wanted.
Chapter
Five
Lately, getting to Hope House had become more difficult, and the twinge of annoyance Cassie had started to feel for Genie, the Duchess of Fournier, had grown into a fully-fledged cramp. Considering Cassie’s sister-in-law was one of the kindest, gentlest, and most likable people she had ever known, that cramp of annoyance came in tandem with one of guilt.
Genie was only trying to help Cassie discover her purpose, and by accepting invitations to teas and charity luncheons on their behalf, she believed she was giving Cassie opportunities to do just that.
