Page 5 of The Devil of Clan Sinclair
“Practical? Logical?” Enid asked.
Virginia walked to the window, trying to find some way to respond.
“Do not think Jeremy will support us, my dear. He will banish us from this house with a quickness that will surprise you. What he doesn’t do, his harridan of a wife will. They’ll care nothing for what happens to us.”
“Would you?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at her mother-in-law. “If the situation were reversed, would you care for Jeremy and his wife?”
“And their brood of children?” Enid sighed deeply. “I don’t know. They’re badly behaved children.”
Virginia bit back a smile. Yes, they were, and she dreaded any occasion when she had to encounter Jeremy’s seven children.
If Lawrence had left behind one child, they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Her mother-in-law was a planner, witness her brilliance in arranging a marriage between Lawrence, an invalid, and an American heiress. One thing Enid hadn’t been able to do, however, was inspire Lawrence to bed his wife on more than one occasion.
She rarely called Enid “Mother,” falling back on a habit of not addressing her at all unless it was in the company of others. Her own mother had died at her birth, a fact she’d been reminded of endlessly as a child. Not by her father, who seemed surprised when she was trotted out for his inspection at Christmas and during his one summer visit. A succession of nurses and governesses, all hired to tend her and keep her out of her father’s way, ensured she knew her entrance into the world had been accompanied by the greatest tragedy.
She couldn’t even imagine her mother’s disembodied voice on this occasion. Would she have sided toward logic and survival? Or would her mother have been horrified at Enid’s suggestion?
“Something must be done,” Enid said. “You know as well as I.”
The title was going to pass to Lawrence’s cousin, Jeremy. He was a perfectly agreeable sort of person, pleasant to Virginia when they met. She didn’t see anything wrong with him assuming the title. The problem was, everything Lawrence had purchased since receiving the bulk of her estate: the numerous houses, parcels of land, dozens of horses, farm equipment, and furnishings. Lawrence had ensured they would also go to his cousin by willing them to the “male heir of his body.” Without an heir, the property traveled back up the family tree to Jeremy.
Without any cash or assets they could sell, they’d be penniless.
All she had was her quarterly allowance, and it wouldn’t buy more than a few bottles of perfume. She had her mother’s jewels, but they were more sentimental than valuable since her mother evidently had not been ostentatious in her dress. One good ruby brooch and a carnelian ring could be sold. How much would those bring her? Not enough to care for all the people who needed to be supported.
They were in dire straits, indeed.
Unless she produced an heir to the estate.
What Enid was proposing was shocking. Somehow, she needed to get with child and quickly enough that he would be viewed as Lawrence’s heir.
“It’s a solution to our dilemma,” Enid said. “Have you given any thought to it?”
She nodded. She’d thought about nothing but their situation in the last four hours. God help her, but here in this room with her husband’s body in a casket, she’d thought about nothing but him.
Macrath.
Chapter 2
London
A year earlier
When they’d arrived in London, Virginia had no idea she’d be heartily tired of the city within the month.
Tonight’s ball was the third in two weeks, and the tenth engagement. Through it all, she saw the same people in different attire. The muscles of her face ached from smiling. Her feet hurt from walking on hardwood floors in her thin kid slippers.
She wanted to put her feet up, first, and second, she couldn’t wait to read the broadsides her American maid had smuggled to her. Her father had come to her room, interrupting them, so she’d folded them quickly and stuffed them into her reticule, and all night she’d been dying to see what the talk of London was now.
She slipped away, retreating to their host’s library. Settling into the corner of the settee and tucking her feet beneath her, she retrieved the broadside and smoothed it with her fingers.
On Monday an inquest was held at the National School, before Mr. Worley, coroner, to inquire into the cause of the death of Thomas Newbury, a boy who was found dead with his throat cut in a pea-field, near Haversham.
A sad, a cruel dreadful deed,
To you I will unfold, The murder of a little boy,
