Her sense of desolation was ridiculous.She had known him a matter of hours.But they could have been friends as well as lovers.Without knowing it, that was what she had always been looking for.
“Oh, and there’s a message from Sir Hubert, too—the magistrate.He’ll be along before ten this morning.”
“Excellent,” Tabitha replied, as though the matter was at the forefront of her mind, which it wasn’t.She had sent a message to him on her arrival in Cogglesworth, about the attempted hold-up, but since De’Ath had gone, she had little enough to tell the man.
As soon as she left Sir Hubert, she climbed into her waiting coach and set off on the last stage of her journey to Sark Park.The nearer she got, the deeper the sense of oppression that settled over her.It was an ugly feeling that she could never quite shake off, even though the old devil was dead.Neither his children nor his successor troubled her, yet somehow the ghost of her late husband never quite seemed to fade from the place.
The carriage drew up to the Dower House and Lily ran out to meet her.
“Tabbie!I’m so glad you’re back!”she cried, throwing her arms around her stepmother.“I came down to wait for you, for so much has been happening and I wanted to tell you before Cousin Ralph gets his oar in.Come in, come in.I love that hat, Tab, did you buy it in Brighton?”
Lily half-dragged her into the house where she disentangled herself to greet her housekeeper and butler who had come here straight from the Brighton house while Tabitha travelled by easier stages.
Having ordered tea, Tabitha swept her stepdaughter into the drawing room and settled herself into her favourite chair, angled so that her back was to the big house where she had once lived with the earl her husband.Lily paced back and forth in front of her, twisting her hands together, as though, now that she finally had her stepmother’s ear, she couldn’t find the right words.
Tabitha waited patiently, for Lily was subject to crises and this one was unlikely to be insoluble.She wondered where Mr.De’Ath was, what he was doing, and if his horse had turned out to be the friend he hoped.A smile twitched at her lips for there had been something truly engaging about the man.Curiously, she no longer even felt embarrassed by his rejection, for she had read the struggle in his eyes, desire versus chivalry and chivalry had won.She was not worth such honour of course, but now that she thought of it, she rather liked that in him too.Her horseless knight...
“You have always said I should not marry until I wished,” Tabitha said in a rush.“And that I might choose my own husband.”
Tabitha blinked.“I insist upon it.Have you fallen madly in love?”
“Lord, no, quite the opposite.”Lily threw herself into the chair nearest Tabitha’s.“Cousin Ralph says I am betrothed.”
Tabitha peered at Lily’s tragic face more closely.“Did you agree?”
“No, of course I didn’t.”
“Then you are not.”
“But apparentlyPapaagreed.He made the promise with the old duke before I was even born!”
“In writing?”Tabitha asked swiftly.
“I...I don’t know.Does it matter?”
“A legal contract will be harder to repudiate, but we shall do it all the same.”
Lily’s face relaxed into smiles.“I said you would know just what to do.”
“Which old duke are we talking about?”Tabitha cast her mind around for an unmarried one.
“Isbourne,” Lily said with loathing.
Tabitha lifted one eyebrow.Another De’Ath...“He is too old even for Ralph, being dead these twenty years!”
“No, no, it’s the son I’m supposed to marry.The late duke made the arrangement with Papa for one of his daughters.I am the only one left.”
“Then why have we never heard this nonsense before?”Tabitha demanded.
“I don’t know.”Lily shifted discontentedly and scowled.“I was taken to meet him once, though.Ralph told me that and I asked Nurse about it.I remembered him then, a shocking milksop of a boy—he let me play with his toys but just read his book all the time I was there, even when Nurse took me outside to play.He didn’t come.”Her frown smoothed.“Still, I expect he wasn’t allowed to, poor creature, or he might have expired at my feet which would probably have upset me.Although if hehadexpired, I would not now be in this predicament, would I?”
Tabitha’s lip twitched involuntarily, but she kept the rest of her face grave.
“But only think, Tabbie!Icannotmarry the Duke of Death, it would be torture.I am useless with invalids, and I would positively die myself of the tedium!He lives in this great, terrifying mausoleum of a place that makes our big house look like a cottage.Even Nurse said it must be haunted.”
“Yes, well, the haunting or not is immaterial, since you are not going to marry the Duke of Death.”
“Oh good.”Lily sat back in her chair and grinned at her stepmother.“I knew you would save me.How do we get out of it?”
