The Confessions of a Duchess Read Free Page B

telling his employer how offended he was at the suggestion.
    “No need to get touchy with me, lad,” Liverpool grunted, noticing the gesture. “I know you’re sound as a bell but others in your family may not be and where there is a weakness…” He shook his head. “Get you to Fortune’s Folly. If you cannot catch yourself a rich wife there, then I wash my hands of you. But make sure that you find our miscreant before you succumb to the lures of some young lady. I don’t want you distracted, Anstruther. This Fortune’s Folly marriage mart business is the perfect cover for your presence in Yorkshire but make sure you keep your mind on your work first and your fortune hunting second.”
    “Yes, my lord,” Dexter said.
    “I’ll give you two months,” Lord Liverpool said. “Want the matter tied up by Christmas, Anstruther. That should give you plenty of time. If you’re lucky you might even fit in some fishing, as well. Catch the murdering miscreant fair and square, see that he implicates Sampson, as well, and if you also come back with a wealthy wife you will have done a good job.”
    “Yes, my lord,” Dexter said, heart sinking. There was no reasoning with Lord Liverpool when he was in this sort of mood. And truth to tell, Dexter knew that he should not be arguing the case anyway. Lord Liverpool was right—he desperately needed a rich wife and ever since Monty Fortune had made his announcement in Brooks’s Club that night he had been thinking of going to Yorkshire to find one.

    The problem, Dexter reflected, as he cast his line again, was that he was a reluctant suitor. Hence the fact that he was fishing today rather than paying court to any of the ladies gathered in the winter gardens and the pump rooms. Blatant fortune hunting offended his sense of honor. But, as Miles Vickery had helpfully pointed out to him, honor could be an expensive commodity and one that, in this context, Dexter really could not afford.
    Dexter’s father had died five years before, having gambled away a fortune that he did not have. The Honorable James Anstruther had staggered out of his club on his way to a low tavern to drown his sorrows, and had finished the whole sorry business of his life by stumbling, blind drunk, in front of a carriage and leaving his eldest son with a pile of debts and six siblings to take care of. By great good fortune he had staved off his ruin until Dexter had completed his studies at Oxford, which at least ensured he could get a job in the government, but it was not well paid and the widowed Mrs. Anstruther and his younger brothers and sisters were ruinously extravagant and expensive.
    Some people are blessed with one irresponsible parent; Dexter had two. In that respect The Honorable Mr. Anstruther and his wife were extremely well suited, with their gambling, their affairs and their general decadence. Dexter, the eldest child and the only one of the seven members of the “Anstruther Collection” who could definitely be assumed to be his father’s son, had watched his parents lurch from financial crisis to emotional disaster for as long as he could remember. From the age of twelve he had determined that his life was going to be the opposite of his father’s: rational, controlled and with no dangerous emotions to cloud his judgment. He would marry responsibly to a woman who would be faithful to him and his children would know exactly who their parents were. He would never tolerate for his offspring the kind of stigma and ignominy that had attached to him and his siblings: the covert smiles, the knowing looks, the veiled references to his parents’ disastrous affairs and their own illegitimacy.
    Such a rational approach to life had stood him in good stead until the age of twenty-two, when he had succumbed to one spectacular, exhilarating episode of sexual abandon, during which he had lost his heart as well as his virginity and fallen hopelessly in love. The incident had been a disaster, reinforcing