The Unknown Heir: Book Nine in the Regency Romps Series Read online

  It was soon apparent that Gloucester had not waited to tell his sibling about his chance encounter, for no sooner had the Gautereau siblings finished their ices than the door to Gunters' opened, and Lady Loughcroft, resplendent in a purple Spencer and matching turban, practically flew inside with her husband and her brother-in-law, Mr Percival, racing to keep up with her.

  "Jacques, you fiend! How could you let Gloucester meet your sisters before I could?" she demanded before presenting her cheek for him to kiss.

  "Bonjour, Emma, may I present my sisters to you?"

  Introductions were made, and Jacques was quick to notice how Thérèse blushed, just a little, when the fashionable - and rich - Mr Percival declared himself enchanted to meet her.

  Emma looked his sisters up and down with a frank expression. "Oh dear, I'm afraid you are going to make a lot of enemies in London, Jacques, when word gets out about how beautiful your sisters are. They're going to take the Ton by storm, you mark my words!"

  He quickly translated the compliment to his confused sisters, who both positively beamed with pride as soon as they understood.

  "You are too kind, ma cousine," said Thérèse, "for someone as stylish as you to say such things is a compliment most grande!"

  "Oui, for you must be a noted leader of fashion," added Helene, looking at both Emma's Spencer and turban with appreciative envy.

  Emma preened.

  "I love you both already," she declared. "Loughcroft, Perry, am I not right that these delightful cousins of mine will be the Toast of the Ton from the moment they debut?"

  "Without doubt. Their colouring will be the envy of every fair haired miss in Society, and together they are a striking pair of beauties," replied her husband, and Jacques was privately amused that his sisters were more impressed by Emma's assessment than that of a noted leader of fashionable society.

  "Do you like England, Miss Gautereau?" Perry asked Thérèse directly.

  She blushed ever so slightly, and cast down her eyes in a way that had Jacques looking at her with interest, and Helene back to rolling her eyes.

  "What little we have seen, Monsieur. We arrived on the first tide yesterday, and then took coaches direct to London. This is the first time we have ventured from ma cousine's home, and I have found everything to be of interest!"

  "Well we must rectify that immediately," declared Emma. "Perry, you can escort Miss Gautereau, and Loughcroft, take Miss Helene's arm. It's but a short stroll to Green Park, and a perfectly pleasant afternoon!"

  His sisters were soon found to be perfectly content with their walking partners, and it was not long before formalities were dropped on account of their convoluted family relationship, with the girls being addressed as Miss Thérèse and Miss Helene, and the gentlemen as Loughcroft and Perry.

  "They are truly delightful," Emma murmured to him a few minutes into their stroll, giving his arm a squeeze to emphasise the point. "Gloucester says that your whole family has arrived, including your grandparents. Is that true?"

  "Oui, and I warn you in advance that your daughter will be spoiled to pieces by them all. Mémère will tell you everything you are doing wrong with her, and then compliment you on having such a jolie bebe. Maman and her parents will carry her about and not let you hold her for a moment, while my siblings will all fight over whose turn it is to rock her cradle. You will wish to avoid us before the week is out!"

  "Never," sighed Emma, "for if your sisters are anything to go by, I will love them all immediately. Should we take their presence in England as a sign that you intend to stay here?"

  He didn't answer immediately, for his thoughts went to the one person he really did not want to think about in that moment.

  "I know I will need help to be a Marquis of the standard set by your Grand-pere," he eventually replied. "I think having my old family here alongside my new one, I will have a chance of making all of you proud when that day eventually arrives - hopefully not for a great many years!"

  "I think you have already made all of us very proud, Jacques," said Emma. "It was one thing to learn there was an heir, but quite another for us to discover that you are a better man that we could have hoped for."

  "You are too kind, Emma," he said, much touched by this tribute.

  She squeezed his arm again. "I know we have not had as much time to get to know each other as you have with Henrietta and even Abigail, but I am confident that we will become great friends with time. Everyone will tell you that I meddle, and perhaps I do, but you should know that I am always right in the end."

  "Why do I feel that you are about to meddle?" he asked.

  Emma laughed. "Because you have sisters, of course! You know that meddling is what we do!"

  They reached Green Park, where Thérèse and Helene made all the expected observations about how pretty and rustic it all appeared to be, and naturally begged Loughcroft and Perry to take them over to the milkmaids with their cows so that they could partake in the novelty of a cup of warm milk taken straight from the udder while they waited.

  Emma declined the treat, but was content to stroll slowly with Jacques while they waited for the others to return.

  "Thérèse and Perry make a striking couple, don't they," she observed after a few minutes of comfortable silence between them.

  "He is one of the few men who does not make her look too tall," he admitted with true brotherly affection. "Is this your meddling, ma cousine? For I must warn you that Thérèse is quite taken with Christopher Douglas."

  "I do not see the appeal of that boy," sighed Emma. "I understand that he is very personable and sweet, but he is still a boy. Perhaps he will grow into a capable man by the age of thirty, but he does not hold a candle to Perry, or to you, for that matter."

  "To me?" he asked in surprised.

  The expression Emma cast on him was derisive at best.

  "Dearest, the entire Ton knows that you and Lady Cordelia had an argument at the Kelwick picnic, although there are two schools of thought on to the nature of the argument. The first is convinced that you tried to warn her away from Christopher Douglas, possibly at his request."

  "She will not like that," he said without thinking. "Poor Cordy; she thought she had not shown too decided a preference for him."

  "We can all be fools," replied Emma. "The lengths I went to in order to secure Loughcroft's affection make me blush to think of them, but that's all in the past now."

  There was a tiny smile floating on her lips, and Jacques made a mental note to uncover the rest of that tale, if only to satisfy his own curiosity over the matter.

  "And what does the second group believe?"

  "That you declared your love to her, and she rejected you as a foreign nobody."

  "Cordelia is not so shallow as to reject a man for a lack of title," he snapped.

  Emma's smile grew broad, and he knew he had betrayed himself.

  "I knew it!" she crowed. "I told Abigail as much! You are in love with our dear Cordy, aren't you?"

  "I did not declare anything to her, either at the picnic or at any other time," he replied, exasperated with himself for letting Emma trip him up. He'd never have let his sisters pull such information from him, and was both irritated and shocked that his cousin had succeeded so easily.

  "I never thought you to be so stupid as to have declared yourself when her mind was set on the Douglas boy," scoffed Emma. "Tell me truthfully, though; does she know you are grandfather's heir?"

  "Non, for we agreed to tell no one before the Marquis has established my legitimacy beyond any doubt," he replied. "I suppose now that my mother and grandparents are here, that will be achieved quickly enough. He asked to speak with them while I brought the eldest girls out for a treat, and the Cottinghams have taken the little ones to see the ships on the Thames."

  "Tell her your feelings before she learns of the title," urged Emma. "I have known Cordelia since before her come-out, and watched her blossom from a flattered and pampered beauty to a kind-hearted young lady with
a heart of purest gold. Anyone who knows her is certain of her regard for you, but her love of her family would prevent her from accepting the hand of anyone she believed would settle far from England's shores."

  "Is that not a reason to tell her I am the heir, then?" he replied, before adding hastily, "if I were considering marriage."

  Emma shook her head. "Men are so dense about such things! Of course you cannot tell her that! If she only accepts your suit after you have told her you are to become the next Marquis, then both of you will always wonder if she loved you enough to marry you even if you were nothing but a foreign nobody. It would eat away at the foundations of your happiness, until there was nothing left."

  If Jacques considered this a little dramatic, he was too well mannered to say so.

  "Cordelia is proud, you have to understand that," Emma continued. "Henrietta told me that the poor child set her heart on Christopher because she's afraid that she will never find a suitable husband beyond this season. Her mind was so set on bringing the boy up to scratch that she never did pay any attention to what her heart was doing."

  "You and Henrietta have discussed this?" he asked, raising a brow.

  Emma did not display an ounce of shame, despite his disapproving tone.

  "Yes, and with Abigail and Grandmother as well. Why are you looking at me like that? You told us yourself that you were not sure about remaining in England, so we thought that the best thing for you to do would be to fall in love with a suitable girl from the Ton. Of course we didn't realise that you family were going to arrive to support you, but that doesn't matter now."

  "It doesn't?"

  "No, because you're already in love with Cordelia, and she with you. It's just a matter of fixing this little quarrel and proposing to her, and everything will be perfect."

  He didn't mean to offend his cousin in the least, but Jacques could not help the laughter that bubbled up from his throat.

  "So simple! Mon dieu, you are so very like my sisters, Emma!"

  "I take that as a compliment," she said loftily, but could not maintain her Tonnish air with him for more than a few moments. "Dearest Jacques! You can ask any one of us in this family about how close we each came to losing love, and how easy it is to complicate the simplest of things. Go to Cordelia and tell her you love her, even tell her that you will stay in England if it is what she wishes. So long as you do not confess that you are the Shropshire heir until after she agrees to marry you, then I promise that you will both be happy."

  Jacques thought of his brief glimpse of Cordelia a few hours earlier, and the expression on her face.

  "I do not think she has forgiven me," he admitted.

  "Then apologise, you foolish boy," Emma admonished. "Take her a gift to demonstrate your regrets as well as your affection. Not flowers or anything that insipid, and do not use Lord Arthur as a model for romantic gestures! It must be something meaningful, but not too personal, so no jewellery or such things before you are formerly engaged."

  "Would paints be an acceptable gift?" he hazarded, "or paper, and brushes?"

  "Perfect!" declared Emma. "It is not usually a done thing for a gentleman to buy gifts for a young woman who is not his relative, but since these are effectively an engagement gift, I am certain that Lord Delby will accept them."

  "Lord Delby?"

  "Well naturally you are going to request his permission to ask for Cordelia's hand in marriage first," said Emma with a careless laugh. "Although I would probably tell him that you are the heir to the marquisate, if I were you. It's one thing to expect your future wife to love you regardless of fortune, but quite another to expect it of a dutiful father."

  "I do not know whether you intend to raise my hopes or crush my spirits, ma cousine," said Jacques with a shake of his head.

  "I am here to support you no matter what, for we are family," she declared, once again giving his arm a squeeze.

  There was a comfortable silence between them as they watched their four relatives talking and laughing merrily in the distance. Jacques had to admit that Emma was right in one matter: Thérèse and Mr Percival looked quite splendid together.

  It stood to reason, then, that she may be correct about other things, too.

  "Perhaps you can direct me to the best place to purchase art supplies suitable for the Lady Cordelia," he said.

  Emma positively beamed.

  "Wait until I tell Loughcroft that you are following my advice, and don't think I'm a meddling busybody in the least! Come on, let's go gather up those four gadabouts and head towards town; I know just the shop you are looking for!"

  Chapter Ten

  Lord Delby was not a man who was easy to surprise, but when his butler announced that Monsieur Gautereau was requesting an audience, he had to admit to himself that he was caught off guard. He had not been expecting the boy to present himself for a few more weeks at least, but supposed that love could move faster than expected.

  When the man brought into his study was not Jacques, but rather a mountain of a man with thick black hair and a shrewd gaze, Lord Delby resigned himself to the knowledge that he was no longer on top of his game.

  "You're Delby, are you? I've heard much about you, or at least about your younger days," said Monsieur Gautereau in heavily accented French as he took the chair in front of the desk without waiting for an invitation. "I'm Jacques' stepfather. Henri. Everyone calls me that, or Bruin. Take your pick."

  After a moment of stunned silence in which his brain, for the first time in his life, failed to provide him with an appropriate response, Delby glanced at the pile of letters he had been in the middle of organising. He smiled as the world began to settle beneath his feet.

  "And I have heard much about you, Grand Bruin, although not from the source you would believe. John mentioned you often in his letters. Something about a setting up a lark by stealing pemmican, whatever that is?"

  Henri's eyes went wide for a moment, and then the man burst out a rumble of laughter so loud it felt as though the whole house shook.

  "So it was him, the wretch! He nearly started a war over that incident! By God, if he were still alive I'd wring his neck for all the trouble he gave me."

  Delby smiled. "John certainly had that effect on people."

  The huge man's gaze softened. "Aye, that he did. I made him a promise when he was dying that I'd do right by the boy, and raise him as though he were my own. That's why I'm here."

  Delby managed to conceal his surprise as he motioned for the man to continue.

  "It's about Jacques' expectations, and such. His cousin, Lady Cottingham, told us that there is a romance brewing between him and your daughter, so I'm here to let you know of his worth."

  Delby held up a hand. "There is no need, Henri. I recognised Jacques to be my friend's son the moment I laid eyes on him, and I'm well aware that he's the heir to Shropshire. For my own reasons I have not informed my daughter of his status, but the situation is well in hand."

  Henri, he noticed, did not look impressed by this declaration.

  "I've known more than my fair share of lords and their offspring, Delby, and nigh on half of them were no more than paupers with an inflated sense of entitlement. God, the number who thought they could walk into the prairies and come back as Kings, only to return drunk, fevered or dead is beyond my reckoning. You don't strike me as a fool, and for all John's faults, he never could abide fools, so I don't think for a moment that a title alone would be enough to convince you that my boy is a suitable match for your girl."

  "You are right in that matter," acknowledged Delby, "but I have the advantage of knowing what Shropshire is worth, and just what Jacques is going to inherit."

  Henri gave a snort of contempt. "A pretty pile of projects that will bleed him dry if he lets them. Oh, the Marquis is a good man and better than most I've met, but he spends far too much of damned horses from what I know! No, I'd understand if the finances of the Shropshire estates gave you pause."

  The world had fallen away
again. While he personally had considerably more assets than the Marquis, no one would consider the Shropshire estates to be paltry, even if only two thirds were to go to the heir, and the rest of the unentailed lands split between the Loughcrofts, Gloucesters and Cottinghams.

  "I see. Then may I ask in what way you intend to reassure me?" Delby eventually said.

  The giant of a man gave a curt nod, and then withdrew a folded sheet of paper from his waistcoat pocket.

  "I had this drawn up by my lawyer a while ago, but it wasn't finished before the boy left for England," he said as he pushed it across the desk. Curiosity filled Delby as he carefully unfolded the note to examine the neat list of properties, assets, shares, and holdings. He did not do anything so dramatic as drop the sheet, swear, or spit out wine as he reviewed the sums, but if he left his own son half as much wealth when he passed, he'd consider himself an exceptional parent.

  "I was not aware that Jacques had such a fortune in his own right," admitted Delby. "Perhaps I should pay more attention to the residents of the colonies before my youngest two girls have their first Seasons."

  Henri, his expression still stern, gave a nod. "I can't claim responsibility for most of those figures, for John put as much of his money as he could into investments for the boy as soon as he knew he was dying. Amelie's parents made sure she would be taken care of, at least until she decided that marrying me would not be such a bad thing. You understand, then, that you need not worry about his siblings or me trying to lay claim to even a penny of that fortune, for it's from his father, and he's the only heir."

  "I assure you, Henri, that I have no worries about Jacques, his fortune, or his suitability as a match for my daughter. Call me a romantic fool, but I rather liked the notion of the son of my best friend marrying into my family."

  The side of his guest's mouth quirked up. "Yes, but it's the fortune and title that really seal the deal for you."

  "Touché," replied Delby, and they both laughed.

  "Well, that's all I have to say on the matter," said Henri, starting to rise from his chair.