Writing materials were scattered on the table. One letter, addressed to him but only just begun; she’d got as far asDear Nash, I was not able to say this when you left, but . . .
Say what? His mind was a boiling stew of questions, but no matter how many times he read it, he was just as much in the dark.
He picked up the other letter, lying open on the table, a draft, with many scratchings out.
Dear Mr. Hulme, I hope you are in good health.. . . I will accept the conditions you laid before me last time . . .
Offer? Conditions? Not so willing, if the scratched-out lines were any indication. He turned the letter over.
It was addressed to someone called Mr. Geo. Hulme, Esq. of Fyfield Place, in Gilmorton, Leicestershire.
Who the devil was Mr. George Hulme, Esquire? And what was he to Maddy? Whatever offer he’d made before, she’d obviously refused it. Was she now reconsidering? Because of Nash?
“Did you forget something?” Maddy’s voice came from the open doorway.
He swung around. “Who’s George Hulme?”
Her eyes were immediately shuttered. She closed the door behind her before saying, “My father’s neighbor.” Her gaze dropped to the letter in his hand. She swung her cloak off and plonked it roughly on its hook. “I cannot bear it when people read other people’s letters,” she told him roundly. “It is the most dishonorable, most intrusive, despicable—”
“George Hulme. What sort of neighbor?”
Her eyes snapped with irritation. “Not that it’s any of your concern, but he was a good friend of my father’s. He is executor of Papa’s will and co-trustee of the estate Papa left, such as it is.”
“Co-trustee?”
“He is responsible for the purely financial matters—Papa’s debts, in other words. I have complete control of the children.”
“This”—he brandished the incomplete letter—“this mentions he made you an offer. What sort of offer?”
“Have you no shame, to quote my private correspondence?”
“It was open on the table. What offer?”
She did not respond. Instead she began to gather up the clothing discarded on the floor. The prosaic action infuriated him. He caught her by the wrist. “What offer?”
She pulled away. “A very respectable one.”
“Marriage?” He blinked. “How old is this Hulme fellow?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. A couple of years older than Papa, I think. Past sixty?”
“Past sixty?The lecherous old goat! You will refuse him, of course. You did in the past, I collect.”
She gave him an opaque look. “When a man takes good care of himself—and Mr. Hulme is very well preserved—sixty is not that old.”
Nash snorted. “It is when you’re offering marriage to a young woman of twenty.”
“Two and twenty.” She’d harnessed her temper and presented an irritatingly calm appearance.
Superficial, Nash knew; nevertheless, his own temper mounted. “What did his own children think of this outrageous offer?”
“He has no children.”
“Widowed long?”
“No.” Her gaze slid away. She was hiding something.
“What do you mean, no? When was he widowed?”
