by Sara Portman
Her plans were fatally flawed. She could take the settlement, or she could run away, but she could not have both together. Yet neither was possible without the other. How could she disappear if once every year, she had to provide her location? If she collected her funds, her father would find her, but how could she leave with no money? Where would she go? How would she live?
How naïve she had been. She had considered a thousand times what Mr. Peale might look like, but had never considered what he might have to say. Had she really thought he would reach into his desk and hand her a purse with two thousand pounds in it?
Even the one hundred thirty-three pounds he would give her was to be in the form of a bank draft. It was already four o’clock in the afternoon. What good would a bank draft be in finding food and lodging in London that night?
She’d been stupid. She needed help.
She wanted Michael. No.
She could not seek out Michael. She had promised him that he would be rid of her as soon as they reached London. She had promised she would not interfere with his plans—his bride and his hope for Rose Hall.
Mr. Peale returned with the bank draft and handed the paper to her. She looked down at it. She cleared her throat, anticipating the growth of the solicitor’s already considerable frustration. She hated admitting that she had been foolish in this way, but there was no help for it.
“Mr. Peale, sir, perhaps you could assist me with one more slight difficulty.”
He glared.
“I did not anticipate the lateness of the hour and as I must obtain a room for the night, and you see, well…” She waved the bank draft limply. “I’m afraid I haven’t any coin for the night’s lodging.”
Chapter Fifteen
The carriage halted in front of Willow House. Michael had never spent long at his father’s London home, but long enough to know its name was a mystery, as there was not a single willow tree in the vicinity of the house.
Albert opened the door and lowered the step for Michael. He climbed from the carriage, leaning onto his cane as he did, as the day’s incarceration had brought a return of the stiffness in his leg. His arrival was anticipated, for the door to the house opened before he reached it.
“Good afternoon, sir.” His father’s butler looked as though two decades had passed since they had last met, rather than a handful of years.
“Good afternoon, Bernard.”
Just as Bernard nodded in sober acknowledgement of Michael’s greeting, a great howl emanated from inside the house, bringing a low rumbling growl from Gelert at Michael’s side.
Bernard, who in all of Michael’s memory had never possessed a human emotion, looked to Michael with a most exhausted expression and released a beleaguered sigh.
Michael’s curiosity was piqued.
“I will vanquish you!”
This time the shout was recognizable as a boy’s. The boy in question darted past the entryway, brandishing a sword of some sort, from what Michael could see in his brief opportunity. He looked to Bernard and lifted his brow in question.
“Lord Brinley, sir.” Bernard stepped to the side, allowing Michael and Gelert into the front hall. Gelert, hair on his back still standing, surveyed the space, seeking out the noisy creature.
He appeared on the second floor landing next, though how he got there Michael couldn’t say. “Die, Traitor!” he shouted, stabbing forward with the sword in the mimic of a death blow. Thankfully, he impaled only empty space.
Bernard cleared his throat loudly, drawing the boy’s attention to the hall below. He came to the bannister, staring at Michael. Now that he was still, Michael could see that he was tall for his age, with a mop of unkempt, pale blond hair and large brown eyes widened by curiosity.
“Are you my brother?” he asked. Before Michael could respond, the boy dropped his sword and ran to the staircase. Halfway down he halted, wide brown eyes resting on Gelert. “Is that your dog?” He stared a moment then continued again, more slowly, walking to stand directly in front of the dog.
Gelert, now aware of the source of the wild noises, no longer stood at alert, but sat calmly, watching the boy as Michael did.
“I say, she’s very large,” he said, walking around to take in the view of the dog’s profile from either side.
“He,” Michael stressed, “is a wolfhound. His name is Gelert.”
“Hello, Gelert,” the boy said, addressing the dog. “I’m Alexander. I’m very pleased to meet you.” He then brought his heels together, lifted his chin and bent forward in a courtly bow.”
Gelert turned his head, looking to Michael. Michael shrugged.
Alexander looked to Michael next. “My mother said you were coming. She said you live in Yorkshire. What’s it like in Yorkshire?”
Michael blinked. “Far.” His answer was not sufficient to clear the expectant look from the boy’s face. “Perhaps I could tell you about it later, after I have had a chance to rest from my travels.”
Alexander nodded gravely, in support of Michael’s suggestion. “Should we discuss it at dinner, then? I’m to eat in the dining room this evening, on account of your visit.” He turned to Gelert again. “Where will your dog sleep? Can he sleep in my room?”
“Alexander, that is enough.” A feminine voice entered the hall a moment before its owner did. The marchioness was a handsome woman, closer in age to Michael than his father, with the same blond hair as her son. She sent a warning glance to the boy before smiling widely at Michael. “Welcome,” she said. “Please forgive Alexander’s exuberance. The weather has been dreadful this week and I fear he’s been trapped indoors far too long.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Michael said, surprised at the warm welcome from his father’s wife. They’d been introduced before, but only interacted briefly. She placed her hands on her son’s shoulders and turned him toward the staircase. “Run along, Alexander, and leave your brother be.”
With one final grin over his shoulder at both Michael and Gelert, the boy ran off. Michael considered the marchioness. Both she and her son had referred to him as brother. It was odd to hear it. Michael had been raised by his mother, as the only child of a woman who had never married because of her predicament. It tested the truth, he thought, to think of the young Alexander as his brother. Their lives were so separate and distinctly different, but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless.
“You must be exhausted. Your room has been readied for you. Shall I take you there?” she asked. Unlike her son, the marchioness was more subtle in her assessment of Gelert, but her anxious glances at the dog were not completely hidden.
“He’s no threat to you,” Michael assured her.
She nodded, but her expression remained doubtful.
“And there is no need to show me to my room. If it is the same, I know the way.”
“It is the same,” she said. “Perhaps once you are settled, you can visit your father in his study. You recall your way there, as well?”
He did. Michael had learned of all the significant changes in his life after being summoned to this house and, specifically, to his father’s study—that he would be sent away to school, that his mother had succumbed to illness, that he was to take an officer’s commission, and the last time—that he was to be sent off to Yorkshire. This time they would discuss his marriage, and that discussion would be different. He would not simply listen and obey. He fully intended to negotiate.
“Yes. I can find my way,” he said. “I am expected, I presume.”
“You are. Your father is quite anxious to speak with you. But he can be patient if you need to rest awhile first.” Her eyes fell to his cane and he bristled at the pity in them.
“I am not in need of rest,” he said, for once as impatient for the conversation as his father was, “only a few moments to refresh myself after my journey.”
“Very well.” She stepped
aside, clearing his path to the stairwell. “I look forward to your company at dinner.”
Michael nodded and proceeded to the stairs, obstinately refusing to rely on the cane he held in his hand. He did not want to be these people’s poor lame relation any more than he wanted to be their problem to solve. He climbed the stairs slowly, refusing to wince each time he put weight on his right leg. When he reached the landing, he looked back, but she was gone. He signaled to Gelert, and the dog followed him to his room.
* * * *
Mr. Peale, though not at all the magnanimous gentleman of her imaginings, did aid Juliana with the direction to a boarding house appropriate for ladies and a brief note of introduction, for he had explained to Juliana that the proprietress did not accept anyone who had not been referred. He also begrudgingly provided her with a few pounds and, collecting back the bank draft he’d given her, reissued it for the net amount. Juliana knew she would have to find her own lodging elsewhere soon. Judging by Mr. Peale’s distaste for women who managed their own affairs, he would happily provide her father with the address of her location if he arrived in London to inquire.
As absolutely nothing in her journey thus far had proceeded in accordance with her imagination, Juliana was careful to have no preconceptions of the conditions of the lodging house that was, thankfully, only a short walk from the offices of Hammersley, Brint & Peale. Her brief, unchaperoned walk through the streets of London was thankfully uneventful, but still, she was relieved to arrive at a tidy row house on a respectable-looking street. Her knock was answered by a young maid who took Juliana’s note and bid her wait while she carried it to her mistress.
The mistress returned in the maid’s stead—a tall, severe-looking woman who pursed her lips as she made a thorough evaluation of Juliana’s appearance. Juliana was keenly conscious of her worn day dress and slippers still filthy from her tramp in the woods. Most women would consider the dress only suitable for chores, but as her other dress was as dirty as her shoes and torn as well, she’d had no other choice.
“I am Mrs. Stone,” the woman said. “We are a quiet house and I will not tolerate trouble of any kind.”
Juliana nodded, relieved that she had apparently been approved to stay.
“You may not receive callers, in particular gentlemen callers. Dinner is prompt at six and you shall not leave the house after dinner. We are respectable women here and if you do not fit, you may not stay.”
“I believe I shall fit quite well, Mrs. Stone,” Juliana assured her. “I have no callers to receive and I much prefer quiet.”
Mrs. Stone’s mouth pinched skeptically at this declaration, but she nodded. “Very well. Come with me.”
Juliana followed her up the first and second staircase to an upstairs room. It was small and plain but tidy and much better than she had expected. There was a small writing desk and a narrow bed atop which sat a square pile of neatly folded linens.
“Thank you, Mrs. Stone.”
“You have only a half hour until dinner,” the woman said, ignoring her gratitude. “Follow the others and you shall find it.” At Juliana’s nod of acknowledgement, Mrs. Stone left, shutting the door, leaving her alone in the unfamiliar room.
Juliana could not recall the last time she cried. Her father wouldn’t tolerate it, even when he’d punished her, brandishing the long wooden spoon like it was a whip—across her knuckles if he was mildly annoyed, everywhere if he was truly angry. Even in those moments when she’d sat on the floor, covering her head with her arms while he smacked at her with the spoon, she’d not cried.
But tears came then because there was no one to see them. And because she possessed the wooden spoon now, anyway. She didn’t know if they were tears of relief or disappointment, of fear or exhaustion—only that she couldn’t stop them. She slumped onto the bed and tried not to sob aloud, not wanting anyone to hear. She needed to think. She needed to consider her circumstances and decide what to do next, but she couldn’t seem to do that just then. Just then, she cried.
Chapter Sixteen
Michael saw no reason to delay his conversation with his father. He took a brief respite to wash his face and change his clothes, but then proceeded to his father’s study. The sooner they could have the matter of Rose Hall settled the better, as far as he was concerned.
The door was closed when he arrived, so he knocked.
“Come.”
Michael turned the handle and went inside. After years away, everything about the room was startlingly familiar. The pulled-back drapes on the far wall of windows could not sufficiently brighten the dark space and candles burned in the sconces even in the day. The room smelled of vellum and whatever oil was used to maintain the woodwork. The wall to the left was lined with bookcases. The opposite wall was dominated by a large sideboard topped with a collection of decanters and glasses that bore the telltale disarray of regular use. At the center of the room sat a large wooden desk and behind that desk, in a tall leather chair sat the Marquess of Rosevear.
He stood and Michael noted that he kept a steadying hand on the desk as he did so. That was unfamiliar. His father was a large man—as large as Michael—and had always appeared youthful and robust despite the graying at his temples. But several years had passed since they’d last laid eyes upon each other. Michael saw as he approached the desk that the gray was no longer isolated to small patches. The lines around his broad mouth and bark-colored eyes seemed to have webbed outward. The skin on his face sagged in the manner of one who had recently lost a fair amount of flesh.
“Michael,” the marquess said, “You have finally arrived.”
“I have.”
“You encountered trouble on the road, I understand?”
“A bit,” Michael answered. He wondered, as he had every hour since his arrival, how Juliana had fared. He reminded himself, as he had every hour since his arrival, that her future plans were none of his concern. Because his father seemed unsteady standing, Michael sat, encouraging the older man to do the same. “It is done and I am here now, if a bit later than I should be.”
“You are not as late as I,” the marquess said obliquely. He reclined in his chair and lifted a glass filled with three fingers of amber liquid. Scotch, Michael knew. It had always been scotch.
“I am not certain what you mean,” Michael prompted.
His father sighed heavily. “I mean that I waited too long to succumb to the truth of my responsibilities. I should have been married and producing heirs long before you were born, Michael. Instead I wasted another score of years afterward and was married for too long before Alexander arrived. Now I am a man approaching the end of his life with a young wife and an infant heir.” As though to illustrate his point more eloquently, the marquess released a ragged cough then took another long draught of the whiskey.
End of his life? Michael considered the man across from him. The thought had never crossed his mind that his father would not always be a force in his life, like the sun around which he was bound to orbit, whether he wanted to live in its light or not. He had never seen his father so frail either. He looked several stone lighter than the last time they sat in this room together. Michael had been the weak one that day, limping in on his still healing leg, accepting his banishment to Yorkshire. His father had not known then that it wouldn’t prove a punishment, sending his son to a neglected estate at the end of the world. He could not have known it would prove Michael’s salvation.
Today, Michael felt strong and he wanted nothing more than to return to Rose Hall. He did not intend to announce that desire. One of the many lessons Michael had learned in the successful management of the estate at Rose Hall was that the first to name their price was the first lose the advantage in any negotiation. Michael could be patient and wait for his father to introduce his own request before making a request in return.
He did not have to wait long.
“There is a need
now—an urgent one—to have matters resolved.” Michael was mildly surprised at his father’s words. While he knew every aristocratic family required an infusion of wealth now and again to maintain their way of life, he hadn’t expected his father to announce that it was pressing. Life certainly seemed to be continuing in the normal grand style at Willow House. “My days are running low and I must see my family settled.”
Michael stilled. The urgency was not a need for funds but his father’s failing health? His family settled? The idea that his father considered him family was enough of a surprise, but to think that he cared whether or not Michael was settled in a marriage was entirely unexpected.
“I have failed, Michael, in my duty as a father.” He shook his head with the admission.
Michael was struck dumb. Of all the conversations he had expected to have with the Marquess of Rosevear in this chair, he would never have guessed the man would have lamented shirking his duty to his bastard son.
The marquess leaned forward and laid both palms flat onto the desk. “I have failed Alexander, Michael, and I need your help to set it right.”
Michael exhaled. All was as it always had been. His father was not concerned with Michael’s welfare. He was concerned with Michael’s ability to help him see to the welfare of his legitimate family. Of course. He leaned back in his chair. Death did not change life. His father’s illness did not make him a legitimate son.
“You need my help in the form of a wedding,” Michael prompted.
“That is only part of it,” the marquess said. “I need much more from you.”
Michael was immediately suspicious. “More in what way?”
