‘I’m listening.’

It was the best she could hope for, but he was still glowering. And all she could do was explain.

‘Our problems are all caused by Louis’s father changing the inheritance,’ she told him. ‘Louis’s dissolute ways were giving him nightmares, so he put in the clause-’

‘I know this.’ Of course he knew. After all, Louis had bleated to him of it often enough, and the clause was the nub of his problems now. Alastair’s brow descended even further. ‘It decreed that Louis marry a woman of unimpeachable virtue or he couldn’t inherit.’

‘Yes.’ Marguerite tried very hard not to look at Belle. What she was about to say now wouldn’t be easy. Alastair already understood about the clause-but did Belle? ‘Your uncle couldn’t predict that Louis would end up in the grave three months after his own death. And now it’s left us in a mess, because the clause applies to anyone inheriting the title-which includes you.’

Silence. Then…

‘Contrary to what the lawyers are saying,’ Alastair said softly, in a voice that sounded almost dangerous, ‘Belle is a woman of unimpeachable virtue.’

‘No, dear, she’s not.’ Marguerite refused to be silenced. There was no easy way to say this but both Belle and Alastair had to face it. She’d been saving it for when Alastair saw how bleak his position was, and that time was now.

‘You know it, or you wouldn’t be spending all this time with the accountants,’ she went on. ‘The lawyers are all of the same opinion. Your cousins are prepared to take legal action to see that the estate’s sold and divided, and if you marry Belle that’s exactly what will happen.’

‘Just because Belle’s been married before-’