Chapter 28

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

A lexander called out to the driver for a change in direction, and soon, the carriage pulled up before his mother's Georgian town house. Alexander helped Charlotte down, but before he could turn the latch of the front gate, a man called out his name, waving several papers in the air. He stepped down from a carriage parked a little way down the street and ran toward them.

Instinctively, Alexander placed Charlotte behind him before the short, stocky gentleman stopped, his breathing heavy from exertion.

"Mr. Richards, do forgive this late intrusion, but I'm traveling back to France tomorrow, and I have been trying to arrange an audience with you," the man said, pulling off his spectacles and cleaning them before slipping them back onto the bridge of his nose.

"And you are, sir?" Alexander asked, having never seen the fellow before in his life.

"I'm Mr. Fitzroy, a solicitor for the late Marquess Lacy."

Charlotte moved to stand at Alexander's side and took his hand. His mind raced, and the pit of his stomach tightened at what his father's solicitor could want with him.

"Are you certain you wished to see me, Mr. Fitzroy? While I am the Marquess Lacy's son, my parents were unwed, and as an educated man such as yourself, I do not think I need to voice what that makes me."

The solicitor waved his words aside, his breathing finally less ragged. "I've been trying to see you to leave you with this letter and a copy of Marquess Lacy's last will and testament. You see, Mr. Richards, we have learned that the marriage between your mother and the Marquess Lacy was indeed legitimate and sanctioned by the Catholic Church. You are, therefore, now the new Marquess Lacy and have inherited all of your father's estates in France, along with a villa in Spain and a house in Grosvenor Square. I will return from France in a month, but please read the letter and the supporting documents as these explain everything. I shall call on you again to give you everything you need to know to take on this grand title and substantial holdings."

Mr. Fitzroy handed Alexander the documents, and before Alexander could utter a word, the older man strode back to his carriage and moved off into the night.

He turned to Charlotte, unable to comprehend what he'd just been informed.

"You're a marquess? You're not illegitimate?" she said, repeating what was swirling in his mind. "I did not know you were Marquess Lacy's son, but now that I look at you, I can see the resemblance."

"You've met him?" His stomach twisted, and he fought not to cast up his accounts. This could not be true. He could not be legitimate and titled after all…

"I have, he often was in London." She paused. "Do you know what this means? There will be no impediment to our marriage now, Alexander."

Charlotte's words pulled him from his stupor, and he turned to face her.

"I did not think our marriage would have an impediment before. Not if we ran away to Gretna as we planned."

"But we will no longer have to do that. We do not need to hide away. We can be married at St. George's Church at my family estate and celebrate our union without censure. You could enter society as an equal."

He ran a hand through his hair. Equal? "I may have inherited a title, but that does not mean I will accept it. For years, my father knew the marriage was legitimate, and yet he did nothing to change how I was viewed in the world. He must have been aware that we lived in London under the shadow of scandal and, at times, in difficult financial positions. I do not owe that man anything, and I certainly do not owe his family security, who mistreated my mother and placed her in the position she found herself. Especially when all along, she was the Marchioness Lacy."

Charlotte frowned and reached for him, but he stepped away. "Maybe the difference in our upbringing causes this confusion now, but surely you must see. I cannot accept this title," he said, waving the papers before them. "To do so would be wrong, and I would feel sullied by having to pretend to be something I am not. To be part of a world I've looked upon with antipathy."

"Are you suggesting because I'm a duke's daughter, I cannot sympathize with how you were raised and the difficulties you were placed in by Lord Lacy? I assure you I can," she said. "Maybe the letter will explain more of what occurred, and you will see this fortunate turn of events differently come morning."

"There is no fortunate turn of events here, Charlotte. I'm not nobility. I'm a bastard, the illegitimate son of a marquess. If you do not wish to marry me as I am now, Mr. Richards, then you ought to consider the gentlemen who've paid you court, for I will not change to suit a man and his poisonous family whom I've never met."

Charlotte paled, and Alexander frowned, wishing he hadn't been so cruel, but the anger, the unmitigated gall of his so-called father, was beyond comprehension. How dare he give him his birthright now after allowing him and his mother so many years of living in sin?

The marquess had supposedly loved his mother, but this was not love. Leaving them to live as they had was the opposite of devotion. The late marquess placed wealth and family above his heart if he ever had one.

"By being the marquess, we can live without shame, Alexander. That is all I mean. I'm not ashamed of you, nor do I think you have to move to France and take up the role of marquess—surely, you must know that. But it would enable our children to be accepted and welcomed into the society I come from."

"Do you truly care so much about the ton ? The viperous world in which you circulate has never interested me. I learned long ago that I did not need anyone but myself, and I should have continued thinking that way instead of trusting in you."

Charlotte gasped, and shock rippled across her features. "What do you mean by that?"

"I'm saying you sound like a duke's daughter—uppity and above everyone else. You sound like the choice between a titled gentleman and the man I've always been is proving difficult. I'm saying you sound like you wish for Marquess Lacy to court you, not Mr. Alexander Richards as before."

"That is not what I'm saying at all," she argued. "You're twisting my words." She turned, her skirts swishing over his boots, stared up the street toward a busier road, and hailed a hackney. "I'm returning home, and I suggest you think upon your words to me this evening, for I do not appreciate them."

"Well, I do not appreciate yours in return. Goodnight, Lady Charlotte," he called, watching as she climbed into the carriage and drove off toward Mayfair.

With a curse and a void that threatened to overtake where his heart once beat, Alexander entered the house and tore open the documents, scanning the letter that was indeed from his father before looking over the will.

All was as the solicitor had informed him. He was the new Marquess Lacy, and his father's letter, begging for forgiveness from him and his mother on his deathbed, was far too late.

He would never forgive him or the world that shunned him.