“No, actually; he drowned.”
“You think I did that?”
“You wouldn’t happen to know what might have taken Stanley Preston to Bucket Lane last Sunday, would you?”
“Where?”
“Bucket Lane. Off Fish Street Hill, near London Bridge.”
“No. Don’t tell me someone’s died there too?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
Wyeth threw the rest of his darts at the target, one after the other in rapid succession. This time, they were spread all over the round wooden board in a chaotic pattern.
Sebastian said, “Last Sunday at Lady Farningham’s musical evening, you and Miss Preston quarreled. That’s why you left early, isn’t it? In fact, Miss Preston herself left not long after you did.”
“So?”
“Why did you quarrel?”
“Does it matter?”
“You tell me. Does it?”
The captain twitched one shoulder and said nothing.
Sebastian studied the younger man’s angry, tightly held features. “Sinclair Oliphant told me something else. He says that six years ago, you tried to elope with Miss Preston. Only, her father and brother caught up with you and brought her back.”
Sebastian watched the blood drain from the captain’s face. “How the devil did he know that?”
“Stanley Preston made himself Oliphant’s enemy, and Oliphant is the kind of man who makes it his business to know his enemies’ most dangerous secrets. So it’s true?”
Wyeth swallowed hard. “Yes. Look—I’m not proud of what we did, but . . . we were both very young and desperate, and . . . we didn’t understand the gravity of what we were doing.”
“It certainly does much to explain Preston’s animosity toward you.”
Wyeth tightened his jaw and said nothing.
“Miss Preston is of age now. Yet most women are reluctant to marry without their father’s blessing.” Particularly when there’s a potential inheritance involved, Sebastian thought. “Would she have married you, do you think, if her father continued to withhold his consent?”
“Stanley Preston was never going to change his mind, believe me.”
“So would she have married you anyway?”
Wyeth swung to face him, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “You think I would have done that to her? Married her without his blessing? Preston would never have forgiven her. He swore he’d cut her off without a penny and never speak to her again, and he meant it. Yet you think I would have married her anyway? Taken her away from a life of comfort to make her follow the drum and live in poverty? My God; what kind of man do you take me for?”
“You were certainly ready to elope with her six years ago.”
“I was eighteen! I told you, I’m not proud of what happened six years ago. But I know better now.”
“She wouldn’t have been completely penniless,” said Sebastian. “She’d still have had her mother’s portion.”
“Her mother’s portion amounts to even less than my annual pay. Enough to help buy a few promotions, perhaps, and ease the worst hardships that come with life in the Army. But without her inheritance from Preston, I could never have given her anything like the kind of life she’s always known.”
“Is that so important?”
“You know it is. I’ve seen what poverty can do to a gently reared woman. My grandfather was never as wealthy as Preston, but my mother still grew up surrounded by servants, with a carriage and her own pony and summers spent at the seaside. With five daughters and an estate entailed to the male line, my grandfather couldn’t give her much of a dowry, but she was pretty enough that he hoped she’d attract suitors anyway. And she did—the grandest being a man worth ten thousand pounds a year.”
“She turned them all down to marry your father?”
Wyeth nodded. “My father’s living was worth barely two hundred pounds a year.” He gave a ragged laugh. “Once, she’d worn ball gowns worth nearly that much.”
“Were they happy?”
“They were happy with each other, yes. But her life was . . . hard. She’d cry sometimes, when she didn’t know I could hear her. She worried constantly, about where they were going to find the money to fix the vicarage roof, or pay my school fees, or provide for my three sisters. All that worry and fear . . . In the end, it killed her. That’s when I realized how selfish I’d been, asking Anne to marry me, expecting her to endure a different version of the kind of life that killed my mother.”
“You’re saying that when faced with a choice between love and wealth, a woman should choose wealth?”
“No. But—”
“You think your mother would have been happier married to a man with ten thousand pounds a year whom she didn’t love?”
“No. But—”
“And if your father had made the choice for her by walking away, would she have been happy?”
Wyeth glared at him. “God damn you. Who are you—an earl’s son, heir to a grand fortune—to presume to pass judgment on me? What do you know of the kind of choices the rest of us must make?”