Sea Scoundrel (35 page)

Grant had to give Patience credit; she was as devoid of expression as he. If she could keep this up, they’d be al right.

If that were true, why did he feel the proverbial noose tightening?

“The two of you were seen leaving here, alone, two days ago,” his father said stern-faced. “Society matrons from one end of London to the other are holding scandal-hungry breaths and rubbing idle hands in gleeful anticipation, Lady Caroline Crowley-Smythe at the lead.”

The noose cut Grant’s air; his world faded.

When his father squeezed his shoulder, it was al Grant could do not to knock away the tardy hand of fatherhood.

“There is no recourse, Son. You and Patience must marry.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Grant took a minute to stay calm. Then he shot from his chair. “Marry? Are you out of your mind? Nothing happened!”

He looked from his father’s raised brow to Aunt Harriette’s shock and raised his hands in surrender. Al right, so composure was out of the question. He turned to Patience.

“What in hel did you tel them?”

Harriette blanched. “What
should
she have told us?” Grant could not believe he blushed. His face had not heated like this since he’d been a raw schoolboy caught contemplating the endowments of Bessie, the parlor maid.

He turned from Harriette’s scrutiny to pour himself a brandy.

“You stayed at the same inn, unchaperoned,” Harriette said.

“You were lucky there were two available rooms.” Grant wished with al his heart that he could give Aunt Harriette the confirmation for which her hesitation begged.

He gave his father the slightest shake of his head.

Brian coughed and turned away.

Aunt Harriette sought her handkerchief as if it were a lifeline and patted her forehead. She regarded her niece with wide eyes. “Tel me you didn’t sleep in the same room.” Patience stifled a nervous urge to giggle. She wanted marriage less than Grant, but his offer of carte blanche, combined with his furious refusal, induced her to grasp the closest weapon to hand. “In the same b—”

“Dammit, Patience! Haven’t you caused enough problems?” Grant began to pace. To the window, and back.

He stopped before his father, turned to her aunt, shook his head, and returned to the window.

After several quiet moments with his back to them, he turned to face her. The pain etched on his features was so keen, Patience had to look away to keep herself from consoling him. With her bald-faced revelation, she’d intended just-punishment not a life-threatening wound.

Remorse blossomed in her breast.

“Suffice it to say, Patience, that I compromised you, but neither of us wants marriage. That has been clear from the beginning.” He looked at Brian and Harriette. “You wil have to accept the facts. We wil not marry.”

“You wil ,” Brian said emphatical y. “And you’l thank me, someday.”

Grant’s bark of laughter added to the insult, but Patience couldn’t help agree. “I’m sorry Sir, but I won’t marry. I saw my father destroy my mother as wel as himself. I want nothing to do with a life dependent upon anyone else.”

“Patience,” Harriette said. “Your father was basical y a good man. Had your mother idolized him less, she might have seen his weakness and prevented much of the tragedy. But you cannot let your parents’ errors destroy your life. You have a right to marriage and children.”

“My father’s greatest weakness was his drinking. My mother could not prevent that,” Patience said, “however much she tried. Do not ask me to live like she did.”

“Grant does not drink to excess,” Brian said, brows furrowed.

Grant, a snifter of brandy to his lips, stil ed, shocked.

“Your son was intoxicated the night of the fire,” Patience said. “I realized then that were I able to overlook my need for independence, I could
never
marry a man who drank.” Grant placed his brandy on the table and sat forward. “I drank that night because we argued.”

“Fine, then every time we have a disagreement, you’l drink.

Thank you very much, but no. Besides, since that occasion, you have fal en even lower in my esteem.” If he couldn’t tel her he loved her, how in the world could he convince her that he was drinking because he had discovered the frightening fact? After his offer of a carte blanche—his most recent fal from esteem—she wouldn’t believe him, anyway. Lord, he’d seen al the clues, but failed to note them. Of course, she’d despise a man who drank. “None of this is to the point,” he said, almost to himself. “I decided long ago never to marry. My mother taught me but one lesson. Trust no woman. She wil destroy you.”

“Al women are not like your mother, son. Most women love and care for their husbands and children. She wasn’t a bad woman, not real y. And she certainly wasn’t representative of her sex. Ultimately, her desertion was my fault. I knew she didn’t want to marry me, knew she was in love with someone else. But I wanted her and no one else would do. I blackmailed her into marriage. Said I’d show the world what a charlatan the man she loved was. She had no choice. She married me, but she loved him.” Brian turned his back to them al and took up the poker to nudge the fire in the grate. He stopped after a bit to stare into the flames. “When I went to her bed on our wedding night, she told me she had gone to her lover the night before, so he would be her first. It was a bitter pil to swal ow, I can tel you.” Tired and beaten, he turned back to them and sat, as if he could no longer bear his own weight.

“She laughed at my horror, and my love died at that precise moment.”

Grant jumped up and slammed his hands on the desk behind which his father now sat. “See here, man, what proof do you have that I’m your son?”

Startled momentarily, Brian final y smiled. “You are mine, make no mistake. You would not be in line to inherit otherwise. To satisfy your mind, I turned from her that night.

One year from the date of our marriage, I consummated the union. To my dismay, she was tel ing the truth.”

“Why didn’t my mother annul the marriage for the reason you had not consummated it, so she could return to her lover?”

“Once she experienced wealth and social standing, she had no desire to return to her old life.”

“But I thought she was wealthy in her own right.”

“Not until her twenty-fifth year. By then she had two sons, two little boys she left with their bitter father on the very day she received her portion.”

Grant reeled as if struck. “You let us think our mother left us because she hated us. That we had done something to turn her away. Why didn’t you come forward with this twenty years ago?”

His father paled. “I had no idea you carried such guilt.” Grant hardened himself against an overwhelming need to give absolution. “No, and by God, you didn’t try to find out how we felt, did you? Did it never occur to you that two smal boys might miss their mother? Might mourn her loss?” Grant slammed his hands down on his father’s desk once more, in pure frustration, before striding to the window. He gazed at the garden, his back to them al . “Did you, for one moment, ever think those boys might need a word of kindness from their father? Especial y after they were deserted by their mother. That they might have needed your love?” He practical y spat the word love as he turned toward them, his look bitter. “No, of course not. Who
did
you think about through it al Father?”

Grant turned toward Patience and her aunt, a closed look on his face. Patience tried to be strong for him, tried not to let him see how she ached for his suffering lest he misinterpret it as pity. She knew him wel enough to know he wouldn’t want that.

Brian wiped his brow, his aged, white face etched with pain. Patience’s heart went out to both of them.

Aunt Harriette went to Brian and squeezed his shoulder.

“The mistakes we make that hurt our children are the worst mistakes of al . I know. If your sons ever forgive you, I expect you wil never forgive yourself.” Brian raised a hand toward Grant then lowered it. “You and Shane were deserted by both parents,” he whispered, as if just now understanding the depth of his sons’ pain.

“Yes.”

“But Shane had you.”

“Damned right he did.”

Brian blinked, cleared his throat and raised his chin. “Lady Belmont, Patience, I apologize for airing the Garrick Family’s dirty linen in your presence.” Aunt Harriette shook her head, dismissing his concern.

“Our linens were, of course, much whiter that day in Arundel, were they not, Patience?”

Patience kissed Brian’s cheek then she went to Grant. His scowl was fierce. Anyone else would be frightened, Patience thought, but he’d given her worse. “And what was it you said to me and my aunt that day, Grant? ‘There is love between you if you would but realize it?’” She took his hand, brought it to her breast as she leaned close to whisper, “The present and future wil brighten, if you let go the past. I know.”

Grant looked haunted as he pul ed her into his arms. “The ever-practical Patience,” he said against her hair. “What am I to do with you?”

“Marry her,” Brian said.

“No!” they said together, releasing each other, their voices strong and sure.

Aunt Harriette drew Patience back to the settee to sit beside her. Without Grant’s arms, Patience felt suddenly adrift.

Brian approached Grant. “Look, son. Your mother hated me not you. Eventual y, with a great deal of self-flagel ation, I considered what you just said—fifteen years too late and after I’d drunk and whored my way to old age.” He turned in embarrassment. “Excuse me, ladies.”

Pink faced, Aunt Harriette waved away his apology.

“By then, I didn’t know where to find you, Grant. And there was so much il -wil between us, you wouldn’t have listened, would you, if I’d wanted to talk?”

“No. I wouldn’t have.”

Patience saw now that Grant’s aversion for marriage stemmed from the relationship between his parents and his mother’s desertion. And hers had to do with the way her father’s drinking destroyed her mother. How strange, given such paral els, that they should find themselves in this situation.

Grant sat, elbows on knees, head down, shoulders tense.

Patience went to stand before him, until he looked up. He took her hand and relaxed against the back of his chair, pul ing her down to sit on the arm beside him. Though he held her hand with the appearance of calm, the pressure of his grip said he needed her and, more than anything, she wanted to be here for him.

“So,” Grant final y said, “My mother didn’t want
your
children, whoever they were. She never hated me and Shane, precisely, she hated the reminder of you. After she left, you didn’t hate us, you hated the reminder of her.” He chuckled bitterly. “I can’t help but wish you had directed your bitterness toward each other. But I’m not an innocent child any longer. Your marriage failed because you did, because you forced my mother to marry you when you knew she didn’t love you.”

Grant shook his head. Lord, his mistrust of the married state was based on a set of circumstances, a jest dealt by fate, unlikely to be duplicated. Given his childhood experiences, he wouldn’t make the same mistakes his parents did. And Patience ... He studied her face, so fil ed with concern for him. Then he looked at his father.

“Patience is not like my mother.”

“No, son. She’s not. And you’re not like Patience’s father.

Your pain, and hers, was caused by parents whose concern ran more to their own suffering than their children’s. You have to learn to live with the mistakes your mother and I made, as Patience wil have to deal with the pain she suffered because of her father’s drinking. I hope with al my heart that we haven’t al , among us, destroyed your lives.

Brian placed his hands, palms flat, on the desk and raised himself slowly. “I do not deserve your forgiveness, son.” He cleared his throat when his voice cracked. “But I humbly beg it. I beg with al my heart for a place in your life and Patience’s, and in the lives of your children.” At that, Patience pul ed her hand from Grant’s, her false calm shattered. “We told you. There wil be no marriage. No children. Ever. We are grateful for the revelations you shared, are we not, Grant? But nothing can make us change our minds.”

“Society wil scorn you,” her aunt said.

Patience laughed. “I care nothing for Society. So there is no problem.”

“I care even less,” Grant said. “Patience is right. There is no problem.”

Aunt Harriette shook her head. “If you don’t marry, the girls wil be ruined.”

Patience stil ed. The girls.
Her
girls. As their chaperone, her standing in Society would become theirs. Doors would close, opportunities would end. A wave more frightening than the monster crest tossed by the phantom ship threatened to drown her and she found it difficult to take in air.

Grant chafed her hand as if he sensed how cold she’d become. “Those girls have survived thus far,” he reassured her, looking into her eyes. “With this titil ating bit of gossip, they wil become celebrities, diamonds of the first water.

Doors wil
open
to them!” His bright smile was false, however, because the lines around his eyes did not appear, and Patience’s breathing grew labored.

Brian cleared his throat. “Son,” he said, a warning sympathy in the word. “The Duke of Graham approached me at Rose’s wedding, asking permission to address Grace. I told him he needed to speak with Patience. I know his family, Grant, no matter how much he cares for Grace—

and believe me, he does—they wil not accept a daughter-in-law touched by scandal.”

Excitement over Grace’s good fortune shot through Patience almost as quickly as dejection over her own sudden lack of choice. And the irony was not lost on her.

She had brought the girls to London to gain her independence. Because of them she had nearly grasped it.

Because of them, she must let it go. If only her need to fight the inevitable did not remain so strong.

Grant read Patience like a favorite book. “I believe there wil be a marriage,” he said, standing. He regarded the fear in her eyes and needed to reassure her. “If two people can make a marriage work, we can. We know so many of the pitfal s, we’d avoid them like the plague.”