“Anderson, you’ve done well.”
Anderson’s hold on the flint box tightened. “I have?”
“The imposter has been removed.” He nodded regally. “Exactly as I would have wished.”
“I knew,” Anderson whispered. “I knew you wouldn’t want the imposter in your seat. In your study. Going through your accounts. Not to mention reveling in those books of…of…” Anderson’s face darkened.
“Filth,” Harbury said, hating that he must disparage the collection of tomes that had so increased his and Cassandra’s pleasure.
But filth was how his rigid father would have described them.
“Filth.” Anderson nodded. “And degradation.”
Degradation. What a word for an act that was essentially the most powerful way of communicating love, the genesis of life itself.
“Just so.” Keeping his chin raised, he held out his hand. “As there is no longer any threat to myself, I should like the flint box.”
Anderson blinked down. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, you should have it.”
Harbury received the box. “And now I have an even more important mission for you.”
“Yes?” Anderson queried hopefully.
“Your daughter must be kept safe. I want you to go with her. Watch over her.”
Anderson frowned.
“She is the only one besides us who knows, who understands,” Harbury improvised.
“B-But what of you?” Anderson asked.
“Must I remind you?” Harbury narrowed his gaze. “I do not, as you know, tolerate any question of my authority.”
“Of course.” Anderson bowed. “I am grateful to be of service.”
“Come.” Lady Pennington put her arm around her father’s shoulders. “Let me take you home.”
Anderson nodded, looking as weary as Harbury felt. Then, he and Lady Pennington slowly made their way down the center aisle before exiting the church.
*
Alone in thechurch, Harbury let the silence around him gather. Becoming his father had been far more difficult than he’d anticipated. The weight of their combined mistakes weighed on his shoulders as he stared up at his father’s likeness.
Echoes of their past arguments rang in his head. But his experience of those memories had fundamentally shifted. He no longer felt as if he’d been in the wrong on every subject.
And perhaps the thought that had occurred to him back in the vault was true—his father’s rigidity had been, in part, a reaction to his grandfather’s excesses.
What a strange familial chain successive generations wove.
Then, Harbury did something he’d never done to the real man—he touched his father’s face. He had to reach up to do so, too. Had the stone statue been built to his father’s accurate height, they would have stood nose to nose. His father had ordered his monument to be taller.
Ruefully, he shook his head. “How like you,” he spoke to the statue.
For the first time, he was glad he hadn’t ever “earned” the man’s approbation. He exhaled, yanking off the ridiculous hat and wig. He didn’t belong in the past. He wanted to get home to his future.
He made his way back to the hall and then promptly submitted himself to Marsden. Only after his valet had removed every trace of the old duke, did he cross over to Cassandra’s door.
Bracing himself for whatever was to come, he knocked.
