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“None of us do until it affects us personally. Because I gave Lord Randolph a daughter rather than a son, his heir became a nephew who got the title and my home when your grandfather died. I was dispossessed except for a dowager’s cottage on the grounds of my own estate.”
“Oh, Roz, how unfair! I often wondered why you took on the burden of twins; you had little choice.”
“You’ve brought me nothing but pleasure, darling. I could have married again, but somehow I couldn’t bear to give another man control over my life.”
“I suppose that’s what marriage means,” Antonia said thoughtfully.
“Some women are happy married to dominant men. Others prefer to rule the roost and wear the breeches in the family, so to speak, but those women have little respect for a husband who can be bullied and so once again women are placed in a cleft stick; damned if they do, damned if they don’t!”
“Oh, Grandmother, you do make me laugh, and it’s so dreadful of me to laugh today.”
“No it isn’t dreadful, darling.Carpe diem… seize the day! It’s so very unfortunate that you can’t go up to London for the season.” Roz heaved a sigh of resignation. “A Georgian woman requires two things, beauty and money. If she has the first she can marry the second. If she has the second, she doesn’t need the first.”
Antonia smiled through her tears. “What a choice, marriage or ‘leading apes in hell.’ Isn’t that the unenviable fate of spinsters in the afterlife?”
“I’m glad you can smile. When Anthony sees his father’s death notice in black and white in theLondon Gazettehe’s going to be desolated.”
Antonia lay in the dark trying to remember her father. She couldn’t see his features distinctly, but her memories were of a tall, dark man who was always kind and gentle with her. Whenever she had fallen or hurt herself he had cradled her in his arms and wiped away her tears. He’d taught her to ride and to sail and never shown any preference for her twin brother. Her mother, conversely, could never hide the fact that her favorite was her son, Anthony. Her mother’s sharp reprimands had often sent Antonia to seek out her father and climb into his comforting lap. She turned her face into her pillow, knowing she would never again know the comfort of his arms. A voice from within told her she would have to get all the tears out tonight. Tomorrow she would have to be strong for Anthony’s sake.
Her time for growing up was upon her. Suddenly she felt years older than her twin. Though Tony was now Lord Lamb and owned the estate, in reality he was still an immature youth. Antonia, on the other hand, felt as if today she must leave her girlhood behind. She realized that becoming a woman meant being mature and taking responsibility for oneself. Men could afford to be the dreamers, while women must be the practical ones.
The tears were still seeping beneath her lashes when she fell into an exhausted sleep, and her dreams transported her back to her childhood. She was riding her pony, showing off for her father and the other men who were guests at Lamb Hall. They were laughing at her antics and the look of love and pride and approval on her father’s face made her almost giddy with joy.
She dismounted and ran into her father’s outstretched arms. She laughed down into his dark face, smelling his shaving soap, feeling his strong hands lift her high in the air.
“Toss her to me,” laughed one of her father’s friends.
She squealed with glee at all the lovely attention she was getting, then suddenly saw her mother’s face as she came across the lawn. It was cold with disapproval. She did not want her father to play with Antonia or cuddle her, even when they had no guests.
Antonia was thin and dark like her father, and her mother said she was too boyish and ran wild. Antonia stiffened in her father’s arms and he lowered her until her feet touched the ground. All the sunshine had gone out of her day.
“You shouldn’t encourage her to be pert, darling. If she were a pretty child her pertness would be forgiven by everyone.” Her mother linked arms with two of her father’s friends, dazzling them with her beauty. The others trailed after her across the lawn, Antonia totally forgotten. She wasn’t forgotten by her father, though. He blew her a kiss, which she caught and tucked into her pocket. She felt a penny inside and dropped it down the wishing well.
“Let me be as beautiful as mother when I grow up.”
Antonia awoke with a start. Then she remembered that her father had died and she would never see him again, except in her dreams. Her memories of him were happy ones, filled with love and laughter, and those could never be taken away from her.
When her brother Tony read the death notice, she would be strong enough for both of them!
Chapter 2
Thirty miles away in his cramped bachelor’s lodging in Soho, Bernard Lamb read the announcement of his uncle’s demise with what could only be described as joy. Up until this morning his prospects had seemed very dim indeed.
It had taken him exactly a year to run through the money his own father had left him, which was little enough due to the addiction to gambling that Bernard had inherited from his sire along with his pittance. The small house in Clary Street was long gone, he was up to his handsome eyebrows in debt, and the rent was overdue on his dingy flat here in Tottenham Court Road.
The notice in the Gazette, however, filled him with elation. Bernard narrowed his eyes and allowed his imagination to take flight. It didn’t have to soar too high to see himself a landed baron. Now that his uncle, Lord Russell Lamb, had stuck his spoon in the wall, only his cousin Anthony stood between himself and the title. “Lord Bernard Lamb” had an irresistible ring to it.
He laughed out loud as an amusing picture flitted through his head. Angela, the delicious little actress who’d been on the point of abandoning him to the gutter, could now be lured back. The aroma of future money would linger about him, attracting the fair sex like steel filings to a magnet. Money was power. He would revel in the power it would give him over the girl from the stage with the face of an angel.
She was an opportunist like himself. The mere hint of his prospects would bring her down to the mattress. His promises would turn her into his own private wanton angel. How he would enjoy punishing her for her indifference these past months. How he would savor watching her perform erotic little acts to ingratiate herself with him again.
Bernard decided it was high time he traveled to Stoke so he could assess Lamb Hall. He licked his lips in anticipation. Suddenly he was heir to a title and a small fortune and would borrow on his prospects immediately.
The day Bernard chose to present himself at Lamb Hall to offer his condolences was precisely the day the twins had ridden off to Gravesend.
Mr. Burke alerted Lady Randolph that one Bernard Lamb was in the library and they put their heads together and decided he could only be the son of the late Robert Lamb, to whom Evelyn had been engaged when she up and eloped with the more eligible Russell.
Rosalind, a small, pretty woman who hid her age as successfully as she hid her shrewdness, swept into the library with a rustle of black silk skirts. She caught young Lamb surveying the room with a speculative eye. He introduced himself immediately, brought her hand to his lips with an easy manner, and offered his condolences.
