“All will be well, Cecily,” he assured her, once they had both caught their breath.
Cecily nodded and kissed his lips, reveling in the disorder of their clothes, the damp stickiness between her thighs, and the warmth of his strong body.
Yes, all would be well now.
* * *
“What if my uncle doesn’t accept?” Cecily asked, looking up anxiously after signing her name on the formal invitation card addressed to Lord Holt, the words dictated by Nathaniel.
Nathaniel placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and then sat down on his desk beside the invitation. Lord Holt and Lady Holt were invited to Greyhaven Park for luncheon at noon tomorrow, the very deadline Lord Holt had tried to impose.
An express messenger was already waiting in the hallway to deliver the card to London within two hours. He would also carry invitations to Lord and Lady Jackson and to the Duke and Duchess of Mildenhall, each including personal messages about the importance and confidentiality of the occasion.
“He will come,” Nathaniel said with certainty. “Your uncle is foolish enough to think that I have capitulated. He will not lose the chance to crow over us both and leave here either with Mary or his payoff.”
“What if Lord Ashworth warns him?” Cecily fretted as he lifted the card and blew on it to dry the ink faster.
“Ashworth won’t,” he answered with the same confidence. “That old stoat values his own skin more than your uncle’s. Nor has he any desire to spend his remaining years being pulled apart in courts and newspapers. Lord Holt’s crimes are worse than you know yet.”
“Can you not tell me everything?” Cecily asked, wondering what could be so awful that Nathaniel still sought to keep it from her.
“I will tell you once I am sure,” he replied, handing back the card for her to wrap and getting to his feet to retrieve the sealing wax from a drawer. “I have written to have certain details urgently confirmed, and I trust I will have my answer before your uncle arrives tomorrow. I would not distress you needlessly before then.”
Pressing no further, Cecily watched him press his seal into the wax and then open the study door.
While it was hard to foresee how her uncle would react tomorrow, she trusted that Nathaniel had the upper hand, whether he shared all his cards with her or not.
CHAPTER 31
“Iknew you would come to your senses in the end, Cecily,” Lady Holt said with a supercilious smile as she descended from the carriage with the assistance of the driver and offered her cheek to her granddaughter to be kissed.
“I see you are wearing your best clothes, Grandmother,” Cecily replied coolly, not stepping forward to provide the expected embrace. “Didn’t that ruby necklace belong to my mother and her mother before her?”
“Where is Mary?” Lady Holt snapped, irritated both by Cecily’s assertion about the necklace and uncomfortable at being left standing in such a foolishly expectant posture.
At this instant, Cecily had little care for her grandmother’s emotional comfort. In the list of her priorities, this was presently very low.
Two letters had arrived by express messenger at Greyhaven Park that morning. The first was her uncle’s somewhat smug acceptance of the invitation to luncheon. The second was longer and had arrived only half an hour earlier.
While Nathaniel hadn’t tried to hide it from Cecily, the information and documents it contained were extensive and disorganized, leaving no time for full explanations.
From a quick reading, Cecily could see that the documents included the official account of the carriage accident that had caused her parents’ untimely death. There were also other eyewitness accounts and testimonies, most only partial and leading to no clear conclusion. It was only after she read those that Nathaniel passed her the newer statement from Lord Ashworth, bringing everything into sharp focus.
“Mary is inside,” she answered in a neutral tone. “She will be at luncheon.”
“Of course she will,” Lord Holt said, stepping around the other side of the carriage. “I trust you both know your duty to your family, even if you have to be reminded of it now and then.”
The pinkness of her uncle’s face and the wetness of his lips made her think he had probably been at his brandy flask during the journey.
Giving him a cold nod, she offered her arm to her grandmother, feeling sympathy for her advanced age, if not her character or their shared blood.
“Come, Grandmother, I will help you up to the front door.”
Standing at the top of the steps, Nathaniel watched the scene with his arms crossed and a blank expression on his face. For Cecily, he appeared as a pillar of strength, and she felt no fear of her uncle and grandmother while he was there. These wicked, greedy, foolish people could no longer harm her or Mary.
“What could be more fitting than a family luncheon on such an occasion, Your Grace?” Lord Holt chortled as he approached Nathaniel. “I’m glad we can finally see things in the same light.”
Acknowledging his guests only with a nod and ignoring Lord Holt’s words and proffered handshake, Nathaniel turned and led them all toward the dining room.
