CHAPTER FOURThere was a pregnant silence.
Then the Marquis asked him,
“Is this a joke?”
“On the contrary,” Terence Verley replied, “I am very serious. It is a case of either going to a debtors’ prison, which would create a family scandal, or you help me.”
Very quietly the Marquis quizzed him,
“I think you had better explain first how you can be my Heir Presumptive.”
“It’s not difficult,” Terence Verley answered, “but you might not like what you hear.”
He helped himself to yet another glass of champagne and then he sat down in a comfortable armchair, apparently at his ease.
The Marquis stood in front of the fireplace waiting.
“My father,” Terence Verley said finally, “was the third son of the second Marquis. He was apparently a dashing young man, which does not surprise me, but the
