The Hermit's Daughter by Joan Smith Page A

You’ve done your worst.”
    “That’s what you think!”His voice cut like a knife, and his eyes blazed. “If you want to play rough, I can, and shall, do considerably more. I can make this town so hot you’ll wish you’d never got your talons into this simpleton of a boy and schemed your way to London.”
    “Here we feared you meant to show us a cold shoulder!”she said with an arch laugh to her cohorts, who stared in horror at the awful turn the meeting had taken.
    Monstuart looked around the group with an air of loathing. He saw his nephew surrounded by a parcel of expensive ladies, whom he was now convinced were out to fleece the boy. His anger was the fiercer for being partly directed at himself. He had been negligent to leave the lad unattended.
    “Just what do you hope to accomplish by this?”he asked Sally.
    She tossed her shoulders insouciantly. “I hope to garner some of those joys you constantly reminded me of at Ashford. Why, it was you who put the idea of coming to London in my head.”
    “I think not. You came in hope of making a good match. Let me disabuse you of so foolish a notion. Gentlemen do not marry dowerless women.”
    “Lord Derwent did,”she pointed out, blinking her eyes in a parody of beguiled innocence. “Surely you are not suggesting that your nephew is not a gentleman!”
    “See here, Monty,”Derwent began in a cajoling tone, “the thing’s done, and there’s no point being stubborn about it. It will only make it worse if you cut up stiff. I mean to say, we shall be meeting every second day in society, and if you are planning to cast slurs on us ...”
    “Do be reasonable, Lord Monstuart,”Sally added in a sneering way. “You must see I am at disadvantage enough without a dowry. How shall I ever snare myself a rich husband if you give me the reputation of being a managing female as well? Why, your nephew will have Mama and me around his neck forever if you have your way.”
    “That is all that saves you from being publicly exposed for the adventuress you are,”he told her. He rose stiffly and looked down his nose at her. “Go ahead. Do your worst, Miss Hermitage. You will not do it with my nephew’s money. Nor will you find many gentlemen so gullible and easily led as this Johnnie Raw.”
    “I do not look for many, milord. One is all I require. I have no inclination for bigamy, I promise you. I leave the shadier vices to the royal family.”
    “Let me give you a tip, miss. Pert country manners will cut no ice in society. If it is your intention to pass yourself offas a well-bred lady, you should learn to curb that sharp tongue.”
    “I can pass myself off as a polite simpleton as well as the next lady—provided I am not goaded beyond endurance by any ill-mannered person. You are leaving?”she asked as he directed a fulminating stare on her before turning away. “We enjoyed your little visit, Lord Monstuart. Do come back soon. Au revoir.”
    As the door was closed by the butler, Monstuart hadn’t even the pleasure of slamming it behind him. He wreaked his temper on his curled beaver instead, as he poked it on to his head with a vicious stab. There was a thundering silence in the ornate Gold Saloon when he was gone.
    “Can he really keep your money?”Melanie asked her husband in a frightened whisper.
    “Of course he can. He is the sole executor of my father’s will. He can do whatever he wants.”
    Sally punched a pretty green satin cushion in frustration. “I wish Papa were here. He would find some legal way out of this impossible situation.”
    A soft smile turned up the corner of Mrs. Hermitage’s lips, and she said softly, “Sir Darrow Willowby!”
    Sally frowned at the name, which disturbed an echo from the past. “What did you say, Mama?”
    “Sir Darrow Willowby! The man who was Papa’s partner the last few years he was working, my dear.”
    “Your old flirt!”
    “Not at all, but he was as shrewd as can hold together. If anything can be done, he