Patrica Rice (9 page)

As if she read his mind, she whispered heatedly, "One more whopper like that, Damien Langland, and I'll make you change your daughter's nappies."

"May I still have kisses for dessert?" he whispered back.

The look she gave him in return made him thankful he had a license in his pocket. He didn't think this groom could wait much longer for his wedding night.

* * *

Fathers and Daughters

"I would like your permission to marry your daughter, sir." Lord Edward John Chatham stood nervously before the older man's desk. From his crisply immaculate white waterfall cravat to the elegantly tailored dove-gray pantaloons tucked correctly into a pair of gleaming Hessians, he was every inch the proper young gentleman. A thick head of burnished brown curls cut fashionably to fall forward over his forehead did not disguise the bleakness of his eyes as he watched the other man turn his back on him and walk away. The fact that he had been offered neither brandy nor a chair spoke ill for his hopes.

"I've been expecting this, Chatham." A small, slender man, Henry Thorogood opened a drawer in a nearby cabinet and withdrew a sheaf of papers. As an astute businessman who had turned his family's dwindling estates into an extremely profitable and lucrative career, Thorogood was always prepared for every eventuality. The neat study in which they stood bespoke his natural methodicalness. He threw the papers on the desk. "Your vouchers, Chatham. Do you have any idea of the sum total of their worth?"

"Considerably more than you bought them for, I wager," Lord Jack replied wryly, acknowledging Thorogood's shrewdness in obtaining large discounts on practically worthless pieces of paper. Some of those vouchers had been so long outstanding that his creditors would gladly have taken a ha'penny on the pound.

"Enough to have you called before the court, in any case." The older man came to stand behind his desk again. The Thorogoods were an old and respectable family, but no title attached to their name, and Henry's immersion in trade had tainted their welcome in the highest echelons of society.

Lord Jack, on the other hand, was the son of an earl and younger brother of an earl, the current holder of the title, in direct line to the succession, and an eminently eligible bachelor.

The young man paled slightly at Thorogood’s threat, but he remained steadfast, clenching his hands at his side. "I realize I have overspent my income for some time, but I have already given up my expensive habits and begun to pare down my debts. Except for repaying what you hold there, my allowance from my late father's estate is sufficient to keep Carolyn comfortably, if not quite in the style to which she is accustomed. She understands and has no objections to the modest life we must lead."

"You have already spoken to her? That was unwise. She is much too young to know her own mind. You should have known that of all the wealthy young girls available to buy you out of penury, my daughter was the least suitable. I have no intention of further financing your extravagance at my daughter's expense." Thorogood's voice was harsh and cold as he glared at the lordly young man before him. "You will stay away from Carolyn or I shall have you in debtors' prison so fast your family will not know where to find you."

Or even care, the young man acknowledged to himself. His elder brother had more debts than anyone could repay, but no one dared charge an earl with unpaid bills. He was on his own, as he had been since his father's death, when he was still a schoolboy. The present earl couldn't fish him out of prison any better than he could save himself from going. Lord Jack's jaw tightened at this new obstacle to his happiness.

"I love Carolyn, sir, and I have reason to believe she returns my affections. I will repay those debts in time. You need settle nothing on Carolyn. I will keep her on my income. We will be able to live comfortably in my mother's dower house in Dorset. She will come to no harm at my hands, I assure you." Although he spoke with confidence, Jack was beginning to relive the doubts that had plagued him ever since he had realized his idle pursuit of an heiress had become something much different and totally uncontrollable. He meant every word he said, but he couldn't help remembering Carolyn's youthful innocence. Did she have any idea what a modest life in Dorset meant? How long would it be before she grew restless and bored, deprived of the extravagances her wealthy father had led her to expect of life?

"She will come to no harm at your hands because I will not allow you to lay hands on her!" Thorogood shouted.

He had expected the young lordling to crumple with his first shot. This obstinate refusal to acknowledge the facts gave Henry some admiration for the lord, but not enough to surrender his eldest daughter into the young fool's hands. If the man thought his title and family name fair trade for Carolyn's dowry, he would learn otherwise. Carolyn's happiness did not rest on titles, but on character. Lord Jack’s profligate habits did not display the kind of character required for Carolyn's happiness.

Resolutely Henry pressed his point. "I will call my daughter in here and you will tell her before my face that you will not see her again. In return, I will not call in your debts. Should you so much as show your face at my door, however, I will hand your vouchers over to the magistrate. Do you understand me?"

Jack heard and understood. Beneath his fashionably pale complexion he turned a shade grayer, but his eyes hardened and took on a light of their own. "I understand you are destroying your daughter's life as well as my own. As you say, she is young and perhaps will recover. For myself, as long as you hold those vouchers, there is no hope for me. If you truly wish me to leave, I request a loan so that I may set about finding a means of repaying those debts." And of returning to Carolyn—but he did not say those words aloud; they held his last flickering hope of a life worth living.

The older man looked at the younger contemptuously, seeing the request as a bribe to ensure his silence. There were very few ways a gentleman could turn money into wealth without land and still remain a gentleman. The loan would be wagered at a card table in a mad attempt to win it all back and would never be seen again. If that was what it took, so be it. Henry nodded tersely. "You will sign a voucher for the sum."

Curling his fingers into his palms and feeling all his plans crumble to bitter ashes inside him, Jack waited for the servant to fetch Carolyn. They had known each other only a few brief months. Perhaps for her it had been a carefree lark, part of the experience of coming out into society. For him it was much more, but he had been careful not to let her see how deeply she affected him. He had never known such quiet, kind affection and cheerful joy as she had brought to him. It should be enough to treasure these few months of happiness they had shared. He tried to fix a careless expression on his face as he heard the unmistakable light patter of her small feet in the hall.

She floated into the room, a brilliant expectancy upon her face as she smiled into Jack's warm gray eyes. Her smile faltered somewhat as she met an unfamiliar cold barrier there, but she did not hesitate. All fragile grace clothed in pale green gauze and ribbons, her light brown hair piled artlessly above a slender throat and velvet eyes, she advanced bravely to kiss her father's cheek. In her hand she carried what appeared to be a red paper-and-lace heart. She turned and gave Jack another reassuring smile.

"Lord John has something he wishes to tell you, my dear." Henry rested a comforting hand on his eighteen year-old daughter's shoulder. He had five daughters and no sons. Their mother had died giving birth to the youngest just two years ago. Carolyn had been his right hand and biggest comfort during these last two years of grief and chaos. He would not surrender a gem such as this to a man who would not appreciate or care for the gift. The temporary pain he was about to inflict could in no way measure the misery of a lifetime of poverty and depravity. Someday she would understand that.

Carolyn turned the trusting blue of her gaze to Jack's irregular but handsome features. She knew the story behind the crook of his once-patrician nose, knew the tiny scar above one arched dark eyebrow had been earned during a childhood tantrum, knew he had inherited the Chatham pugnacious jaw and his mother's sharp Spanish cheekbones. She knew him with all her heart and soul and was ready to give the words that would allow her to share his life forever. The promise appeared in her smile as she waited for him to speak.

"Carolyn, I just wished to tell you that I am going away and won't be able to see you again," Lord Jack said.

She continued staring at him as if he hadn't spoken, waiting for the words that would surely follow. The red-and-white heart in her hand crumpled a little beneath the pressure of her fingers.

Steeling himself, telling himself it was for her own good, Jack tried again. "Your father has refused to give me your hand. I cannot keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed."

That, she understood, and the light returned to her eyes as she turned to her father. "That does not matter, Papa! You must know that I have no care for silk gowns or balls or jewels. I should love to live in the country and will be quite content attending village affairs rather than London society. I know you mean well, Papa, but you must see that I love Jack too much to allow so small a thing as money to stand between us."

Henry turned a threatening look on the paralyzed young man. "Tell her, Jack. Do one decent, manly thing in your life."

Realizing he was being asked to cut his own throat, Jack threw the older man a murderous look, but as Carolyn turned questioningly to him, he ruthlessly whipped out the knife. "You don't understand, my dear. My debts are such that I would have to sell my home to pay them. Your father refuses to give you a dowry if you marry me. Without your dowry, we cannot marry. I must seek my fortune elsewhere."

Twin spots of color tinted Carolyn's cheeks as she absorbed this self-serving speech, and the blue of her eyes hardened to a more crystalline color similar to his own. "You are saying you courted me for my dowry? That you only meant to save yourself from debt and never meant any of those promises you made? That your pretty words were nothing but lies?"

Jack said nothing, but remained stoic as she wielded the knife he had given her. Carolyn could by turns be pensive and gay, serious and flirtatious, but never had he seen her in a temper. At his lack of reply, her anger seemed to boil and explode, heightening her color, making her eyes more vivid, but not once did it remove the ladylike melodiousness of her voice.

"They were all lies, weren't they? The courtly gestures, the sweet flattery? Did you go back to your friends and laugh at how easily I fell for them? Did they wager on how soon you would woo my wealth? All those promises . . ." Her voice broke and her eyes glittered with unshed tears when he did not deny her charges.

To compensate for her lack of words, she stalked across the room to stand in front of him and waved the fragile confection of red and lace before him. "I don't want to know how much my father had to pay you to do this. You must have realized I would have run off with you anywhere. I loved you.
Loved
you!" Her voice cracked again, but temper had loosed her tongue. "Fool that I am, I believed your lies! I gave you my heart, and you had no idea what you possessed. You will never know now. No one will ever know. I'll not be such a fool ever again."

Before his stony gaze she ripped the paper heart in half, then tore it again and again until it was in tattered pieces on the floor at his feet. She flung the last few bits at his snowy cravat. "There's my heart. See what good it does you now."

Carolyn stormed from the room, her large store of reserve severely depleted by the tantrum she had never indulged in to such extremes before. She slammed the door, rattling the precious Meissen vase on the hall table, and halted in the shadowed doorway to compose her face and hastily wipe away her tears.

Even as she stood there, she heard her father's low voice through the door. "I'll have the money for you on the morrow. I'll send my man around. I don't want to see your face here again."

Shuddering with dry sobs, she raced toward the stairs, no longer caring who saw her. It wasn't just a lovely valentine lying in torn pieces at the feet of the man behind her, but her heart. There would never be any repairing it.

Behind the closed door, the tall lord bent to pick up the flimsy pieces of paper heart that he had not deserved. He could see snatches of the fine penmanship of the child he had loved on the pieces as he gathered them. In his own heart, he knew they would never be whole again.

Grimly he pocketed the torn valentine, nodded curtly at his nemesis, and strode out, his long legs carrying him away as quickly as the laws of physics and nature allowed.

* * * * 

"I cannot get it to look lacy like the picture." Frustrated, Blanche threw down the tattered paper amongst the scraps already littering the library table. An unexpected ray of sun gleamed through the open curtains, catching her golden hair in a coronet of light that illuminated this dusky corner of the library.

Smiling at the lovely sight, the woman in the corner chair set aside her book and rose to see what task her younger sister had set herself now. Pale brown hair arranged unfashionably in an elegantly simple chignon, she moved with quiet grace and sureness as she came to stand beside her sister.

Blanche glanced up in relief as competent fingers took up the misshapen piece of paper. "It is not at all like what you and Mama used to make. I thought I could follow the instructions in this magazine, but it is not the same. Show me how to make it lacy."

Carolyn held the tattered valentine, glanced at the magazine, and drawing on the strength she held in reserve for just such occasions, sat down and picked up the scissors and a clean sheet of paper. "You have to cut the heart first, if I remember correctly."

Blanche watched in silence as the plain square of paper shaped itself into a heart finely threaded with intricate designs and elegant scrollwork. Breathing a sigh of happiness, she eagerly took up the scissors when her sister laid them aside. "It is beyond everything, Lynley!" Her newly discovered grown-up manner disappeared briefly to let this childhood appellation escape. "Will you make one for George?"