Murder in Grosvenor Square Read Online Free PDF

son was now Viscount Breckenridge, holder of the vast Breckenridge properties and wealth. Donata was well provided for through trusts from her parents, but her fate, mine, and my daughter’s if she remained with us, would be entirely in the hands of Peter when he came of age. He might grow up to be as boorish as his father, refusing to help the daughter of his stepfather.
    Peter had no obligation to me—I was only the army captain who’d married his mother. In fact, if he chose, he could turf Donata and me out of this house and any other he owned. Peter was a pleasant lad and fond of his mother, so the event seemed unlikely, but he’d not yet been launched into the terror that was English schools. I’d survived them by being quick with my fists and a bit of a bully. Peter would either have to do the same, or be crushed, as boys like Leland had been.
    The best thing a girl child could do was marry well. Donata was determined to bring Gabriella out and make a good match for her with the son of a respectable English family.
    Her good intentions stirred my greatest fears, however. What if Gabriella was paired with a sprig of the gentry who beat her, broke her spirit, demanded she wait on him hand and foot, and left her destitute in the end? Donata was wise enough to weed out the worst of the prospects, but one never knew. Unfortunately most women realized their mistake in a marriage after the wedding.
    “Who then?” I asked her. “What about Gareth Travers? A fine young man, with a mind more open than the Derwents, and his father a clergyman.”
    The snort from my wife indicated her opinion. “Travers? Now you have run mad. He hasn’t got two coins to rub together.”
    “Who is being ambitious at this turn?” I asked, but with good humor. “Leland is insipid but rich; Travers of a good mind but no means. What is my daughter to do?” I took another thoughtful sip of brandy and balanced the glass on the arm of the chair. “Truth to tell, I do not know Travers’s circumstances. He says his father is poor, yet he dresses almost as well as Grenville.”
    “Fashion, my dear Gabriel. A young man has to turn himself out well, even if he is in hock to every tailor, hatmaker, bootmaker, and glovemaker in Bond Street. And probably up to his neck with bookmakers as well, trying to raise cash to pay off the others.” My wife, ever cynical.
    “A man who lives off gambling would not be much of a catch,” I admitted.
    “I would wager Leland gives him some of the money,” Donata said, lifting her goblet of brandy. “Leland is generous, too much so. Or perhaps Leland sends Gareth to his tailor, and Gareth supplements his meager funds by selling pieces of his wardrobe. Most young men of ambition and little money learn to be resourceful.”
    I remembered Gareth’s tale of Leland trying to help an indigent man with money and clothing, and the ungrateful man stealing more. Leland was more generous than sensible. I wondered about Gareth—I’d had no money to speak of when I’d been young, and others, like Colonel Brandon, had helped me. But I’d never have dreamed of taking base advantage of their generosity or selling what I was given.
    “But I admit I know little about Mr. Travers,” I finished my thoughts out loud. “Nothing but that the Derwents recommend him.”
    “Now you are learning, my dear,” Donata said, giving me a warm smile. “Matchmaking is not an easy task. It is a careful thinning of the herd, and then making certain the young people in question believe the match all their own idea.”
    “Is that what happened to you?” I asked gently.
    “Not at all,” Donata answered. “My father owed Breckenridge money, and Breckenridge wanted me.” She shrugged, hiding pain I knew lingered. “A match made in hell, but here I am.”
    And I was glad of her presence. The vile Breckenridge was dead, leaving Donata for me.
    I sighed, surrendering. “It is enough to make one’s hair gray.”
    “You have a thread