Despite the fact that he had led such a solitary existence, Trevor considered his boyhood happy and content. He spent his mornings in the schoolroom with his tutor, and his afternoons riding or fishing with footmen. He often followed one or two of his favorite servants about their duties, asking pointed questions that, from a very early age, betrayed an astounding intellect. All in all, he led a rather wonderful existence.
On Trevor’s sixteenth birthday, word had come that the ship on which the Earl and Countess of Huntwick had most recently sailed had gone down in a storm, and all of the passengers, including Trevor’s parents, were lost. When the London solicitors who handled his father’s business affairs relayed the news to him, Trevor did not quite know how he should react. Since he had never really known his parents, he had, of course, felt sadness, though not grief, at their loss. He soon discovered, however, that he would now have to shoulder the burden and responsibility of vast business interests, as well as the day-to-day running of several estates and the livelihoods of a multitude of servants. To the inexperienced young man’s credit, he quickly threw himself into the daunting task.
He’d traveled to each of the three estates he had inherited, spending most of the next two years becoming familiar with the various tasks involved in running them, and acquainting himself with the stewards and other household staff members in each residence. Possessed of a keen mind, he quickly learned the idiosyncrasies of each location and weeded out anything he judged inefficient or unnecessary. In short order, he improved the general productivity of all the estates and, in doing so, increased the already daunting wealth that had come with his title.
It was not until he finally traveled to London, though, that Trevor really became the Earl of Huntwick. With his ready wit and natural charm, he’d quickly become a favorite in the drawing rooms and at the dinner tables of London’s elite. Already handsome at the age of eighteen, he had the bearing and presence of a much older man, thanks to a childhood spent almost exclusively with adults. At the many soirees, balls, and routs he attended, he came into contact with other men who shared an interest in many of the business ventures in which Trevor’s father had involved himself. It did not take long for him to decide he would much rather handle his own affairs than have the London firm the former earl had hired continue to do so. Although they had done a competent job, he felt certain he could do better.
He’d done just that. His fertile mind, quick to pick up on the nuances of things said and left unsaid, cataloged and stored information about new investments, social trends, and shipping propositions. He possessed an uncanny sense of timing about which investments would pay off, and which would lose money. Time and again, the risks he took returned at a greater profit until, five years after the death of his parents, Trevor had become one of the richest and most sought-after young men in Europe. Possessing both lineage and good looks automatically brought him to the attention of all society mamas with daughters of marriageable age, but as the years passed and his wealth increased, his interest in marriage appeared to decrease.
His charm, however, remained legendary.
Among the young debutantes who emerged each Season, one heard whispered rumors that this girl or that woman or Lady Such-and-such had fallen into the Earl of Huntwick’s bed at a mere quirk of his aristocratic eyebrow. Every mama’s heart raced with both hope and dread when a butler announced his presence at a ball, or when he made an appearance at the opera or the theater, especially when he attended unaccompanied. Never had he shown a partiality for any one particular lady, although everyone generally agreed that Trevor would have to marry soon, even if he did so only to beget an heir and continue his line.
Now, twelve years after he had first set foot in London, he was back at the Willows, pleasurably contemplating marriage to an unknown girl who hadn’t the slightest interest in all he could offer her along with his name. He shook his head with an inward smile as he climbed the sweeping marble staircase and walked down the wide corridor to the master bedchamber, his feet sinking soundlessly into the thick blue Aubusson carpet that stretched down the endless halls.
“Good afternoon, Avery,” Trevor said to the valet, who stood at the armoire unpacking several bags of the earl’s belongings from London. Avery murmured a greeting and continued with his task, not really paying much attention to Trevor, who still stood at the threshold. The earl looked around in poignant wonder at rooms he had not seen in many years, thinking of the many things that had changed since then. The three estates, entailed and passed on to him, had all been greatly improved, and he had acquired three more: one in England and two in France. His wealth had increased more than four times in the period since he had become the Earl of Huntwick. He owned several shipping companies, and had business interests throughout the Continent, as well as in America. Until now he had not found anyone with whom he wanted to share it.
Abruptly shaking himself from his reverie, he looked across the room to a set of closed and firmly locked double doors. Although he knew exactly what lay behind those doors, he found himself irresistibly drawn to them. He walked slowly across the room, turned the key in the well-oiled lock, and pulled them open.
At the unexpected sound of the locked doors unlatching, Avery finally looked up from the drawers of the immense wardrobe, where he meticulously placed carefully folded cravats in precise rows. “My lord,” he began to say, then stopped in surprised curiosity when he saw Trevor standing just inside the threshold of the open doors that led to the adjoining chamber. The earl slowly walked through the connecting bathing room to the suite reserved for his countess. Avery drew his brows together, then shrugged and returned to his task.
Trevor looked around the large chamber curiously, realizing with vague surprise that he had never actually entered this room before, not even as a child. Although it was a spacious, pretty room, he found he could not quite picture Grace in these delicate, fragile surroundings. He walked to the white-lacquered dressing table and ran a fingertip lightly across the polished surface, the movement reflected in the beveled mirrors that stood atop it. Behind him, framed in the center mirror, stood the canopied bed in which his mother had once slept.
He turned and slowly crossed the room, staring at the smooth blue silk coverlet and plump, untouched pillows. He fingered a gold tassel that held open the tied-back curtains hanging from each corner of the canopy. He closed his eyes and tried again to picture Grace curled up there, her hair a bright, curly flag on the light blue linen as she slept, but found he still could not.
A sudden realization struck him.
The fact that the frilly surroundings did not suit Grace’s fiery personality had little to do with the reason he felt she did not belong there. It had everything to do with his expectations. From the first moment he had envisioned a future with Grace, he had imagined her only in his rooms, sleeping in his bed, wrapped in his arms.
She would never sleep in that bed, he vowed as he turned and strode briskly from the room to his own suite. She could use the chamber as a dressing room if she wished, but she would spend her nights in his bed, with him, where she belonged.
He walked back into the master chamber to find that Avery had finished unpacking and now stood looking at him in baffled wonder. Trevor grinned at the mystified valet and glanced back at the connecting doors. “Let’s keep these open from now on, shall we?”
“As you wish, of course,” Avery agreed, instantly recovering his usual aplomb. “Will there be anything else, my lord?”
“No, thank you, Avery,” Trevor replied cheerfully, tugging at his crisp cravat to loosen it. Avery winced as he watched the earl pull on it. He held his breath until he saw the oblong scrap of snowy white linen flutter safely to the floor in one piece. He bowed and turned to leave, then looked back for a moment.
“Yes, Avery?” Trevor inquired before the butler could speak.
“It’s good to be home, my lord.”
“Yes, Avery,” Trevor replied absently, lost in thought as he pic
tured confronting Grace in the morning. “It is good to be here.”
Chapter Eight
When Trevor’s coach pulled up in front of the Ackerly home the following morning, he prepared himself to have the door slammed in his face. He fully expected Grace to make things difficult, and even thought she might go so far as to refuse to see him. He did not expect to find her gone.
“She and Faith went to London for the Season,” Mercy told him after she had invited him inside, the large bruise over her eye beginning to look yellowish around the edges as it healed. She gave him a puzzled look. “She didn’t mention your return to me. I don’t think she expected you, my lord.”
Trevor grimaced with rueful irony. “I think she did,” he muttered under his breath. Torn between amusement and annoyance at Grace’s continued efforts to avoid him, he admitted to himself that he should have known she would try to do just that.
“I beg your pardon, my lord?”
Trevor glanced at the young girl and smiled tightly. He stood and began pacing around the salon, his hands clasped behind his back, his face a study of bemused reflection. “Nothing,” he replied absently. He stopped before the window to stare at the rustic view of the stables. He raised a hand to his face, tapped his index finger thoughtfully against his lips, and stood in silence for another moment, his brow furrowed as he contemplated his options. Finally he made up his mind.
“Mercy,” he said, turning. He almost collided with her, surprised to see her standing almost directly behind him. She looked up at him expectantly. He grinned, suddenly delighted. “I am going to marry your sister,” he announced.
“Which one?” Mercy asked with a laugh. She arched a delicate brow, then winced as the movement irritated her bruise.
Trevor gave her a quelling look, but secretly praised the quick-witted answer that reminded him of Grace. “You know perfectly well which sister I mean.”
Mercy’s eyes began to dance. “Does she know?”
Trevor shook his head. His smile widened at the look of mischievous glee on Mercy’s face.
“I think you should know that Grace doesn’t take very well to being told to do something she doesn’t wish to do,” Mercy warned in a tone of sham gravity.
Trevor laughed and rumpled her curly auburn hair. “I can’t imagine she does,” he agreed.
Mercy ducked from under his hand with an irritated little scowl, then recovered her good humor and perched on the arm of an overstuffed sofa. “How will you manage it, my lord, considering Grace probably left specifically to get away from you?”
“Is that why you think she left?”
Mercy nodded. “I’m almost certain of it. Until a week ago she was adamantly opposed to the idea of going to London for an entire Season. She has always said she would rather spend three miserable months baking gooseberry tarts in hell than stifle in London for one single Season.”
Trevor gave a sharp bark of laughter. That certainly sounded like something Grace would say. “She must have changed her mind about London when she received my note. Warning her of my intention to call appears to have been a bit of a strategic error,” he said. He looked at Mercy and sobered. “I may need your help.”
Mercy looked surprised. “What could I possibly do? I don’t think Patience will let me go to London.” She rolled her eyes and glanced down at her usual garb of breeches and boots. “Besides, I haven’t a thing to wear.”
Trevor smiled, and hesitated a moment. “I may need you to help me convince your father to sign a betrothal contract,” he finally said.
At that, Mercy balked. “I don’t know, my lord. I don’t think I feel right about this. I mean, what if Grace really doesn’t want to marry you, and you aren’t able to convince her to do so?”
His eyes glowed at her with gentle humor. “I’m fairly certain that Grace really doesn’t wish to marry me, but I’m completely certain that I can convince her to do so.” Trevor’s expression changed, sobering to add weight to his words. “I only wish to make her happy,” he said, giving Mercy a steady look. “If I can’t convince her to willingly marry me, I promise I’ll leave her alone.”
Mercy looked at Trevor for a long moment, trying to decide whether he really cared for her sister that much, if he truly wanted to make her happy. Trevor returned her stare, his look of sincere determination changing to one of concern at her continued silence. That fleeting expression of worry convinced her of what her sister meant to him. It was a young girl’s first glimpse of tender emotion between a man and a woman, and her eyes unconsciously softened as she placed a small hand on the arm of the man who hoped one day to become her brother. “I’ll do it,” she said softly.
Trevor stretched his long legs across the coach and leaned his head against the back of the plush, dark green velvet seat, watching as the English countryside, decked in all the glorious colors of spring, rolled by. Every now and then he reached up and ran his fingers across the pocket of his dove-gray traveling jacket, the pocket in which the betrothal contract with Grace’s father lay safely ensconced.
He had not found it an easy task to convince Bingham Ackerly to sign the papers he had asked his solicitors to draw up, even with Mercy’s help. It had taken her a full twenty minutes of persuasive argument to get her father to even allow Trevor to discuss the possibility with him. On the night of Mercy’s accident, Bingham had impressed Trevor as a man who had very little to do with the raising of his daughters. He could not have been more wrong, a misjudgment that surprised him.
Trevor usually had infallible instincts about those he met. Unfortunately, his preoccupation with winning Grace had caused his perception of those around her to cloud. Because of that, he went into the conversation with her father ill prepared and at a distinct disadvantage. Worse, Bingham had known immediately why he was there, putting Trevor in the uncomfortable position of having to explain himself without first preparing his opponent, as he usually did, for inevitable capitulation.
He found himself telling the quiet, scholarly man that he had become enamored of Grace on sight, and that he had felt more attracted to her with each subsequent conversation they had shared, and he therefore believed that they would get on well together as man and wife. In retrospect it sounded trite and rehearsed and perfectly nauseating. He knew he would forever remember the conversation that had followed, for he would always look back on it as one of the few times in his life he had been completely outmaneuvered.
Mr. Ackerly looked thoughtful for a few moments, then floored Trevor by saying, “I believe my daughter has a very low opinion of you, Lord Caldwell.”
Trevor was speechless, unable to find an adequate response to such a bald statement. He felt himself growing annoyed at being put on the defensive, a position in which he seldom found himself, although he knew he was entirely to blame for the situation. “I certainly wasn’t given such an impression, Mr. Ackerly,” he finally said in a neutral tone.
Bingham gave him a direct look. “My lord,” he began in the superior manner of a schoolroom tutor speaking to a disruptive young student, “I distinctly recall riding home in our carriage after your first meeting with my daughter at the Assembly Rooms. She had quite a lot to say about her impression of you. I believe the most repeatable descriptor she used was ‘deceptive cad,’ although I can assure you she said a great deal more. She also looked most uncomfortable at the table with you that evening, and I couldn’t help but notice her conspicuous absence when you and His Grace took your leave the following day. In addition to all of that,” he continued, “Grace, who has been most outspoken about her deep aversion to going to London during the Season, suddenly developed a rather burning desire to go to that very place almost immediately after you and His Grace departed.” Bingham shook his head in mock confusion, though his eyes had begun to gleam. “I’m curious, I must admit, as to what my daughter did to inspire this unexpected proposal from you, my lord.”
Trevor stood quietly in front of the desk, listening to the man he hoped would become his
father-in-law calmly spell out the very same reasons Trevor had already thought might keep Grace from agreeing to become his wife. His esteem for the older man rose with each passing second, and by the time Bingham Ackerly finished, Trevor wondered if he would have to convince Grace to oppose her father as well as try to make her fall in love with him. He hoped that it would not come to that. He remembered her glowing face as she spoke with obvious affection of the various members of her family, but knew that, regardless of the obstacles he would have to face, he fully intended to have Grace for his wife. She had not spoken of her father that evening, but Trevor knew instinctively that the respect he already felt for Bingham Ackerly likely ran strongly through the veins of his daughters.
Mr. Ackerly watched Trevor from behind his desk, patiently waiting for the earl to say something that would convince him the younger man had only honorable intentions toward Grace. Trevor finished gathering his thoughts, then spoke. “I understand, sir, that what you’ve seen would make you think that your daughter may neither welcome nor enjoy the prospect of a life with me.” He paused and smiled, recalling the way he’d caught her slowly inspecting him in the portrait room the night they’d met, then continued. “But what you haven’t seen, sir, is the way Grace looks at me when she thinks that I don’t see her. What you haven’t heard is how easily we converse when she doesn’t put herself on the defensive. I can see how deeply she loves her family, and I know how much she would enjoy having a family of her own, children of her own, if God should choose to so bless us. When I look at Grace, I see a strong young lady who would be a wonderful partner in life, as well as a beautiful and gracious countess. All of these qualities make Grace the person she is. All I would like to have is the chance to learn more.”
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