In the entry, he informed Nottle that he was leaving for Carrington House in order to collect his wife’s nephew, and told him to instruct the housekeeper to have the nursery in order by evening.
To his surprise, his butler’s face curdled. The change was slight, but distinct. Vander raised a questioning eyebrow.
“The boy is deformed, as I understand it,” Nottle said, lowering his voice. “I’ve heard some around the village say as how he turns the stomach. One leg is more like a flipper than a leg. Amphibious.” He shuddered visibly.
Vander considered this new information as he waited for his carriage to draw around. It certainly clarified Mia’s desperation. He was fairly certain that she would fight to protect any child, not merely an unsettlingly incomplete one. But the boy’s deformity likely increased her panic.
What’s more, it provided something of an excuse for the absent fiancé. He found it unlikely that a man who had seen through Mia’s ugly clothing and reserved demeanor would jilt her. But now there was the possibility that the blackguard hadn’t been able to face the responsibility of raising a crippled child.
He swung into the vehicle, feeling a bit disturbed. There had been a boy at school who was missing two fingers; other boys had been cruel to him. Vander and Thorn had never joined in, and in fact they had pummeled a couple of fourth-form boys who were being particularly vicious.
But he couldn’t lie to himself and claim he and Thorn were high-minded about the matter. The boy couldn’t wield a cricket bat properly, and so they left him alone.
When Vander arrived at Carrington House, Mia’s butler emerged from the house to greet him. “My name, Your Grace, is Mr. Gaunt.” He paused as if waiting for a response, likely to do with the fact that he was round as a plum pudding.
Vander nodded and handed over his coat. He didn’t care to bandy words with the man about the incongruity of his name any more than he would comment on his nose, which had obviously been broken in the past. Gaunt didn’t look like a butler in a lord’s household, but that wasn’t his concern.
“May I convey the household’s congratulations on your marriage?” the butler asked.
“Thank you,” Vander said. “I’d like to speak to Sir Richard.”
Sir Richard Magruder turned out to be a slim fellow with a beard trimmed to a stiletto point, a style that hadn’t been fashionable for two centuries. Vander took an instant dislike to everything about him: the shrewd look in his eyes, the way his hair had been coaxed to a curl, the gleaming surface of his boots.
“Your Grace, it is a pleasure to welcome you to Carrington House,” the man said, coming out from behind a large desk with a hospitable air that failed to acknowledge that the desk now belonged to Vander.
Vander bowed, and watched as Sir Richard dipped and stayed down, making a few extra flourishes with his right hand while bent over that, along with his Elizabethan beard, seemed to indicate that he fancied himself living in the past. A servant to the queen, in short.
He’d barely straightened before Vander strode to a chair and dropped into it. “As you know, Miss Carrington is now my duchess.”
Sir Richard seated himself neatly and pressed his knees together. “I offer you my heartiest congratulations,” he said, his face positively wreathed with happiness, quite as if he wasn’t on the verge of filing a lawsuit. Vander’s solicitor didn’t seem to know precisely what the lawsuit would assert, but Sir Richard was famous for using the court to conduct personal feuds. He’d already sued Vander over a horse he bought from the Pindar Stables, though the suit had never made it farther than their respective solicitors’ offices.