Page 21 of The Hero

Edward’s eyes glittered with resentment. “So upset he halved my allowance until I had paid him back the amount in full.”

“And threatened to cut you off completely if it should ever happen again,” she reminded. “Edward, please tell me you have not incurred more debts?” she persisted.

He huffed. “Do not ‘Edward, please’ me when you are too stupid to encourage the interest of a man as wealthy as the Duke of Oxford.”

“And if his intentions are dishonorable?” Harry could not see them being anything else, considering who Gideon was and her own lack of social graces.

“What does that matter when, I am sure, for the few months you held his interest, Oxford would shower you with expensive gifts, such as jewelry, which you might sell once the affair is over?”

“After which my reputation would be in tatters,” she scoffed.

“You are unruly, ill-mannered, and too outspoken by far, so let us not fool ourselves into believing your marriage prospects were very high to begin with.” He scowled as he threw his napkin onto the tabletop. “And do not think for a single moment that I will be inviting my spinster sister to reside with me and my wife after Papa is gone.”

Harry’s eyes were wide at the sudden onslaught of this unprovoked personal attack. “Papa has a fever. He is not on death’s door. Nor, as far as I am aware, have you as yet found a woman willing put up with your disreputable self. Have you?” she added uncertainly when she saw how her brother’s jaw had tightened.

“I have…possibilities in mind.”

“Who?”

“Margaret Layton, for one.” He named the daughter of a local landowner close to the Dunhill estate in Gloucestershire, the family’s wealth having been accrued in the Indies.

“She is barely out of the schoolroom,” Harry rebuked.

“Which means she will be completely malleable and won’t interfere with my…other interests. Especially if she were to begin breeding immediately.”

Harry wrinkled her nose. “That is a disgusting attitude to take toward your future wife.” Despite being three years older than Margaret, Harry was acquainted with her and knew her to be a very shy young lady. Taking a man as selfish and bombastic as Edward as her husband would utterly destroy her.

Edward grinned. “No one in Society marries for love, Harry.”

“Is there no one else who has taken your interest?” The thought of him offering for Margaret was completely unacceptable.

“Lady Clara Faulks—”

“According to our aunt, Lady Faulks is ten years your senior and has already buried two husbands in the past five years.” Lady Whiting was always full of the gossip of the ton when she returned from the London Season.

“But she is rich, my dear sister.” Edward smirked. “Very rich.”

“Are you that desperate for money you would marry a woman only for her fortune?” Could Gideon be right after all in his assertion that a desperate man could be pushed into taking desperate measures if his way of life was threatened?

Oh, she did not for a moment think that could be true of her father.

But she suspected Edward could be, in the right circumstances.

Their father might be mild-mannered, but he was also a man who never said what he did not mean. He had meant it when he told Edward that he had paid off his debts for the last time.

This conversation with Edward seemed to imply he had no scruples when it came to the way in which he acquired the money needed to continue with his habit of gambling and losing.

Admittedly, Edward had not been in the same regiment as Plymouth at Waterloo, but he had been present on the battlefield that day. Harry knew little about battlefields, but she imagined during the height of the fighting that it would be easy to seek out and slay another soldier with no one being the wiser. Indeed, she had heard that enlisted men had been known to do that to the officers they disliked.

The very thought of Edward involved in something so nefarious made Harry feel ill.

He shrugged. “If you made yourself more pleasant to Oxford, I would not need to do so.”

“Do not put solving the problem of paying your debts onto me,” she warned. “When I marry, if I marry, it will be for love.”

“Which is why you will never marry at all,” Edward sneered before striding from the room.

Harry had never been able to understand how she and Edward, brought up by the same two loving parents, were so totally unalike.

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