by Cheryl Holt
“I can’t predict what he’ll do. He was flirting outrageously with her, but matrimony? It seems outside the realm of possibilities.”
“I can’t decide if that’s good news or not. Would it be better if they’re wed or wouldn’t it?”
“Libby warned him to stay away from her, but once he gets an idea in his head, it’s hard to dissuade him from pursuing it. In that, he’s just like his father who was as reckless as they come.”
“If he actually marries her, what kind of man is he? Is he a drunkard? Is he a philanderer? Would he be violent or abusive?”
“He doesn’t have many bad habits—except for his being a rogue and a charlatan. He’s generous to a fault and incredibly flamboyant. He works tirelessly so people will like him, so he’s funny and interesting. He doesn’t drink to excess, and he’s never angry. For the most part, he’s a very happy fellow who loves life and enjoys reveling. In many ways, he’d be a grand husband for a young girl like her. She’ll never be bored with him. I can guarantee it.”
“Will he presume I’ll hand over her dowry?”
“I positive that’s a motivating factor.”
“I won’t give it to him.”
Fish shrugged. “But then, Penny would be left in the lurch financially. I can’t imagine you being so spiteful.”
“No, I couldn’t be,” he glumly agreed.
She smirked with amusement. “They’ll likely return to Roland very soon, so you’ll have a son-in-law in the house—and it won’t be Lord Barrett.”
“Gad, don’t remind me! I’ll have to tell Luke she tossed him over for a circus performer. His ego might not survive it.”
“In my opinion, he has too much ego. He’ll bear up.”
She was still fuming over Lord Barrett and what an arrogant prig he was. When they’d been freed from the jail, they’d trotted away without him, and he hadn’t bothered to ride after them. He hadn’t visited, hadn’t tried to rekindle Libby’s affections. So . . .
A pox on his sorry hide!
“Could you chase after them?” she asked. “You might be able to find them so it doesn’t conclude in calamity.”
“She had a huge head start before we realized she was missing. I doubt I could have caught her, and even if I had, she’s very stubborn. She’d have told me to sod off and allow her to continue on her merry way.”
“She’s just doing what you did all those years ago. You recognize that, don’t you?”
“Of course, but it doesn’t make the debacle anymore palatable.”
“The damage is done, so you have to figure out how to deal with it. I can’t see you fighting with them. Nor can I picture you cutting ties.”
“No, I never would.”
“Look on the bright side. Maybe she’ll be happy forever with Simon. She wouldn’t have been with Lord Barrett, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Simon is a good boy—when he’s not swindling someone—and Penny will have the most dashing husband of all her acquaintances. I’m betting she’ll be delighted.”
“Until it dawns on her that this was a terrible mistake.”
Fish couldn’t muster any concern for rich, spoiled Penny Pendleton. “If it crashes down later on, you’ll be there to pick up the pieces.”
“I suppose.”
“It’s not the end of the world, Charles. Daughters wed the wrong men all the time. Even when the father selects a stellar candidate, it can wind up in disaster. Let’s hope for the best.”
He nodded firmly. “That has to be my attitude, doesn’t it?”
His misery was painful to observe, and she’d always been a sap when confronted by a distraught male. She always leapt to their rescue, which had caused her countless problems in her life. She had to stop behaving like such an idiot.
She changed the subject. “I have to show you something.”
She went to the desk where the box of Harry’s letters lay like a bomb ready to explode. She brought it over and placed it on the table.
“Open it,” she said.
“Why? What’s in it?”
“It’s the letters Libby stumbled on after Harry died—the ones that clear up her past.”
Charles didn’t reach for it, but glared as if wishing he had magical eyes that could peer into the wood. “I can’t fuss with this right now.”
“If not now, when?” she asked.
The question hung in the air between them, and still, he didn’t move. He was frozen, almost fearful over what he was about to learn, and she bristled with aggravation, then shifted to sit next to him on the sofa. She lifted the lid and began reading them to him.
Initially, he wouldn’t glance at them, but as she commenced the third one—written by Amanda to Harry—he peeked down and gasped.
“That’s Amanda’s handwriting,” he said. “I’d recognize it anywhere.”
He took the stack from her and perused the others on his own. She nestled by his side, watching the emotions that swept over his face. The facts he’d sought for so long about what had happened to Henrietta were finally revealed.
Amanda had vanished from London with her lover, but the oaf had perished in Italy. Amanda had been penniless, friendless, and alone. She’d met Harry’s brother, gullible Kit Carstairs, who’d been a university student on a tour of the country.
Poor Kit had believed Amanda’s story about being an abused wife who was fleeing her brutish husband, and he’d been determined to save her. While Charles had fruitlessly searched for Amanda in Europe, she and Kit had sailed for the Caribbean. Their ship had sunk in a storm and the rest, as they say, was history.
As Charles finished the last letter, posted from the Canary Islands before the sinful pair continued across the Atlantic, he put them back in the box and secured the lid so they were shielded from his sight.
He sat like a marble statue, and they dawdled in the silence. Eventually, he said, “Libby is my daughter, isn’t she? She’s Little Henrietta.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Did Harry leave any explanation as to why he hid her from me?”
“Not that we’ve found. It will probably always be a mystery, but he was incredibly fond of her, Charles. He truly was. Perhaps it’s no more complicated than that.”
“Oh, my Lord, she’s Henrietta, and I kicked her out of my house!”
Fish didn’t have a reply to that remark, so she kept her mouth shut. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. An eternity ticked by, and after a lengthy interval, he straightened and turned to her.
“Will she ever forgive me?” he asked.
“I think she will. She’s a kind girl. She’s stubborn—sort of like Penny, so maybe obstinacy is a family trait—but she’s kind. I can’t guess if you’ll ever have the relationship with her you’re hoping, but I expect some type of connection will form.”
“What should I do?”
“Invite her to Roland for an extended stay. Spend some time getting acquainted. Simon and Penny will be back from Scotland soon, and they’ll want to live with you. Libby and Simon are affectionately close, so it might help to have her there to smooth things over.”
On mentioning the idea, Fish felt sick at heart. Libby and Simon were her family, the children she’d never had. If she allowed Charles to have them, if they joined his life rather than hers, she’d be all alone. If they left her to become Pendletons, where would she be?
After another excruciating interval, he said, “If I invite Libby to come, would you come with her?”
Her pulse fluttered as if she were a gushing debutante. Apparently, she was still so smitten that she’d jump at the chance to be humiliated all over again. Where was her pride? Where was her sense of self-preservation?
“I don’t know, Charles. I’d have to think about it long and hard.”
“I’ve sent Millicent away�
��if that’s what is worrying you.”
“You sent her away? I thought the two of you were attached at the hip.”
“When I discovered her mischief toward you and Libby, I was so incensed. I finally had to accept that she isn’t the person I deemed her to be.”
“I told you so,” Fish mumbled under her breath.
“Yes, and I decided she should move on. I delivered her to her brother—and good riddance.”
“I don’t suppose she was very happy about it.”
“She wasn’t, but she’s gone, so you needn’t be concerned about her.”
Her mind raced with a hundred pretty visions. She could picture lazy afternoons and nights of passion where their frolicking never ended. There would be quiet chats and emotional bonding and poignant intimacy that would keep them occupied until . . . when?
She scowled at him. “What would I do there, Charles?”
“I don’t have any answers, but my bedchamber is so bloody empty without you. Won’t you come home?”
It was a dangerous question, and she tamped down the eager response that yearned to burst out.
“I have to ponder your request,” she said, “and I have to discuss it with Libby. If I agreed to tarry for a bit, I’d grow too besotted, and I don’t trust how you’d treat me or where I’d be when you were through with me.”
“What if I was never through with you? What if every minute was grand and you stayed forever?”
“I’m not a green girl, Charles, and you’re not the only aristocrat who ever seduced me. The word forever doesn’t exist for a disparate couple like you and me. Don’t pretend about it.”
He leaned over and kissed her. She hadn’t expected it, so she hadn’t realized she should ward him off. She’d always been an easy target for him, so she kissed him back with much more enthusiasm than she should have displayed.
He drew away, and they both sighed as if she’d consented, but she hadn’t. If she went to Roland, how long might she remain? No doubt, once gossip spread that he was scandalously consorting with a mistress in the manor, he’d kick her out again.
Would the joy of the sojourn cancel out the subsequent despair? She’d never been one to rue and regret. Should she relent? Might it be worth it?
“I can’t decide,” she said. “There are too many ramifications to consider.”
He grinned, wearing her down. “Without Millicent, I’m in desperate need of a female to run my house and serve as my hostess. It could be you.”
“In your dreams maybe.”
“We could lie to the neighbors and insist you’re simply my special friend.”
“Yes, I’m sure they’d believe it was entirely innocent—right up until they tarred and feathered you for being an immoral libertine.”
“I might risk any punishment to have you back.”
“Don’t tell me that,” she said. “If you spew nonsense, I’ll start liking you again.”
“I’ve behaved like a saint for too many years, and it’s probably time for me to behave badly. Say yes. Say you’ll come.”
She gazed at him, studying his handsome face, and the Devil was whispering in her ear.
Why not go to Roland? Why not love him for as long as he’ll allow it?
But he was urging her to walk down a hazardous road, and she had to be careful.
“Let me think about it,” she said. “That’s all I can promise for now.”
“I won’t quit pestering you until you give me the correct answer, so I don’t understand why you don’t put me out of my misery and agree immediately.”
“I’ll think about it,” she repeated more sternly. “And there would have to be some rules in place first.”
“Rules about what?”
“About how we’d end it after you’re weary of me. You’d have to swear you’d never evict me on the spur of the moment merely because you were angry.”
His cheeks flushed. “Gad, I’m such a pompous ass, aren’t I?”
“You definitely can be, but I’m fond of you anyway.”
“I have to try harder to ingratiate myself.”
“I admit you’re not making much progress. How will you rectify the situation?”
She shouldn’t have inquired. Once he’d kissed her, it was all over but the shouting. A hot gleam flooded his eyes, the one that flared when he was contemplating sexual activity.
On observing it, she shook her head in exasperation. “We’re fighting, and I’m still irked by what a callous bastard you can be, but you’re focused on carnal mischief.”
“I’m a man. It’s all we think about. For years, I had stopped thinking about it, but you’ve enticed me, and it would be cruel of you to refuse to keep my flame lit—and you’ve never been cruel.”
“No, just gullible.”
“Is your bedroom upstairs? Let’s sneak up there and roll around like a pair of naughty adolescents.”
“Can you really suppose I’ll fall into your lap simply because you’re begging?”
“Yes, I really suppose that, and I’m not begging. I’m asking. I haven’t had you flat on your back in ages, so I view it as a perfectly valid question.”
She glared at him, then at the foyer where she could see the stairs leading up to her room. “I’ll show you where it is, you irritating roué, and it doesn’t matter what you say. You’re begging, but then, I love it when a man begs. It’s gotten me in all sorts of trouble in my life though.”
She stood, clasped his hand, and dragged him away.
Charles tiptoed into Libby’s foyer, and he was grinning, but preening too. He’d left Fish sleeping in her bed, and he’d crept out, feeling happier than he could ever remember being.
Before he’d arrived, a dalliance had been the last thing on his mind. On learning of Penny’s brash deed, he’d been anxious to talk with someone who would commiserate, and Fish had been the only one who’d seemed appropriate to the task. But after they’d kissed, he’d realized that a torrid romp with her would cure much of what was currently ailing him.
She’d spent a week at Roland, but he’d grown used to having her around. He relished her sassy attitude and pithy conversation, and she’d never been in awe of him. She never gushed or fawned, and she was always just who she appeared to be: a shrewd, practical, and independent female who tantalized him beyond his limit.
He’d pressured her to return to Roland, but he hadn’t yet convinced her. He’d give her a few days to relent, but if she didn’t, he truly thought he might travel to town and kidnap her. He was that determined to have her by his side.
After she was there though, he couldn’t imagine what he intended. He wasn’t about to wed again. Nor would he shock the nation by wedding her, but he simply couldn’t bear to carry on without her. Especially with Penny and Simon figuring they could bluster to Roland without consequence. With Fish present, the reconciliation would go much more smoothly.
He was tugging on his coat, when suddenly, the door opened, and Libby strolled in. She hadn’t expected anyone to be standing in her foyer, and he hadn’t expected to bump into her, so they both blanched with surprise.
He regrouped first. “Hello, Libby. May I still call you Libby?”
“Hello, Lord Roland. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Her tone was chilly and unfriendly, and he glanced down to check that his buttons were buttoned correctly.
“I was chatting with Fish,” he said.
Libby peered over his shoulder, but Fish was nowhere in sight. “You were chatting? Really?”
He wondered how much Fish had revealed about their antics. “She was tired, so she’s . . . ah . . . upstairs in her bedroom. Resting.”
“She doesn’t usually take naps.”
“For some reason, she . . . ah . . . was fatigued.”
He sounded like a dunce, and he decide
d to shut up about Fish. Besides, he and Libby had more important topics to address than his sexual misconduct with her companion.
She whipped away from him and yanked off her cloak and bonnet, and she made a great display of hanging them on the hook by the door. He sensed her aggravation, and he couldn’t fault her for her fit of pique.
What must it have been like to know for months that she’d found her father? Then to have him instantly reject her so she couldn’t even mention the possibility? He wished he had a machine that would whisk him back in time so he could retract the terrible comments he’d uttered that last afternoon.
“I had news to share with you,” he said. “It’s why I’m here.”
She turned to face him again, coolly asking, “What is it?”
“Your cousin, Simon, has eloped to Scotland with Penny.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I’m very sorry, and I hope you don’t blame me. When I was at Roland, I learned that he was flirting with her, and I ordered him to leave her alone. As you’ve discovered, he doesn’t always listen to me.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Well . . . good.”
Their conversation faltered, and they stared, a thousand issues swirling between them. He yearned to raise the subject of her being Henrietta, but he wasn’t sure how. What subject was she yearning to raise? She was likely trying to devise a method to politely kick him out of her house.
“Could we talk for a minute?” he said.
“Aren’t we talking now?”
“Libby . . .” He had to swallow over and over before he could continue. “Fish had me read your box of letters.”
She was aghast. “You read them?”
“Yes.”
“Clearly, Fish should butt out of my private business.”
“Don’t be angry about it. I’m glad she showed them to me.”
There was a lengthy pause, one that was so protracted it seemed the whole universe was eagerly awaiting her response.
“Why would you be glad about it?” she ultimately asked.
“Because I think they’re genuine.” It was a tepid remark, and he said, “I should rephrase that. I know two of them were penned by your mother. I recognized her handwriting, so your Uncle Harry couldn’t have forged them.”
