About a Rogue EPB Read online

  “I see,” he replied politely to the attorney.

  The captain was still speaking with the duchess, his shoulders hunched over as he bent his head down to hers. Max rested one hand on his hip and tapped his fingers. The velvet of his coat was worn there from the nervous habit. What was the captain so eager to know?

  He couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was trying to steal a march on him somehow. But how? The captain, as the duchess had spelled out earlier, had a nearer claim than Max, and nothing either of them did would change that. The captain had the inside lane already.

  But if the duchess approved of the captain’s bride, she might settle an additional amount on him. Was that what the man was after? Fifteen hundred pounds per annum was significant—a bloody fortune, in Max’s eyes—but it was surely a trifle to the mistress of Carlyle Castle. “Does she expect to choose our brides?” he murmured, only partly to the solicitor.

  Mr. Edwards’s face grew pained. “Indeed not. Surely—surely you wouldn’t think of wedding an actress or a courtesan?”

  “No,” said Max, smiling faintly at the confirmation that the attorney did, in fact, expect him to do precisely that. “Nothing like it.” His gaze lingered on the captain. That fellow wanted the duchess’s approval desperately, and he wasn’t hiding it.

  Max instinctively recoiled from doing the same. The duchess thought he was a thoroughgoing rogue already, incapable of making a correct decision. If the captain—who obviously stood far higher in her favor—allowed her to ride roughshod over him, she would think Max deserved it, too, if not worse.

  Max wasn’t about to let the duchess, or anyone, pull his strings.

  But perhaps . . . perhaps she had handed him the chance to cut those strings once and for all.

  Chapter Two

  For almost sixty years, a pottery works at the bottom of Marslip Hill had produced earthenware by the Tate family. It was in all respects a family business; each new generation of children was exposed to all aspects of the industry, to see where they might fit in best. Brides were wed from neighboring families, knowing what to expect and proud to ally themselves with the Tates.

  Like many family businesses, it had been the desire of each generation of Tates to see his sons join him and take over the works eventually. For three generations it had happened just that way. But the current owner, Samuel Tate, had no sons, only two daughters. And although he loved them both dearly, never had he wished for sons more than on this day, in the middle of this blistering argument with not just one but both daughters at once.

  “Papa!” Bianca was in a full-fledged fury. “You’ve gone mad!”

  “Not a bit,” he returned. “It’s a brilliant idea and will be the making of us.”

  “The making of you,” she flung back. “Not Cathy! You’re trying to ruin her life!”

  They both turned toward the elder sister, who had sat mute and morose through the entire argument. At their regard, tears obligingly welled up in her big blue eyes. One streaked down her pink cheek as if trailed by the brush of an artist. “No, Bee,” she protested, her voice raspy from tears. “That’s too far . . .”

  Bianca was having none of it. “Ruin,” she repeated forcefully. “Break her heart and overrule her will!”

  Their father made a face and waved one hand. “Spare me the dramatics. It’s an excellent match! She said herself it wouldn’t be anything like ruin.”

  Bianca’s fingers itched to throw something at him, and a compotier stood obligingly nearby, waiting on the corner of the table for approval. Unfortunately it was one of the new ones, shaped like a hollowed-out strawberry leaf with curling vines forming the handles and charming little clusters of berries nestled around the base. It had been made by their best modeler, a truly beautiful piece—so she reluctantly refrained. “Cathy should not have to say anything. She should have been the one who came to you about her marriage, not the other way around.”

  “Now, Bee,” Samuel said, putting his hands out diplomatically. “Would you have me throw aside a great opportunity for either one of you? St. James is a gentleman—what’s more, he’s a gentleman who’s heir to a duke.” He shook an admonishing finger. “Your sister, a duchess! And you want me to sit quietly by and tell him no, without even considering it?”

  Bianca folded her arms. “So you’re only considering it? And Cathy shall decide, freely and absolutely?”

  His gaze veered away. “I shall counsel her, of course . . .”

  “You’ve already made up your mind!” She paced the room, her skirts swinging and threatening the safety of a row of egg cups on the lower shelf, before abruptly stopping in front of her sister. “Cathy, do you want to marry Mr. St. James?” she asked, as evenly and calmly as she could manage.

  The tears pooled again. “It—it is a very eligible match,” said Cathy hesitantly. “And a great honor to be asked . . .”

  “And do you wish to be his wife, to live at his side and bear his children, to subjugate your desires to his own, to suffer his temper and indulge his vanities, from now until the day you die?” prompted Bianca.

  “And you accuse me of influencing her!” exclaimed their father, erupting from his seat.

  Another tear rolled down Cathy’s face. “Bianca . . .”

  “Do you?” Bianca repeated.

  Her sister’s eyes darted to their father, now glowering from his side of the room. “I—I don’t wish to disappoint Papa . . .”

  “See?” Samuel stalked over and took Cathy’s hand. “Catherine, my dear, I want your happiness—as well as your security and comfort, and a man like St. James can amply provide both.”

  “Not with any money of his own,” put in Bianca.

  “He’s a cousin of the Duke of Carlyle,” continued Samuel, his attention fixed on his elder daughter. “Imagine that! You would move in the finest circles, with duchesses and countesses—perhaps even princesses. Why, one outbreak of smallpox and you might become a duchess yourself.”

  “Perhaps you can ask the vicar to add that to the marriage service,” Bianca added snidely. “Blessed Lord, may it please you to smite the following persons with smallpox . . .”

  Samuel’s ears were red. He resolutely kept his back to her. “And he’s a handsome fellow, isn’t he? All the girls could hardly stop speaking of him when he came to dinner last month.”

  “Perhaps he’ll have one of them,” muttered Bianca. “Or more likely, all of them. He has a dissolute air about him . . .”

  “Young and clever, handsome and eligible,” finished Samuel in a growl, shooting a furious glance at his younger daughter, who only shrugged. “If you’d brought him to me, I would have given my blessing at once. Does it really matter who introduced him to you?”

  “Does it really matter who shares his bed and belongs to him?” Bianca tapped her chin as if in thought.

  “Enough!” roared Samuel, his patience gone at last. “That’s enough from you!”

  “And from you!” she blazed back. “Mama would be appalled!”

  That charge vibrated in the air. Cathy sucked in a frightened gasp. Samuel snatched off his wig and threw it on his desk, looking as though he were choking on a curse. “Enough,” he snarled. “Enough!” He stalked around the desk and put his hands on his hips, the sign he was done speaking to them, and they were expected to go.

  Still sniffling, Cathy rushed to the door. There she paused, clutching her apron, her flawless cheeks mottled red and her eyes waterlogged. “Bianca,” she said softly. “Come, Bee.”

  Bianca struggled, but there was no choice. Something must get through to her father about the barbarity of his actions. No—there was nothing else—it must be done. The compotier struck the wall with a satisfying, expensive crash. Ignoring both her pang of regret at destroying the piece and her father’s bellow of outrage, she stormed from the room, catching her sister’s hand and pulling her along, down the stairs out of the shop, and up the hill to their home.

  “How dare he!” she seethed, slamming
her way into the sitting room and sending Jane, the young maid, scuttling out with a yelp of panic. “He must have been struck by some horrible malady—perhaps stood too near the kilns and melted his brain—”

  “You know he didn’t.” Cathy, still gasping for breath after the furious charge up the hill, staggered to the settee and sank down. “An advantageous marriage is not an unreasonable thing for a father to suggest . . .”

  “Don’t ever say that!” Hands jammed on her hips, Bianca leaned over her wilting sister. “He proposed to sell you like a suckling pig in the market, without so much as asking your opinion!”

  “Now, Bianca.” Cathy shook her head in reproach. “That’s not the way it was.”

  “Why are you defending this?” Bianca was honestly amazed. “I thought you didn’t care for Mr. St. James at all.”

  The man who had lobbed his grapeshot shell of a marriage proposal into their happy family was not entirely a stranger to them. Maximilian St. James had met their father in London at a philosophical meeting, during a dinner at the home of one of Papa’s business associates. Samuel had come home impressed with the fellow, praising his intelligence and manners.

  Bianca, thinking him nothing more than another idle gentleman taking advantage of Lord Sherwood’s famed hospitality, had paid little attention. There was far too much for her to tend to at home to expend much care on any idle gentleman—for St. James was clearly a gentleman, not a working man. Despite Samuel’s obvious infatuation, he made no mention of anything useful that the man did, unlike Lord Sherwood, who had founded a practical school for artisans, or Mr. Hopkins, who crafted the most beautiful clocks when he wasn’t reading Diderot’s Encyclopédie.

  Then Samuel invited the man to Staffordshire, to their home. Dinner parties fell under Cathy’s purview: which tablecloths to use, how to arrange the silver to best reflect the flowers and candles, whether the goose should be dressed with watercress or stuffed with sage and bread. She had their mother’s flair for style and entertaining.

  That time Bianca did take note of Mr. St. James. It was hard not to, as he arrived like a peacock strutting into the midst of a bevy of plain, sober grouse. Tall and lean, he wore his dark hair unpowdered and long, not caring that it curled around his shoulders like a Boucher Madonna’s. The embroidery on his burgundy velvet coat sparkled in the candlelight, and his sharp London wit set him aside from the earnest scientists and philosophers who filled the table.

  Still, her feeling then had not been negative. Despite being so attractive, he was obviously well-read and, as Papa had said, intelligent. If he were pottery, though, he would have been a tureen: handsome and expensively made, drawing every eye around the table, but hollow, and good for nothing more than holding the humble soup. Bianca expected he’d got his fill of philosophy and commoners, and wouldn’t be back.

  Instead he reared his head mere months later—just yesterday in fact, proposing to marry Cathy, with whom he’d barely exchanged an hour’s conversation.

  “He’s a very eligible gentleman,” Cathy replied to her demand. “He is cousin to a duke, you know.”

  “Which makes him nothing,” Bianca retorted. “It has given him pretensions, though . . .”

  Cathy flushed. “But he’s not from Marslip, he’s from London. To be singled out by a gentleman is an honor, and you know that a connection to the Duke of Carlyle would mean so much to Papa.”

  “I don’t know what great benefit Papa hopes to reap from being able to say he dines with the distant cousin of a duke. There must be a thousand such people in Britain.”

  For the first time her sister frowned at her, returning somewhat to her usual poise. “You’re being deliberately obstinate.”

  Bianca’s lips parted. She sank down to the floor and grasped her sister’s hand. “Oh Cathy—you’re considering this mad proposal, aren’t you? Why? Was I wrong about Mr. Mayne?”

  A minute shudder rippled through her sister at that name. “I find—” Cathy stopped and cleared her throat. “I find that if I don’t think of him, Papa’s plan is very . . . sensible.”

  Sensible. Not exciting, or thrilling, or even desirable. It would please Papa, and Cathy, ever anxious to do that, would throw aside the man she did love for one she did not. Bianca’s temper began to smolder anew.

  “All right. Perhaps it is,” she said quietly, watching her sister’s face. “I suppose you’d be married here, in the church at Marslip. Shall you have Mr. Mayne read the banns, do you think, or will Papa insist on a license?” Cathy said nothing but her chin trembled. “In that case we could have the wedding here, in this room. I’m sure Mr. Mayne won’t mind, and it would be more convenient for Aunt Frances. After that, I suppose Mr. St. James will prefer to live in London.”

  The color drained from Cathy’s cheeks.

  Bianca went on. “It’s such a long way away. I do hope you’ll come visit at times—it won’t be the same without you. How shall I know which tablecloths to use, or whether Mr. Mayne should sit beside Mrs. Arlington or Mr. Soames, when you’re not here to—”

  “Stop!” Cathy shot off the settee and flung herself against the wall in the corner. Her shoulders shook. “Stop, Bee!”

  “I’m not doing anything,” she pointed out. And then she waited.

  Unlike Bianca, Cathy hadn’t inherited their father’s iron will; she had more of their mother’s desire to please, especially to please Samuel. Papa had overwhelmed her this time, like a sudden hurricane blowing in and flattening her to the ground before she knew what was happening.

  But Cathy was Samuel’s daughter, too, and once she recovered from the shock of her father’s suggestion and realized what it would mean, she would pick herself up and discover her spine.

  And she did. After a few minutes of silent sobbing against the wall, Cathy straightened, dabbed her eyes dry, and hesitantly turned back to face Bianca. “You think I’m a terrible coward, don’t you?”

  She shook her head.

  Cathy went to the window and drew aside the curtain. The pottery works lay down the hill, smoke puffing industriously from the kiln chimneys. “Papa thinks it’s a good match,” she murmured, almost to herself. “But he can’t want me to move so far from Marslip . . .”

  Bianca said nothing.

  “London is a massive city,” Cathy went on, her voice growing stronger and more despairing at the same time. “And so far! I might not see you or Papa again for years!”

  Bianca pinched a loose thread from the hem of her apron and bided her time.

  “And Mr. Mayne—” Cathy stopped. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the curtain.

  After a fraught minute of silence, Bianca stirred. “I suppose it would be a great surprise to him.”

  Her sister made a noise like a sob. “It would.”

  “I always thought he was so fond of you,” Bianca went on carefully. “And you of him.”

  Silence.

  Bianca climbed to her feet. “Only you know what you want, Cathy. You’re right—Mr. St. James is very eligible, and perhaps he will inveigle Carlyle to buy a large and expensive dinner service from Papa. He might exhibit it, like Mr. Wedgwood did—the Duke’s Service! Papa would like that very much, I grant you, and it wouldn’t be bad for our factory, either, for the world to see our work on a noble table. So Papa would be pleased as anything, and you would have a charming, intelligent gentleman for your husband.” Cathy seemed turned to marble, she was so still. The devil inside Bianca prodded her to add, “And he is devilishly handsome. Rather puts the Marslip lads to shame, in fact, even Mr. Mayne—”

  Cathy turned on her in a swirl of skirts. “Don’t,” she growled. “Don’t say it!”

  Bianca relented. She could tell her arrow had hit its mark; it wanted only time to do its work. “I won’t,” she promised, squeezing her sister’s hands. “It is your decision, after all—your life, your marriage, and your heart. I will support you and help you, no matter what you decide, so long as it is what you want.”

  Pale
and somber, Cathy nodded. “Thank you, Bianca.”

  She kissed her sister’s cheek. “Of course! Now I should get back to work. That red glaze isn’t quite as bright as I would like it to be, and it has an appalling tendency to blister if it’s not applied just perfectly.” She made a face. “Since no handsome strangers have seen fit to ride up and offer to marry me and sweep me away from glazes and pots and Marslip!”

  Cathy laughed. Bianca smiled. They both knew she would never leave her workbench, where she experimented with glazes and minerals to improve Tate pottery, and Bianca’s setdowns of any local young men who sidled too close to her were legendary.

  And they also both knew Cathy was desperately in love with Mr. Mayne the curate. Mayne hadn’t asked for her hand yet only because he was waiting for his waspish elderly grandmother to die and leave him her modest fortune.

  Time, Bianca thought to herself. That was all they needed. She only had to stall Papa long enough for Cathy to realize what he was asking of her.

  Chapter Three

  This time Max rode to Marslip on a horse of his own, which allowed him to study the property at some leisure.

  Samuel Tate came from a long line of potters, though none of them had had his business acumen. Under his hand the pottery factory had grown and prospered, and he’d built a small empire at the foot of Marslip Hill, rather grandly named Perusia. Tate produced very handsome dinnerware, with brilliant glazes and beautifully done etchings and ornamentation. Numerous wealthy and aristocratic families in Britain dined off Tate platters and plates. By a stroke of good fortune, Tate’s brother-in-law had been one of the engineers when the mania for canals swept the country, and so a branch canal ran near enough for Perusia wares to be shipped to Liverpool and London quickly and efficiently.

  With quality wares and a reliable shipping method, Tate should have been the richest potter in the country. He was a clever man, and ambitious. Max had been impressed when they met at the home of a mutual acquaintance, Lord Sherwood.