Promise Me Forever

by Lorraine Heath

Lauren held her silence while the servant left, and Lydia began preparing a cup of tea for her guest. Despite the early hour and the fact that she’d been roused from slumber, her cousin looked incredibly content.

  “You truly do love it here, don’t you?” Lauren asked.

  Lydia peered over at her and smiled softly. “I truly do. If you’ll forgive my boldness, I think the difference between us is that I have someone here whom I love with all my heart. I think you’ve had a difficult time of it because you left your heart in Texas.”

  “You think I left my heart with Tom?”

  Lydia gave her a pointed look. “Didn’t you?”

  “That was so long ago, we were such different people. I came to understand that more clearly when I was with Tom last night. When he kissed me, it wasn’t the kiss of his youth.”

  The teacup rattled as Lydia set it on the tray, scooted up in the chair, and leaned toward Lauren. “What? You completely overlooked revealing that juicy tidbit. When did he kiss you?”

  “In the garden, then later to seal our bargain. And I owe him a debt that I feel certain he’s going to expect me to pay before I leave for Texas.”

  “What debt?”

  Only to Lydia could she dare confess the not-quite-proper behaviors of her youth and Tom’s daring proposition. “Before I left Texas, Tom paid me a quarter to unbutton my bodice, and I never carried through on my part of the bargain.”

  “Are you telling me that he’s expecting you to unbutton your bodice?” Lydia was smiling brightly.

  “It’s not amusing,” Lauren said pointedly.

  “I’m not saying that it is, but you were fourteen. I’ve always thought Tom was an intelligent man, but this is downright silly.”

  “Apparently he doesn’t think so.

  “‘Why are you here, Tom?’ I asked.

  “‘I’ve come to collect a debt,’ he had the audacity to announce for all the world to hear.”

  “Perhaps it was a debt that Ravenleigh owed him.”

  “No, if you’d been there to see the intensity of his gaze, you would have had no doubt what debt he was referring to.”

  “Your mother always considered him to be a bad influence. I’m beginning to see why. Although perhaps she’ll find him more acceptable now that he’s titled.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it? She’ll find him more acceptable while I’ll find him less.”

  “Why would you find him less?”

  “His life is about to become all the things I’ve never liked.”

  “You like balls, parties, and entertaining.”

  “Where a woman can’t speak her mind, politics, or religion. Where a woman is ushered out of the room so men have an opportunity to engage in manly endeavors, such as smoking and drinking. Where all behavior is watched and commented on.”

  “And what if you discover you still have a place in his heart?”

  “Highly unlikely. He’s provided me with the means to leave. Why would he do that if he wanted me to stay?”

  “Oh, Lauren, don’t you see the truth of it? He’s a man, and if he’s anything like Rhys, he finds it incredibly difficult to express his true feelings. Perhaps he feared rejection if he asked you to stay.”

  “And so he gave me the means to leave?”

  Lydia shrugged. “Who can decipher a man’s logic?”

  “And what of this silly debt he thinks I owe him?”

  A wicked gleam came into Lydia’s eyes. “Tell him if he behaves himself, you might just pay it.”

  Having missed dinner the night before, Lauren was incredibly hungry. After returning from Lydia’s, she went to the small dining room, where breakfast was always served with an elaborate assortment of offerings spread over the side table. She had to admit that she would no doubt miss the varieties available to her at Ravenleigh’s homes, always laid out for casual enjoyment.

  On her plate, she placed buttered eggs with tomatoes, kippered salmon, and toast with marmalade. Much more was offered, but she decided those would suffice for the morning. A footman pulled out a chair for her, and Lauren took her place. She was rather surprised that her parents weren’t there yet. Her stepfather’s pressed newspaper was still set beside his place setting, so she knew he had yet to come down for breakfast. She wondered if her mother had as difficult a time sleeping as Lauren had. If so, she suspected her stepfather had as well.

  She stared at her plate, suddenly once again without an appetite. Surely Lydia had only been teasing about Lauren fulfilling her promise to Tom, although the notion was certainly intriguing. And why not carry through on her promise? Once she left England, her life would begin anew, just as it had before when she left Texas. She didn’t know why a tinge of sadness crept in with the thought of beginning over.

  Lydia had identified correctly that Lauren really didn’t know Tom, at least not the Tom who had appeared the previous day. Even if he had come for her, she couldn’t honestly say she would have left with him. Lady Blythe had also spoken true. Who knew what sort of influences he’d had over the years?

  She knew her stepfather’s brother and his friends had played some role in the man that Tom had become. That couldn’t be helped. After all, he’d been working for them. But so had a whole host of other men. It was childish to think that she had any idea of the kind of man Tom had become.

  Glancing up at the click of footfalls, she watched as her mother and stepfather walked into the room. Neither looked well rested. Neither went to the side table. Her mother sat in the chair beside Lauren’s, her stepfather took the chair on the other side of her mother, providing as he always did an air of solidarity. During all the years they’d been there, Lauren couldn’t recall a single moment when he hadn’t given her mother his full support when it came to the manner in which she’d disciplined her daughters. Lauren wondered if he’d approved of her mother’s thievery regarding the letters written between two young lovers.

  “You’re up early,” her mother said, as though she needed something to break the tension that had been left between them the night before.

  “I had some matters that needed to be taken care of.”

  Her mother nodded as though she knew exactly what those matters were when in truth, she couldn’t have even a hint of an idea. Lauren’s days of sharing her worries, concerns, and plans with her mother were over.

  Her mother sighed. “I owe you an apology. Ten years’ worth as a matter of fact. I thought I was doing what was best.”

  “Mother, I’m sure a day will come when I’ll forgive you, but unfortunately, that day isn’t today.”

  “I don’t expect it to be today, Lauren. If I had it to do over…” Her voice trailed off.

  Ravenleigh placed his hand over her mother’s fist where it rested on the table. Lauren could tell that he’d squeezed it gently, could see the love for her and for her mother reflected in his kind eyes. Her mother nodded as though Ravenleigh had communicated his thoughts to her.

  “Before we left Texas,” her mother began, “I sold the farm and placed the money in a trust your stepfather has guarded like a hawk over the years. It was my intention to give you your portion on the day that you married, a final gift from your father. I’ve decided to give it to you early, so you’ll have the means to provide for yourself—at least for a while—after you return to Texas. Your stepfather has offered to purchase your ticket for passage. He thinks we could manage to have everything settled so that you could leave within a week.”

  Lauren felt the tears sting her eyes. It hurt to see how much it cost her mother to let her go. Her chest tightened painfully with the evidence not only of her mother’s love, but her stepfather’s as well. He’d always been so good to her, and she had little doubt that it was his influence more than her angry words flung at her mother that had turned the tide. Using her linen napkin, she wiped her tears, hardly able to find the words needed to express her gratitude. She held Ravenleigh’s gaze when she rasped, “I can’t tell you how much your generosity means to me, how much it’
s always meant to me. My share of my father’s legacy will be well taken care of, and as generous as your offer is to pay for my passage, I’ve made other arrangements—”

  “It’s not necessary for you to work at that shop,” her mother interrupted.

  “I know. I’m planning to give notice of my leaving this morning. I’ve made arrangements with Tom. He’s going to provide for my passage in exchange for which I’ll teach him what he needs to know.”

  Her mother looked stunned, Ravenleigh didn’t look quite so surprised, and she wondered what, if anything, he and Tom may have talked about while alone in the library.

  “I see,” her mother finally said. “Well…”

  “Yes, well,” Lauren responded. “As soon as I’ve been to the shop, I plan to meet Tom at the park. To night we’ll be dining at Lydia’s. I’ll instruct him to call for me here, if you have no objections.”

  “No objections whatsoever,” her stepfather said, before her mother could respond. He stood, clapped his hands together. “Now that’s all settled I’m famished.”

  He headed for the side table.

  Her mother looked at her scarred hands. “I do appreciate that you didn’t risk your neck and try to climb out of your window when he came for you last night. I assume this won’t become a nightly ritual.”

  “Mama, you have to let me live my life, make my own mistakes.”

  “So you recognize that he’s a mistake.”

  How could her mother offer independence with the one hand, yet chains with the other?

  “I recognize that I’ll never know if you continually clip my wings.”

  Her mother looked at a loss for words, but Lauren had nothing else she wanted to say on the matter.

  An overpowering fragrance of roses wafted into the room. Lauren turned her head to see the butler striding in, two footmen in his wake carrying enormous bouquets of roses, one white, the other yellow.

  “My lady,” Simpson said, with a slight bow, “these were delivered with instructions that the white were for the lady of the house, the yellow for her eldest daughter.”

  As the flowers were extended to Lauren and her mother, he also handed them each an envelope. Inside hers, Lauren found a note that simply read, “A little bit of Texas.” Burying her nose in the fragrant bouquet that had to be comprised of at least two dozen roses, she peered over at her mother. “What does your note say?”

  “No hard feelings.”

  How Texan and to the point.

  “For what it’s worth, he said he only wrote a sentence or two in each letter,” Lauren said.

  Her mother cleared her throat and stood. “Well, if his words were as honestly delivered as these, that might be all he needed. I need to see about getting these roses into water.”

  She walked out of the room, and Lauren looked to the end of the table where her stepfather had quietly taken his place, although it looked as though he had yet to begin eating. “She meant well all these years,” he said quietly.

  “I know.” With the bouquet still cradled in the crook of her arm, she rose and walked to his end of the table. Leaning down, she kissed his cheek. “I love you, Papa.”

  Twice Tom had managed to give her a little bit of Texas. She strolled out of the room wondering if little bits of Texas had been there all along, and she’d simply failed to notice them.

  “My lord?”

  Tom glanced over at the butler he’d not heard enter the dining room. He still found it unnerving that the servants moved through the house so unobtrusively and silently, like phantoms. It was enough to make a man jumpy. One of the reasons Tom had stopped wearing his gun before Lauren’s edict. His valet had startled him yesterday morning, and Tom had drawn it on the man, who had immediately crumpled to the floor in a faint.

  Tom turned his attention to the butler and the silver tray he extended. On it rested an elegant embossed card. Tom read the name. Obviously word was spreading that he was in town.

  “Show them in.”

  The butler bowed slightly. “As you wish, my lord.”

  Using the linen napkin, Tom wiped his mouth and hands, tossed the cloth onto the table, shoved his chair back, and stood. He wasn’t wearing a jacket—which was improper when receiving guests, but he figured these guests might be forgiving.

  A woman more elegant than he remembered her to be, bestowing on him a smile that rivaled the sun in brilliance, waltzed gracefully into the room, a dark-haired gentleman dressed much as Tom knew he should be dressed following in her wake.

  “Thomas Warner, look at you,” Lydia said, reaching out, taking his hands in her gloved ones, and squeezing. “Why didn’t you let us know you were in town?”

  He felt his face heat up at her chastisement. “I only got here a couple of days ago. I haven’t quite figured out this practice of calling on people yet.”

  He was surprised to notice that she seemed to be inordinately pleased by his response.

  “I want to introduce you to my husband,” she said, stepping back slightly, an incredible amount of love and pride reflected in her eyes. “Rhys Rhodes, the Duke of Harrington. Thomas Warner, the Earl of Sachse.”

  Tom liked what he saw in Harrington. His silvery gray eyes reflected a forthrightness that Tom related to and respected. He was a man Tom could take into his confidence, a man he could trust to keep his word with nothing more than a handshake.

  “Sachse,” Harrington said, in a deep refined rumble.

  “Harrington.” Tom shook his head. “Have to admit I find it odd, this practice of not calling a man by his name.”

  “Trust me, using titles will come naturally to you in no time. Does my stepfather know about your good fortune?” Lydia asked.

  Her stepfather, Grayson Rhodes, was another of the Englishmen who’d arrived in Texas following the Civil War. Tom had visited with Rhodes when the man had returned from his visit to England with his family a year earlier, so Tom knew Lydia’s husband was the man’s half brother, the legitimate heir to the dukedom, while Rhodes had been the duke’s bastard. Older, firstborn in fact, but not legitimate, so he’d not inherited what his father had left behind. Sometimes the family connections got so complicated that Tom thought they needed to devise a chart to sort it all out. And here he was in England, adding to the complications.

  Tom shook his head. “I didn’t tell anyone before I left Fortune. I didn’t see the point. I kept thinking once I got here, I’d discover it was all a mistake.”

  “This is absolutely incredible.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “You had no idea?”

  “None.” Tom glanced at the table, glanced at them, didn’t know if it was proper but offered anyway. “You’re welcome to join me for breakfast.”

  “I would be delighted,” Harrington said. “The moment Lydia realized she knew you, she wouldn’t be content until we were on our way over here. My stomach has been protesting ever since.”

  “Help yourself,” Tom offered.

  When plates were filled and everyone was sitting at the table, Lydia gave him a pointed look, and demanded, “So what are your plans regarding Lauren?”

  Tom nearly choked on his deviled sausage. He swallowed hard, wiped his mouth, held Lydia’s gaze, and responded honestly, “I haven’t quite decided.”

  Although that wasn’t exactly true. He had her for the Season…then, well, he’d worry about that when that time came.

  “Is she the reason you knew I was here?” he asked.

  Lydia nodded.

  “Did you know she’s making plans to return to Texas?”

  Lydia seemed to hesitate, as though she wasn’t quite sure how much to reveal. “In the early years,” she finally said, “after she came here, she often wrote me. The letters were always tearstained. She had a difficult time adjusting, but she seems self-assured now, never complained…honestly, I only recently realized that she still dreamed of returning to Texas.”

  Tom nodded.

  “I do know that she’s
going to help you through the Season. During that time, perhaps you could convince her to stay,” Lydia suggested.

  Tom held her gaze, keeping his words honest. “I don’t know that I want to.”

  Not only because it seemed cruel to hold her if she didn’t want to be there, but because he was no longer sure of his feelings where she was concerned.

  Ten years. They’d both changed. He didn’t know if what they’d had once could thrive in England, and he knew for damned sure that it couldn’t if she wasn’t where she wanted to be.

  “Why has he not yet arrived?”

  “Surely he will be here at any moment.”

  “Perhaps we’ve missed him.”

  “He was riding quite early yesterday morning.”

  “You might have said something sooner.”

  While Rotten Row was favored by the ladies for spirited riding, the four ladies who had been in her stepfather’s parlor the previous afternoon seemed hesitant to be off. They’d been waiting at the entrance when Lauren had arrived. One did not have to be a genius to determine for whom they waited.

  “I can’t believe you took up a post outside his residence and watched for him,” Lady Cassandra said.

  “I was fairly certain the man at Ravenleigh’s was Sachse. How many men dressed as cowboys are roaming around the streets of London? I simply wanted to confirm it for myself.”

  Lady Blythe followed her statement with a stern look at Lauren, whose heart had begun beating erratically with the knowledge that the woman might have been hiding in the bushes when Tom had escorted Lauren into his home.

  “You might have confirmed that I’d identified him correctly. It would have saved me hours of sitting in front of his residence,” Lady Blythe admonished.

  “Quite honestly, I didn’t realize he was Sachse until later,” Lauren said, trying desperately to sound contrite, when in truth she wanted to pepper Lady Blythe with questions regarding her spying.

  “Did he see you?” Lady Priscilla asked.

  “No. I was well hidden inside my coach. Darkness had settled in by the time he arrived home. Although quite honestly, I’d been prepared to wait longer. He must have left your residence immediately following dinner.”