by Dorothy Mack
“No,” blurted his sister in her distress at this unexpected turn of events. “Not yet, you cannot go just yet, John.” She rose from behind the table and took a step toward him.
“Why can I not?” he queried mildly. “What is there to keep me here?”
Afraid she had detected a faintly bitter tone under the smooth words, and bound to silence on the one subject that could influence him, Lucy bit her lip and stared at him in consternation. She opened her mouth and closed it, tried again, “Stay just a little longer, please, John. Things may not be what they seem at the moment.”
“What do you mean by that? What things?”
“I … I can’t tell you any more but —”
She was interrupted by a knock on the door. John called permission to enter and Lord Oliver walked into the room dressed for travel, with a lightweight driving coat of drab draped over the shoulders of his dark-blue coat. Spotless Hessians gleamed as he approached slowly, carrying a pair of York tan gloves.
“Stansmere told me I might find you both here and allowed me to announce myself. I trust I don’t interrupt?”
John made the correct response, explaining about the letter-writing while Lucy sought to recover her countenance. Prompted by a premonition of disaster, she moved instinctively closer to her brother’s reassuring presence.
“I came to take my leave of you,” Lord Oliver continued in formal tones. “I shall be setting out for my parents’ home in Hampshire within the hour.”
With a supreme effort of will, Lucy kept the moan that fled her heart at this announcement from escaping through her lips, but her face was paper-white and she was incapable of speech or movement for the moment. All of her strength was committed to keeping herself upright and decently quiet.
Once again John came to the rescue, saying all that was proper to the occasion, expressing warm phrases of regret on behalf of both of them. He turned to her then, and his eyes were like steadying hands on her quivering spirit. She mustered up the composure to echo her brother’s sentiments in a calm colourless voice containing the merest hint of huskiness. She was able to offer Lord Oliver a cold hand that did not tremble, and when he raised it to his lips instead of shaking it, she bore that unflinchingly too. However, after one glance into that formal mask when he had explained his errand, she had kept her own eyes down, never raising them above the level of his square chin lest they should betray the anguish that was taking possession of her soul.
There was an awkward moment when Lord Oliver released her hand and swept a low bow, but John was there proposing to walk with him to his phaeton. With senses dulled by pain, Lucy watched the man she loved walk out of her life forever, his height and massive shoulders almost dwarfing her brother’s slim wiry figure beside him as they crossed the dozen feet of space to the entrance. Then the door was closed, closed on any opportunity to apologize for her cruel judgment on the day of the waltzing ball, closed on any future opportunity to tell him what was in her heart, closed permanently, shutting off her future with a barely audible click.
After a minute or two of gazing blindly at that door, Lucy spun away and moved toward the same window John had retreated to earlier. It didn’t face the front of the house; she had no intention of watching Lord Oliver’s phaeton disappear into the distance in the time-honoured fashion of romantic heroines. She didn’t feel like a heroine, she felt … empty.
By standing to the far left of the window she could just glimpse a corner of the Greek temple, but it had no power over her today. For a short time it had seemed to exert a spell that brought a dark, difficult man close to her in an exciting way she had not experienced before. But now the spell was broken and he was gone, taking the excitement with him.
She was staring into a future that resembled a vast desert with nothing on the horizon to alter the sameness when the library door opened again — her brother come back to offer her what comfort he could. She kept her sightless gaze directed out the window.
“He’s gone, John,” she said huskily. “I’ll never see him again.”
“Yes, you will,” replied a voice that was nothing like John’s. “Every day of your life, if you can bear the thought.”
For the space of several heartbeats, Lucy’s courage failed. This could not be happening; she would turn only to find her brother standing there. Her ears strained but there was no sound in the large room except her own harsh breathing. She whirled, almost colliding with the man who had advanced soundlessly across the thick Turkey carpet. Blazing dark eyes in a swarthy face, now curiously pale, clashed with her wildly seeking ones for an instant until his image wavered and dissolved as the tears she had refused to shed when she thought herself unloved cascaded down her cheeks.
“Ah no, sweetheart, don’t,” he groaned, before abandoning words in favour of wrapping an arm like a steel band around her shoulders and trapping her quivering lips with his own warm mouth. The pain and wonder of that bruising embrace mingled about equally, but Lucy welcomed both, in proof of which she managed to extend her pinioned arms around his back to assist him in eradicating all space between them. Neither drew back until driven by the need to draw breath. And now it was Lord Oliver who seemed incapable of speech. He contented himself with pressing light kisses all over her wet face while Lucy sought to re-establish a normal breathing rhythm. She wriggled an arm free and placed caressing fingertips on the jagged line where the French bullet had creased his cheek.
“Why did you come back, Oliver?” she whispered. “What made you change your mind?”
“These,” he said, kissing first one eyelid and then the other before tipping up her chin to repeat the action on her lips. Raising his mouth so he could look into adoring grey eyes, he explained, “I had decided I was in no case to offer marriage to a woman, and until I met you it was not much of a sacrifice. All that changed when I fell headlong in love with you. It became a living purgatory and I realized I must get away from you, must leave temptation behind. Then I watched your face a few minutes ago when I said goodbye. You only looked at me for an instant, but your beautiful eyes were agonized as though I had dealt you a mortal blow. You called me a coward once before, my darling, but that was the moment when I really lost all my courage. I did not have the willpower to walk away and leave you for a whole man to love.”
“No, don’t say that,” protested Lucy, vehement but breathless as she finally eluded the finger that had been pressed against her lips to keep her silent. “You know I could never love any other man. Do not frighten me like that.” She threw her arms around his neck and pressed nearer to him.
“Shhhh, angel, don’t tremble so,” he soothed, gathering her closer once more. “Believe me, the die is now cast. I may have only one arm, but I know how to hold what is mine.” Those jet eyes, alive with an intensity that would have terrified a lesser woman, were demanding a commitment that Lucy was only too happy to give. A twinkle reminiscent of her brother’s illuminated the smoky-grey glance that held his steadily, but her voice was demure.
“I believe you, my lord, and should perhaps inform you that I too have a very possessive nature.”
His teeth gleamed in a rare smile. “I am properly warned, ma’am.” Before he swooped to kiss her again, Lucy noted with a little thrill of pleasure the radical difference happiness made in her future husband’s stern aspect. Though only thirty, he had seemed infinitely older than John or Captain Godwin but she had just glimpsed a younger, almost boyish Oliver, and she gloried in the knowledge that it was her privilege to bring that look back to his face permanently.
He released her responsive mouth with reluctance after another mutually satisfying interval and brushed a hand over her hair to cup the back of her neck gently. “My lovely Delilah, you beguile me into forgetting the existence of time. Your brother and my groom will think me irredeemably caper-witted. I told them I had forgotten something.”
“Oliver! You don’t still mean to leave today?” Lucy was rocked out of her blissful state, and she gazed up at
him in distress.
“I think I must, my love. I have already taken leave of my hosts. If we do not wish to have our affairs bruited about the countryside before your father and my parents have learned our news, I had best continue with my plans. I’ll be back as soon as I am able, but I must see your father at once, and my parents are expecting me.” His eyes roved her features hungrily as if fixing them in his memory as he added softly, “I don’t know how I thought to find the strength to leave you forever when it is absolutely hellish to have to part even for a few days. Unless,” he finished with sudden eagerness, “you were to come with me? Would you, Lucy?”
By now Lucy had had time to consider the situation, and she shook her head regretfully. “I could not go on such short notice. Gemma invited me for the whole summer, and the duke and duchess have been too kind to repay them in such a scrambling fashion. Besides, my brother’s affairs are not in good order at present; if I stay, I might be able to help. But you will not be gone too long, will you, Oliver?”
“Not one moment longer than I must, my heart.” He looked at her gravely without touching her and said with some hesitation, “Your father might not deem me a sound proposition for a son-in-law. Are you prepared for that?”
Lucy showed him a serene countenance in which clear grey eyes smiled confidently. “My father will accept that I know my own mind. He wishes me to have the same kind of true union he and my mother shared. Can you spare another few minutes so that I may write to him?”
On receiving her lover’s fervent assurances that he would be glad to wait for anything that might help smooth his path with Mr. Delevan, she went back to the writing table and tore up the letter she had been labouring over.
Ten minutes later, John entered the library to find his dreamy-eyed sister sitting at the writing table with her chin resting in one cupped palm and the other hand toying with a pen. She returned his smile but said nothing as he crossed to her and dropped a kiss onto one smooth cheek.
“I have just congratulated and bade Godspeed to my future brother-in-law, who, by the by, looks an entirely different person already. I am persuaded you two will suit admirably, my dear, if a brother’s opinion counts for anything.”
“Thank you, John. I mean to make him happy.” She laughed out suddenly. “Poor Oliver is terrified that Father will think him an unfit husband for me.”
John grinned. “I hope you did not tell him that our esteemed parent was more likely to fall on his neck when he sends his card in if he guesses that Lord Oliver means to make you ‘my lady.’” His smile faded. “Will you tell everyone here?”
Lucy hesitated. “Not just yet. I would prefer to wait until I have Oliver to support me.”
“The duchess may guess your secret. She was returning to the house when I left Oliver just now, and she could not have failed to note the difference in him when he bade her farewell. She doesn’t miss much for all her quiet ways and diffident manner.”
“I should not mind the duchess knowing.”
John’s eyes fell on the torn scraps on the writing table and his eyebrows escalated. “Our letter to Father?” At Lucy’s guilty nod he said resignedly, “I can see that I shall have to write, after all. Father will get nothing coherent out of you today.”
He pulled her unresisting from the chair and took her place. “I shall give Barton a sterling character and forward my blessings on the match to help resolve any doubts Father might have that aren’t covered by the title and fortune.” He picked up the pen, and feeling herself dismissed, Lucy drifted out of the library and turned toward her room.
At the top of the stairs she met the duchess, whose smiling glance lingered on her young guest’s features.
“You are looking very radiant this morning, my dear child.”
The older woman’s greeting could be taken as an invitation if she wished, but the duchess would never pry. Suddenly Lucy found it easy to share her good news even without the support of her betrothed. “Yes, ma’am,” she said simply. “Lord Oliver Barton has just done me the honour of asking me to be his wife.”
Her hands were taken in a warm clasp as the duchess reached up and kissed her. “I am so happy for you both! You will know how to lighten the shadows in his world. You are exactly what he needs.” Two dimples appeared in her cheeks, heightening the resemblance to her daughter as she went on with a mischievous smile, “And he is exactly what you want, yes?”
“Yes, ma’am,” confessed Lucy, blushing furiously.
“I should not tease you,” said her hostess, patting her hand in contrition, “but I am so delighted to have something good come out of this summer.”
A wistful look had invaded the deep-brown eyes, and Lucy said impulsively, “I shouldn’t worry too much about Gemma, your grace.”
The duchess bent a searching glance on the girl who was looking acutely uncomfortable at having brought up a topic she was not free to discuss, and with the delicacy of touch that was basic to her personality, she refrained from pursuing the subject. She merely said out of the blue, “I do so like your brother, Lucy,” before inquiring if the news of her guest’s betrothal was to remain secret for the moment.
“If you please, ma’am, just until Lord Oliver returns,” Lucy replied gratefully.
The duchess nodded before starting down the staircase. “I’ll see you at lunch, my child.”
CHAPTER 17
His Grace of Carlyle was seated at the desk in his study with the open estate ledgers in front of him. The most cursory glance, however, would inform that he was not engaged upon this mundane task. A frown had settled on his brow, and his lips were compressed into a straight line. His unfocused stare seemed to be directed at the empty chair of maroon leather on the far side of the desk, and it was obvious that no very pleasant topic occupied his thoughts at the moment.
Until a week or so ago, his grace had had every reason to congratulate himself on the success of his arrangements. Matters had fallen out much as he had planned; affairs were nicely under control, marching toward the conclusion he intended. Since the waltzing ball, however, the threads in his all-but-completed pattern had started to unravel, forcing him to take a hand in the matter lest his vital design be destroyed. Careful observation had not secured enlightenment as to the causes behind the present crisis, but he knew where to lay the blame — squarely on his daughter’s slim shoulders. His grace’s lips thinned even more. Gemma’s contrariness had always been the one stumbling block that it was imperative to remove from the path to his objective. He had foreseen the difficulty of gaining her cooperation from the inception of his scheme, but unfortunately, circumstances had left him with no alternative except to use her prospective marriage as the means to re-establish his financial position.
The duke was not attempting to avoid responsibility. He accepted that the estate was at rather low water at present almost entirely due to his own extravagance and bad management over a long period of time. His losses at cards and at the race meets had been sharply higher in the recent past, and one or two investments of a speculative nature had turned sour on him in the same period of time. With the clarity of hindsight, he could now see that he had been overly generous to the succession of ladybirds who had engaged his interest over the years, but one owed something to one’s consequence, after all, and he would not have it whispered in the clubs that Carlyle behaved in a scaly fashion to anyone under his protection.
Expenses always seemed to outrun income. There were repairs to be undertaken at the hall, his bailiff had been plaguing him to death to put some money into the farms, and before the year was out, Gresham would come into his majority with a concomitant increase in his allowance. It had gradually become unavoidable that the only avenue for getting the necessary revenue that did not entail unpleasant economies or diminishing the estate was through a beneficial marriage settlement on his daughter.
And he had pulled off a coup with ridiculous ease. The duke had long had his banking arrangements at the institution controlled by th
e senior Delevan and had come to know him well in a business way. To be fair, he’d seen no signs that the fellow was trying to worm his way into the inner circle. His interests seemed to be confined to making money, which he did very well indeed, and his family, about which he could be a bit of a bore, a trait that clearly marked him as a cit. The idea of aligning the families germinated on the occasion when Mr. Delevan referred to the friendship between their daughters for the third or fourth time; it germinated, matured, and exploded in the duke’s brain within seconds of his becoming aware that the banker, far from being content with his enormous wealth, was possessed of audacious social ambitions centred in his children.
At this point, the duke had thankfully turned away several respectable suitors … at his daughter’s request. He had scarcely embarked on a tactful approach to forging a more personal friendship with Delevan when he discovered the latter to be fully cognizant of his intent and perfectly willing to be open-handed should the young people consent to the match.
In fact, matters had marched merrily as a marriage bell until now. Happily, both Delevan children had turned out to be more than presentable, though he could wish the brother a trifle less intellectual and a bit more in the dashing style that attracted young girls. Knowing his daughter’s intransigence, he had refrained from approaching her directly, although he had taken the precaution of acquainting her mother with his intention in case her cooperation should be required. Once the scene was set, he had taken great pains to remove himself from the proceedings.
The unexpected return of George Godwin to the cast had given him cause for momentary alarm, but the presence of Coralee in the wings had been a godsend in that respect. He hoped he knew how to value his own daughter, certainly he had received confirmation aplenty of her popularity since her come-out, but she could not hope to compete with her beautiful cousin. He knew he didn’t have to worry about Mr. John Delevan’s being ensnared by the latter’s beauty, because there was never a question of his niece’s marrying anyone whose birth did not equal her own. Coralee had been raised to expect a brilliant match, and he had every confidence that she would achieve it. Had young Delevan exhibited the least inclination to dangle after her, the duke would have speedily acquainted him with the facts, but the cub knew on which side his bread was buttered and appeared to set about fixing his interest with Gemma in the right way. Coralee had needed no encouragement to enslave George Godwin, putting an end to that old boy-and-girl affair between him and Gemma.
