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Which had made Gareth the St Clair heir And left him, quite simply, stuck For the past elevenbut wait Sooner or later, his father was going to announce to all ould listen that Gareth wasn’t really his son Surely the baron, whose third-favorite pasti the St Clair faenets, would not countenance his title going to a bastard of uncertain blood

Gareth was fairly certain that the only way the baron could remove him as his heir would be to haul him, and a pack of witnesses as well, before the Coes in the House of Lords It would be a messy, detestable affair, and it probably wouldn’t work, either The baron had been iven birth, and that rendered Gareth legitiardless of his bloodlines

But it would cause a huge scandal and quite possibly ruin Gareth in the eyes of society There were plenty of aristocrats running about who got their blood and their names from two different men, but the ton didn’t like to talk about it Not publicly, anyway

But thus far, his father had said nothing

Half the time Gareth wondered if the baron kept his silence just to torture him

Gareth glanced across the roolass of leerton, whoatha, Lady Danbury, was most usually described as crotchety, and that was by the people who held her in so the ton, fearless in her words and willing to poke fun at the es, and even, occasionally, herself But for all her acerbic ways, she was famously loyal to the ones she loved, and Gareth knew he ranked at the top of that list

When he’d gone to her and told her that his father had turned him out, she had been livid, but she had never attempted to use her power as a countess to force Lord St Clair to take back his son

“Ha!” his grandmother had said “I’d rather keep you myself”

And she had She’d paid Gareth’s expenses at Caraduated (not with a first, but he had acquitted himself well), she had informed him that his mother had left him a small bequest Gareth hadn’t been aware that she’d had any money of her own, but Lady Danbury had just twisted her lips and said, “Do you really think I’d let that idiot have coe settlement, you know”

Gareth didn’t doubt it for an instant

His inheritance gave him a small income, which funded a very small suite of apartments, and Gareth was able to support hih to make him feel he wasn’t a complete wastrel, which, he was surprised to realize, ht

This uncharacteristic sense of responsibility was probably a good thing, too, since when he did assu to inherit awith it The baron had obviously been lying when he’d told Gareth that they would lose everything that wasn’t entailed if he didn’t marry Mary Winthrop, but still, it was clear that the St Clair fortune was er at best Further the family finances any better than he had when he’d tried to force Gareth intothe estates into the ground

It was the one thing that made Gareth wonder if perhaps the baron didn’t intend to denounce hie would be to leave his false son riddled with debt

And Gareth kneith every fiber of his being he knew—that the baron wished him no happiness Gareth didn’t bother with e city, socially speaking, and he couldn’t always e to avoid his father completely And Lord St Clair never made any effort to hide his enmity

As for Gareth—well, he wasn’t s to hi sory The last time they’d found thehed too loudly, then danced far too closely with a notoriously merry