“Sir, as much as she might love you, a woman cannot very well throw herself at a man. Not even Beth.” She raised her brows. “What if, she fears, he does not want to catch her? Then she falls and more than her heart is bruised.”
Sylvia leaned forward. “I am not very wise, sir, but I have known her since she was a child. I know her loyalties and her emotions. When she feels strongly, it is always there in her eyes.” She smiled. “As it was when she looked at you.”
Because he was silent, Sylvia hesitantly continued. “Samuel tells me that you keep strict accounts for the earl.”
“Yes.”
“And that the earl resides now in Virginia.” Her eyes filled with sympathy. “Is in fact, a neighbor to the Beaulieus.”
Their eyes met and held. “Yes.”
Slowly Sylvia trailed her finger along the outer rim of the account book. “Would it not be possible to perhaps bring him the annual reports yourself, rather than to send them to him by some sort of courier?”
She did not wait for him to answer. Instead, she merely smiled as she left the room.
Her suggestion lingered in the air long after she had closed the door.
Duncan stared at the book before him. He began to thumb through the last report, the one he had taken far too long to finish. He saw not a line, not a single word that he had penned.
Without thinking, he closed his hand over the pouch at his waist. He felt the shape of the ring that Cosette had entrusted him with. Beth’s grandmother’s wedding ring. Beth’s ring now.
And he had it.
The stupidity of his decision to nobly let Beth go shimmered before him, like heat rising from the cobblestones of London on a scorching summer’s day. He had always hated the class system that had frowned on him since the moment of his birth, that choked society as he knew it. He had fought his way above it, like a sailor outswimming a shark bent on having him for supper.
And now, when it involved the most important aspect of his life, he had allowed himself to be mired by it once again. And by his own volition. He had allowed the class system to doom his and Beth’s relationship by agreeing to have his mind and his soul shackled by it.
He who had always been so free.
Well, no more. No more.
“Jacob,” he shouted as he strode into the hall, “pack your things. We are going to Virginia.”
When the halls echoed with whoops of joy and relief, he realized that Sylvia had not been alone in her feelings in the matter.
“Mother, you have to do something about Beth.” Mary pouted, as she flounced down upon the settee in the morning room. “She was always headstrong, but she has become utterly impossible.” Mary rushed to continue, lest her mother take up Beth’s case. “I know she rescued Father and was very brave and all,” she said the words as if she was reciting a boring lesson, “but she has become a veritable hellion since she returned.”
Dorothy laid down the needlepoint she had been working on so diligently and sighed. Of all her children, it was Beth who had always given her concern. Still, a little leeway was allowed, given the circumstances. Philippe had only hinted at the atrocities that had befallen him, but it was enough to make her mother’s heart congeal with cold.
For now, Beth needed an extra dose of understanding. Dorothy patted her daughter’s hand in mute sympathy.
Philippe, however, was a little less tolerant. He overheard Mary’s words as he walked in. “Now, Mary, that is no way to speak about your sister.”
She had not seen him, or else she would have kept her silence. Mary curtsied deeply.
“A thousand pardons, Father, but I am only giving voice to what everyone else is saying.” She turned her eyes toward her mother, waiting for the woman to come to her support. “Even Mother knows it to be true.”
Dorothy spread her hands helplessly, torn between duty and feeling. “Philippe, I could never speak to the girl. If you would but say a word.”
Philippe smiled indulgently. “Perhaps more than a word is necessary.” He believed he knew what was troubling his oldest daughter’s heart. “But I shall do what I can.”
Mary beamed. “Thank you, Father.”
Philippe found Beth in the garden. He had but to follow the tail of resounding oaths. Beth’s skirt had gotten snagged on one of the bushes, and she was swearing both impatiently and royally at the bush, the thorns, the roses, and everything else in her path.
“Elizabeth!” Philippe chided, but his heart was clearly not in it. Beth had gone through a great deal in order to rescue him and deserved more than her share of understanding, at least for a while. Everyone tiptoed about him and Andre, but no one seemed to comprehend what Beth had been through as well.
She turned and flushed, embarrassed at being discovered this way. Her words rang out childish and petulant to her ear. It was a sentiment worthy of Mary, not of her.
She managed to pull her skirt free. “Sorry, Father, I’m not myself today.”
“You have not been so since we set sail from England.” He lowered himself onto the marble bench before the azaleas and patted the place beside him. “Do you miss him that much?”
Beth took the place, but appeared to perch, like a sparrow ready to take flight at the least provocation. “Miss who, Father?”
He drew his brows together. “There have never been secrets between us before.”
Beth looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes. She didn’t want to talk of what was ripping her heart into tiny pieces. What good would it do? The bastard didn’t care. “There is none now.”
Philippe nodded slowly. “Then there is a secret between you and your heart.” He placed his hand over hers and drew her eyes to him. “Why did you not remain in England, Beth?”
“My home is here, and I belong with you and the others,” she replied quickly. She looked down at the ground and sighed deeply. “And he did not ask me to remain,” she added in a small voice.
He had been ill then, but not too ill to see the way Duncan looked at his daughter. Not so ill that he didn’t understand the depth of the passion that was there. Duncan had bidden them goodbye at the manor, refusing to ride with them to the ship. And Philippe had seen the ache in the man’s eyes. He had not realized at the time that it mirrored the one in his daughter’s soul.
“His eyes did.”
Her father was fantasizing, she thought. “Then you saw more clearly than I.” She refused to delude herself any longer. The love that beat in her breast had no twin. “No, I looked for signs, Father. He was glad to see me leave.” She blinked, refusing to cry over the likes of Duncan. He didn’t deserve any more of her tears.
“Men like Duncan Fitzhugh are not tied to a single woman. Not when there are so many to choose from.” She lifted her head, suddenly realizing how sharply she had spoken. “I am sorry if I have offended you.”
Philippe laced his hand over hers. “You could never offend me, Beth. But it makes my heart heavy to see you so sad.”
Beth lifted her chin. “Then I shall strive to be happier.” She rose to her feet. “Come, join me in a walk, Father, and I shall school myself to be more even tempered for everyone’s sake.”
“No, Beth, for your own sake, never anyone else’s. Remember—“
“To thine own self be true,” she said, her voice blending with his. She laughed, though the sound echoed with sadness. “I shall try, Father. I shall truly try.”
Chapter Forty-two
When she saw him standing there, amid the roses, broad-shouldered and larger than life, Beth thought her heart would stop.
Her hand tightened on her father’s.
“Father, I think I need to lie down,” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes fastened to Duncan’s form. He was dressed like one of the gentlemen who frequented her mother’s salon and was as far in appearance from the Duncan she knew as the sun was from the earth. “I am seeing things.”
The sight of Duncan made Philippe Beaulieu’s heart glad. From the corner of his eyes he saw his wif
e and daughters hanging back. They had obviously shown him in and directed Duncan to the gardens.
“If that is the case, I am as ill as you, Beth, for I see the same apparition.”
Taking her hand from his arm, Philippe strode forward until he was before the uncertain-looking man. Oh, to be that young again, he thought fondly. And that much in love. He shook his hand warmly.
“Mr. Fitzhugh, is it really you?”
Duncan felt like a fool in these stiff clothes, standing here with people gawking at him. He had left Jacob at Sin-Jin’s and made the journey here at Sin-Jin’s and Rachel’s urgings.
And at the intense urgings of his own heart.
But now that he was here, he wished it was in his own clothing, as his own man. These were Sin-Jin’s, pressed upon him in the belief that clothes made the man.
It was the other way around, Duncan thought.
He felt as nervous as a bridegroom just looking at her. God, but she was even more beautiful than he remembered.
“Yes, Doctor Beaulieu, it is I.” He licked his lips and fumbled. “I have come to see Sin-Jin.” Perhaps he ought not to call Sin-Jin by name in formal society. “The earl, I mean, I brought his reports to him. I—damn it, sir, excuse me.”
Duncan gave up all attempt at pretense. He strode past the man toward the woman he had spent a month and a half at sea for. No words were necessary as he enfolded Beth in his arms.
She felt as if she had died. Died and walked through the gates of heaven.
There would be no other way that this could be happening, no other reason to see him, to feel his arms around her once more. Like a frozen waif warming herself by the fire at long last, Beth rose up on her toes and lost herself in his embrace.
And when he lowered his mouth to hers, she gave up a small cry of joy as rapture filled her, pushing through and lighting every desolate corner of her soul.
She had no notion that her sisters and mother had followed the handsome young stranger to the garden after admitting him in, or that they were watching now, along with her father, as she kissed Duncan.
The whole world could have watched and she would not have cared. All that mattered to her at this very moment was Duncan.
“Scandalous,” Mary murmured reprovingly, her eyes nearly falling from her head.
But there was a longing sigh in her voice. She had never seen anyone kiss that way before, and it made her very soul burn with secret yearning.
Dorothy blushed deeply and looked away. Such behavior belonged between a husband and wife, and perhaps not even then. But it was not in her to deny her daughter this, not while her father looked on this way with approval.
“Under the circumstances,” Dorothy announced quietly to her shoes, unable to raise her eyes, “I think perhaps it is forgivable.”
Anne sniffed haughtily and raised her chin. “You’d never catch me kissing anyone so shamelessly.”
Kate merely laughed, knowing the way of her sister’s envy. “Then it would be your loss, Sister. I sincerely hope someone kisses me that way someday.”
Kate sighed as she watched and vicariously felt the warmth of the stranger’s mouth and the eagerness of his ardor. She cast a covert look toward Andre, who was in the house, and dreamed.
The murmur of voices in the not too distant background penetrated some layer of Beth’s mind. She pulled back, thoroughly shaken. She stared at Duncan, still not completely convinced that she hadn’t fallen into some fever or was dreaming.
She remembered with sudden clarity the sullen way he had looked as she had taken her leave. Obviously, he had changed his mind on the subject.
The bastard!
Did he think her some puppet on a string to be yanked back and forth at will? “Why are you here?”
It was past the time for lies and for excuses. Past the time for trying to save his pride. If he had wanted that preserved, he would have remained on Shalott. Duncan placed his hands on her shoulders. Her eyes darkened. God, but he did love her eyes.
“Because I cannot function properly when my heart has been ripped out of my very chest.”
Oh, no, he was not going to blame that on her. “It was not ripped,” she retorted, fisting her hands at her waist. “You let it fall out.”
He knew that light which came into her eyes and would not let himself be trapped in a senseless debate. “Beth, I did not travel over a month and a half with only Jacob as my companion to argue with you now.”
“Jacob is here?” She looked around.
He cupped her chin and brought her attention back to him. “Jacob is with Sin-Jin. I am here.”
Beth balanced her weight on her toes as she looked up at him, unafraid of the stern note in his voice. She would not be shouted at or bullied in her own home. Or anywhere else. “All right, why did you travel all this way?”
“Because I—“
Duncan looked toward Philippe, wondering if the man was going to be offended by what he proposed. And then, the next moment, he damned himself for his vacillation and for even the very existence of the question that echoed in the chambers of his mind. This very feeling was what had caused him to lose Beth in the first place—this feeling that he was not good enough for her. His heart was, and that was all that mattered.
“Because I love you, headstrong, stubborn, and annoying though you are.” One of the girls in the background uttered a cry at his words, but he knew not which and cared less. It was Beth’s reaction he was interested in.
Did he think he could just walk in and kiss her, after all the agony he had caused her, and then fling insults at her? Did he think the single word “love” would completely blot out the rest?
“I will not stand here and be insulted.”
She turned to go, but he grasped her hand.
Dorothy looked questioningly at her husband, but he merely shook his head. This was between the young people, and he would give them their privacy.
Beth looked accusingly at Duncan.
“Then we shall go somewhere else, and I shall do it in private,” he told her.
Beth swallowed, knowing that if they were alone together, it would not be insults that they were trading, but something far more heated. And intimate. She could not resist him for long if they were alone.
Still holding Beth, Duncan turned to face Philippe. “Doctor Beaulieu, I am a simple man, and I have nothing to offer Beth that can compare with what she will be leaving behind. But I request your permission to take her hand in marriage.”
Beth stared at Duncan, stunned and completely speechless. .
Philippe heard his wife gasp behind him and attempted to keep a straight face as he looked upon Duncan. But his gratitude and admiration for the man overpowered any whimsical momentary wish to appear stern. He was too glad of the event.
“Not only her hand, but the rest of her as well.” Philippe’s eyes twinkled whimsically. “And I would say that what you have to offer her far exceeds what I have.” He laid a paternal hand upon Duncan’s shoulder. “You give her a strong, loving heart within the chest of a man who is fearless and compassionate. I could not have wished for a better man to ask for my daughter’s hand than if I had asked God to create you upon request.”
Withdrawing his hand from Duncan’s shoulder, he clasped Duncan’s hand between his own. “You gave me back my life, I give you my daughter. I do not have to ask if she goes willing. It is there, in her eyes.”
Philippe looked from one to the other and was pleased with what he saw. “I have but one request.”
“Name it,” Duncan said eagerly.
He had always wanted a son, Philippe thought. And now, in his later years, God had granted him not one, but two. “That the wedding take place here, so I might see the fulfillment of Beth’s joy. And that you return to visit me once in a while.” He looked at Beth and smiled, though a bittersweetness tugged at his heart. “For I shall miss her dearly.”
Beth bit her lower lip, which had begun to tremble. “Father—“
; But he would not allow her to interrupt him. “It is a father’s greatest wish to see his daughter on the arm of a man who would treat her in the same fashion as he had.” He took a deep breath, then, placing a hand on either of them, he urged them toward one another. “You have my blessings and my permission. And my heartfelt wish for your lasting joy. May the love I see here now exist for the rest of your days.”
He turned on his heel and saw the other women in his life still clustered in the doorway. Philippe stepped forward and herded them back.
“Let them have a few moments alone,” he instructed his daughters gently. “Before you swallow the man up completely.”
“Father!” Mary cried, shocked.
“You only wish that someone looked at you that way,” Anne snipped, and she flounced through the doorway ahead of the others.
Kate smiled prettily into her older sister’s face as she followed Anne. “Or kissed you that way.”
Philippe merely shook his head as he hurried them on their way. His wife took his arm, though there was a hesitant look upon her face as she looked back.
“Philippe, do you think it wise to leave them alone like this?”
He laughed softly at her question. “I assure you, dear wife, that nothing will happen now between them that has not happened before.” Walking into the house, he did not look back.
Whether or not he was finally here, he still had a debt he owed her. Beth glared at him, remembering the many nights she had suffered because of him, the tears she had shed, the sorrow she had felt. He could easily have spared her everything.
She wheeled on her heel as soon as the others had left. “So, you think you can come here and just take me? That I would be sitting here like some pining, lovesick idiot, waiting for you?”
He liked the light that entered her eyes when she took on this way. He leaned down, his face an inch away from hers, his mouth curved sensuously.
“Yes.”
Her mouth fell open. How dared he? Beth’s hand flew back, ready to strike the smirk from his face. “You arrogant son of a—“
Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) Page 32