The vehicle rolled to a stop. He shoved open the door, leapt out, and headed up the steps.
The door opened wide, and the butler nodded. “My lord.”
“Andrews. I assume my father is in the library.”
“Yes, sir.”
“See that we’re not disturbed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Langdon continued on, his heels beating out a strong cadence. That of a man who possessed confidence, who knew his own mind—
Christ. Or at least what was left of it.
At the library, a footman standing at attention reached down and opened the door for him. Langdon gave a respectful nod as he swept through.
His father was sitting behind his desk, ledgers spread out before him, pen in hand as he made notions. While Langdon wasn’t near enough to see them, he suspected most of them involved numbers.
The earl looked up, smiled, set aside his pen, and leaned back. “Oliver.”
“Father.”
He reached the desk. Ah, yes, the ledgers contained almost all numbers. Damn them to hell. Carefully he set his satchel on the corner of the desk that was free of any ledgers or clutter. He opened it and pulled out the sheafs of paper that contained words, words, words. So many words he’d written since he’d returned to London.
He held them out and hoped his father didn’t notice the slight tremble of his hand.
Lucian Langdon, the Earl of Claybourne, was the sort of man that some found intimidating, that no one wanted to cross. Langdon suspected the love he held for his sire was equal to that which Marlowe held for hers. He couldn’t fathom what he might have done had his father been taken from him when he was a young man. As a future lord of the realm, he wouldn’t have found himself on the streets, but he would have inherited the responsibility of looking after his mother and siblings.
Would he have found the courage, determination, and fortitude to do whatever necessary to shelter and protect them—as Marlowe had done for her mother?
He watched as the papers slid from his hand with his father’s tug.
“Have a seat,” his father said, nodding toward a chair in front of the desk.
“I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind.”
His father lifted his gaze to him, studied him for what seemed an eternity, nodded, and gave his attention to what Langdon had written.
“It’s my proposal for the estate steward that I was on my way to deliver to him last year when everything went ass over tit.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
He waited as his father’s gaze slid over each page. When he reached the last, he said, “You haven’t included your figures, indicating how these changes will benefit us financially.”
“No.” Because those figures had been lost in atorn apart railway car. Lost in a mind that couldn’t find them.
His sire was studying him, and all the while Langdon was striving to determine how to explain what needed to be told. He’d practiced a few different ways to say it, but looking at his father now, none seemed quite right.
“Well, they were only speculation,” the earl said. “If you believe these plans are the direction we should go in, they should be implemented.”
“They are more impressive with the numbers.”
The man he’d loved and admired from the moment he’d been old enough to understand love and admiration shrugged. “They’re impressive enough without them.” He held out the papers, his hand so much steadier than Langdon’s had been. “Go forth, my son, make your vision happen.”
Langdon stared into eyes the same pewter gray as his. The same shade as his grandfather’s, he’d been told, although he’d never met him because he’d been murdered when Langdon’s father was a lad. The same shade as his great-grandfather’s, the man who had rescued Langdon’s father from the gallows.
“Graves told you.”
