“All of us changed our plans once we knew Mama hadn’t much time left,” Grace said. “The little boys didn’t go off to school.”
Papa shook his head. “That is not the same. Were it not for us, you would have married Neville Freyne and likely be a mother by now.”
She had a vague memory of an earnest face, waves of golden hair, the cool slide of a ring on her finger. “Papa, please don’t blame yourself. I wouldn’t change it.”
“Perhaps not, my dear, but I would. In your mother’s absence, everyone here at The Willows has looked to you forguidance. The servants. Your brothers. They continue to do so. It is unfair to you and…,” he hesitated, “to Helen, as my wife.”
Grace couldn’t quell the resentment that sparked in her chest.
“It is time for you to go back out into the world,” her father said. “I’ve discussed it with Helen, and you will go to London for the season. You shall have a whole new wardrobe, enter the social whirl as you should have done. Most importantly, Helen has a young man in mind for you to meet, a cousin she thinks would suit you. He owns an estate near Inverness.”
Her gaze sprang up to meet her father’s. “In Scotland? But that’s so very far away.”
“It is. But I’ve heard it’s lovely there.”
A wave of bitterness washed over her. Will’s warning before the ill-fated trip to the lake echoed in her ear.
If Helen has her way, she’ll marry the two of us off and send the wee boys away to school…
She recalled the clasp of Bennet’s hand, his pleading gaze as he begged for her promise. She stared at her father, feeling betrayed.
Was it true what Will had predicted? Would their father send his children away from the home they’d always known? Be relieved when they were gone?
I have to think of something to stop this…Grace thought, her heart squeezing.Mama, what can I do?
CHAPTER 5
Are you certain you won’t come with us?
Simon’s urgings from earlier that morning haunted Lucien as he wandered the echoing emptiness of Everdene Hall.
We can make room in the coach.
That might be true for almost anyone else, Lucien thought. But if he had joined the other Harcourts on their visit to their old nurse, the luxurious space would have filled with suffocating tension. The walls closing in as they had whenever he entered the room where his family gathered.
No. It was better that he remained behind to deal with the one complication only he could resolve: What the devil to do about their father, the Earl of Ravenscroft.
Thus far, the earl seemed ignorant of his daughters’ return.
But, at some point, he would hear the news, even exiled as he was to the isolated estate of Bitterne Tower. And when he did…
Lucien stalked to the window and peered into the distance at the empty space where a collection of thatched roofs and a church spire had once been visible from the manor house—the village that had been razed at their father’s command. Thanks to Simon and Penelope, a New Everdene had been built elsewhereto house the displaced tenants. But Lucien had often caught his sister Jane staring in horror at the place where the old village once stood, evidence of the earl’s willingness to lay waste to lives upon a whim, just as he had shattered his children’s world twenty-odd years ago.
Lucien twisted the signet ring on his finger, the Harcourt motto pressed beneath his thumb.While I am vigilant, I am safe. He’d failed to keep his sisters safe years ago. He would not fail them now.
He needed to attend the small party Simon’s wife, Penelope, had planned with just a few trusted guests to welcome Cassandra and Jane home and acclimate them to their new surroundings. If he left for Bitterne Tower as soon as it was over, surely that would be soon enough to warn the earl away?
Lucien was startled from his thoughts by the sound of a coach coming up the drive. A sudden jolt shot through him, as if, just by thinking of his father, he could summon the devil. But the coach was unfamiliar. One more annoying interruption. He was turning to instruct the servants that he was not to be disturbed when he saw a flash of heart-shaped face and rosewood colored hair framed by the coach window.
Lady Grace.
He didn’t want to feel that kick of recognition in his chest or feel himself drawn to the door as if by an invisible thread. And, yet, that is exactly what happened.
By the time he stepped outside, Lady Grace had handed something to the footman and leapt lightly to the ground.
Today, she wore a blue and white striped day dress with soft, bell-like sleeves and a straw bonnet trimmed with silk buttercups. Wind tugged at curls that peeped out beneath the brim, the tendrils a changeable mix of brown, auburn and a hint of deep gold. A locket dangled from the blue velvet ribbon about her throat, the delicate oval cradled in the hollow betweenwinged collar bones. The glint of sunlight on gold drew his gaze down to where full breasts filled her bodice. Suddenlyhe pictured her as he’d seen her last—soaking wet, her chemise clinging to her body, outlining every curve.
After their encounter at the lake, he knew the shape and feel of those breasts far better than any man save her husband should.
