Single Mum to Countess - Chapter 10
‘You had no right.’
The dowager countess didn’t look in the least cowed, or apologetic; instead she stood tall and proud and righteous. ‘I had every right. You were a child.’
‘I was twenty-two,’ Ben reminded his mother. ‘An adult and the head of the family.’
‘Darling, no man can be said to be truly grown up until he reaches thirty. Your father always said to let you play in your twenties and you’d be all the more ready to take on the responsibilities of the title. That’s why I didn’t say anything when you decided to move to the other side of the world and fritter your time away in Ecuador, supported you starting your little company. But if you thought I would sit back and let you get suckered in by some Cornish waitress on the make, you don’t know me. The girl got paid off. You got your twenties as your father wanted.’
Ben stared at his mother aghast. He knew she could be single-minded, hard at times, but he had never thought her capable of such cruelty and deception.
‘I always wondered why you decided to sell the Polhallow house,’ he said slowly. ‘You loved it so. Dad loved it there. But of course you didn’t want to run the risk I might bump into Sally and Alice.’
‘It was a small sacrifice. You can’t just marry anyone, Ben. You have a great responsibility. You need a partner who understands your world.’
‘What if Alice had been a boy? You would have disinherited her by your actions.’
But that, he realised with dismay, had been his mother’s intention. Only a son born to a married peer could inherit the title. It might be hopelessly outdated, sexist and unfair but that was the law.
And that law might have meant that he would have offered to marry Sally if he’d known she was pregnant. They had been very young, hadn’t really known each other, but it would have felt like the right thing to do. And his mother had anticipated that.
‘There are going to be some changes around here. You’re right—I need to start taking some responsibility, which means I will take over the estate and the family apartments as of right now.’
‘You’re throwing me out of my home?’
‘My home,’ he said curtly.
‘I came to Askett Hall as a bride of twenty-five and have poured my heart and soul into this house and the estate.’
‘Don’t be so melodramatic, Mother. You have the right to live in the Dower House as long as you wish, and it’s not as if you don’t have property and money of your own.’ He’d known that at some point he’d need to balance his commitments to the company he’d part founded and the estate he’d inherited—events had just accelerated the timetable.
‘You’re relieved of your responsibilities as of today. I’ll need to speak to estate management and then I’m leaving for a few days. By the time I am back, I expect you gone.’