He leapt to his feet as she did. “My apologies, Miss Goddard. I didn’t realize you’d come in.”
Miss Goddard. So formal. But then, they were amongst her family. She supposed they ought to observe the formalities. “Not at all, sir. Please, have a seat.” Particularly since her brothers hadn’t arisen and were looking at him like he was half-cracked for treating her thus.
Father joined them moments later, and then the innkeeper and some serving girls brought in their meal, and they were all taken up with eating barley soup and roast chicken and parsnips after a long day’s travel.
Throughout the meal, though, Abby was entirely too aware of the man seated on her left. The heat of his leg warmed her, though they did not touch. The elegant manner in which he ate drew her notice, and she fought to keep anyone from recognizing how much attention she paid him—least of all him. The angry scar on the side of his face pulled taut with each bite he took, calling to her so that she had to fight her nature.
She couldn’t touch him. She daren’t take such a risk.
As the platters of food emptied and their stomachs filled, talk began to fill the silence. Abby ignored much of it, trying to maintain her composure as best she could. It wouldn’t do to break down into tears in front of Wesley, despite her mourning.
Father caught her attention with a question. “Mr. Cavendish, what business takes you to see His Grace, if I might ask?”
Abby’s breath caught in her throat, but she kept her eyes on the parsnips before her, trying to cut a small piece.
Wesley turned his head, but he looked at Abby, not at her father. “I don’t mind at all. My brother has sent me. You see, there were untruths spoken about me several years ago.”
She closed her eyes and forced herself to take a bite and chew, even as tingles of anticipation fluttered under her skin. She’d known they were lies. Wesley would never have done what his father had claimed.
Never.
“In order to clear my name,” Wesley continued, “Fordingham has one thing he’s insisting upon. I must marry into a prominent Tory family.”
Abby almost choked on the sob that had forced its way forwards. She urgently swallowed, set her knife and fork down on the table, and pushed away. “Excuse me,” she murmured before she dashed off to her bedchamber. After pressing the door firmly closed, she gave in to the attack of self pity, leaning her forehead against the rough wood and, for the first time, willingly allowing her tears to flow freely.
It was all too much. It was more than she could bear, to have him come back into her life, yet they couldn’t be together. Why now? Why could this not have happened sometime other than when Grandmama had just passed away, when she was not already an emotional ninnyhammer?
And now he was heading off to court and marry some daughter or granddaughter of a duke. A lady. Someone of his station. Why had she ever allowed herself to dream they could have a future together? She was a bastard’s daughter, for Heaven’s sake. A maid, of all things. She wasn’t a lady of Quality who could possibly stand by his side.
She’d known this all along. She knew this even as a young girl, as she’d stealthily watched him and Daniel Pritchard tromping along the grounds at Henley Green. Sometimes Robert and Thomas had been allowed to go along with them, fishing at the creek or racing ponies from the stables, but only occasionally. And any time Lord Fordingham discovered that his son had been playing with her brothers, it was a long time before she saw Wesley Cavendish again. The earl would have never allowed them to be together. The new earl, Wesley’s brother, had never been any different than the old earl.
After her tears were exhausted Abby laid on the bed, still in her black traveling gown, and fell asleep.
It was all a folly in her head. A stupid, ridiculous, gauche dream that would never be reality, no matter how her heart ached for just one more kiss from him, for one more moment held tight in his arms.
~ * ~
Abby’s tears were almost more than he could bear. He’d been unable to rip his gaze away from her the entire time she’d been next to him. When she had pushed away from the table, a veritable flood was ready to spill over at the slightest provocation. Wesley wanted to take her pain unto himself, to bear it for her, but he couldn’t. No one but Abby could.
He wanted to explain what he’d hoped she would understand by his statement, but he couldn’t. Not yet. Not until Danby had publicly acknowledged her as his granddaughter so she would satisfy Tristan’s bloody requirements.
Instead, he was forced to watch her walk away, feeling the weight of the world settling on his shoulders, much as all the pain in the world seemed to have embedded itself within the soft lines of her delicate face.
Once the door to her bedchamber closed and the sound of her wracking sobs filtered through to those remaining at the table, Mr. Goddard cleared his throat, drawing all of the attention onto himself and away from his daughter. “Am I to understand that you wish for Abby to somehow fulfill that position?”
Wesley sighed. “That is my hope.”
Goddard narrowed his eyes on him. “So the tales of your exploits with one of your father’s maids?”
“I swore to you he hadn’t done it,” Thomas put in, lounging back in his chair so that it tipped on its back legs. “Cavendish would never have hurt Abby in such a way, let alone done such an unspeakable thing to any woman. It would be unthinkable.”
“Inconceivable,” Robert added.
Thomas nodded for emphasis. “You should have believed us then, and you should have believed him, too.”
His tone was a bit more belligerent than Wesley had ever known from the Goddard brothers, yet it was understandable. Each of them must have nerves at the fraying point right now. Grief turned even the best, most stable men, into that which they’d never been before.
“No,” Wesley interrupted. He likewise leaned back from the table and crossed his arms over his chest. “There was nothing your father could have done differently. He couldn’t disavow the word of the Earl of Fordingham. It would have been folly for any man to do so, let alone a man in your father’s position.”
As the gravity of his words fell on the room, silence returned, and with it the muffled whimpers from Abby’s chamber.
Finally, Mrs. Goddard spoke, her voice quavering lightly. “You love our Abby, then, Mr. Cavendish?”
“With all my heart. I’ve loved her with every breath I’ve taken since well before I was banished from Blacknall.” Speaking the words aloud seemed to sear it into his soul, to etch it permanently into his heart like a tattoo upon the skin. He hadn’t thought of it in that way before, as love, but he knew with an absolute certainty that it was true. No wonder he felt her pain so deeply, as though it were in some small way his own.
Wesley only wished he could be so open with Abby as he was with her family. Yet he couldn’t allow her hopes to be falsely raised, only to be dashed down again should his plans not work out as he intended. Her pain right now was palpable. Her pain should such a thing come to pass…
The Pritchards’ housekeeper nodded with a small smile tugging at her lips. “I thought as much. What do you need from us? How can we help you make certain this happens, sir?”
While normally Wesley was loath to ever ask for or willingly accept help, this time it felt natural. It felt right—like they were family. Still, he thought carefully about what he was about to say. “I need for Danby to acknowledge Abby as his rightful granddaughter. I need you to assist me in achieving this in any way you can.”
A collective, indrawn breath greeted his pronouncement. The Goddard brothers stared across at him like he’d sprouted wings. Abby’s parents passed a look between them, one that left him with such a small amount of hope he might as well shrivel before them and disappear.
“We’d hoped,” Mr. Goddard started carefully, taking his time as though he were weighing each word before it left his lips, “he would provide her with a dowry, Mr. Cavendish. But to accept her as his rightful granddaughter? H
e doesn’t even know of her existence. I fear this will all be quite a shock to him. That may be too much to ask…”
The butler’s voice trailed off, and no one rushed to fill the silence.
Goddard was right, of course. It was too much to ask, too much to expect. Hence the reason Tristan had agreed to it at all. If Tristan hadn’t been certain it was a fool’s errand he was sending Wesley on, he never would have acquiesced in their brief meeting before Wesley set off. He knew this all too well.
But it was his only hope. It was the only way he and Abby could be together, because he’d be damned before he suggested she become his mistress. It was also the only way he could regain his good name and try to gain a seat in the Commons—well, the only way he could stomach, at the very least.
Somehow, he had to convince Danby to do this. How he could do so was anyone’s guess.
~ 5 ~
Wesley lived for the afternoons.
In the mornings, he would ride with the Goddard men, talking and laughing and carrying on as only men could do. They’d accepted him as a rightful member of their ranks and had stopped treating him as though he were their better. They shared jokes with him and slapped him on the back, and generally acted towards him as equals.
That was new in his life. Or at least rare. Few other than the Pritchard family had ever treated him as a contemporary.
He treasured their relations, truly, but there was always something missing when he was with the Goddard men.
In the evenings, he would sit at the supper table with the whole Goddard family, sharing their meal and doing his best to avoid staring lustily at Abby more than was proper. Granted, no amount of lustful stares could be considered proper. So really, he tried more not to be caught doing so.
In the nights, he would toss and turn in his bed, unable to shake the vision of Abby and her tears from his mind. Those visions alternated with another, entirely different sort of vision—the sort where Abby eagerly returned his kisses as she had done once upon a time. And more than just kisses. His dreams were incessant and randy, and they left him restless and shaken.
But the afternoons…they were the best part of his days.
In the afternoons, he would sit next to Abby in the carriage with her mother across from them to chaperone. They didn’t speak much, and when they did it was usually of nothing more emotionally or intellectually taxing than discussions of their journey and the weather. It wasn’t the content of their dialogues that he cherished—it was the timbre of her voice.
When Abby spoke, her rich alto tone warmed him from the bottoms of his toes to the top of his beaver hat, flowing through him faster than a full glass of whiskey.
Sometimes they sat in silence, save the rickety noises of the carriage wheels and the clopping of horses’ hooves from outside. In those moments, he savored the little sounds of her sighs or a light hum she made as she worked on her sewing. It had been so long since he’d heard such things from her he’d even given up hope that he might ever again. Now, he couldn’t force himself to imagine life without these little moments.
Occasionally, he’d catch himself clenching his hands into fists at his sides, and her eyes would flicker over to him before hastily looking away. After he realized that it would catch her attention, he did it purposefully on occasion—especially since it meant he could graze his knuckles against her arm for the briefest of moments.
After they had been traveling for a while, Abby would grow restless where she sat, shifting her weight from one side to the other. Every now and then, she’d accidentally brush against him in the process. Just a feather-light caress of her thigh against his, or her arm dusting over his fingertips, nothing more. But those soft touches would send a delicious flood of color racing to her cheeks, and he knew.
She still wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her.
By gad, nothing would stand in his way. Nothing and no one would keep him from being with her. He’d do a naked jig for Danby. He’d sell his soul to the damned Tories if he must. He’d grovel at Tristan’s feet and send burned offerings to the memory of his despised father.
Anything.
~ * ~
Somehow, over the two days they’d journeyed from the normality of life at Henley Green towards the uncertainty presented in Yorkshire, Abby had managed not to cry overmuch. It hadn’t been an easy undertaking, particularly not since Wesley—no, Mr. Cavendish, she reminded herself, since they would never be more than a gentleman and a servant to each other—had taken to joining her and her mother in the carriage most afternoons instead of riding with her brothers and father.
Now, as they rolled into Yorkshire three days before Christmas, a soft blanket of morning snow covered the roads, much as a fresh wave of tears covered her cheeks.
Mother looked across at her from over the stitchery that had held her rapt attention. “Are you thinking of Grandmama again?”
Would that that were the only thing causing her tears.
Mother set her sample aside on the bench next to her and reached across for Abby’s hand. “Sweetheart, your face will be all red and spotted. You really must stop crying before we arrive at the castle.”
How could she, though, when each turn of the carriage wheels brought her ever closer to Father having a confrontation the thought of which chilled her blood, and brought Wesley Cavendish ever closer to marrying someone else?
“Yes, Mother,” was all Abby murmured in response. She retrieved a handkerchief from her reticule and dried her face with it, taking deep breaths in time with the pace of the horses outside the carriage walls.
When they came around the bend near a copse of trees, Danby Castle came into view.
At the same moment, Abby’s heart hammered to life, deafening her with the thunderous roar of her pulse. She tried to swallow, but her mouth suddenly grew as dry as wool. Her efforts were fruitless.
It was massive and imposing, standing on an estate that sprawled out, seemingly into forever. The Duke of Danby’s principal seat dwarfed Henley Green, and even Blacknall Manor, by comparison. The closer the carriage drew, the more insignificant she felt—something she’d not believed to be possible after the last several days.
The men’s muted voices rumbled outside. Moments later, the deafening racket of three horses racing off ahead of them startled Abby. They soon disappeared in the distance.
After what seemed an eternity, the carriage rattled to a stop and a liveried footman rushed forwards. He opened the carriage door and set down the steps, and then he handed first Mother and then Abby down as Father alit from his horse. “The boys and Mr. Cavendish came on ahead to inform His Grace of our arrival.”
“Indeed, they did, sir,” said another uniformed man, coming down from the main entry hall of the castle. He seemed agitated…put out, even. “You may call me Milne. I’ve been asked to escort you in to the gold parlor for tea while you wait.”
Shaking, weary, and thoroughly disgruntled, Abby took one of Father’s arms and followed the butler into the castle. He led them through resonant corridors until they reached the most opulent room she’d ever laid eyes upon.
Robert and Thomas stood when they entered, setting their Wedgwood china teacups down on dainty saucers. Their eyes were wide.
Robert fidgeted with the buttons on his waistcoat. “Cavendish is meeting with the duke now.”
“Hopefully he can ease our way into this,” Thomas said. “It seems we’ve not only interrupted His Grace’s Christmas celebrations, but we barged in on a wedding. The duke is not happy, to say the least.”
“We tried to tell him that maybe you ought to speak with him first, Father, but…”
“But I’m no one to Danby, and Cavendish is at least Fordingham’s brother.” Father took a seat on an entirely too delicate looking gilded armchair covered in white silk and gestured for the rest of the family to follow suit. “So we’ll wait.”
Mother poured three more cups of tea and passed them around, then took a seat next to Father. Thomas a
nd Robert resumed their seats and took hasty sips from their cups.
Abby just stood there, staring, wishing the floor of the castle would open up and swallow her whole, or that there had been a moat in which she could be washed away, or that the sun had stopped rising when Grandmama had died.
But nothing ever seemed to happen as she wished of late.
~ * ~
The heavy oak door thudded to a close behind Wesley, ringing out like the lock of a prison cell in his mind. The Duke of Danby moved behind his mammoth desk and sat, then turned narrowed eyes on him. “What in God’s name is the meaning of this, Cavendish?”
There was nothing for it but to be out with it. “I must apologize for interrupting—”
“That you should,” the old duke spat. “My granddaughter Emma was being married—the first of all my grandchildren to finally do so, mind you—and yet you saw fit to take it upon yourself to order my butler to pull me from the celebration to meet with you on urgent business. So what, pray tell, is so godforsaken urgent?”
The scar on Wesley’s cheek twitched. He unclenched his fists and gave a little tug on his cravat, then tried to calm himself. He hadn’t thought this through—none of it. For too much of the journey, he’d thought of nothing but Abby and of finally being with her. He hadn’t allowed himself to think through the particulars of making it happen.
“Ah, well you see…a family has traveled to Yorkshire with me, Your Grace. The father has business with you as well, and once that is settled—”
“Would you kindly stop beating about the bush and get to your point?” Danby lifted an eyebrow and glared in the way only a duke can do.
This wasn’t what he’d intended. It wasn’t Wesley’s place to tell the duke he had a bastard son, not to mention grand-bastards, if that was what they could be called. Yet his mouth opened and a torrent of words flooded out, and he couldn’t stop himself for all the world, though the old codger sat there staring at him with his mouth hanging agape as if he were the greatest simpleton in all of England.
Summons From the Castle, Regency Christmas Summons Collection 3 Page 4
