Nick had seen the barest hint of a flinch at the reference to the grandchildren, reinforcing Nick’s sense the earl was prone to vanity. The tea tray arrived in decorous silence, and Wilton suggested Nick pour, which was ungracious, and a tacit way to put Nick in the female role.

So Nick took his time and made an elegant business out of it, like the docile son-in-law he would never be.

“Your note suggested you had something personal to discuss,” Wilton prodded, sipping his tea and frowning. Nick had jotted off several notes last night while waiting for Leah to complete her bath, and tried to recall the exact wording of the one to Wilton.

“Urgent and personal. To be very direct, my lord, I wish to court your older daughter.”

“Why?” Wilton’s question was offered in such puzzled tones, Nick feared it was sincere.

“I am in immediate need of a countess,” Nick said. “I promised my father not merely a fiancée, but a countess before his demise, and I have run out of time.”

“Why Leah? You could have your pick of heiresses, debutantes, titled widows, and the rest.”

The question might have been from a concerned father watching out for his daughter, but the glint of condescension in Wilton’s eyes suggested he was simply looking for leverage.

“I am at a disadvantage when courting a wife,” Nick said, and there was some truth to the idea. “My size alone means the more diminutive women are of no interest to me, nor I to them. Then too, I have a certain reputation for trafficking with the demimonde, and the most protective of parents would not turn a sweet young thing over to my keeping. I need a woman who is practical, and experienced enough in the ways of the world that my peccadilloes will not dismay her. She must be of suitable rank and willing to marry immediately. I believe Lady Leah meets those criteria, and we appear compatible in the ways that matter.”

Wilton laughed shortly. “If you think so, I’ll not dissuade you.”

“You’d accept a match between us?”

“You are in a hurry, aren’t you?” Wilton took a leisurely sip of his tea, pinky extended just so.

Go ahead, fool, enjoy your moment of power.

“I made a promise to my father,” Nick said. “He has been patient with me for years, but his health is precarious, and if I delay now, there will be mourning to observe.”

“Are you asking, then, not just for permission to court, but also permission to marry?”

Nick studied his hands. He wasn’t quite up to making them tremble, except possibly with the need to choke the life from Wilton in the next two minutes. “I am asking for both, if the lady will have me.”

“Her wishes are of little concern to me,” Wilton said, “but trouble yourself over them if you must. What terms do you have in mind?”

“Given the haste with which I make this request,” Nick said, “I suggest we get down to specifics now. I might be called to Belle Maison at any moment.” Forgive me, Papa. “What specifics do you offer?”

The earl arched an eyebrow, and Nick conceded the man had balls.

An apologetic smile was Nick’s next feat of histrionics. “I believe a dowry is customary?”

“Oh, really, dear boy.” Wilton let go the most irritating laugh. “You cannot expect me to pay to have you take her off my hands, not when I’ve been keeping a roof over her head these many years long past her come out?”

As if Leah’s brothers hadn’t supported her in Italy out of their own pockets, as if she hadn’t served as Wilton’s unpaid housekeeper, as if Wilton hadn’t begrudged her every groat…

“There are many ladies who do not find a match in their first few years in Town,” Nick pointed out. “I was under the impression Mr. Lindsey had taken some interest in his sister’s welfare.”

“A jaunt overseas.” Wilton waved a hand. “What makes you think I wasn’t footing the bill for both of them?”

Offensive in every sense of the word, but a question and therefore not quite a lie.

“I cannot claim to have any knowledge of your family’s personal arrangements,” Nick said evenly. “Are you suggesting Lady Leah is to have no dowry?”

“She most assuredly is not,” Wilton snapped. “I am guessing, Reston, that your father’s circumstances have robbed you of the natural prudence a man in your position should show. Let me speak to you as a father, though, when I tell you she forfeited her dowry years ago, when she brought scandal and shame to this family. She made her bed, so to speak, knowing full well I could not countenance the option she chose. If you want her, you’re welcome to her, but you will pay for the privilege.”

“I will pay?” Nick knit his brows in the expected display of consternation, and he took a long, perhaps worried-looking sip of his tea.

“You will.” Wilton smiled evilly. “You’ve boxed yourself in with your promise to your papa, young man, and Leah can get you out of that box, if I allow it.”

Beelzebub’s pizzle, the man was unnatural. “So what are your terms, my lord?”

“Your own finances are reputed to be improving, Reston.” Wilton’s pinkie finger was back in evidence. “If you are provided an instant countess, they will likely continue to grow, particularly as you take your seat and gain influence in government. For that privilege and Leah’s role in it, you will compensate me a certain sum.”

He named a figure, and Nick rendered in return a virtuosic display of restrained, gentlemanly dismay.

“If I provide that sum,” Nick said after a suitably awkward silence, “you will approve of a marriage by special license?”

“If you provide the sum prior to the wedding, yes.”

“I see.” Nick nodded, and nodded again as if thinking furiously. “Well…”

“Well.” Wilton rose. “Why don’t you have your solicitors get to work on it, and when you have a draft of something, have them send it along to mine. I really cannot spare this interview a great deal more time, you see, because your suit will stand or fall exclusively on the basis of your ability to meet my terms.”

Because, Nick tried not to grind his teeth audibly, Leah’s happiness means nothing to this man.

“It is fortunate,” Nick said, keeping his seat, “my solicitors, in view of my unseemly haste, have already been busy.” He withdrew the sheaf of papers from his breast pocket, reached across Wilton’s desk for a pen, and scribbled a figure onto the document in duplicate. “If you’d take a moment of your time, my lord, I think you’ll see that your terms are met herein.”

Wilton resumed his seat, but not before Nick saw a flicker of surprise and avarice in the man’s eyes. Nick passed him both copies of the contract and sat back, keeping a guardedly hopeful expression on his face.

By tremendous effort of will.

“How ill is your father?” Wilton asked as he perused the contract.

“Mortally.”

Wilton glanced up fleetingly, but with enough arrogance that Nick could see what the man thought of sons who valued deathbed promises over money and freedom.

“The terms appear to be in order, Reston.” Wilton sat back. “I’m impressed.”

“So you’ll sign that contract?”

“When you produce the required consideration, my boy. Once I sign this, she’s yours, and you have what you want. I don’t get what I want until you provide the funds.”

“If I provide those funds, you’ll sign?”

“With enthusiasm. Lady Emily deserves to have her sister out of this household before she makes her come out next year.”

Nick withdrew another sheaf of papers from his breast pocket. “Then here is your consideration, my lord.”

“That hardly looks like the sum you’ve agreed to,” Wilton observed, but his voice shook a bit, enough that Nick knew he had the element of surprise in his favor.

“The contract calls for funds, as cash, drafts, or other negotiable instruments, at my discretion, provided they find their way to your hands prior to the day of the ceremony. I have here bank drafts, my lord”—Nick paused and tossed one across the desk—“in increments of a thousand pounds, some cash, some bearer bonds, and other negotiable instruments, exactly as the contract specifies.”

Wilton picked up the draft and studied it. Nick tossed him another bank draft but added a sardonic arch of his eyebrow, indicating that even Nick, on bended knee, was not going to tolerate a gross insult to his honor.

“You have to be the most eager bridegroom to grace the kingdom in years.”

“I am,” Nick said as Wilton picked up a pen. “But not so fast, my lord.”

Wilton dropped the pen and eyed Nick speculatively.

“We need witnesses. If you can trouble yourself to share another cup of tea, I’ll send around to my town house for my man, and perhaps you can provide a second witness?”

“On such short notice?”

“Very well. I can provide two witnesses, then. Shall you pour?”

Wilton barked for his running footman, and Nick spent a very tedious half hour drinking tepid tea with his future father-in-law. The longer the man talked, the less Nick had any use for him. His conversation was a string of criticisms aimed at his older daughter, his sons, his Regent, his neighbors, the French, the Americans, and by the time he started on the Irish, Nick was ready to kiss the butler for interrupting.

“Callers, my lord,” the butler said, and something about his manner, a panic behind the reserve of an upper servant, must have communicated itself to Wilton. “The Marquis of Heathgate and Lord Valentine Windham.”

Wilton’s eyebrows shot up, and he swung his gaze to regard Nick closely.

Good. Even a rabid fox should be able to perceive when the hounds were in full cry.