by Lauren Royal
“But surely your father entertains.”
“Not since the death of my mother. Even Christmas at Hawkridge is a rather dreary affair, with more attention paid to servants and tenants than any real celebrating.”
“It sounds dismal,” she said, rubbing the scars on her hand, her eyes apprehensive. “However did you make friends?”
“It wasn’t easy.” He’d met few young people during his years at home. “If Kit hadn’t lived so nearby, I likely wouldn’t have had any friends at all.”
Lily’s apprehension faded, replaced by a look Rand could describe only as resolute. “Well, if we end up living at Hawkridge, things will change.”
Rand very much doubted that, but he did allow that Lily had a better chance of influencing his father than he did. He suddenly realized what a good catch she was for a man such as himself: an academic who, until recently, had borne a courtesy title only.
The Earl of Trentingham’s daughter. He’d never considered her status before, since he didn’t care about such things, but Lady Lily Ashcroft was the sort of wife the Marquess of Hawkridge would approve. He wondered if her mother had been thinking in that direction when she’d insisted Lily come along. He was beginning to suspect Lady Trentingham was a very cunning woman. But he liked her.
Lily yawned and laid her head on his shoulder. “Sleepy?” he asked.
“Mmm-hmm. But yesterday was nice.”
He knew she meant last night, but pretended to misunderstand. “Oh, yes, it was very nice. Up until I received the blasted letter and Rowan fell off the scaffolding.”
“It was nice after that, too,” she protested.
And he realized it had been, even without counting their very nice encounter in the wee hours. “You’re right,” he said. “The afternoon went very smoothly, all considered. Your parents didn’t let Rowan’s prank ruin everything. They didn’t seem angry.”
“Events occur. You take them in stride.”
His family hadn’t. “They also don’t seem upset that you’re marrying a professor.”
“You’re an earl now, too.”
“But I wasn’t, and they never seemed to care.”
“They trust my choice. Besides, they admire you and what you’ve done with your life.”
He’d sensed that. Just walking around the city with them, he’d felt perfectly comfortable. He’d felt like he belonged. “You have a wonderful family.”
“My father is half deaf, my mother is an unrepentant gossip, my brother thinks tricking people is a laudable achievement, my sister lusts after the man I love—”
“They’re wonderful,” he repeated. “You’re all so close.”
If he’d been envious of that closeness, yesterday had changed that. Because they’d accepted him as though he were one of their own. To them, he wasn’t a disappointment.
They were the family he’d never had.
“I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he said in a voice made husky by unfamiliar emotion. A day with Lily’s family had made clear what he’d missed out on all his life: the laughter, the friendly bickering, the love, that amazing unconditional acceptance.
He wanted, more than ever, to create a family like that with Lily.
In no time at all—or so it seemed to Rand, who’d as soon it took forever—their carriage was turning away from the Thames and rolling up the wide drive to Hawkridge Hall.
“Oh, it’s lovely,” Lily said softly.
Rand couldn’t help thinking she’d probably rather live here, in a mansion on the bucolic banks of the river, than in a smaller house smack in the middle of Oxford.
His gaze swept over the three-story redbrick building. Although its symmetrical H shape was typical of houses built this century, the house was atypical in size and appointments. And the marquess spared no expense to keep it that way. The windows had been replaced since Rand moved away, now the new sash style with double-glazed glass. The mansion was the height of contemporary fashion.
But it sickened him. He had few happy memories of this place.
“It shows no signs of damage,” Lily remarked. “Yet your family supported Charles in the war, did they not? How is it that Hawkridge escaped Cromwell’s wrath, and so close to London, no less?”
“We have my mother to thank for that. Publicly, she was great friends with Oliver Cromwell and went so far as to entertain him here. Privately, she was an important member of the Sealed Knot.”
“What was that?”
“A clandestine organization that aimed to restore Charles to the throne. The members had secret names; my mother was ‘Mrs. Gray.’ When I was very young, she traveled to the Continent several times as a courier. Many letters went back and forth, always written in code.”
“Ah, I see where you inherited that talent for deciphering your brother’s diaries.”
He grinned. “My mother even concocted an invisible ink that they used. In the Sealed Knot letters, Cromwell was ‘Mr. Wright.’ While on the surface she supported him, all along she was plotting his downfall.”
“She must have been quite a woman.”
“She was smart and principled and beautiful. And I suppose she made this home beautiful, too,” he added, knowing, in a detached way, that it was. “But I don’t want to live here.”
“I, too, would prefer to live in Oxford,” Lily assured him, sounding sincere.
He hoped she meant those words, because he meant to fight to keep his current life. And with her on his side, he had some hope he’d accomplish that goal. The marquess was sure to adore her.
“But I’ll be happy living wherever you are,” she added as the carriage rolled to a stop.
He pulled her close for a kiss. “Thank you for that.” He dredged up a smile. “All right. Let’s get this over with.”
He was helping her down from the carriage when the mansion’s arched front door yawned wide. His father stood in the opening. The man’s gaze swept Lily from head to toe, then swung glaring to Rand.
“What took you so long?” he asked. “Your brother is already buried.”
Just hearing that tone of voice, Rand felt, for a moment, like the small boy who’d always quavered in the face of his father’s disfavor. The frosty gray eyes missed nothing, assessing him as they used to—and with no more approval. If Rand had harbored an unrealistic hope that the loss of the marquess’s elder son would make him look anew at his younger one, those dreams were dashed.
Never mind how carefully he’d dressed; Rand felt slovenly under that gaze. For that moment he was ten again, pining for the man’s love, willing to do almost anything to gain that elusive acceptance. But whatever he’d tried had always been for naught, and today was no different.
And he wasn’t that small boy anymore.
Patience, he told himself. There was no point in starting out confrontational. The marquess had asked why he’d taken so long, and he would give him a civil answer.
He was opening his mouth to explain that he hadn’t been home to receive mail when the man added, “And who the hell is she?”
Thirty-Six
PATIENCE FLED, chased away by stunned disbelief. Rand lifted his chin and wrapped an arm around Lily. “This is Lady Lily Ashcroft, the Earl of Trentingham’s daughter. We’re betrothed and plan to marry soon.”
The marquess’s shoulders tensed beneath his jet-black velvet suit. “You’ll marry her over my dead body.”
For a moment, Rand wished he could arrange that.
Though he could feel Lily quaking beside him, her spine remained straight. He met the man’s cold gray gaze with one of his own. “Might I request you get to know the lady before you forbid our marriage?”
“My lord,” Lily added in a tone both respectful and steady, “I’m from good family, and I am in love with your son.”
The marquess’s expression didn’t soften. “Then you will make him an excellent mistress,” he snapped, and turned to go into the house.
“That’s enough!” Rand called after him dange
rously.
But the stubborn man didn’t even glance back.
Appalled, Rand turned to Lily. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Her voice was quiet so as not to be overheard, but determination laced every word. “He won’t keep us apart.”
Rand hadn’t known his sweet Lily had so much steel inside her, but he was supremely grateful to find out. “He won’t,” he agreed, matching her confidence outwardly.
But he knew that no matter how misguided his father’s reasons, the man would fight to the bitter end. The Marquess of Hawkridge always got his way. Together, Rand and Lily would have to make sure this time was the exception.
Servants were milling around them, handing down luggage and carting it up the steps. Rand was surprised to find he still recognized most. They smiled, and he did his best to smile back as he drew Lily up the two sets of stone steps and into Hawkridge’s imposing great hall.
Arms crossed, the marquess waited inside, eyeing the luggage sitting on the black-and-white marble floor. His expression of disapproval had given way to disbelief. “She cannot be thinking to stay the night.”
Rand set his jaw. “Lily and I are betrothed. If she leaves, so do I.”
The marquess thought on that a moment, but he’d always been a man who knew which battles were worth fighting. He beckoned to one of the waiting maids. “Etta, put her in the Queen’s Bedchamber. For now,” he added ominously. After pausing a moment for effect, he also added, “Randal, you’ll join me in my study.” Without waiting for agreement, he turned to leave.
The maid curtsied and touched a hand to the white cap that covered her gray curls. Rand blinked in shock. His old nurse had been demoted to a housemaid.
“Nurse Etta—” he started.
“You’d best go,” she warned, though her voice was kind. Her gaze strayed to the marquess’s stiff, retreating back. “I’ll take care of your lady.”
Lily went off with her head held high. Rand headed for the study, hoping she’d find the Queen’s Bedchamber a comfortable place to wait.
The room had acquired the name years earlier, shortly after it had been redecorated for a visit by Queen Catharine of Braganza, King Charles’s wife. Though Rand hoped Lily would feel honored to be assigned the chamber, he knew the truth: His father meant her to be intimidated. In anticipation of the queen’s using it, the room had been fitted out in a way meant to display the marquess’s power.
It also—by no coincidence, Rand was certain—sat as far from Rand’s own chamber as physically possible. In the opposite wing, on a different floor.
In another move meant to intimidate, the marquess sat behind his desk, which rested on a raised dais toward the back of his study, and waved Rand toward a chair on the lower level.
Rand dropped onto it, sat back, and crossed his arms. Looking up at his father this way used to make him feel like a contrite child, but he’d come too far to fall for the old goat’s tricks.
The marquess was one of the few men Rand knew who wore a periwig every waking hour of every day, even tucked away out here in the countryside. When that gray gaze settled on Rand, he braced, waiting for his father to make mention of his uncovered, chopped-off hair. Then he chided himself. It had been too long for the man to recognize the difference. Or he hadn’t noticed. Or he simply didn’t care.
Or all of the above.
The marquess wasted no time on preliminaries. “Your brother, as you know, had been betrothed since childhood to Margery. I swore to her father they would marry the day she turned one-and-twenty. That happens to be next week. I intend for you to fulfill that pledge.”
Rand felt as though the air had been knocked out of him. He closed his eyes for a moment, then forced them open, a failing attempt to appear unruffled.
Margery. How could he have forgotten how these developments would impact Margery?
“Where is Margery?”
“In London. I sent her to obtain a proper wardrobe for mourning. She returns tomorrow.” The marquess lifted a quill, pristine white lace falling back from his wrist. “I expect you to greet her as befits a husband-to-be.”
“I cannot.” Rand had washed his hands of the marquess long ago. He wasn’t responsible for the man’s twenty-year-old agreement. “I’m sorry for Margery, but I’m pledged to Lily.”
Not to mention he’d bedded her as well.
“My honor is on the line,” the marquess continued, breezing over Rand’s refusal. “And the family wealth is at stake.”
Looking toward the heavens for patience, Rand waved an arm, the gesture encompassing the overblown glory that was Hawkridge Hall. “I cannot imagine how the family wealth could be in jeopardy.”
For once, his father looked almost uncomfortable. “I’ve never had any reason to discuss family finances with you. But you may as well know that I mortgaged the Hawkridge lands to raise funds for Charles.”
Rand knew he meant Charles I, not the current King Charles, and that the funds had gone to support the king’s side in the Civil War. The money would have been lost along with the battles, but William Nesbitt had been and still was a loyal Royalist. That he’d done such a thing was hardly surprising.
But his next words were.
“I was on the verge of ruin when Margery came into our lives.”
Margery. Rand pictured her young upturned face, her delicate features framed by the palest blond curls. Between her sporadic letters, he hadn’t thought of Margery often—he’d avoided thinking of anything at Hawkridge for years—but when he had, they’d been fond thoughts. He thought of her much like a sister.
Never, ever as a potential wife.
“I’m wedding Lily,” he repeated. “Soon.”
For heaven’s sake, she could be carrying his child.
The marquess dipped the quill and began signing papers while he talked. “As Margery’s guardian and eventual father-in-law, I’ve managed her extensive lands along with Hawkridge’s for twenty years. The loss of those lands and income would be devastating, leading to eventual bankruptcy.”
One of Rand’s hands reached up to find the ends of his once-long hair, then fisted and dropped to his lap. “Surely you exaggerate.”
“I do not.” The marquess flipped a page.
Rand figured the man’s half attention was calculated to make him feel worthless, but it wasn’t going to work. He wouldn’t let it work.
“Should you refuse to marry Margery,” his father continued, “her land will be lost to us, and all of Hawkridge will suffer.” At last, he looked up. “All, Randal.”
All.
Not only what was left of the family, but the old family retainers. Etta and the other servants. The tenants, the villagers—everyone who depended on Hawkridge for their livings.
Rand knew his father was preying on his sympathies. The old man bore no great concern for the people—he worried for himself, and himself alone. But knowledge of the marquess’s machinations did little to mitigate the effect of the threat.
Rand rubbed his palms on his velvet breeches. “I don’t care,” he said, afraid that he did.
A man didn’t turn his back on people who relied on him.
The marquess’s expression remained stony and resolute. He signed the paper in front of him, the scratch of the quill loud in the awkward silence.
“Lily has a dowry,” Rand said. “Three thousand pounds.”
“Three thousand wouldn’t begin to make a dent in Hawkridge’s needs.” The page crackled when he flipped it to look at another. “You may leave now. I have much to do. We’ll discuss this again tomorrow.”
Rand was dismissed. He rose and walked to the door, then turned back. “Perhaps tomorrow you’ll come to your senses.”
Though it had often cost him dearly as a boy, he never had learned to resist getting in the last word.
Thirty-Seven
FOR THE FIRST few minutes she was left alone, Lily wandered around the magnificent Queen’s Bedchamber, alternating between worrying about wha
t Rand and his father were discussing and marveling at the exquisite furnishings.
She supposed the queen really had graced this room at least once, for it certainly looked like it had been decorated for royalty. Even Lily, whose own family home was worth gawking at, found this chamber astonishing.
The enormous state bed, hung with costly cloth of gold, sat on a raised parquet dais behind a balustrade in the French style. Great poufs of ostrich feathers crowned each of the bed’s four posts. The ceiling was elaborate painted plasterwork, the furniture gilt wood. The walls were hung with rich tapestries, and the marble fireplace boasted gilded crowns over the chimneypiece and on the piers.
But above all, the position of the room demonstrated its status. Beyond its windows, as in a royal palace, the gardens and avenues spread out in perfect symmetry, from this, the exact central vantage point.
However, Lily had little inclination to gaze upon Hawkridge’s gardens. Her own father’s were much more impressive. And while she had no doubt she’d been shown to this chamber in the hope it would convince her of the marquess’s wealth and power, having fought Rose—and herself, she admitted—for Rand, she wasn’t willing to give him up easily.
Along with the other priceless furnishings, the Queen’s Bedchamber contained a lovely rosewood harpsichord. No matter the marquess’s intentions, he really couldn’t have assigned her to a more perfect room. Smiling in spite of her heavy heart, she sat down to play.
And that was where Rand found her half an hour later.
For a moment, or maybe longer, she’d managed to lose herself in the music. But one look at Rand’s face brought her crashing back to reality.
“It didn’t go well,” she said. A statement, not a question.
He dredged up a smile—a weak, obvious effort. “Everything will be fine. I need to think. I need to…to go off by myself. Sometimes I do that, and I just wanted to let you know.”
“All right.” But she stood, reaching to catch the stool when she nearly knocked it over. “Where are you going?”
