by Georgie Lee
‘Then you’re a very fortunate man.’
‘Not entirely.’ For a brief moment, the hard shell he’d cultivated since coming to Town dropped and he was simply Randall again, alone with her in the Falconbridge study, free of a title and all his London escapades. ‘Even the life of a Marquess has its dark moments.’
Her teasing smile faded and a soft understanding filled her eyes. ‘Everyone’s life does.’
He’d watched stone-faced while mistresses wailed on their chaises and stepped casually to one side to avoid the errant porcelain figure lobbed at him. None of these overwrought reactions cut him to the core like her simple comment. For the second time in as many minutes, the shame of his past gnawed at him before he crushed it down.
‘Good.’ He smiled with more glib humour than he felt, clasping his hands behind his back. ‘Because in London, I’m a very good acquaintance to have, especially for someone who’s left her reputation across the Atlantic.’
‘I shall keep it in mind. Good evening, Lord Falconbridge.’
She dipped a curtsy and walked off across the room to join a small circle of matrons standing near the window.
He watched her go, the boy in him desperate to call her back, the man he’d become keeping his shoes firmly rooted to the floor.
‘Quite the morsel, isn’t she?’ a deep voice drawled from beside him, and Randall’s lip curled in disgust. Christopher Crowdon, Earl of Strathmore, stood next to him, a glass of claret in his thick fingers.
‘Careful how you speak of her, Strathmore,’ Randall growled, hating the way Strathmore eyed her like a doxy in a bawdy house. ‘She’s an old acquaintance of mine.’
‘My apologies,’ Strathmore mumbled, trilling his fingers against the glass, a rare fire in his pale eyes as he studied Cecelia. ‘Is it true she has extensive lands in the colonies?’
‘Why? Are you in such dire straits as to chase after heiresses?’
‘Of course not,’ he sputtered, the claret sloshing perilously close to the side of the glass before he recovered himself. ‘But there’s something to be said for a widow. They know the way of things, especially when it comes to men. Best to leave such a prize to a more experienced gentleman.’
‘Should I find one, I’ll gladly step aside.’ Randall turned on one heel and strode away.
* * *
Cecelia stood with the other matrons, trying to concentrate on the on dit, but she couldn’t. Randall’s rich voice carried over the hum of conversation and she tightened her grip on the champagne glass, willing herself not to look at him.
When she’d first seen him standing in the centre of the room, as sturdy as a wide oak in the middle of a barren field, she’d been torn between fleeing and facing him. The girl who’d once pressed him about their future together in the Falconbridge conservatory, only to be sneered at by a man unwilling to debase the family name with a poor merchant’s daughter, wanted to flee. The woman who’d helped her husband rebuild Belle View after the hurricane demanded she hold steady. The wealth and plantation might be gone, but the woman it had made her wasn’t and she’d wanted him to see it.
She finished the drink, the biting liquid as bitter as her present situation. Despite her time at Belle View, she’d returned to London no richer than when she’d left, her future more uncertain now than it had been the day she’d climbed aboard the ship to Virginia, the husband by her side as much of a stranger as the people in this room. She might shine with confidence in front of Randall, but everything else—the land in the colonies and her wealth—was a lie. She wondered how long her fine wardrobe and the width of the Atlantic would conceal her secret and the nasty rumours she’d left behind in Virginia. Hopefully long enough for either her or her cousin Theresa to make a match which might save them.
She deposited the empty champagne glass on the tray of a passing footman, the crystal clinking against the metal. As the footman reached out to steady it, she glanced past him to where Randall stood with a group of gentlemen, his square jaw and straight nose defined as much by his dark hair as the practised look of London ennui. Then he turned, his blue eyes meeting hers with a fierceness she could almost feel. Her thumb and fingers sought out the gold bracelets on her wrist while her lungs struggled to draw in an even breath. For a moment she was sixteen again, desiring him beyond reason, and nothing, not the long years of her marriage or the hours she’d spent managing Belle View, seemed to matter. She’d loved him, craved him, needed him, and in the end he hadn’t experienced the same depth of feeling for her.
She looked away, shaken by how, after all these years, he could still needle her, and chastising herself for speaking so freely with him tonight. No matter how easy it was to tease and flirt with him as she used to, she couldn’t afford to be bold with a man like him. It might ruin her.
‘Mrs Thompson, I hear you’ve been living in America,’ a woman’s distant voice intruded, snapping Cecelia’s attention back to the circle of ladies.
‘Yes. I have a plantation in Virginia.’ Her stomach tightened with the lie.
‘What brings you and Miss Fields back to London after all this time?’ Lady Weatherly asked.
Cecelia met their curious looks, the same awkwardness that nearly stole her tongue the night Daniel had presented her to the Richmond families at the Governor’s ball stealing over her. She squared her shoulders now as she had then, defiant against her unease and their scrutiny. ‘I brought my cousin back to London in the hope of seeing her settled.’
‘Did she not have suitors in Virginia?’ Lady Weatherly pressed like a small terrier determined to dig out a rat and Cecelia bit back the desire to tell the Countess to keep to her own affairs. Despite a dubious reputation, the statuesque young woman draped in gauzy silk was a fixture of society whose good opinion Cecelia needed to keep. Swallowing her pride, Cecelia repeated the story she and Theresa had practised during the crossing.
‘She did, but when the British burned Washington, we were no longer warmly received, despite having known many of the families for years. It wasn’t suitable for her to look for suitors under such hostile circumstances. When I suggested a Season in London, she was thrilled with the chance to come home.’
‘Speaking of gentlemen—’ Lady Weatherly waved away her interest in Cecelia with one gloved hand ‘—here is Lord Strathmore.’
‘Good evening ladies.’ Lord Strathmore bowed before fixing Cecelia with a smile more snakelike than charming. ‘Mrs Thompson, would you care to join me for some refreshment?’
‘Thank you, but I have no appetite tonight.’ His smile faltered and she widened hers. She didn’t relish the Earl’s company, but it would prove less irksome than Lady Weatherly’s questions. ‘If you’d care to escort me to the pianoforte, I’d like to see how my cousin is faring.’
‘It would be my pleasure.’
As she and Lord Strathmore crossed the room, she hazarded a glance at Randall, startled by the glare he fixed on Lord Strathmore. As fast as the look came it was gone and he turned back to the man next to him and resumed his conversation.
Cecelia wondered what about the man raised Randall’s hackles. Lord Strathmore had no reputation she could discern, or none Madame de Badeau had seen fit to reveal, and the woman delighted in revealing a great many things about a number of people.
‘May I be so bold as to say how radiant you look tonight?’ Lord Strathmore complimented, his serpentlike smile returning to draw up the small bit of skin beneath his round chin.
‘You’re too generous.’ She untwisted the strap of her fan, shaking off the strange reaction to his look. With so many things worrying her, she must only be seeing trouble where none existed.
‘Madame de Badeau tells me you have no horse in London at your disposal.’
‘No. I had to leave my beautiful horse in Virginia.’ Anger burned through her at the thought of the stables, Danie
l’s stables, the ones he’d worked so hard to establish, now under the control of her selfish stepson Paul.
‘It’d be my pleasure to accompany you and your cousin in Rotten Row. I keep a few geldings in London suitable for ladies to ride.’
‘You’re most kind.’ The idea of riding properly in Rotten Row beside Lord Strathmore dampened her enthusiasm. However, borrowing horses from his stable would spare her the expense of hiring them and allow her and Theresa to be seen during the fashionable hour.
Cecelia stepped up to the pianoforte and touched Theresa’s elbow. Her cousin turned, frowning at Lord Strathmore, and Cecelia shot her a warning look. In their present situation, Cecelia didn’t have the luxury to refuse any man’s attention. Except Randall’s.
Only then did she notice the absence of his voice beneath the melody of the pianoforte. She glanced around the room, expecting to meet his silent stare, but saw nothing except the other guests mingling. Relief filled her, followed by disappointment. He was gone, his conversation and interest in her as finished tonight as it was ten years ago. Yet something about their exchange continued to trouble her. Beneath Randall’s rakish smile and desire to capture her notice, she’d sensed something else, something all too familiar. Pain.
Polite applause marked the end of Miss Domville’s piece and Cecelia clapped along with the two young men standing on the other side of the instrument.
‘Play again, Miss Domville,’ Lord Bolton, the taller of the two, urged. ‘We so enjoy your fingerwork.’
Instead of blushing, Miss Domville rose and coolly lowered the cover on the keys.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with your own fingerwork for the rest of the evening,’ she answered in a sweet voice before coming around the piano and taking Theresa by the arm. ‘Miss Fields and I are going to take a turn around the room so we may discuss all of you in private. May we, Mrs Thompson?’
Cecelia studied Miss Domville, debating the wisdom of letting Theresa associate with such a bold young woman. However, Miss Domville’s sense of confidence and the gentlemen’s sudden notice of Theresa overcame her doubts. ‘Of course.’
‘Wonderful. We’ll discuss how much we dislike London.’ Miss Domville led Theresa away, chatting merrily, and Cecelia noticed the genuine enjoyment spreading over her cousin’s face.
If only all our worries could be so easily soothed.
Lord Strathmore lingered beside her and she struggled to ignore her discomfort as she faced him. ‘Tell me about your horses.’
He spoke more to her bosom than her face as he launched into a droll description of his stables. She forced herself to appear impressed, rubbing the gold bracelet again and hating this act. Speaking with him was like stepping up on the bidding block to be inspected by the first man who showed a modicum of interest in her. It made her feel cheap and deceitful, but what choice did she have?
The memory of Randall’s hooded eyes teasing her sent a wave of heat across her skin and her fingers stopped.
Yes, there was another option, the same one General LaFette had suggested when he’d cornered her at the Governor’s picnic, eyeing her breasts the way Lord Strathmore did now, but she refused to entertain it. She hadn’t scorned one man’s offer only to take up another’s. She wasn’t so desperate, at least not yet.
Chapter Two
‘Good evening, my lord,’ Mr Joshua, the wiry young valet, greeted as Randall entered his bedroom. ‘You’re in early tonight.’
‘So it seems.’ Randall stood still while Mr Joshua removed his coat, the skin along the back of his neck tightening as a chill deeper than the cool night air crossed him. He moved closer to the marble fireplace, the warmth of it doing little to ease the lingering tightness from his encounter with Cecelia.
She was back, the wealth and confidence of her experiences in Virginia circling her like her perfume, making her more beautiful then when she’d stood before him as a young girl with the weight of sorrow on her shoulders.
It seemed marriage had benefited her.
He grabbed the poker from the stand and banged it against the coals, trying to ignite the heat smouldering in their centres. A splash of sparks jumped in the grate, followed by a few large flames.
He didn’t doubt she’d benefited from the marriage. She’d practically rushed at the colonial after Aunt Ella made the introduction, fleeing from Randall and England as fast as the ship could carry her.
She’d escaped her troubles, and left Randall behind to be tortured by his.
He returned the poker to the stand, his anger dying down like the flames.
After everything that had passed between them, when he’d been foolish enough tonight to show weakness, she hadn’t belittled him. Instead she’d displayed an understanding he hadn’t experienced since coming to London. Considering the way they’d parted, it was much more than he deserved.
The squeak of hinges broke the quiet and the bedroom door opened.
‘Hello, Reverend.’ Randall dropped to one knee and held out his arms.
The black hunting dog ran to him, his long tongue lolling out one side of his mouth. Randall rubbed Reverend’s back and the dog’s head stretched up to reveal the wide band of white fur under his neck. ‘And where have you been?’
‘Probably in the kitchen hunting for scraps again,’ Mr Joshua answered for the dog while he brushed out Randall’s coat.
‘I’ll hear about it from cook tomorrow.’ Randall scratched behind the dog’s ears, the familiar action soothing away the old regrets and torments.
‘A message arrived while you were gone.’ Mr Joshua held out a rose-scented note, a cheeky smile on his young face. ‘It seems Lady Weatherly is eager to renew last Season’s acquaintance.’
Randall’s calm disappeared. He stood and took the note, skimming the contents, the sentiments as trite as the perfume clinging to the envelope.
‘Good dalliance, that one. Obliging old husband with more interest in the actresses of Drury Lane than his wife,’ Mr Joshua observed with his usual candour. No one else in London was as honest with Randall as the valet. Randall had encouraged it from the beginning when he’d taken the labourer’s son into his service and saved his family from ruin. ‘Lord Weatherly isn’t likely to object to your lordship’s continued acquaintance with his wife.’
‘Yes, but I’ve had enough of Lady Weatherly.’ Randall tossed the paper in the grate. ‘If she calls again, tell her I’m engaged.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
Randall leaned against the mantel, watching the letter curl and blacken. He dropped one hand to his side and Reverend slid his head beneath it. Randall rubbed the dog behind his ears, despising Lady Weatherly and all those of her ilk. They never flattered him without an eye to what they could gain. Yet he tolerated them, enjoyed what they eagerly gave because they demanded nothing more of him than the esteem of being his lover.
The image of Cecelia danced before him, her lively voice ringing in his ears. She’d entered Lady Weatherly’s salon, a butterfly amid too many moths, standing alone in her beauty while the rest flapped around the candles. She didn’t need light, it was in her eyes, her smile, the melody of her voice, just as it was ten years ago. Her responses to his amorous suggestions were playful and daring, but tinged with an innocence women like Madame de Badeau and Lady Weatherly had abandoned long ago. He grieved to think what London might do to her. What had it done to him? Nothing he hadn’t wholeheartedly embraced from his first day in town. Nothing his father hadn’t feared he’d do.
You’re as bad as your uncle, his father’s deep voice bellowed through the quiet, and the faint scar on his back from where his father’s belt used to strike him began to itch.
Randall closed his eyes, seeing again his father waiting for him in the vicarage sitting room, the darkness of the window behind him broken by small drops of rain flickering with the
firelight.
You think your Uncle Edmund has all the answers, but he hasn’t, his father sneered from his chair. All his wine and women, they’re only to fill the emptiness of his life. You can’t see it now, but some day you will, when your own life is as hollow as his.
At least he accepts me, Randall spat, his uncle’s port giving him courage, anger giving him words. Reverend stood next to him, the puppy’s tense body pressed against his leg.
I’m hard on you for your own good. He slammed his fist against the chair, then gripped the arm as a raspy cough racked his body. He stood, his skin ashen, and he closed his eyes, drawing in a few ragged breaths as he steadied himself.
Randall braced himself for the usual onslaught of insults, but when his father opened his eyes they were soft with a concern Randall had only experienced a handful of times, yet every day craved. I want you to be more of a man than Edmund. I want to know your mother’s death to bring you into this world was worth it.
His father’s eyes drifted to the portrait of Randall’s mother hanging across the room, the concern replaced by the constant sadness Randall loathed, the one which always pulled his father away. Randall tightened his hands at his side, wanting to rip the portrait from the wall and fling it in the fire. Why? No matter what I do, it’s never enough for you.
And what do you do? Drink with your uncle without a thought for me. His father’s face hardened with disgust. You’re selfish, that’s what you are, only ever thinking of yourself and your future riches instead of being here and tending to the vicarage like a proper son.
Randall dropped his hand on Reverend’s head, anger seething inside him. He’d obeyed his father for years, taken every insult heaped on him and more, thinking one day the old man would look at him with the same affection he saved for the portrait, but he hadn’t, and tonight Randall realised he never would. I’m not staying here any longer. Uncle Edmund has invited me to live at the manor. I’m going there and I’m not coming back.
You think because you’ll be a Marquess some day, you’re too good for a simple vicarage. Well, you’re not. His father snatched the poker from the fireplace and Randall took a step back. You think I don’t know how you and my brother laugh at me, how you mocked me when you named that wretched dog he gave you.