Evelyn Richardson (27 page)

“I want to gratify them—all your wishes, that is.”

“No. I mean, I do not need someone to do that.”

“But I want to. I know you can look after yourself, and many others at the same lime, but I want to look after you, share your problems and your successes because I care about them. I care about you. I love you.” He cupped her chin with one hand and tilted her face so that she had to look up at him. And then he saw that her eyes were swimming in tears.

“I don’t know… That is, please, I need to be alone. I need to think.”

Desperate as he was to convince her that the two of them belonged together, he could not help smiling tenderly. “Of course, my love, but I can tell you from my own experience, thinking in the world will not give you the answer.”

He yearned to pull her into his arms, to kiss her breathless, to prove to her what he knew all the reason in the world could not explain, but with a supreme effort, he restrained himself and leaned forward to kiss the top of her head.

Then, drawing a deep, steadying breath, he straightened and mustered up his most businesslike voice. “With your permission, I shall take these documents back to the White Hart with me, look them over thoroughly, and draft a letter to Lord Granville.”

“That would indeed be most helpful.” Catherine smiled at him, grateful for his understanding.

But when he had left, she sat down at her desk and let the tears roll slowly down her face. Better than anyone, Lucian appreciated the conflict that was raging within her. The mere fact that without a murmur of protest, he had accepted her need to be alone showed beyond all doubt that he understood and sympathized with the war between her independence and her longing to share, her fear of losing herself and her longing to be with him. How could she not love a man like that? And she did love him. She had always loved him.

Finally, wiping away her tears, she stood up and walked over to the French windows, stepped out onto the terrace, and, taking a deep breath, inhaled the scent of the roses in the garden beyond. Why was she agonizing over it all? She had lost him once and survived. She could do so again, but in the meantime, it was time to enjoy the world around her. It was time to live.

Chapter Thirty

Catherine’s very first act after arriving at this resolution was to take a brisk walk across the fields to Farmer Griggs’s to play with the baby and share Lucian’s discovery with the anxious little group that gathered around the kitchen table as soon as she appeared.

“That is wonderful news, my lady! We have been that worried.” Mrs. Griggs beamed as she brought Catherine a glass of her blackberry cordial. “Tom has been going over and over the account books to see if we could manage without that field, and Betty has been saying that she must look for employment in Bristol or somewhere where no one knows her. It has been a dreadful time.”

“It
does my heart good to be your tenant once again, my lady, indeed it does.” Farmer Griggs was less effusive than his wife, but his relief was palpable. “And the marquess, is he sure he is right?”

“The marquess is the sort of man who would not have said such a thing unless he were quite sure, but apart from the legal issues involved, he assured me that even without that he would make Lord Granville see that it was not in his best interests to threaten you.”

“Well, to be sure, the marquess does look like a man who knows what he is about and not likely to take no for an answer, I expect.”

“Very true.” Catherine smiled. “The marquess does not take no for an answer, and he most definitely does know what he is about.”

Farmer Griggs shot a meaningful look at his wife. “A good man and a true gentleman, the marquess.”

“Yes…a good man.” Catherine, who had been holding the baby, returned him to his mother. “And now, I must get back to my own duties. I am afraid I have neglected the academy shamefully through all of this.”

The Griggses thanked her again, and feeling more light-hearted than she had for quite some time, Catherine headed back to the dower house. In fact, she was feeling so optimistic that she could even bear to glance off in the distance without a qualm at the classical lines of Granville Park just visible beyond the trees that lined its long curving drive. “And that is the last I shall be forced to deal with you, ‘Ugolino’,” she muttered triumphantly as she strode along the path through the fields.

* * * *

But there she was wrong, very wrong. For not twenty-four hours later as she was sitting at her desk in her office at Lady Catherine Granville’s Select Academy, Biddle appeared in the doorway. “Lord Granville to see you, my lady,” he announced with his usual impressive gravity.

The butler barely had time to deliver his message before he was shoved aside by the portly, puffing figure of Hugo, Lord Granville. “This is an outrage! Have you lost all sense of decency? Have you no better respect for this family and its tradition than to go rallying tenants against landlords? I knew that you had very little, if any, consideration for the proprieties, but I had no idea that you were an outright Jacobin!” He gasped, still catching his breath after the climb up the stairs.

It was only by picturing the granite-faced image of the Marquess of Charlmont that Catherine was able to calm herself enough to reply. “Quite the contrary, my lord. I have every respect for tradition. And tradition holds that the rights and holdings of the original manor house are to remain together intact. I would suggest that in this instance it is you, my lord,
who lacks the proper respect for this family and its history.”

Hugo’s pale protuberant eyes were bulging, and his fleshy face was mottled with rage. If Catherine had not been so desperate to maintain her own dignity, she would have laughed outright, for he looked like nothing so much as an angry carp.

“You will not get away with this. I will see to it that you cease this scandalously disrespectful behav—”

“You will do nothing of the sort.” An icy voice behind him broke into Lord Granville’s tirade. “And it is you who will cease the disrespectful behavior. You will start giving the respect she deserves to Lady Catherine, now, or you and your precious reputation will be very much the worse for it.” Immaculately attired in an exquisitely cut coat of blue Bath superfine, biscuit-colored pantaloons, and a cravat of dazzling whiteness, the Marquess of Charlmont strode into the room.

“Who, may I ask, are you? And how dare you interfere in a private conversation?” Hugo’s efforts to sound imperious merely wound up sounding petulant in the face of Lucian’s cool authority.

“I am serving as counsel to Lady Catherine and as such I have come to advise her that she need have nothing further to do with you. I am also the Marquess of Charlmont, and I make it a point never to have anything to do with people who conduct themselves as uncivilly as you seem to consider it necessary to do. Now, if you feel that you must bully someone, I suggest you go elsewhere but leave defenseless farmers, unfortunate females, and perfectly respectable widows alone.”

For a moment, there was utter and complete silence. Lord Granville’s jaw flapped frantically, but not a sound issued forth. “Perfectly respectable, you say?” He
at last managed to spit out. “What sort of person runs a school, I ask you? Some poor down-at-heels governess who is no better than she should be. But a Granville? Never!”

“The Marchioness of Charlmont may, and she will, if she will have me.” Lucian raised a quizzical brow at Catherine who was too bemused by the entire exchange to do anything but stare at both of them.

“The Marchioness of Charlmont? What does the Marchioness of Charlmont have to do with this?”

“Nothing, perhaps, if Lady Catherine cannot find it in her heart to make me the happiest of men. Or perhaps everything if she can. But in either case, she will continue to remain the much respected proprietress of Lady Catherine Granville’s Select Academy for Genteel Young Ladies because, from what I have seen, the academy is doing an excellent job of educating young women. And England has a desperate need for well-educated young women.”

Lord Granville caught sight of Catherine’s dumbstruck expression. “Marchioness of Charlmont, bah! You are just saying that in the hopes of making her your next mistress, and as head of the Granville family, I refuse to allow you to sully the name with such cheap propositions.”

“If your concern is for the Granville name, sir, I would first look to my own wife’s conduct, if I were you, and leave off harassing Lady Catherine.”

“My wife? How dare you, sir!”

“Let me explain something to you, Granville.” Lucian took a step closer to the infuriated gentleman, and his voice grew deadly soft. “Lady Granville, in pursuit of life as a fashionable member of the
ton
, is bringing more dubious renown to the name than Lady Catherine is in her pursuit of female education. There are rumors linking Lady Granville’s name with several gentlemen of the
ton
, and believe me, I know whereof I speak, for I am one of those gentlemen.”

“Now, if you do not leave Lady Catherine and your neighbors in peace, I shall see to it that the vague rumors about your wife’s activities become common knowledge, and then the reputation of the Granville name will truly not bear looking into. I trust you understand me.”

Lord Granville blanched, but he stood his ground. “Fine words, sir,” he spat with a venomous glance in Catherine’s direction, “with which you no doubt expect to win the approval of your next mistress; however…”

“The next Marchioness of Charlmont, you mean. If you ever whisper a word against Lady Catherine again, I assure you that I will gladly defend her honor, whether she consents to become the Marchioness of Charlmont or not.”

However verbally aggressive he might be, Lord Granville was utterly and completely lacking in physical courage, and there was no mistaking the very real menace in the Marquess of Charlmont’s expression. “You—you have no right…” he stammered, edging toward the door.

“Then I suggest that, in the interests of keeping yourself in one piece, you quit this room immediately.”

But before Lucian had finished his sentence, the man was gone.

Lucian turned to Catherine. “There. I do not know why I did not think of that before. If I had challenged that villain to a duel at the outset, I would have saved us all a good deal of trouble.”

“You—you did not have to do that.” Catherine found her voice at last.

“Well, it was a trifle rough and ready, I admit, and far less elegant a solution than those that I usually favor, but effective, nevertheless.”

“No, I mean what you said about the Marchioness of Charlmont. There was no need for it. You do not know the extent of ‘Ugolino’s’ vanity. Despite his low opinion of me he will now be claiming that he is related to the Marchioness of Charlmont, and all the world will think that you and I…”

“And he would be absolutely correct; that is, if you will have me.”

“If I will have you? But I do not need to be married to be respectable. It is no longer an issue since you put the fear of a duel into ‘Ugolino’.”

“Precisely, my love. I would hope that you would be married because you wish to be, because I love you, and,”—he pulled her close and looked deep into her eyes—“because I hope you love me too.”

“I do not know. I do not know.” She twisted her hands in an agony of indecision.

“Do not know if you love me or do not know if you wish to be married to me?”

“I…”

“Do you know what I think?” He kissed her gently, slowly, on the lips, and then tracing her jaw line with his lips to her ear, he whispered. “I think, perhaps, you have loved me as I have loved you, since the moment I saw you, since the moment I recognized a kindred spirit among all the fashionable aspirants for the
ton’s
attention. But”—he pulled her closer to him—“loving someone and sharing one’s life with that person, giving up one’s independence, are different things altogether.”

His eyes smiled down into hers. “I have had my independence, as have you. I have accomplished many of the things I set out to accomplish, as have you. Yet, when I saw you again, I realized how empty my life has been without you. I want to share it with you, enjoy it with you. I want you to help me, advise me, share your knowledge with me, as I hope I can do with you.”

“But the academy. I cannot just abandon it.”

“I should hope not. I hope that you make it the premier female educational establishment in all of England. I hope that it is so successful in fact that every marchioness in the land will feel compelled to establish one of her own, so successful that Lady Granville will be continually pointing out that she is closely related to the proprietress of Lady Catherine Granville’s Select Academy for Genteel Young Ladies.

Catherine chuckled. “Now that, sirrah, is doing it much too brown.”

“But it is not doing it much too brown to say I love you.” He tilted her head up and pressed his lips against hers, not gently this time, but passionately demanding, persuading, pleading.

And she was powerless to resist. His very touch made her feel as though they belonged together. It always had. She had tried to deny it after he had disappeared from her life, had continued to deny it through eight years of marriage, but when she had first seen him standing in the doorway of her office three months ago, she knew that she had been lying to herself for all those years.

His hands slid down her shoulders to her waist, pulling her to him as though to make up for all those years away from her. “Catherine, please, say you will marry me. I never want to be without you again. Say you will take the risk to be with me for the rest of our lives.”

It was, as always, his complete understanding of her fears and hesitations that finally won her over. And after all, as she had already asked herself over and over, what did she stand to lose? Nothing, except what she had lost before. But what she stood to gain was the happiness that she had never found anywhere else but in his company. “I will marry you.”

“And I promise never to let you out of my sight again.” He smiled down at her. “And I know an excellent man of law who can draw up the marriage settlements to your great advantage.”