The Wyndham Legacy by Catherine Coulter Page B

that future. It’s what your father would have done. Please, you cannot remain here.”
    She remained still and silent, her gloved hands now resting quietly in the earth. That earth was black and thick and rich.
    He rose quickly, so furious with her for her damned silence, her stubbornness, he was for a moment without words. Then he bellowed at the top of his lungs, “What do you do to keep this damned snug little cottage?”
    Very slowly she stood up and stripped off her gloves, tossing them to the ground beside her. “Would you like some breakfast, Marcus? It is still very early.”
    â€œI will strangle you,” he said, looking at her throat, covered completely by that hideous faded gray gown. “Yes, I will strangle you, but after breakfast. What will Badger prepare?”

4
C HASE P ARK
A UGUST 1813
    T WO BLOODY MONTHS , he thought, wadding up the single sheet of paper, containing only two paragraphs to him by her grace, that damned girl he himself had christened Duchess so many years before. How dare she?
    He read again, feeling his face grow red:
My lord,
    It was kind of you to send grapes from your succession house. Badger has quite delighted in preparing them in various dishes.
    Give my regards to Aunt Gweneth and the Twins.
    And she’d signed it, “Your servant”—nothing more, not Duchess, not her name, nothing. Not even obedient servant, which she wasn’t, damn her eyes.
    He looked up to see Crittaker standing in the doorway, obviously afraid to say anything until Marcus recognized him.
    â€œWhat is Miss Cochrane’s name?”
    â€œThe Duchess, my lord.”
    â€œNo, no, her real name. It was I who named her Duchess when she was nine years old, but I have no memory at all of her real name.”
    Crittaker looked nonplussed. “I don’t know. Shall I ask Lady Gweneth?”
    â€œDon’t bother. It really isn’t important. I just received a letter from her. She received the grapes. Badger is cooking with them. She is fine, I assume. She says nothing more. I suppose I will write her back, but I would rather kill her, or at least maim her, or strangle her just a little bit, to get her attention.”
    Crittaker backed out of the door. “We can review your other correspondence later, my lord.”
    Marcus grunted, picked up a piece of foolscap, and dipped his pen into the onyx inkwell atop the desk. He wrote:
Dear Duchess:
    I am more pleased than I can tell you about Badger’s pleasure with the damned grapes.
    I trust you are well though you didn’t say. I am well, Aunt Gweneth is well, the Twins are well, though Antonia is ordering novels from Hookhams in London and telling me that she has developed a fondness for sermons and that is what comprises her orders. Fanny is gaining flesh and Aunt Gweneth has told her that no gentleman will want to speak to her if she has more than one chin. I don’t suppose you will tell me what you are doing to earn sufficient funds for the cottage and food and Badger—
    Your servant, Marcus Wyndham
    He’d written too much, he thought, she didn’t deserve all the words he’d bothered to write her, but nonetheless he carefully folded the paper and slipped it into an envelope, writing her direction in a neat hand. He dipped his signet ring into the hot wax he’d prepared, and pressed it on the envelope.
    He turned back to the London Gazette and read the latest war news. Schwarzenberg had crossed the Bohemian Mountains and tried to storm Dresden. However, the French had turned the city into a fortified camp and they’d beaten off the poorly coordinated allied attack. Of course then Napoleon had arrived with more French corps and Schwarzenbergended up losing thirty-eight thousand men and retreating to Bohemia. Thirty-eight thousand! Marcus couldn’t take it in. Good God, so many soldiers, slaughtered through incompetence, men now dead who shouldn’t be. He ached to