Nev groaned. “As if he needed to. My father couldn’t possibly beat Chilcote at piquet.”

Percy’s lips quirked in acknowledgment. “Even I find Chilcote to be more trouble than he’s worth. But Bedlow was only half-serious, from what I can tell, as well as three sheets to the wind, and Chilcote could have played it off. But he was foxed too and responded with something to the effect that even if, as a gentleman, he were capable of cheating, there would be no point cheating your father because-” Percy looked deeply uncomfortable.

“Come on, out with it. I know you didn’t say whatever it was.”

“He said Bedlow was certain not to honor his vowels.” Percy would not meet Nev ’s eyes. “Your father-well, from what I could glean, he nearly went crazy. He would be satisfied with nothing but a duel.”

“Chilcote said what?”

Percy was silent.

“Percy, are you saying you think Chilcote was right?”

“I knew Lord Bedlow,” Percy said slowly, “and I think that he would never fail to discharge a debt of honor if it were in his power to do so.”

Nev stared at him, an unpleasant chill creeping up his spine. His mother had avoided his eyes when she said It was something about money, and Louisa had said, Loweston looks different now. “You think it might not have been in his power?”

Percy shifted in his chair. “I’ve heard rumors he was badly dipped, Nev. We all did. But there wasn’t anything you could do, so-we thought you must know, and if you didn’t-we didn’t want to worry you.”

Nev stood. “I-I think I’d better visit my father’s solicitor.” He looked at his half-drunk glass of claret. Had there still been liquor on his father’s breath when they carried him into the hall with his head half away? His mother’s voice echoed in his ears-He would never have done it if he were sober. He pushed the glass away, queasy.

Percy hesitated. “I’ve never much of the ready, but if you need, I could probably scrape together a couple of hundred pounds.” His shoulders were tense. Two hundred pounds would not go far toward any debts Lord Bedlow had amassed, and they both knew it. But it was a lot of money to Percy, who was saving for his sister’s dowry.

Nev tried to smile. “I expect it’s a tempest in a teapot. Don’t go dooming your sister to a life of spinsterhood just yet.”

Percy let out his breath. “But if you should need any help-”

“I promise you, if I should need anything, you and Thirkell would be the first I’d turn to, as always.”

At the solicitor’s, Nev discovered that his father had been living beyond his means for years.

He and his family were utterly ruined.

Three

Nev climbed the Bedlow House stairs, pushing past the duns who clustered before the door. He felt years older, though it had only been two weeks since his father’s death. He had spent most of that time closeted with his father’s man of business, trying to understand the extent of his difficulties and selling everything he could think of. He had worked far into the night adding columns of figures and trying to organize the stacks of bills in his father’s desk into some semblance of order-then worrying at the cost of the candle, and all too aware that he was like a schoolboy practicing the piano, plunking out the same five notes over and over and entirely failing to turn them into a tune.

And every day, as the news spread around London that Lord Bedlow was dead, more bills arrived-duns from the tailor, the stables, the milliner, the bootmaker, the stationer, the wine seller, the butcher, the jeweler, the glover, and a thousand other tradesmen whose existence had previously been merely theoretical to Nev. There was even a polite request for repayment of a generous loan from a Mr. Mendoza of the City.

And still there were this week’s expenses to be paid-food for his mother and sister, his father’s funeral, oats for the horses, wages for the servants, mourning clothes. Every day, every hour that Nev found no solution put them deeper in debt; and Nev knew very well he could not find a solution. The quarter’s rents had been spent long since-probably years ago. He had come to tell his mother that the town house must be sold.

Lady Bedlow went very pale. She darted a few glances around the room, allowing her eyes to rest for a long moment on the portrait of herself and Lord Bedlow that hung over the mantel. Then she turned her face to the window, presenting Nev with a sorrowing profile. “Will that put us out of debt?”

Nev was unsure how to deal with this display of regal suffering. “Er, I’m afraid not. But it will make up what Papa spent of your jointure. I haven’t quite worked out how to get us out of debt yet. I was thinking of selling the oaks on the drive to Loweston-Papa cut down nearly everything else already.”

Lady Bedlow’s head snapped around at this. “Sell the oaks at Loweston? Those oaks have given your forefathers shade for centuries!”

“But, Mama-” Nev subsided at her glare. “Well, but I don’t know what else is to be done! I’ve already sold the hunting box in Essex and most of the horses and-” He realized that listing everything he had sold to his mother would be an unsurpassed act of folly, and stopped.

Lady Bedlow turned back to the window. “Your father and I honeymooned in Essex.”

“You didn’t sell Blackbeard, did you?” Louisa asked.

Nev smiled for what felt like the first time in months. “No, I didn’t sell Blackbeard.”

She straightened her spine. “I see how it is.”

“Er-how is it, Louisa?”

“You must marry me to some horrid old merchant. That will bring us to rights, won’t it?”

Lady Bedlow was speechless.

Nev tried not to laugh. “Must it be an old merchant, Louisa?”

“I’m not pretty enough to get a young one, I know that. It’s all right. I’m prepared to make sacrifices for the family.”

Nev was abruptly appalled. “Louisa, you goose, you’re pretty enough to have a hundred young merchants eating out of your hand, but if you think I’m going to consent to any such scheme you’re all about in the head.” In fact, their neighbor Sir Jasper Montagu had already offered to buy Loweston for a generous sum and settle the land on Louisa’s children if Louisa would marry him. Nev had refused without consulting her. In his late thirties, Sir Jasper was old enough to be her father; and Louisa, Nev recalled vaguely, had been frightened of the baronet as a child.

Lady Bedlow nodded. “As if I could feel a moment’s happiness living in the lap of luxury, knowing that my child had been sold to some wretched Cit!”

Suddenly, Nev remembered a small warm hand and a sweep of brown hair. His eyes widened. “You know, I think I may have a chance to get us out of debt after all.”

And he bounded out the door and down the steps before his mother could say another word.

Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence-and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury-had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper.

Penelope looked up from her well-thumbed copy of Sense and Sensibility when she heard the great front door swing open. But as no one came to announce a visitor, she decided that it must be one of her father’s business acquaintances. Or perhaps it might be the post; she was hoping for another letter from Edward. She had reread the last one this morning, but somehow it had not told her anything new.

Poor Edward! He sounded lonely in Paris, and always busy working and learning the French that would help him sell his employer’s woolen goods on the Continent. She wished he had been sent to France the following year, so that she might have gone with him-for surely by then Mama would have given over hoping for a lord for her. Mama could be romantical and talk of noble lords and Grand Passions and ancestral art collections all she liked, but Penelope didn’t care for any of that. Mutual esteem and warm affection were good enough for her.