by Lara Temple
‘You mentioned a proposition, Marston?’ Alan interrupted.
‘Ah, yes. I was in a meeting with the mayor regarding the planned installation of lock gates on the river and overheard a discussion regarding the Grantham Road Workhouse I believe you might find interesting. Apparently the Parish is in financial difficulties and will have no choice but to sell the property which has been standing empty since they acquired it a year ago. This is not yet public knowledge and I asked the mayor if we might have the right of first refusal. From what I could see outside it is a little larger than this structure and has the benefit of being on the edge of town with some fields behind it that I believe are also open for purchase at the right price. It is also no more than half a mile from the manufactory you and I were considering.’
‘But they no longer need a property,’ Lily interrupted. ‘They have Hollywell.’
‘I believe the Grantham Road building is more suitable for the purpose, Miss Wallace,’ Marston replied. ‘Do you know the place, Lord Ravenscar?’
‘I do, but I hadn’t realised they were looking to sell. Are you certain of this?’
Marston raised his brows.
‘Of course. The mayor is merely waiting for our response. If you wish, we can proceed there now.’
‘Oh, Papa, must we leave right away? We have just arrived here and Nicola said we could go and meet a ghost dog.’
‘Perhaps Miss Marston could stay here with us while you and my brother attend to your business?’ Catherine suggested, her eyes questioning Alan, and he nodded, very aware Lily had not said a word. ‘Good. We shall take good care of her, Mr Marston. When we are done here, we will have tea at the Hall and meet you there on your return.’
‘Oh, excellent!’ Nicky clapped her hands and took Miss Marston’s hand, tugging her towards the door. ‘Come, I last saw Grim sniffing around the old conservatory searching for Tabby, not that it is really a conservatory, just an old parlour. His name is Grim because Uncle Alan named him after the fable of Church Grims, which are black dogs that guard graveyards, and that was where he found him when he was a puppy...’
Catherine laughed as their voices faded.
‘Poor Nicola, she has been pining for someone nearer her own age after being isolated with her mama and grandmama. I should probably keep an eye on them or Nicola will not let your daughter get a word in edgeways. Are you coming, Lily?’
Lily nodded, slowly, her gaze moving between Marston and Alan. When the honey brown of her eyes settled on Alan, he felt no warmth there. She was miles away. He had a visceral urge to reassure her, but he knew there was nothing he could say with Marston and Catherine standing there. For the moment it couldn’t matter if she saw this as a personal rejection. Lily might not know it, but she needed Hollywell.
‘Coming, Ravenscar?’
‘Yes. Let me just tell my steward and groom to meet us there.
* * *
‘Well? More suitable than Hollywell House, don’t you agree?’
Alan descended the stairs into the courtyard, where Marston stood waiting.
‘Yes. There is no need for you to wait, Marston. We are likely to be a while. I’ve asked my groom to fetch the rest of the men.’
‘Good.’
‘I am still going to marry her, though.’
Marston’s smile flattened. ‘You are entitled to your opinion.’
‘Is it pride keeping you in the game or are you finally beginning to realise she is wrong for you, Marston?’
‘I could ask the same question of you, Ravenscar.’
‘I know Lily a little better than you.’
‘By George, you’re an arrogant devil. You’ve known her for all of a couple of weeks and I’ve known her since she was seventeen.’
‘Which just goes to show how wrong you are for her, because in all those years you still haven’t got her measure, Marston. She might have managed her father’s house like a social goddess, but she is no more a hostess than I am. She has discipline, that is all. There’s no passion for the vocation behind it.’
‘I’m not marrying her to be my hostess.’
‘You’re not marrying her at all. But that was one reason, wasn’t it—you want a cool, socially adept wife to add a cachet to your business dealings. The other and more important reason is to produce the perfect heir for your business. I’ll concede that any child of Lily’s is likely to be intelligent, not to mention wilful, but you are doubly delusional if you believe you will have the schooling of that child. She’ll trump you on every hand. If ever I’ve seen a woman who will command the love and loyalty of her children without even trying, that is Lily. She won’t actively overrule you, but the result will be the same. Her values will win over yours every time.’
Marston faced him, feet apart and arms crossed, but Alan wasn’t fooled by his cool, mocking smile. Every line of his rival’s body spoke of arrows hitting home. But each arrow struck home with him as well. One piercing him with the image of Lily with a baby in her arms, laughing. Another with her as he had seen her in his fevered hallucination with Rickie, seated by a little boy, reading to him. Of a little girl with her flame-touched hair, running towards him. He clenched his hands against the assault and continued.
‘Then there is the price she will make you pay for taking away her freedom because you aren’t really about to allow her to manage her inheritance beyond whatever generous pin money you allow her in the settlement, correct?’
‘She will have a family to keep her occupied. That is what she wants and that is precisely why she won’t have you, Ravenscar, so you are wasting your time.’
‘Perhaps. I’m done with my lecture. Just think about whether you want to continue pressing your suit or whether you should be looking for someone more suitable for your plans. You’re a good man and a damn good business partner, Marston, and I don’t want to break up a very comfortable partnership, but I will fight you over this with every weapon in my arsenal until you drive me decisively into the sea.’
‘I suppose I should thank you for showing your cards so openly.’
‘I’m hoping you will one day thank me for my advice and for helping you avoid a serious mistake.’
Marston unfolded his arms, shaking his head. ‘Are you certain you don’t want to consider my Penny instead? If I don’t have children, at least I would be sure of being able to leave my legacy in the hands of someone as single-mindedly ruthless as you.’
‘No offence to your beautiful daughter, but no, thank you, Marston. My taste runs more towards fire than the ethereal.’
‘So be it. It is time I joined my daughter and her charming hostesses. You might have drawn a high card with that unfortunate incident at Hollywell, but I don’t know if your luck will continue to hold out, Ravenscar.’
‘Any decent gambler knows never to rely on luck alone, Marston. I will meet you back at the Hall.’
Chapter Sixteen
Grim straightened, eyebrows twitching, nose raised. It gave her just enough of a warning before the door opened and Alan entered the Rose Room accompanied by Lord Stanton. Their light and dark beauty was a devastating combination, Gabriel and Lucifer. If Lord Stanton hadn’t been dressed in a dark blue coat and breeches, he could have been a model for Apollo—tall and powerful and handsome as a god, the candlelight striking gold and silver in his light brown hair and his eyes the colour of ice floes. She watched as Penny Marston and Nicky stared in shy awe at the new entrant and sighed. Next to him Alan looked even more dangerous and she could see why they practically begged an epithet. It would always be like this with Alan. No wonder he was so sure of himself.
He paused on the threshold, surveying the group by the pianoforte and nodding to his grandmother, who sat on a sofa where she could watch the keys, her hands folded on the knob of her cane like a strict music master. Then he touched his forehead in a strange salute to Philip Marst
on, who stood between his daughter and Nicky as they sang to Catherine’s playing. After the introductions Stanton chose to sit by Lady Ravenscar, with just the hint of the devil in his smile, while Alan approached Lily in the window seat. She straightened but kept her eyes on the pianoforte, resisting the instinctive pull that struck her every time the blasted man walked into a room. However furious she might be at him, inside she felt just as ecstatic at seeing him as Grim looked. She became a puppet on a string around him, reactive, helpless. She hated it.
‘What a charming scene,’ he said as he sat down beside her, his knee briefly skimming her thigh as he turned to her. Another seemingly casual trespass on her space. Except that it wasn’t casual, not for her. She was already aware of him in every inch of her body, but now her skin felt like brushfire. He snapped his fingers at Grim, who trotted towards him, mouth open and panting with joy. ‘I’m impressed Lady Jezebel invited them to stay for dinner and the entertainment. She and my grandfather were not the most sociable of people, but Catherine appears to be right that she has mellowed with age. Marston is fitting in nicely, isn’t he?’
‘He has a very fine voice.’
‘And delightful manners. I presume they included telling you I am making an offer on the Grantham Road property, which means we will not be needing Hollywell after all.’
‘He told me.’
‘It is better this way.’
‘His words exactly.’
‘Marston and I might not want you to lease Hollywell to Hope House, but our reasons are very different.’
She folded her hands together, wishing she had chosen a chair rather than the window seat. The velvet curtains kept the cool night air out, but now they mirrored the heat rising in her. Every time he came near her she expanded, all the emotions that should be mild and controlled filling and turning wild and too large for her skin. She had been waiting for him to come and now she wished him gone. Or to be alone with him.
‘Aren’t you going to ask what they are?’ he prodded.
‘I am certain you have perfectly good reasons, Lord Ravenscar. If you don’t wish to share them, that is your prerogative.’
He leaned back against the curtain, crossing his arms.
‘You bear a striking resemblance to Lily Wallace, but you can’t possibly be her; she would have skewered me to the wall by now. Or has all this domestic charm finally broken your spirit?’
No, you have.
He shifted, the depth of the window seat providing cover for his hand as he traced his fingers down her spine as softly as the fall of her hair. They lingered on the small of her back, gathering the shiver that ran through her, and she saw his chest rise and fall before he drew his hand away. He might have power over her heart and mind, but she had her own power over him and that was a step in the right direction.
‘I’m offering you something I have never offered any woman, or ever thought I would.’
For a moment her mind glided away on the soft warmth of his words, allowing herself the fantasy of what might have been said. If their intimate pressure was an invitation to bring their lives together, to build on those two days of mutual caring, on her instinctive knowledge that he could be so much more than he believed of himself.
The risk was so great, but so was the reward.
‘I know you are.’
His hand returned to her hip, almost as if he would draw her towards him, an impossibility in the civilised drawing room.
‘Tell him to stay away, then.’
‘Is this a privilege you reserve for yourself or am I allowed to tell you who you may associate with as well?’
She turned to him and he folded his arms again.
‘Don’t be clever, Lily. You aren’t going to marry him, so for both your sakes you should send him on his way. You risk hurting him.’
‘So this is pure magnanimity on your part? Or are you concerned this might harm your mutual business concerns?’
‘Blast it, Lily...’
They had both been speaking quietly, but his words fell into the silence that followed the final chords of the music and they shivered in the air alongside the remnants of the song.
‘Do you play, Miss Wallace?’ Stanton asked, moving towards them, but his arched brow was directed at Alan.
‘I have had the pleasure of hearing Miss Wallace often when she played for her father’s guests,’ Marston said as he helped Catherine rise from the pianoforte. ‘Please come play something for us, Miss Wallace.’
Lily didn’t want to play, but she allowed Stanton to lead her to the pianoforte. She spread her fingers on the keys and noticed they were shaking. She had intended to play Mozart, but the moment her fingers touched the cool slide of the keys they shifted, spread, choosing for her. The Scarlatti sonata had been one of her mother’s favourites, sent by her father the last summer before she died, and Lily had played it often to the sound of frogs and crickets and the lapping of waves coming in from the veranda. He had sent it with a beautiful emerald necklace as an apology for missing his visit and that had been one of the times she had seen her mother cry. All the confused emotions of a thirteen-year-old had entered the music and ten years later she felt they were still there, a tangle of need and sadness and fury held deep underwater, but under them all such a welling of love it choked her. It was more a love song than any of the ballads Marston and Catherine had just sung.
The music faded to the last chord and she took her hands from the keys. She shouldn’t have looked. With Grim by his side and the window-seat curtains casting a shadow over him, he looked like a statue cast in black marble of a guardian of a portal to Hades, unyielding and unreachable. Which made her the poor soul, coins clutched in her hand, delivering herself into his world, and surely a life of watching his infidelities from her golden prison would be a version of hell, at least for her. But so would a life without him. So she would have to fight their demons and hope that in the end she won. For both of them.
She didn’t hear the applause or even notice when Marston came to lead her to the sofa, his voice low and warm with appreciation. Penny and Nicky began a game of charades and even Lady Ravenscar entered the fray, but Alan just came and leaned against the side of the pianoforte and watched them, arms crossed.
* * *
When Partridge brought in tea for the ladies and something more potent for the men, Lily was surprised to find Stanton choosing the seat next to hers. She caught the tension in the look Alan directed him and the same edge of mischief in the look Lord Stanton directed him as he had sat by Lady Ravenscar. Perhaps she had been wrong that this was the tamest member of the Wild Hunt Club.
‘You play exquisitely, Miss Wallace. It must have taken many years of instruction to achieve such a pitch of beauty.’
‘Is this flattery in aid of something, Lord Stanton?’
He paused and the amusement shimmered to the surface.
‘Actually, it is. Can you blame me for being curious about the woman who will become my best friend’s wife?’
‘Not at all, I would be curious myself. However, I am certain Lord Ravenscar has told you no such announcement has yet been made. I would appreciate if you respected that.’
‘Of course, I can be extremely circumspect. If need be.’
She smiled at the qualification.
‘You are quite used to having the world bend to your will, aren’t you, Lord Stanton?’
‘I do my humble best to ensure it does.’
‘Why am I not surprised? Your association with Lord Ravenscar should have warned me and on top of that you are also a politician. A lethal combination.’
‘A diplomat, not quite a politician, and apparently not much of a diplomat if you see through my façade so easily.’
‘Not at all. I am merely naturally wary. So, have you come to scout the enemy’s landscape?’
‘No, I came to deliver
something of importance to Raven, but you are no enemy, Miss Wallace, quite the opposite.’
‘That is politic. However, I know Lord Ravenscar has probably told you all the particulars of our predicament. Surely as his friend you are concerned about his being manoeuvred into an association against his will.’
‘Alan rarely does anything that is completely against his will. He is even more used than I to having the world bend to his demands, possibly because he has had to work harder at it. That doesn’t mean he is an untrustworthy fellow. I would trust him with my life. Well, I already have, in fact.’
She would also trust him with her life, just not with her heart. Now she would have to trust him with that, too.
‘How long have you known him?’
He accepted the change in direction with a slight bow.
‘Eighteen years. Raven arrived at Eton halfway through the year and into the middle of a rather bitter war being waged between a group of bullies against a friend of mine and myself and a few others. Raven was already very tall and very surly and they took one look at him and invited him into the winning camp.’
‘So you began as enemies?’
‘Not quite. He took one look at them and walked across the lines so to speak. When they tried to...reason with him, he broke Crawley’s nose. He might have been sent down right away except no one would speak against him. That was that. Well, it took a few months to get him to more than snarl, but by the next year he and Hunter and I became close friends and that was that. Raven always had my back.’
‘You are very lucky, you three. To have each other.’
His brows rose, as if surprised. Then he smiled and she smiled back. He had a very nice smile when he dropped his charming façade.
‘We take care of each other in a way. Which is why I am naturally curious about you.’
‘Of course. Now that you have seen the scheming hussy who has entrapped your friend, are you going to forbid the banns?’
He laughed.
‘I believe with a special licence that practice doesn’t apply.’