Page 54 of How to Cross a Marquess (The Way to a Lord's Heart 3)

He was frowning at her. “If you’d just been born a boy, all would have been well.”

Something in Fenella snapped. “All?” she repeated. “What does that mean, precisely? Mama wouldn’t have sickened and died so young? Nora would be meek as milk? Last year’s grain harvest wouldn’t have been spoilt by a hailstorm? You wouldn’t be ill now?”

His head wobbled in a sort of half negative. His good hand twitched on the coverlet. Feeling guilty for her outburst, Fenella saw the thread of the argument leave him. His eyes grew vague. “Where’s Chatton gone?” he said.

“He died last—”

“Not him,” her father interrupted. “The younger one. His son. The one you were meant to marry. He was here.” He gave her a defiant look, daring her to contradict him.

Fenella nodded. Her father’s memory was erratic. He forgot so much, but then he remembered things one wished he would forget. Could he have sensed that her thoughts were full of Roger?

“I cannot believe you’re making the same mistake twice,” he went on in a fretful tone. “If you would just put forward a little effort, you could have him. He’s out there for the plucking. Why not grasp your chance? You’d outrank your sisters as a marchioness. You’d like that.”

Fenella was surprised. She didn’t think he’d noticed the friction with her older sisters. She was even more surprised to find that the idea had an appeal. She almost told him that she thought she would marry Roger. But she couldn’t quite give him the satisfaction after his criticisms about her sex.

“You’re less stupid than I used to think,” her father went on, destroying her impulse to confide in him. “Your grandmother did that much for you. And you’re not bad looking.” He surveyed her as if she was a brood mare. “Not as pretty as Greta or as lively as Nora, but well enough.”

He’d always had an instinct for the low blow. Lively as Nora who shrieked at her pony? “I don’t wish to talk about this, Papa.”

“Why not? There’s no impediment now. Everyone’s forgotten that stupid story Chatton spread about. Saying you killed his wife by encouraging her to go out riding in a storm.” He snorted.

She’d thought he hadn’t heard that, shut up in his sickroom as he was.

Her father gazed at her. “You didn’t, did you?”

“Are you seriously asking me that question, Papa?”

“You’re right. Don’t tell me.”

“Of course I did not!” Fenella exclaimed. “I tried to persuade her not to go.”

“Well, that was foolish.”

How could this be her father, Fenella thought. Was he really advocating murder? This must be his illness speaking.

“It was too much tosendher out into the storm,” he continued. “I see that. But why argue with her? It wasn’t your idea. Let the chit soak herself.”

“Because it was the right thing to do!”

He made a derisive sound. “She was no great loss. Pretty, I’ll give you that. Deuced pretty. But cold. Hoity-toity marchioness. She wasn’t liked, you know.”

“Please don’t say such things, Papa.” His attitude and tone saddened her. She’d thought him a better man than this.

“You always were a wet goose.” He spoke with a kind of contemptuous fondness that grated on Fenella more than anger.

“Promise me you won’t talk about this with anyone else,” she said. “Not Simpson. Not anyone.”

“I have no one to talk to,” he complained.

She started to press him. But her father’s promises held no weight these days. He forgot.

“You’re doing this just to spite me, aren’t you?” He picked at the bedclothes.

“Doing what?” Trying to keep him from ruining his reputation?

“You refuse to admit that I was right about Chatton. You’ll throw away your future rather than do so. You’re that stubborn!”

His mind drifted irresistibly back to his grievances. Nothing else stuck any more. Fenella looked at the prominent bones of his hands, the overly thin body under the bedclothes. Once, she’d wanted to prove her father wrong about many things. Suddenly, that seemed less important. She wondered if there was any chance of a better understanding between them before he was gone forever.

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