by Kresley Cole
Nicole and Derek looked up. Nicole tilted her head at him; Derek glowered. "As a matter of fact. Good morning to you as well."
"The two of you aren't bloody typical," Grant said as he absently poured coffee. "Odd, that's what you are. Peculiar even..."
"Should I even ask?" Derek inquired of Nicole.
Nicole popped to her feet. "I'll just let you two talk." She kissed Derek atop his head. "I'm about to relieve Nanny of a fussy morning baby, and I think I'll have more fun than you're about to."
When Nicole left, Derek folded the paper. "You look like hell."
"No better than I feel."
"I take it you and Victoria haven't gotten anything resolved." He poured himself more coffee, clearly anticipating a long conversation. "Though you certainly seemed to have last night."
Grant glowered. "What's resolved is that I'm going to drop her at the Court, and for the first time in months I'm going to sleep well."
"If you say so."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Why wouldn't you just ask her to marry you?"
"I did."
Derek opened his mouth and said nothing. Then he chuckled. "And she said no?"
Grant rose in disgust, but Derek grabbed his arm. "Sorry. Did she give a reason?"
"Yes, she won't marry without love." He spat the word. "She wants what you and Nicole have."
"I don't see what the issue is. Everyone knows you're in love with Victoria but you."
"I am not in love with her."
"Keep telling yourself that."
"Love's turned you into an imbecile."
With a smug smile, Derek raised his cup and remarked at the rim, "Then there's much to be said for imbecility."
"She drives me mad. I can think of nothing else! I never sleep; I hardly eat." Grant's fingers were white on his cup. "I can't live like this. If this is love, then I can certainly do without this misery."
Derek reached for Grant's cup and pried it from him before it cracked. "That's because you're crossing swords with something you shouldn't fight. Just go tell her you love her."
"No. Love is pleasant. Not this fever-pitch feeling twisting my gut whenever I'm near her."
"Pleasant?" Derek laughed without humor. "Nicole and I had something, or rather someone, between us. Loving each other was out of the question. But you have it so damn easy. A lovely, intelligent woman loves you, and all you have to do is accept it."
"I did. I asked her to marry me. Now she's made new demands." He ran a hand through his hair. "I should've just told her I loved her. I could certainly act like it." His voice grew excited, as though he'd hit on the perfect solution. "She'd never know."
"Listen to yourself. If you can act like it..."
Grant pounded his fist on the table. "You're right. She couldn't have conceived of a better way to drive me mad. She knows I'm an unemotional man. Detached, even. And she's asking for the one thing I can't give her."
Derek eyed Grant's still clenched fist. "You might want to reevaluate your, uh, dispassionate nature. Yes, in the past, talking to you was sometimes like talking to a wall. I remember how enraged you were when I told you I wasn't sailing the Great Circle Race. I wanted you to swing at me. I was praying you'd finally lose your temper."
"Why?"
"To confirm that you were still alive. Not a machine and not dead inside. And now I know you're miserable, but I can't help but be glad that she's awakened something in you. What you feel for her has taken over your life, and I can't be unhappy about that."
That made Grant even angrier. Nothing interrupted his ordered life unless he desired it to.
And this love that she wanted...
He was no coward, but this, this giving of your heart to someone else's care, where they could tread upon it or let it atrophy...The prospect was fearsome because he knew instinctively that should Victoria abuse his trust with it, he would never know happiness again. Any sane man should be afraid to give up control of his own happiness. To become dependent on someone else for the first time since he'd become a man. He felt as if he were strangling....
"What will you do?"
"What I've always planned. I will deliver her to Belmont, and then in the future when he passes, I'll return to claim my payment. For now, I'll endure one night there, then I'm going to get my bloody life back."
Within the hour, Amanda, Derek, and Nicole with the baby all gathered at the carriage to see them off. "You're only half a day away when the weather's good. We'll visit soon," Nicole promised as she handed little Geoffrey to Victoria. Victoria cradled him close, spilling a tear on his blue cap. When she kissed him and returned him to Nicole, Derek caught Grant's eye, giving him an expression that said, "Well?"
Grant returned a quick, restrained shake of the head.
Twenty-four
As Grant's coach rolled onto the drive of Belmont Court, sheepdogs bounded through the snow beside it, delighting Victoria and Camellia along with all the new sights.
White covered the manor house and the downs surrounding it, painting an idyllic picture--and masking the decline of the earl's home. Grant had been here just before the voyage and had been struck by the work the battered graystone needed, by the gardens blighted by neglect.
Yet, on this day, it looked like any other grand property. Stately trees lined the winding drive. Farther out, hills and vales, softened by snow, all rambled down to the riverbank.
The splintered front door brought him back to the reality of the situation. The Court was dying and needed an infusion of capital to survive. He reached for the knocker, and as it had before, it shone, freshly polished. What was left was tended as best as the earl's people could.
The door opened to show an older man. He had a tuft of red hair--red bordering on orange--that was graying at the sides and down his muttonchop whiskers.
"Dear me, dear me. It's really you. We scarcely believed the messenger. Come in, come in. I'm Huckabee, the manor steward," the man said with a little bow. "And this is Mrs. Huckabee, head housekeeper." He wrapped an arm around a round, matronly woman who'd waddled up beside him. Her hair was wholly gray though her face was unlined. "Don't suppose you remember us?"
Victoria thought for a moment, then said, "Don't you have a lot of children?"
"She does remember us," Mrs. Huckabee said, clapping her hands in excitement.
Victoria introduced Camellia--Grant, they already knew. Before Huckabee shut the door behind them, he pointed out a redheaded boy tearing off across the yard. "That'd be the youngest of nine Huckabees--he's the stable lad, and a late one at that."
"The villagers call him Huck," Mrs. Huckabee added. Then, casting a worried glance at Camellia, who'd paled on the jostling trip over, she said, "You all must be sorely put about with so much traveling and the roads so wretched poor. I'll put on dinner and Mr. Huckabee will show you straightaway to your rooms."
As they followed Huckabee up the bare steps, Victoria asked, "How old is this place? I don't remember it looking so...old."
"The Court as it stands now was built in the early seventeen hundreds, but a residence has been at this site since the late fourteen hundreds," Huckabee replied.
The Court's design had always impressed Grant. Since it was hollow, built around two central courtyards, most of the rooms on each of the three stories had views of either the upper or lower courts, as they were called, or of the surrounding countryside. But now the manor was just a shell, even emptier than Grant remembered. As Huckabee directed them along, Grant again noticed the blank walls and lack of carpets. After they'd accompanied the ladies to their rooms and reached Grant's spacious but nearly empty quarters, he raised his eyebrows at Huckabee. The man proudly lifted his chin and acted as if nothing was amiss.
Grant washed up and met the other four downstairs in a room just off the kitchen, arguably the warmest room in the house.
Victoria had changed dresses and combed her hair into an elaborate knot at her nape. She looked beautiful--a given
for him to think so--but she also appeared anxious. Grant hoped she and her grandfather, whom she was to meet momentarily, would get on well.
With the Huckabees busy in the kitchen, Victoria looked out at the vacant front hall. "This place is so different from Whitestone," she whispered to Camellia. "I remember the Court being warm and full of fine things."
Grant explained, "It hasn't been maintained. The earl spent his fortune searching for his family."
Victoria squared her shoulders. "Then I will have to help him make it nice again."
Grant had to look away. She had no idea.
At just over eighty-five, Edward Dearbourne was a frail man, his body insubstantial in his huge bed. Tori knew he was bedridden, knew he'd never recovered since his family had disappeared, so she was startled when she looked at his eyes. Though faded from age, they blazed with will and intelligence.
"Tori! Is it you? It's you!" He could scarcely rise up from his pillows.
"I'm here." She felt nervous with him, her last immediate relative.
"Sit. Sit, please."
Tori dragged a chair to his bedside, settled in, and wondered what to say.
Her grandfather wasted no time. "Do you remember me? You were so young the last time you visited. How old were you? Eleven or twelve?"
"Eleven, but I remember you. You built a tree house for me. We stole food from Cook."
His hearty laugh stuttered and pitched into a deep cough. Tori could tell he fought to suppress it. "You do remember," he finally managed. "What happened out there, dear? I've lain awake so many nights wondering."
Tori took a breath and swiftly described the wreck. She highlighted her father's bravery and quick thinking and her mother's courage, and, of course, downplayed the horrors of herself and Cammy struggling to find water and food. But she didn't think she fooled the man before her, with his clear, lucid gaze.
"My boy. My poor Anne..." His voice trailed off, his eyes watering. Though she thought she'd be well past it by now, Tori's eyes did as well. "And what you must have gone through."
"In the beginning it was hard. But after a while it was very comfortable living there."
He studied her as if to determine how truthful she was being. Satisfied, he sank deeper into his pillows.
"They loved you very much," Tori said. "Before she died, Mother told me that you would come after us and wouldn't stop until you found us."
That seemed to please him very much. "She told you that?"
"Told me to count on it."
She could swear his chest puffed with pride. But then a cloud passed over his face. "I'm afraid I used up any legacy for you and your children." He looked away. "It's almost a blessing that Edward didn't come back. Letting go of this place would have broken him. He loved it so." He fell silent, alone in his thoughts until he turned to study Tori. "You know I promised Sutherland this estate?"
"I know," Tori said with a harsh laugh. "Believe me, I know that."
He frowned at her, then said, "When I die, he's going to take it. I've got to see you married and secure before then. I didn't bring you all this way to leave you in a vulnerable position."
Tori felt her heart drop. She didn't want to marry some stranger. Her emotions were raw, and she couldn't even contemplate a husband. She forced a smile and said, "We've got plenty of time to worry about that. Right now I'm wondering if the tree house still stands...."
And so for another two hours, Tori and her grandfather asked and answered questions, until she watched him resist sleep and lose. She surveyed her aged grandfather as he slept. Here was the man who'd set Grant into unwavering action.
He'd altered the course of her life, giving up everything for them, and she was, for the first time, truly humbled by his gift. She smiled, recalling a time when they had been friends planting thorny bushes to protect their fort, or coconspirators stealing whatever was warm and sweet cooling on the kitchen window ledge.
She leaned down and kissed his cheek, then left him to his dreams.
When she walked out into the hall, she realized the rest of the house was abed. She was too conflicted to sleep, so she checked on Cammy, found her softly snoring, then set off to explore the main wing of the house in the dim light. She came upon a battered vase prominently displayed on the center table in an empty salon.
Seeing it brought on a flood of memories. She remembered her mother had told her not to play in the house. Tori had disobeyed and broken what must have been a very old vase. Grandfather arrived at the scene first--Mother and Father a few moments later. Mother had looked aghast at the ruined pile of fragments. "Victoria Dearbourne! I told you not to play inside."
Grandfather had interrupted, "Anne, it was I. Getting so old I'm running into things." Mother had eyed him doubtfully, but before she could say anything, the earl grabbed Tori's hand and took her off to search for help to clean up. Tori had nearly forgotten that the next night when they'd all retired to the salon, he'd winked at her and then pushed another vase off a table to solidify his tale. "There I go again...."
But she had felt awful for breaking something of her grandfather's. To dry her tears, the earl had collected all the pieces of the original vase, and for the rest of the summer they'd spent evenings patching it back together, in a rough facsimile of the original, but whole again.
When Grant woke, he lay for some time under the frayed coverlet, staring at the peeling ceiling above him. Staying in this manor, so full of potential, and essentially his, was awkward. He should be glad that his mission was finally complete, but as was usually the case since he'd met Victoria, he felt unsettled, conflicted.
That was how it was with her in his life.
This was not how he wanted to spend his life.
After wearily rising and dressing, he made his way to the earl's apartment and found Victoria and Belmont playing chess, with Camellia reading before the fire. Grant would've been content to watch the game, perhaps spend the morning with them. He had to admit he liked the old earl. Still, some instinct of self-preservation screamed for him to leave Victoria.
"Lord Belmont, I'm going to show myself out."
"No breakfast, Sutherland?"
"I've been gone for more than a year. I need to get back and get my affairs in order. Good-bye, my lord." He bowed. "Camellia, Victoria."
"Actually," Belmont began, "I think I'd like to ask Camellia about her hometown in Kent. My best friend hailed from those parts. Tori, why don't you show our guest out?"
"Certainly. I'll just see him on his way." She smiled at Grant, too sweetly.
At the front door, Grant hesitated. "Are you going to be all right here?"
"Yes, I believe so." He knew her well enough to know she wasn't saying what was on her mind. What was she thinking? Did she regret pushing him the day before? Against his vow, he decided to broach the subject once more. "Can I convince you to marry me?"
"Can I convince you to love me?" she countered.
He leaned his forearm against the doorway. How had he ever dreamed that he could wrap this up with a speedy conclusion? "We've been through this."
"Well, I'm not satisfied with what we decided."
"So this is it. It ends here. You made your decision."
"And I stand by it."
He straightened. "When I leave now, there will be no second chances. This, whatever is between us, is over."
Her eyes slit. "Good. Because I don't suffer fools gladly. And I don't want a husband who's so stubborn he can't see what's just before him. As for second chances, there is no need. We've said all that needs to be said, I think, except good-bye."
"Fine, Victoria. You're making your bed," he grated, but he didn't turn to leave.
"Are you leaving now?"
"I'm going."
"Why won't you leave?" Before he could, he saw her expression change to one of realization. "The estate," she muttered. "For pity's sake, you'll just have to wait until he dies. Perhaps you can go count the sheep to make you feel better."
; Grant was taken aback by her words. Though it had taken months for him to decide to make the voyage, in a heartbeat he knew he couldn't take the Court from her. "I don't," he bit out, "want it."
She was obviously shocked, but retorted, "Well, I assure you I don't either."
"I won't come claim it."
"I won't stay."
They stared at each other, neither prepared to back down. Why did everything have to be so bloody complicated with her? It was a constant test he was ill prepared for. "Just end this idiocy and marry me."
She recoiled from him, then leaned in aggressively. Her eyes glittered with fury. "Idiocy?" she hissed. She drew herself up to her full height and glared at him with will firing in her eyes, resolve powerfully thrumming through her. She'd made a final determination about him, here on this doorstep, and she would be unbending about it. He half-feared what she would say.
"I waste my time with you. I never want to see you again."
The door was towering and heavy, but it rocked on its hinges when she slammed it in his face.
Grant stared at the battered door for many moments. Damn it, had she wanted him to promise something he didn't feel? To lie to her and say he loved her?
How the bloody hell should I know if I'm in love when I've never felt it before?
He'd chosen the only path open to him, so why did the finality of their parting make him ache?
He was lost in thought as he drove away, leaving this place for good. He'd been surprised to hear himself relinquish the Court after dreaming of it for so long, but as he'd said the words, he'd known them to be true. He would never drive her out of her ancestral home, and he sure as hell couldn't live there with her.
Why did she have to be so stubborn? Wasn't it enough that he respected and cared for her? He was continually amazed at her intelligence and charmed by her humor. He could make love to her every night for the rest of his life and die a happy man. He wanted a passel of children with her--sons with courage and daughters with inquisitive green eyes. Wasn't that enough? Thinking of a future without her made his mood blacker than before.
Think of something else. Like what to do with his life now that he'd given up the object of his longstanding quest. He supposed he'd start at Peregrine again. His brother and Nicole had kept it running smoothly, even gaining accounts since her father's shipping company had bowed out of their market.
