Both occupants of the parlor were on their feet and turned toward the door as Robert barged into the cozy little room. Missus Everly, cherubic features alarmed beneath gray-streaked brown curls, gaped at him. Edmond Everly, a decently put together young man, wore a similarly startled look. Robert spared the room, the only inviting space he’d yet seen on Everly lands, a brief glance before leveling a glare on his distant relation.
“Who are you?” Missus Everly gasped. “What are you about?”
Robert forced his fists to uncurl. He shouldn’t be so unkind as to alarm the lady, several years his senior. It was Everly, not his mother, who must receive Robert’s ire. He offered the widow a slight bow. “Robert Hadler, Duke of Solworth.”
“My lord.” She bobbed a curtsy, round face wreathed in confusion. “We’ve been expecting you. Shall I send for tea?”
“I do not require tea. I will not be staying.” Robert turned unyielding green eyes on Everly. “I have merely come to inform you, sir, that you shall never lord over so much as a yard of my holdings. I will take the issue to King George himself, if I must, and if he’s unwilling to accommodate me, I will relocate every tenant and raze the manor to the ground before you lay hand on anything that is mine.”
Everly and his mother stared, mouths open and eyes wide. Robert turned on his heels and strode from the room. His boots struck with enough force to dent the planks of the floor. He was nearly to the corner when light footsteps hurried after him.
“Lord Robert,” Missus Everly called. “Lord Robert, please, wait.”
Robert swallowed against the vitriol lodged in his throat and turned.
She scuttled down the hall, slippers unable to find firm purchase on the smooth wood. She skidded to a halt when she neared. Though she’d run barely the length of the building, her matronly bosom heaved with every breath. “Lord Robert, please.”
“Please what, madam?”
“Please hear reason, my lord. My son is not a terrible man. Whatever you’ve heard, it is slander and lies.”
“I doubt that.” Robert was grimly amused. Then, what mother wouldn’t defend her child?
“Then you truly mean to petition the king?”
“I truly do.”
A frown pocketed the smooth skin of her chin. “Then I must inform you, my lord, that a cousin of mine is wed to a cousin of his.” Her blue eyes glinted. “You have the fame of Egypt attached to your name, but you’ve been away from England for many years. I do not think your petition will outweigh the future Duke of Solworth’s.”
“Then the estate shall burn.” Robert forced an even tone, unsure himself if he bluffed.
“Burn your ancestral home? Turn out your tenants?” Her voice took on a desperate edge.
“Relocate,” he corrected.
“My lord, I can reform Edmond. He is not beyond hope.”
Robert frowned down at her. “You’ve had the rearing of him. After what, five and twenty years, you believe you can now alter him?”
“Six and twenty,” she corrected. Her frown deepened, aging her. “My lord, you cannot raze the Solworth ancestral holdings. There must be another way.”
Could he displace those beholden to him to save them from a despot? Burn down the home in which he was raised? Where he’d brought his wife on their wedding day. Seen Lanora born.
And buried his wife.
Through the still-bitter pain of the loss that, years ago, drove him from England, Robert realized the Widow Everly was correct. There was another way.
“No, madam, I will not destroy that which has been beholden to my line for so many centuries.” He watched in grim amusement as hope sparked in her cornflower-blue eyes. “Indeed, there is another way, and as soon as I return to London, I shall pursue it.”
“Pursue what, my lord?” Her tone was tentative.
He permitted a hard smile. “A wife.”
“A wife?”
Robert nodded. “Mark me well, madam. Within a month’s time, Solworth will have a new duchess. One capable of giving me an heir.”
She gasped, hands coming up to cover her mouth.
“Good day, Missus Everly. I will see myself out.” Robert turned and strode away.
Chapter Two
Lady Cecilia Greydrake, Dowager Marchioness of Westlock, perched on the very edge of a plush armchair in her stepdaughter-by-marriage’s sitting room. Across from her, Lanora was the very architype of calm, skin radiant and belly now visibly round with child. Cecilia clutched her knees to keep both them and her hands from jittering.
“Grace will be here soon.” Lanora’s tone, though amused, was kind.
“You’re sure she hasn’t any notion what you’ve done?” Cecilia hadn’t been so excited since… Well, since the moment she’d found out her late husband was dying, but this was a more overtly joyous occasion. Her marvelous, wonderful stepdaughter was about to make their friend Grace into a gentlewoman.
And friends they all were, Cecilia’s first in a very long time. With only four years separating her from Lanora’s nineteen, Cecilia felt eminently more comfortable viewing her stepson’s wife as a friend than a daughter. After all, she’d never viewed William, who was four years her senior, as a son. Grace, in turn, was like a sister to Lanora, and as warmhearted a person as Cecilia could conceive of. After six years with only William and medical journals for companions, having two such dear friends was a joy so keen as to be nearly excruciating.
“I am certain Grace has no idea what I’ve done.” Lanora shrugged. “Rather, what I’ve persuaded my father to agree to. Not that persuading him was difficult.”
Cecilia wouldn’t wish to persuade the Duke of Solworth of anything. Unfailingly polite during their brief encounters, he still intimidated her. Although he was not so very tall as William, Lord Robert was broader, and more well-muscled than any gentleman of four decades had a right to be. Tanned skin, coupled with piercing green eyes, gave Lord Robert a decidedly exotic mien. Overall, she found him terribly disconcerting.
Cecilia’s gaze darted toward the mantle clock. They’d fifteen minutes to wait before Grace arrived. “I’ve never really understood how Grace’s grandfather and mother are gentry, yet she is not. It’s splendid of you to set the matter right.”
Lanora shifted, not unwieldy yet, but too round to be entirely comfortable.
Cecilia suppressed an envious sigh. If she didn’t find a husband soon, she would be on the shelf, wealthy and titled widow or no. Then, she would never know the joy of her own children, or of a real husband. One with whom she actually lived, instead of hid from.
She dropped her gaze to her hands, wrapped tight about her gray-draped knees. Her deep mourning was over. Society would have no censure should she choose to attend events and permit men to court her. Indeed, as everyone had hated the late marquess, no one blinked when William married Lanora so soon after his father’s death.
Sorrow settled on Cecilia’s shoulders, a well-worn mantle. As much as she’d longed for society during the six years William had hidden her from the marquess, now she feared to venture into it. Locked away at the age of sixteen, she might now give the appearance of a worldly widow, but she knew less than nothing about how to engage with a gentleman. Or how to choose one.
Even visits to her mother and sister weren’t the joy Cecilia had spent years imagining. William had arranged for her to write them from her hiding place, their letters one of Cecilia’s prized possessions. While they’d told her of friends, family and children she’d only recently met, she’d offered only lies about her health and supposed time spent on the Mediterranean. Now the truth, that she’d been hidden away from a man too cruel to bear, was beyond her recounting. As much as she loved her mother and sister, their lives had moved forward while Cecilia’s stood still. That gap of time and six years of lies combined to form a seemingly insurmountable wall between them.
“Cecilia.” Lanora’s voice was gentle.
Cecilia looked up, blinking.
“You’re doi
ng it again,” Lanora said.
Cecilia flushed as she realized the pain that radiated from the gouges her fingernails made in her knees. She eased her grip. “I’m sorry.”
“He’s dead.” Even Lanora couldn’t keep her tone mild when mentioning the marquess. “You’re free of him.”
Cecilia nodded. She mustered a smile and hoped it hid the truth. In her heart, Cecilia wasn’t certain she would ever be free.
“Do you want to know how Grace ended up the daughter of a housekeeper instead of a gentlewoman?” Lanora’s cheerfully conspiratorial tone gainsaid the line of worry on her brow.
“Yes, I very much do.” Cecilia sat up straighter, forced lightness into her tone. “Is it a sad story, or a wonderful one?”
“It starts a bit sad, but ends well, and I’m sure Grace won’t mind me telling you.” Lanora looked a bit uncertain, but pressed her lips together and shrugged. “When Grace’s mother was young, she was very much in love with one of her father’s groomsmen. Their love was secret, and tumultuous, and Grace was the result.”
Cecilia gaped at Lanora. A groomsman? It was easy to see why Grace was reticent with the tale. While everyone on the duke’s estate, where Lanora and Grace were raised by Grace’s mother, must know the story, many in London would look down on her. Well, Cecilia certainly didn’t. “There’s no shame in having a groomsman for a father.”
“No, of course not, but the story doesn’t end there. Not that there’s shame in any of it,” Lanora said firmly. “When she realized she was with child, Grace’s mother went to her lover, expecting he would marry her. She was a gentleman’s daughter, after all. While she’d behaved quite poorly and been much too wild, she knew that when a woman ended up in her condition, marriage was soon to follow.” Lanora’s eyes took on a distant look. “In truth, I’ve always felt she thought her lover would leap at the chance. He was, to her way of thinking, a mere groomsman. Wedding her would have left them between worlds, but vastly improved his circumstance.”
“Only if Grace’s grandfather agreed to pay his daughter’s dowry to a servant,” Cecilia pointed out.
“True, and we shall never know if he would have, for when Grace’s mother went to her lover, he declared his heart belonged to one of the maids and the two ran off together, never to be heard from again.”
Cecilia’s shock doubled. She shook her head. How was a woman to choose a worthy man when men behaved dishonorably?
“So, Grace’s mother returned to her father and informed him of her shame. He was so angry, he cast her out of his home. He never spoke to her again, and he willed his lands to my grandfather, to return them to the Solworth estate,” Lanora continued.
“What a terrible thing to do,” Cecilia declared.
Lanora shrugged. “It was a different time.”
“But--” Cecilia prompted, for Lanora had promised a happy end to the tale. She felt like a child hearing a new bedtime story. Lanora was going to make a splendid mother.
“But, my father persuaded Grandfather to employ Grace’s mother, who proved very adept at managing a household, raised up as a gentleman’s daughter as she was,” Lanora dutifully continued. “When our old housekeeper left us, Grace’s mother stepped into her place. She also raised me.” The last she added as almost an afterthought, as if that hadn’t been an additional fortuitous outcome of a serious error in judgement.
“And now?” Happiness bubbled up in Cecilia. Now, all would be put right, thanks to Lanora.
“And now, I’ve decided that Grace must be restored to her rightful place as a gentlewoman. I have persuaded my father to return all of her family holdings to her, and William and I have provided her with a sizeable dowry.”
“You’ve what?”
Cecilia whirled to find Grace in the doorway, round face slack with surprise.
“I’ve persuaded my father to restore your family holdings to you,” Lanora repeated with such calm, Cecilia suspected she’d known Grace listened. “He was perfectly happy to oblige.”
Grace took five slow steps and sank into the nearest chair. “I don’t understand.”
“You are now a landholding member of the gentry, and well-dowered.” Smugness underlined Lanora’s words. She grimaced. “At least, until you wed. Then everything will go to your husband.”
A chill scuttled up Cecilia’s spine. It always came back to that, picking a good man to marry. If you selected poorly, you relegated yourself to a lifetime of sorrow. How was she supposed to pick a man now? She hadn’t socialized with men since she was a girl of sixteen and, even then, she’d wed where her father chose.
“I don’t know what to say,” Grace murmured. Tears stood in her eyes. “I…thank you.” She shook her head, brown curls bouncing. “Thank you seems hardly enough.”
“No, what I’ve done is hardly enough.” Lanora leaned forward, as much as her roundness permitted, her voice earnest. “You’ve been my staunch friend all these years, Grace. Your mother raised me when my family forgot I existed. You both did your best to make me a lady. Restoring your grandfather’s lands to you is but a small token of my gratitude.”
A hard lump constricted Cecilia’s throat. She looked down at her hands, long fingers white against the gray.
“Besides,” Lanora’s tone became brusque, “Cecilia requires someone beside her as she makes her foray into society.”
Cecilia’s head snapped up. “I beg your pardon?” she squeaked.
“You’re out of deep mourning,” Lanora stated. “Nominally you, as a widow, would escort Grace into society. In reality, I’m counting on you to look after one another. I can’t accompany you all about town in my state.”
Cecilia exchanged an incredulous look with Grace.
“But I don’t want to enter society,” Grace blurted.
“You must.” Lanora was so smug as to be slightly vindictive. “You need a husband, after all. You’re too young to have decided never to marry.”
“Lanora Greydrake,” Grace snapped.
Cecilia looked back and forth between them. She felt as if she’d missed some part of the conversation. Having grown up together, they often made her feel that way. She brushed sorrow aside, for it wasn’t their fault, and ventured, “I do not wish to go into society, either.”
“Of course, you do.” Lanora’s smile was beatific. “There’ll be no more hiding behind mourning. No more burying yourself in your medical texts and journals, Cecilia, or your cooking, Grace. I want you both to know the happiness William and I have found.” She offered a shrug. “Besides which, William’s sister will be done with finishing school this year. It’s our duty to ease her way into society come autumn and, to be frank, all three of us need practice before we take on that responsibility.”
William’s half sister, Lady Madelina Greydrake: Cecilia’s other stepchild, whom she’d met only once, just that past Yuletide. A lovely, meek young woman with a familiar shadow in her eyes, one Cecilia strove to keep from her own. That mark, that knowledge of true evil, that the marquess had left on their piecemeal little family.
“I don’t have anything to wear.” Grace’s outburst rang with triumph.
Lanora grinned. “Oh, but you do.”
“That’s not possible,” Grace said.
“It is.” Lanora appeared inordinately pleased. “When I insisted you let me buy you that day dress for your birthday, it was only an excuse to get your measurements. I have an entire wardrobe waiting for you, for final fittings.”
Horror flashed across Grace’s features. “You didn’t select the fabrics? The cuts?” Her blue eyes were wide.
Lanora laughed, obviously having long since come to terms with her lack of fashion sense. “I left the matter entirely to the modiste.”
Grace sagged back in her chair in relief.
Lanora turned to Cecilia. “And before you issue a similar statement regarding your lack of aught but mourning garb, I have a wardrobe waiting for you, as well.”
To hide her unease, Cecilia smiled. “You
’ve thought of everything.”
“Yes, I do believe I have.” Lanora looked back and forth between them. “Now, when shall we visit the modiste? We mustn’t wait too long. I’ve accepted several invitations on behalf of you both, including one to Dame Parson’s ball. I shall make you two the talk of the town by season’s end.”
As dreadful as that sounded, Cecilia kept her smile in place. Lanora was only doing what she thought best. Cecilia just hoped the proposed talk she and Grace spurred ended up being the good sort.
Chapter Three
Robert strode through his daughter’s stately London home. On the inlaid marble, without a single floorboard to creak, his tread was silent. He rolled his right shoulder, arm still smarting from his son-in-law’s final parry. One thing he could say for William, one of many, was that he fenced like a French master. Half the time, Robert couldn’t beat the younger man.
“Papa,” Lanora called.
He changed trajectory, wondering how she’d heard his approach, and angled through the parlor door. Lanora sat ensconced on the central sofa, a book balanced on her round midsection. Robert resisted the urge to frown. Though he could count very well, and had lived the passage of years, seeing his daughter grown and with child disconcerted him. Somehow, he’d missed that Lanora had grown up and that he, apparently, was old…approaching the age his father had been when Robert ran off to Egypt. His father had died hardly a year after that.
“Papa.” Lanora smiled up at him, not troubling to stand. “I trust fencing practice went well?”
“As always.” He sketched a bow but didn’t sit. He’d already sent for his horse. “William is quite skilled.”
“That’s what he says about you, and I’ve no way to know how polite either of you are being.” Worry flickered in her eyes. She firmed her smile. “I trust, were he not as proficient as he believes, you would tell me.”
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