Family Scandals Read Online Free PDF

whereabouts, he was pleased to discover they had repaired to St. Ayers. Dispatching a letter to his brother informing him he was back and would arrive at St. Ayers within a fortnight, he set out to put his affairs in order before leaving London.
    He’d spent long hours on the voyage home deciding what to do with himself. Going back and forth over his options, he came to the conclusion he wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in Her Majesty’s army. What getting out might entail, he wasn’t sure, but he would explore the possibility in the next few days before leaving for St. Ayers.
    Having made the decision, he visited a tailor to refurbish his wardrobe. He considered stopping in at White’s on his way back to Waring House, then changed his mind.
    What would he have done if Amy had lived? With Douglas and her parents gone, he would have become her guardian and their marriage would have had to emerge from its cover of secrecy. It might not have been a hardship. He wasn’t sure he had ever planned to marry. Being only a second, or third, son there was no need for him to worry about carrying on the title. And his brother now had two healthy sons, the proverbial “heir and a spare”.
    He and Amy would have rubbed along just fine. He could support her, and he could put a roof over her head. A very fine one if Brand’s descriptions proved accurate. Perhaps the reason to marry would be to leave St. Ayers to one of his own sons, instead of a nephew. To start his own line.
    His mother had been obsessed with him inheriting the Warringham title. He suspected she might have had something to do with his brother’s disappearance all those years ago, but the plan, if that was the case, had not succeeded. Something for which he was very grateful. He had never aspired to fill his father’s shoes. Brand was much better suited to it than he—even after a twenty year absence.
    He closed his eyes and pictured Brand’s wife, Felicia, for a moment. Engaging, bright, witty and beautiful, she and his stepniece, Amanda, now the Countess of Wynton, had been bosom bows. He wished now that she had met Douglas.
    And he wished he had written her about Amy. She would have understood his motives in marrying a girl of fourteen. With two very protective older brothers, she would have understood his desire to protect a helpless young woman from vindictive older siblings, and would have applauded the sacrifice of his freedom to do so.
    He shook his head as if to clear it of its depressing thoughts. There was a very large, comfortable library at Waring House. He’d find a book and entertain himself for the evening, but tomorrow he would head to Whitehall and find out what it would take to shed his uniform for good.
     
     
    Lord Sherbourne regarded him suspiciously through spectacles perched on a prodigious nose. Through the glass, his eyes looked a greenish watery blur and Marcus had to force himself not to try to look this man in the eyes. It would only give him a headache, he decided. His thin lips were pursed in a moue of disapproval, his bald pate shining in the lamplight. All in all Marcus thought he looked a little like a gnome.
    “So, you want out, do you, my lord?” Sherbourne’s thin, raspy voice reached out to him, like a ghostly specter.
    “I do.”
    Obviously taken aback by the confidence in Marcus’s voice, Lord Sherbourne merely regarded him owlishly.
    “Well, it’s not that difficult. But we no longer cashier out. With the prohibition of the purchase of commissions also came the discontinuance of the practice of cashing out our officers.”
    Marcus nodded in understanding. It had not occurred to him that cashing out was an option. He was well aware his father had pulled a number of strings to get his commission in the first place. Wanting out seemed a mite ungrateful.
    Parliament had, in 1859, abolished the purchase and sale of commissions. It had, he thought, been the death knell on the possibility for him. But, despite the ban, upon