“You heard what your father said,” she said. “And Horatia. I have an estate of my own and I am responsible for the souls upon it. I could not be married to you and watch nothing be done to save Bellamy.”
“It is Lucien’s place to oversee Bellamy,” Darien said hoarsely. “Lucien is the heir. I cannot take what is his. It is theft, and it is murder. If I become Earl of Aldthorpe…there’s nothing for him to come back for.” He closed his eyes in pain.
“Oh, my darling,” Henrietta whispered. She stroked his cheek, and he leaned into her steady, solid comfort. He hated that she should have such power over him. A man ought to be his own master.
“You need not take the title, if that is the rub,” she said. “You need only consent to a legal act that will nominate you as your father’s heir, and Horace’s, so you may make decisions for the estate. You would make a better steward than your cousin, from the sound of things.”
“I shall not have him declared dead,” Darien rasped. “I shall not behave as if he is.” He pulled his face away from her hand. “I’ll— I can go to Bellamy and make Ratty behave.”
She picked up another cravat. “I wish you well in the attempt. I hope you will leave Horatia here while you are away.”
Darien caught her hand as his composure cracked. He was doing it again. Ridden by grief, by shame at his own failures, he turned into a howling and desperate animal striking out at whoever was near, clawing everything around him to destruction. He let his hands curl into fists so he could nottouch her. He could not hurt Henry, his valiant, determined, magnificent Henry. He could not haul her down into his despair. He needed her to save him from it.
“I’ll go to India. I’ll find Lucien. I’ll bring him back.”
“Very well.” Henrietta bit her lip and nodded. “I will look after the girls while you are gone.”
Guilt goaded him past his patience. “They are my wards,” he growled. “I will provide for them.” Did she think him incapable? “I asked you to marry me. Not take charge of my family affairs.”
“Oh, youaskedme to marry you. Why was that again?”
Her face shuttered, settling into cool, firm lines that told him he had pushed too far. He didn’t have an answer to that. He had found her outside the palace of St. James, cursing her gown, and he had not walked past her, though he might have. Others had.
And when she kissed him in her family garden, practice for imaginary future suitors, then strolled away untouched, he’d known—he decided in that moment—he would find a way to bind her to him and she would never walk away from him again.
Sheer impulse, the way he had always operated. The blind, groping need that had led him into destruction, and now he thought could lead him out.
“I thought so.” Henrietta snapped the valise shut and pushed it into his good hand. “If you see Lady Celeste on the Continent, tell her I have her daughter.”
“You’re supposed to be ruined,” Darien demanded, outraged that she was doing it again, walking away. That was how his world operated. A kiss was as binding as a vow. It could make marriages, and it could break them. What more would ittakewith this woman?
She turned toward him at the door. “I have a mill to build and an estate to oversee, and I hope someday to rebuild my credit enough to be accepted into the Minerva Society,” she said with a brittle composure that told him she was furious. “Nothing aboutme is ruined. As to the matter of marriage, I have outlined my terms.”
He ground his teeth together. She asked him to deny Lucien, his other half, his best self. To accept that he would not come back, with his cocksure swagger and laughing blue eyes and bold grin. She was asking him to say aloud that Lucien no longer lived.
“I cannot accept your conditions.” The words squeezed the air out of his lungs. They clawed up his chest, shredding him from the inside.
She straightened her shoulders, those elegant square shoulders that bore so much. “Perhaps that is for the best,” she said before she exited. “It would not do for Prime Minister Pitt to haul away your would-be wife in chains.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Hines carriage arrived in style at St. James Palace on the day that Henrietta’s fate would be decided. As the Pomeroy coach drew up behind them, packed with her relatives, Henrietta descended the steps with Charley’s aid and recalled with a melancholy fondness the last time she set foot on these cobblestones. Then, the turreted brick gatehouse had simply felt like the entrance to another world. Now, it was the path to her doom.
Another coach drew up behind the Pomeroy vehicle, with a team of six matched blacks and the Bales arms picked out on the door. Henrietta watched in amazement as Rutherford scrambled out and moved toward Marsibel like a bee to honey. The Marquess of Langford, in full court dress, assisted Horatia from the coach. Then Darien, stepping down last, looked around and met her eyes.
The others faded into the background as her whole world tilted on its axis and reoriented toward him.
She suspected he would always do that to her. Become the center of her world each time he stepped into it.
He no longer wore the sling. His back was straight, his hair clipped and queued, and like everything else she had laid eyeson that day, he was unbearably beautiful. Her heart expanded, reaching toward him.
“Lord Darien,” she murmured as he came to her like a compass needle pointing north. She felt her insides shift and settle. A thrill shot through her body as he bowed over her hand. “I recall we met here before.”
“Your dress has considerably improved.”
He appraised her from head to slipper. Duprix had rebuilt her court gown completely, shearing away the excess ruffles and shirring the stomacher and underskirt with neat rows of tiny pink ribbons. The brushed green silk made Henrietta’s eyes gleam a deep emerald, matching the jeweled collar at her throat. Instead of ostrich feathers, a set of tall, soft plumes nodded like angelic thoughts above her head.
Her panniers swayed elegantly as he led her through the gate and a phalanx of red-coated yeoman guards conducted them through the long hallways of St. James. She clutched his arm, her face pale.
