The conjurer had produced coins out of ears, handkerchiefs out of noses and, much to Penny’s horror, had whipped the tablecloth from beneath her finest Meissen tea set without rattling a single cup.
As the oldest, Freddie had appointed himself chief sorcerer and was currently swathed in an ancient red silk-lined evening cape they had found in the attic. Lord only knew which of his ancestors the garment had belonged to, but like all the old clothes the servants of yore had lovingly stored, they were now in the dressing-up trunk. Gray’s other redheaded daughter was being pinned by Harriet—who for some reason was wearing a tricorn hat—into a boldly patterned polonaise that once belonged to Hadleigh’s mother. The sight of the dress brought nostalgia, but in a pleasant way. Hadleigh had long accepted the truth that he couldn’t run or hide from the past. None of them could. It was always there regardless. It shaped who a person was, affected the present and influenced the future. Therefore, it was best to embrace it.
He did not need to have seen her in it to easily picture that bright and confident polonaise on his mother in her younger days. How splendid and daring she must have felt in it. Seeing it on Gray’s confident and tenacious daughter, watching her joy as she wore it was fitting.
Old memories making new memories.
He liked that. Perhaps even more than having the house full.
‘I hope the ladies aren’t going to be long. I am starving.’ Not for the first time, a slightly belligerent Seb turned wistfully towards the open door and the smells of cooking coming from the kitchen. ‘What possessed them to go out walking now—so close to luncheon?’
‘It’s our penance for playing cards and drinking till all hours last night and leaving them with the children.’
‘We were catching up! And looking after the children for an hour is hardly penance.’ Hadleigh swept his arm to encompass the entire room, quietly pleased with himself and life in general. ‘Look at them all playing so contently. I’ve always had a knack for this parenting lark. It’s simply a matter of keeping them occupied, your eyes peeled and trusting your instincts...’ He frowned, noticing one pertinent and worrying missing detail. Another sweep of the room confirmed it. ‘Freddie, Charlie—where is your sister?’
‘She stormed off when Freddie said she couldn’t be the Great Rodolpho.’
‘Yes,’ said Freddie with the arrogant authority which came from being the oldest child in the room at the ripe old age of eleven and a half. ‘Girls cannot be magicians. Everybody knows that.’
Oh, dear.
His daughter was a fiercely independent, resourceful and stubborn creature who wouldn’t take such a slight or set back lying down.
As one, he, Flint, Seb and Gray exchanged a worried look, then spread out searching for her. They reconvened in the hallway a few minutes later, shaking their heads just as the ladies came back in. ‘Is everything all right, Tristan darling?’
‘Yes...of course. Perfectly fine.’ So much for being meticulous and thorough when he had misplaced his own daughter. The daughter his wife had specifically tasked him to watch intently. The daughter responsible for more than her fair share of the chaos in his life. ‘There’s tea waiting for you all in the drawing room.’ Surely the miniature termagant hadn’t gone far? He would hunt her down, drag her back and Penny would be none the wiser of his gross incompetence. He had just ushered Thea and Jessamine in when there was an almighty crash that stopped them in their tracks.
‘Mon Dieu!’
Trefor barked. Lord Fennimore sat bolt upright. All the ladies’ eyes widened.
Hadleigh simply ran as fast as his legs could carry him towards the dining room, his long-suffering wife and the three other sets of parents dashing after him. He flung open the door and took in the scene.
Carnage.
Utter devastation.
Every glass, plate and bowl laid out waiting for them on the dining table lay shattered on the floor among the cutlery. The giant tablecloth was rumpled in a heap, half-hanging off one end. Some sort of sauce was soaking into the Persian. A lone ham sat spinning on the parquet. Next to him, Clarissa was staring open-mouthed. He could feel his wife glaring in accusation.
‘I looked away for a second. Perhaps a whole minute...’
The tablecloth quivered and he stalked towards it, ripping it back and there she was. Hiding beneath the wide brim of his mother’s favourite purple hat. He grabbed the now bent and ridiculously tall feathers sprouting out of the top of it and hoisted it from her mischievous dark head. Blinking amber eyes gazed back at him guiltily.
It took all of his twenty years of legal training and courtroom experience not to shout in accusation because he prided himself in always seeking the truth. The evidence. Irrefutable facts. He believed entirely in the concept of habeas corpus—despite the fact that this was his daughter. The most stubborn, most tenacious, most lovable, most incorrigible seven-year-old hoyden to ever set foot on the earth. The daughter he should have named Trouble with a capital ‘T’ the second he had first clapped his emotional, tear-filled eyes on her.
‘Would you like to explain what happened?’ Why was his comfortable lawyer’s mask always so ill fitting in dealings with his own family? His children regularly took him to the very end of his tether daily.
‘Oh, Papa! It was awful! Would you believe a pigeon swooped down the chimney and...?’
He folded his arms and took a deep breath. ‘The truth, if you please.’
‘All right, it wasn’t a pigeon. I lied about that to protect him. For it was Trefor. He saw the ham and...’
Hadleigh stared heavenwards and prayed for strength, sure he could hear his mother laughing out loud in the distance. This was exactly the sort of nonsense she would have thoroughly approved of.
‘When I asked for the truth, be in no doubt, Daughter, I meant the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So shall we try that again please. The truth...Pandora.’
* * *
If you enjoyed this story
be sure to read the other books in
The King’s Elite miniseries
The Mysterious Lord Millcroft
The Uncompromising Lord Flint
The Disgraceful Lord Gray
And check out
The Wild Warriners miniseries
by Virginia Heath,
starting with
A Warriner to Protect Her
Keep reading for an excerpt from Daring to Love the Duke’s Heir by Janice Preston.
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Daring to Love the Duke’s Heir
by Janice Preston
Chapter One
March 1817
Raindrops rattled on the roof of the carriage that carried Miss Liberty Lovejoy and her sister Hope through the dark, slick streets of a rain-drenched London.
‘Liberty. I beg you...please do not do this. Gideon will never forgive you.’
Liberty wrenched her attention from the passing streets and resolutely swallowed down her own burgeoning doubt. She didn’t want to do this, but she had to. Someone must save Gideon from himself.
‘I have to do something, Hope. Gideon is running amok and it is all the fault of Lord Alexander Beauchamp. Gideon will be grateful to me for saving him from the results of his own folly. Eventually.’
‘Well, I do not think you are fair to embroil me without warning,’ said Hope tartly. ‘You said we were going to Hookham’s. I would never have agreed to accompany you if I knew you intended to visit Alexander’s father, of all people. He is a duke, Liberty. People like us do not just call upon a duke.’
Hope’s reaction did not surprise Liberty—she had given up expecting support from either of her sisters when there was any unpleasantness to deal with. They had been so young when their parents had died within days of one another and they had come to rely on Liberty and her twin brother, Gideon—just nineteen at the time—to take charge. Uncle Eustace was worse than useless...far too selfish to stir himself, even though he had been appointed their guardian. It was no wonder her entire family took Liberty for granted.
‘If you are afraid to come in, you may remain in the carriage while I speak to the Duke. I cannot afford the luxury of fear.’ Oh, but how she wished she could order Bilk, their coachman, to turn the carriage around and drive back to their rented London house. ‘It is my responsibility as the eldest—’
‘You are the eldest by a mere five minutes, Liberty Louisa Lovejoy, and Gideon now happens to be an earl.’
‘His conduct is more reminiscent of an overgrown schoolboy than a peer of the realm,’ retorted Liberty.
Since Liberty’s twin brother had unexpectedly acceded to the Earldom of Wendover last autumn his behaviour had grown increasingly exasperating. Was it really asking too much of him to help her to secure their sisters’ futures instead of careening around town and frittering his newfound prosperity on wine, cards and horses and in the pursuit of females who were no better than they should be? Besides, she missed Gideon and how they had worked together to ensure the survival of their family.
‘Well, I would say that being an earl makes him senior to you, do you not? Do not forget we are all reliant on his goodwill now if we do not wish to be banished back to Eversham with Uncle Eustace. I think it is very generous of Gideon to fund a Season for all three of us at the same time.’
Liberty clenched her jaw. If Hope only knew how much persuasion it had taken for Gideon to agree to his sisters coming to London in the first place...left to himself, she had no doubt her twin would have been content for his sisters to remain hidden away at Eversham for ever while he lived the high life to which he now felt entitled.
She stared out of the window, seeing neither the grey streets they passed nor the people hurrying along beneath their umbrellas, wrapped in coats and cloaks against the dreadful dark, cold and wet weather that had assailed the entire country for the past year. If it were not for Hope and Verity she would much prefer to still be at home, running the house for Uncle Eustace—her late mother’s unmarried brother who had always made his home with the Lovejoys—and living in quiet obscurity.
But Hope and Verity, at one-and-twenty and nineteen respectively, deserved a chance to better themselves in life. After their parents’ deaths there had been neither opportunity nor funds for the younger Lovejoy sisters to even dream of a come out, not until the unexpected death of a distant cousin and his two sons in a house fire and Gideon’s sudden preferment.
‘And do not forget what Mrs Mount said.’ Hope’s words broke into Liberty’s train of thought. ‘It is bad etiquette to call on your social superiors before they have left their card with you.’
Mrs Mount was the lady they had hired as duenna during their sojourn in London. The daughter of a viscount and now the widow of the younger son of an earl, she had many acquaintances within the ton and was thus perfectly placed to help steer the Lovejoy girls through the mysteries of polite society. Well, perfectly placed if Liberty chose to follow her advice. Which, in this instance, she did not.
‘It is a certainty that the Duke of Cheriton is never likely to leave his card for us,’ said Liberty, ‘so I do not see that I have any choice if I am to persuade him to control his son’s wild behaviour.’
‘I cannot believe that a duke will take kindly to a country squire’s daughter lecturing him on how he should control his son. Libby—it is not too late. Please, let us go home and I promise I will help you talk some sense into Gideon.’
‘But we have tried that, Hope, many times, and he ignores us. I fear his new status has gone to his head and that he will never be the same again.’
She was not even certain she much liked the man her twin had become. He had become secretive and thoughtless, and the closeness that had bound the two of them together throughout their childhood now felt as though it hung by the most fragile of threads.
It breaks my heart, this distance between us.
Liberty slid one gloved hand inside her woollen cloak and pressed it to her upper chest, rubbing in a soothing, circular motion, but the familiar hollow ache remained, as it had for the five years since her childhood sweetheart, Bernard, died.
Being back in London had resurrected those dreadful memories and, with them, the guilt. If only she hadn’t been so selfish by accepting the offer from her wealthy godmother to sponsor her through a London Season. If only she had stayed at home, Bernard and her parents might still be alive. At the very least she would have been able to say goodbye to her husband-to-be. A knot of disquiet had taken root in her stomach since their arrival in London...a nagging reminder of her selfishness and her failure.
Well, she would not fail Gideon, or the girls. And if it meant calling on a duke unannounced, then so be it.
In an unexpected gesture, Hope clasped Liberty’s hand.
‘You cannot protect all of us all the time, Liberty. Gideon is a grown man. I know you miss the old Gideon, but he will come to his senses, you’ll see.’
‘But what if he does not? What if I sit by and do nothing and he ends up destroying himself? And that’s quite apart from the damage his wild behaviour will do to you and Verity.’
Their background would be hurdle enough without Gideon casting a deeper shadow over them. Papa had been a gentleman, but Mama had been the daughter of a coal merchant—that whiff of trade would be a difficult barrier to overcome, according to Mrs Mount.
The carriage rocked to a halt.
‘This must be it,’ Hope said, her voice awed. ‘Goodness!’
Liberty was momentarily distracted as thunder growled in the distance, a stark reminder of the most terrible day in her life—the day she had learned that not only both her beloved parents, but also Bernard, had succumbed to the outbreak of cholera that swept through their village while Liberty had been enjoying dress fittings in London in preparation for her debut. She had not even glimpsed the inside of a ballroom before receiving that urgent summons to return home.
She thrust down the memory that still had the power to bring hot, stinging tears to her eyes and peered through the rain that streamed down the window. She gulped. This was Beauchamp House? It was huge. Magnificent. Intimidating. It was not a house, but a mansion. Stretching for five wide bays, it would swallow several houses such as their modest rented abode in Green Street. A new surge of doubt as to her plan swept over Liberty, but she had come this far and she wouldn’t allow herself to b
ack away now. She gathered her courage, flung open the carriage door, grabbed her oilskin umbrella and, opening it, thrust it out of the door into the deluge. Lightning flickered and she braced herself for the next rumble of thunder. Was the storm getting closer? There were several seconds before the sound reached her ears—it sounded more distant than before and she released her pent-up breath. She gave herself no time for further qualms. Bilk handed her down and she hurried up the steps to the imposing front door of Beauchamp House, which remained firmly shut.
She lifted the brass knocker—so highly polished it gleamed even in the unnatural yellowish-grey afternoon light—and let it fall. Then she waited, irritation clambering over any nerves she felt at facing such a powerful nobleman. What was taking so long? ‘Where—?’
‘Might I be of assistance?’
She whipped around. A carriage was drawing away from the front of the house, presumably after depositing this man...her darting gaze settled on his face, half-shielded by his own umbrella, and she gasped, her stomach clenching with anger. She held fast to her courage and straightened her spine even though her knees quaked. This close, she was only too conscious of Lord Alexander Beauchamp’s daunting presence—his height and the width of his shoulders spoke of a powerful man.
‘I have come to speak to your father about your behaviour.’
He stiffened, his dark brows slashed into a forbidding frown. ‘I beg your pardon?’
As she opened her mouth, he held up his hand, palm forward, effectively silencing her. ‘Apart from the fact that you and I have never met, madam, I regret to inform you that the Duke is not in residence.’ He brushed past her to the door.
The Determined Lord Hadleigh Page 25