Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase [64]
Such women, the daughters of peers, were far beyond Mr. Vawtry's reach, along with their immense dowries. Miss Trent, on the other hand, the daughter of an insignificant baronet, belonged to the same class of country gentry as Mr. Vawtry himself.
He saw now that he'd had a perfect opportunity to cultivate her, after Dain had publicly insulted and humiliated her. She had been vulnerable then. Instead of merely handing her his coat, Vawtry might have enacted the role of chivalrous knight. He might, in that case, have stood before the preacher with her this very day.
Then the icon would have been his, and clever Beaumont could have helped him turn it into ready money…ready to be invested. Roland Vawtry could have settled down with a pretty enough wife, and lived in tranquil comfort, no longer dependent on Dame Fortune— or, more to the point, the whims of the Marquess of Dain.
Instead, Roland Vawtry was five thousand pounds in debt. Though this was not very much by some people's standards, by his, it might have been millions. He was not concerned about the tradesmen he owed, but he was deeply anxious about the notes of hand he'd given his friends. If he did not make good on them very soon, he would not have any friends. A gentleman who failed to pay debts of honor ceased being deemed a gentleman. That prospect was even more harrowing to him than the threat of moneylenders, sponging houses, or debtors' prison.
He viewed his situation as desperate.
Certain people could have told him that Francis Beaumont could detect another's desperation at twenty paces, and took great personal pleasure in exacerbating it. But those wise persons were not about, and Vawtry was not an overly intelligent fellow.
Consequently, by the time they'd finished their meal and emptied half a dozen bottles of the barely drinkable wine, Mr. Beaumont had dug his pit, and Mr. Vawtry had obligingly toppled head-first into it.
* * *
At about the time Roland Vawtry was tumbling into a pit, the new Marchioness of Dain's hind-quarters were showing symptoms of rigor mortis.
She sat with her spouse in the elegant black traveling chariot in which they'd been riding since one o'clock in the afternoon, when they'd left their guests at the wedding breakfast.
For a man who viewed marriage and respectable company with unmitigated contempt and disgust, he had behaved with amazing good humor. In fact, he had seemed to find the proceedings infinitely amusing. Three times he'd asked the trembling minister to speak up, so that the audience didn't miss anything. Dain had also thought it a great joke to make a circus performance of kissing his bride. It was a wonder he hadn't thrown her over his shoulder and carried her out of the church like a sack of potatoes.
If he had, Jessica thought wryly, he would have still managed to look every inch the aristocrat. Or monarch was more like it. She had learned that Dain had an exceedingly high opinion of his consequence, in which the standard order of precedence played no role whatsoever.
He'd made his views very clear to her aunt, not long after he'd given Jessica the heartachingly beautiful betrothal ring. After taking Jessica home and spending an hour with her in the parlor, perusing her lists and menus and other wedding annoyances, he'd sent her away and had a private conversation with Aunt Louisa. He'd explained how the future Marchioness of Dain was to be treated. It was simple enough.
Jessica was not to be pestered and she was not to be contradicted. She answered to nobody but Dain, and he answered to nobody but the king, and then only if he was in the mood.
The next day, Dain's private secretary had arrived with a brace of servants and taken over. After that, all Jessica had had to do was give an occasional order and accustom herself to being treated like an exceedingly precious and delicate, all-wise and altogether perfect princess.
Not by her husband, though.
They had been traveling for more than eight hours, and though they stopped frequently to change horses, that was for not a second more than the one to two