‘If you have any respect left for me whatsoever, or indeed if you had any real respect for me in the first place, kindly leave me to do my thinking in peace as whatIdecide to do aboutmybook is, frankly, none of your business. And if you set one of your clumsy big feet anywhere near Mr Cooper’s office to offer your well-intentioned and superior manly assistance tomynegotiation, I swear I shall never speak to you again.’
Chapter Sixteen
Hope went out with her family that night to celebrate and he wasn’t invited. Which was a shame for so many reasons, not least of them that a prior engagement would have spared him the painful chore of another one of Abigail’s cosy family suppers. Now, instead of toasting the woman of his dreams for her well-deserved success among people whose company he enjoyed, he would have to listen to his sister-in-law prattle on about her woes across his father’s imperious dining table instead.
His own stupid fault and doubtless no less a punishment than he deserved for charging in like a bull at a gate, trying to take over and running roughshod over all her feelings. Even Charity, who loved to stir the pot, had cautioned him to keep a wide berth when he had attempted to call on Hope earlier, so he knew things were serious. He was resigned to the fact he would have to issue his grovelling apology later when he saw her on the balcony.
Ifhe saw her on the balcony.
He climbed the front steps of the Berkeley Square mausoleum like a condemned man on the way to the gallows, hoping against hope that this dinner wouldn’t be as tedious as the last one and already counting the minutes until he could leave.
‘Lucius!’ Since their reconciliation at the opera, Abigail always insisted on kissing his cheek which meant he had to kiss hers, then made a great show of straining to look behind him. ‘Is your dear mama not joining us?’
The invitation had included his mother, not that he had told her that. She had been doing such a good job of coping with being in London, he was in no hurry to spoil things by dragging her back here to the place where all her troubles started. He had also been keeping her well clear of high society too—just in case that triggered something.
‘Sadly no. She is still settling in.’ A flagrant lie when she had already made herself quite at home, and thanks to her fast friendship with Roberta, already had a better social life than he did and he had been here months, not a week. She was blossoming in Bloomsbury and long might that continue.
‘Oh...such a shame as I was so looking forward to meeting her. Maybe I should call on her one day instead. A nice afternoon tea next week?’
‘Yes. I am sure she would be thrilled.’ She wouldn’t. His mother took an automatic dislike to anything pertaining to his half-brother and had taken to calling Abigail the Bride of Beelzebub whenever he mentioned her in conversation.
She threaded her arm through his possessively, her small breasts squashed much too familiarly against his bicep as she hung on him like a limpet while they walked towards the dining toom. As usual, she insisted he sat at the head of the formal table and sat beside him. He hated that chair as it had previously held the bottoms of his brother and his father, and the spectre of them still seemed to linger on the upholstery.
‘So how are you, Abigail?’ As much as he didn’t care, it was always best to get that question over with first as it usually took at least the first two courses for her to tell him.
‘Frustrated by our mutual solicitor still—but what else is new?’ He might have known her first complaints would be material. ‘I swear he’s shilly-shallying over the transfer of deeds unnecessarily to fleece you of more money for the task. I fail to understand why he cannot simply swap your name for mine as the owner of this house, despite all his protestations that it is not that simple.’
‘It would be that simple if my name were on the deeds, but alas, he was in the process of legally transferring all of the Thundersley estate over to me, which I am led to believe is always a lengthy process even with a will in place.’
Not that Luke had been included on that will as his brother hadn’t mentioned his name once on that unwieldy document. Clearly he had still been of the opinion he would beget some heirs before he had the thing drawn up and would be horrified to learn that because he had driven his phaeton at speed into a wall before getting around to that chore, the law automatically passed it to the next blood recipient in the male line. Which had meant Luke had unexpectedly got it all—and not just the entailed part which Cassius would have had no control over—before his sibling could mitigate against it. Pettily, that was the one aspect of his new fortune Luke took the most pleasure in.
‘However, the solicitor assures me that once all that paperwork is done, it will be a simple enough task to transfer ownership of this house from me to you.’
She groaned, as if it was all a dreadful inconvenience to her. ‘I do not suppose he has given you an estimate as to when he believes the paperwork will be finalised? My husband has been dead almost eight months and my entire life is still up in the air while all this drags on. It is not good for my nerves, Lucius.’ A statement which inevitably led to a long diatribe about the current state of those nerves, complete with more tears which left him more cold than sympathetic. The dessert arrived before the topic changed, and rather abruptly it changed to him. ‘I see you are still a regular fixture in the gossip columns.’
‘They do seem to like me disproportionately at the moment.’
‘Doubtless that will be because of all the time you are spending with your new neighbours.’ Her lips thinned even though she smiled. ‘As sadly the surname Brookes is synonymous with scandal.’
‘I suppose while they are writing rot about us, it gives some other poor blighter a reprieve from it all.’
‘From that, I take it that you and the middle Miss Brookes are not engaged?’
‘Of course we aren’t.’ Yet. But he wasn’t as averse to the idea of marriage now as he had been a few months ago.
‘And there is no child due?’
‘No.’ Not without an immaculate conception.
‘Good...’ She sliced the apple tart with more force than was necessary and slid it on to his plate. ‘I am relieved to hear it. As I wouldn’t put it past a Brookes to use something like that to entrap you.’
That comment instantly raised his hackles. ‘She wouldn’t and I resent the implication.’
Instead of bristling at the rebuke, she sighed and appeared concerned. ‘Oh, Lucius...as much as it pains me to meddle, on this occasion, and as we are family, I fear that I must. Please be careful...for that entire family are not quite what they seem.’
‘I will not allow the Brookes family to be maligned, when they have been nothing but good to me.’ Luke immediately pushed the dessert plate away, not that he had had much appetite for it anyway. ‘And would much prefer we changed the subject.’ Preferably to one which didn’t make him want to howl at the moon.
Her hand covered his on the table, instantly leaving him cold. ‘You are still new here, Lucius. New to the capital and to this life, so perhaps you are a bit more green around the gills than most peers about the way of things...but please, for your sake, be in possession of all the facts before you do something you might bitterly regret.’
