Wedding of the Season (7 page)

Though impatient for the meeting, Will benefited from the delay. He was able to conduct other business, surveying Sunderland Park with his land agent and ordering necessary repairs. Aman’s liniment did its work, and though he had a fist-size bruise just above his knee, the pain eased. Most beneficial of all, he’d once again managed to push Beatrix into the past where she belonged. By the time he called at Danbury Downs, he felt fully prepared to discuss the situation with Paul without allowing either physical pain or resentment toward Paul’s cousin to affect his demeanor.

He judged four o’clock to be the best time to see the other man, for that was an hour when the ladies were likely to be out paying calls on their friends, but Paul was likely to be at home. He chose not to make his call a formal one; instead, he went on horseback, cutting across the park and approaching the house from the back.

Though it was a cloudy afternoon, it wasn’t raining, and the French doors into the study had been flung back. As he came closer, Will recognized his friend framed in the open doorway, confirming that he had timed his visit correctly. Paul was seated at a desk, writing letters, but at the sound of Galahad’s hooves on the turf, he stopped writing and looked up.

“By Jove, it is you!” he cried, tossing down his quill and rising from the desk as Will dismounted and tied Galahad’s reins to the stone rail surrounding the terrace.

“I heard you were back,” Paul went on, coming through the French doors as Will ascended the steps toward him, “but until I saw you with my own eyes, I didn’t quite believe it.”

The two men met halfway, and Will held out his hand. “It’s good to see you, old friend.”

“And you,” Paul replied as they shook hands. “Care for a drink?” he asked, leading Will into the study. Given an affirmative answer, Paul poured whisky for both of them, then resumed his seat at his desk, gesturing Will to take the opposite chair. The initial greetings over, there was a rather awkward pause.

“Egypt seems to agree with you,” Paul finally said.

“Does it?” He gave the other man a rather rueful smile. “Trix said the opposite.”

“Did she?” There was another pause, then Paul gave a cough and spoke again. “Well, that’s to be expected, isn’t it? So, what’s brought you home after all this time?”

“Estate business, for one. Wrapping up Father’s affairs, that sort of thing. I’ve put it off far too long.”

“Ah.” His friend’s relief was immediately visible, leading him to conclude that Beatrix had been talking. Offering dire predictions about what sort of scene he intended to make at her wedding, no doubt.

He kept to the business at hand. “I do confess, however, that my primary reason for this journey isn’t estate business. I’ve come home to see you.”

“Me?” Paul’s brown eyes widened in surprise. He paused, eyeing Will a bit warily. “I’m flattered.”

“I’ve come to ask a favor, and it’s a big one.” He took a deep breath. “I need a loan.”

“A loan?”

“Damned cheek of me, I know, especially in these circumstances. Your cousin and I . . . and all that. But you’re the only person I feel I can turn to. We’re like brothers.” He stopped and gave a sigh, rubbing a hand over his face. “At least, I like to think so, despite . . . despite everything.”

Paul tugged at his ear, looking confounded and—strangely enough—a bit relieved. “That wasn’t what I was expecting you to say.”

Will kept his voice carefully neutral. “No, I should imagine not.”

“I feared you might have come home to ask me to intercede with Beatrix on your behalf.”

“No.”

“Or that you might have come to discern your chance of winning her back.”

Will set his jaw. “No.”

“A loan,” Paul repeated thoughtfully. “For your estates here? Or for the excavations in Egypt?”

“It’s for Egypt.”

“Of course it is,” Paul murmured. “Isn’t it always?”

“Paul—” he began, but the other man cut him off.

“How much do you need?”

“Twenty thousand pounds. That would see us through another year.”

“Twenty thousand pounds? Will, that’s a great deal of money. I take it you’ve gone through your inheritance?”

“From my mother? Yes. Father, as you might guess, didn’t leave me a farthing. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’ve used the money from Mama to sponsor the excavations since Sir Edmund returned home.”

Paul swirled the contents of his glass and took a swallow. “And now you’ve no money of your own.”

“Making inquiries about my finances, Paul?”

His oldest friend shrugged. “It’s pretty common knowledge.”

“Then you probably also know Sunderland Park is barely making enough to sustain itself, and that all my other estates in England had to be mortgaged to pay Father’s debts and death duties.”

Paul confirmed all that with a nod. “And are you sure it’s wise to borrow twenty thousand more?”

“It sounds like a great deal of money, I know, but I’ll easily be able to pay you back when we find Tutankhamen.”

“If you find him.” Paul set aside his glass and leaned forward. “Let’s speak plainly. Almost six years of digging, over a hundred thousand pounds gone, and you haven’t found Tut.”

“Not yet. But we will. I believe we’re close. Carter agrees with me.”

Paul didn’t seem reassured. “I respect your opinion. And certainly Howard Carter’s opinion is a worthy one as well. He’s quite an important bloke down there, from what I gather.”

“He is the chief inspector of Egyptian Antiquities, and he’s certain Tutankhamen’s tomb is right where we’re digging. So am I, Paul. I can sense it. Hell, I can smell it.”

Paul didn’t seem reassured by either his instincts or his sense of smell. “If I loan you this money, another year might go by without success. Then what? How do you intend to pay me back if that’s the case?”

“If we find enough valuable artifacts, you’ll be paid anyway.”

“And if you don’t, the money’s gone, and you’ll be asking me for another loan twelve months from now.”

He didn’t deny that possibility. “I’m going to find Tut, no matter how long it takes. Will you help me?”

Paul gave a deep sigh that did not bode well, and Will felt a sinking feeling in his gut. “I can’t.”

He shouldn’t have expected any different. He really couldn’t blame Paul for refusing. “I see.”

“It isn’t because of Trix, Will. When I said I can’t, I meant it. I’m not exactly flush myself at this moment.”

“Why?” Will straightened in his chair, alarmed. “What’s happened? Are you in trouble?”

“Trouble?” Paul repeated, giving the word an odd inflection. “I suppose you could call it that. Like yours, my estates are barely holding their own these days. This beastly agricultural depression continues to affect us all. And my main source of income has rather dried up.”

Will frowned, uncomprehending. “I don’t understand. I thought you had an income through Susanna.”

“I did, but not anymore.” His expression hardened. “Susanna and I have separated.”

“What?”

“She went to Newport in May. She said it was to visit her parents.”

Will appreciated the choice of words, and when he looked into his friend’s suddenly wooden countenance, he felt a glimmer of Paul’s pain. “But it wasn’t?”

Paul looked away. “Her father died while she was there and she decided to remain in the States indefinitely,” he said, and began to tidy his desk as if that task was suddenly of vital importance. “She informed me of this in her last letter, which I received two months ago.” He returned a quill to the inkstand and straightened a stack of books. “Last month I heard from her attorneys in New York. My income through our marriage has been discontinued. It violates the marriage settlement, but—” He shrugged. “If I sue to have it reinstated, the family will be dragged through the scandal sheets. Susanna knows I would loathe a scandal of any kind. She knows I won’t fight her.”

“Hell.” Will raked a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me about this in your last letter?”

“My marital difficulties are not something I find easy to share. And until the question of divorce is settled—”

“Divorce? Surely it hasn’t come to that?”

“She has no grounds to divorce me, but she might try. The only reason for me to pursue such a course would be remarriage, and I can assure you marriage is not something I am looking at in a favorable light nowadays.”

Will didn’t know what to say. What could a man say? “Hard lines, my friend,” he said at last. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well . . .” Paul stilled, his fingers curled around the edges of the blotter before him. He looked up, but he didn’t quite meet Will’s gaze. “That’s the nature of love. It isn’t meant to be everlasting.”

The bitterness in his friend’s voice rather echoed his own opinion on the subject. “No,” he agreed. “I suppose not.”

Paul folded his hands atop the blotter. “Let’s return to your situation. Can’t you raise funds elsewhere? Find someone else to sponsor the excavation?”

“No. I tried. We’ve found some amazing items, some of them with immense historic significance. There’s a frieze from the Second Dynasty that shows—” He broke off, knowing Paul probably didn’t want a lesson in Egyptian history. “The problem is that we’ve found precious little in the way of gold and jewels. It’s difficult to find a sponsor when all you’re digging up is pieces of pottery and clay tablets,” he said wryly. “Gold and jewels are much more exciting. I didn’t want to come to you, given the situation with Trix, but I didn’t know where else to go for funds. I’ve been away from England so long.”

“What about bringing in a partner?”

He shook his head, everything in him rebelling at that notion. “I don’t mind a sponsor, but I don’t want a partner. Tut’s mine. No one finds him but me.”

Paul shrugged. “Then you have only one option. Marry an heiress. Unfortunately the season is over. Parliament’s in recess, and everyone’s gone to the country. Not the best time to go heiress hunting.”

“Marry an heiress.” Will repeated the idea with distaste. “Whore myself in the fine British tradition of our forefathers? No, thank you.”

“I married an heiress,” Paul reminded him, sounding understandably testy.

Will expelled a harsh breath. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just that—” He broke off, searching for a way to explain why he couldn’t consider the course his friend was suggesting.

He thought of his parents’ empty marriage, a bargain trading his mother’s wealth for his father’s title. It had never been about love. He thought of his mother’s shallowness and obsession with title and position, he thought of his father’s innate laziness and greed, and the words to explain why he couldn’t do the same stuck in his throat. “I didn’t mean you,” he said at last. “I know you loved Susanna. I know you didn’t marry her for her money.”

Paul held his hand up, palms out in a gesture of truce. “I accept your apology. But to return to the point, I think you’re being far too fastidious about this. You’re a duke, and though you might not think your title’s worth much, there are plenty of women with rich fathers who would disagree, especially among the Americans. The shine’s rather gone off the transatlantic marriage nowadays, but there are still quite a few girls coming across the pond hoping to become duchesses. It wouldn’t be a quick solution, but it’s a feasible one.”

Will thought of his father, of the fawning deference accorded the old man because he’d been a duke, of the servants who had stopped their work and turned their faces to the wall whenever he’d walked by and who’d served him on a tray so he wouldn’t run the risk of touching them. He thought of his mother, a wealthy American’s daughter who’d bought herself a duke, of how ruthlessly she’d slashed the least influential people from her invitation lists, fighting for a position of social respect until the day she died. He thought of himself, a lonely little boy who’d spent most of his time isolated in the nursery until he could be shipped off to school at the age of nine—out of sight, out of mind, and out of the way. “No. I won’t do it.”

He got up and walked to the French window. Leaning one shoulder against the doorjamb, he looked out at the expanse of lawn, not so well-manicured now as it used to be when they played football on it as boys. Like everything else in their class of life, it had rather gone to seed.

“How many of our lot have married these wealthy American girls for their money?” he asked, staring past the lawn to tufted, orderly squares of growing crops, marked by the darker green of hedgerows. “A dozen? Two? My father, both our grandfathers—hell, if I tried, I could probably name a hundred peers who’ve done it. It didn’t do any of them a bit of good.”

Paul groaned at this renewal of a conversation they’d had many times during their days at Cambridge, but Will persevered. “All those American dollars pouring in to prop up our dying aristocracy, and for what? It’s still dying. No, I want a life that means something, something more than the next ball, the next race meeting, the next season.” He turned to face his friend. “That’s why I went to Egypt in the first place.”

“Fine.” Paul leaned back, spreading his arms in a gesture of capitulation. “Stick to your principles and sneer at those of us who made a different choice. Principles won’t help you find Tut.”