“No, Daddy—”
He put his arm around her shoulder and walked her briskly back to the door leading to the sitting room. “Now, go,” he said. “I want you in your bedchamber this morning. I’ll let you know when you can come out.”
“You’re punishing me?”
He shook his head. “But this is a delicate situation which only I will handle. I want as few distractions as possible. When your mother comes back, I’ll be sending all the children out for a few hours. Find yourself a lovely book or some sewing, and have Kerry bring you up more tea and toast.”
Her chin trembled. “Please, don’t—”
He put a finger to her lips. “You must trust me,” he said. “Now go.” He opened the door for her and waited for her to walk by him.
She hesitated and then strode past him—what other option did she have?—but she wouldn’t look at him. Anger spread through her like scalding, spilled tea.
What was Daddy planning to do? Why couldn’t he have simply used the information she’d given him to protect Janice?
“Marcia?” Peter was in the entrance hall, fixing his cravat in the looking glass above the console.
But she barely heard him. Anger propelled her up the stairs and into her room. She didn’t need anyone’s protection anymore. She’d grown past that. Like the climbing rose in the back garden, she had thorns now, and she could take care of herself.
Chapter Thirty-two
Duncan was in the stables with Rupert, discussing a problem with Samson’s rear hoof. Much as he loved his horse, he could barely follow the conversation. Ever since Marcia had run out of the little house on Curzon Street, he’d been unable to focus. The only thing he’d done properly was physically eject Finn from Albany, toss him a small bag of coins, and tell him that he was no longer welcome in Duncan’s home and would receive no further moneys from him.
While Finn had been moaning on the ground, Duncan had also stuffed his solicitors’ card in his brother’s coat pocket and told him to feel free to inquire about any remaining moneys coming to him from the Chadwick estate. He’d concluded the brief, brutal speech by telling Finn he hoped he’d become a wiser, kinder man before he died and spent eternity rotting in hell, as he was sure to do if he kept seducing virtuous women and not doing right by them.
And then he’d gone home, slunk to his room, and sat shaking on the side of his bed.
It was finally over, the relationship between him and his brother.
But life went on. Horses grew lame. Servants and tenants needed their employer for their wages. A little boy needed his father.
Warren came striding through the kitchen door into the courtyard, holding a sealed note aloft. “An urgent missive from Lord Brady, my lord. His messenger says he’ll wait for your answer, which he hopes will be immediate.”
Urgent?
What could be urgent from Lord Brady?
Only one thing came to mind.
A raw, cold anxiety gripped Duncan. This was it, the moment he’d dreaded his entire life. Someone had discovered that he was as bad as his father and Finn—and was taking him to task for it.
“From Lord Brady?” he managed to say, and held out his hand for the note. If the communication was indeed about Marcia and their increasingly scandalous relationship, he should be going to the marquess. Not the other way around.
He should have claimed her hand without her permission.
But she’d have hated you, a quiet but stubborn inner voice told him. It was the part of him that came from his mother, whose cheerful spirit had been snuffed out by her overbearing husband. She’s got to be willing.
That was one thing Lady Marcia wasn’t.
He ripped open the note. Lord Brady required his counsel right away and begged him to come to the house. It was finished with a B scrawled with an impatient flourish.
Obviously, the marquess needed some sort of advice, and the word counsel implied that Duncan still had Lord Brady’s respect. It took any potential sting out of the otherwise terse message.
He felt he’d dodged a bullet. But he was back to wondering when the next one would get him.
“Saddle up Fortune, please,” he told Rupert, his blood rising.
“Right away, my lord. I’ll bring him round the front.”
“Thank you.” Duncan strode quickly with Warren back inside the house. “I’ll need a change of cravat, which I’ll handle myself. Please tell the messenger that I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Warren went to do as he was bid, and Duncan bounded up the stairs. He’d change coats as well. On his way back downstairs, he peeked into Joe’s room and caught him napping. Seeing that cherubic face always gave him strength.
Joe opened his eyes. “Papa?”
“Oops. Sorry.”
Joe rubbed his eyes. “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad I woke up. I wouldn’t like to be asleep when you visit me.” He gave a sleepy giggle. “Are you going to say, ‘Joe, Joe. Let’s have tea’?”
“No.” Duncan laughed, remembering the day in the carriage when they’d talked about Lady Marcia doing just that in the middle of the night. “Not today.”
“I miss Lady Marcia,” Joe whispered.
“I do, too,” said Duncan.
And then he realized that the greatest shame of all was not to be found out a scoundrel like his father and brother, nor to fail at righting wrongs.
It was to be blind to love.
When he arrived at the Brady mansion twenty minutes later, he was ready to burst with the need to see Marcia. He’d tell her the truth, that while he’d been trying to fix her problems, she’d been fixing him, with kindness to his son, with acceptance of who Duncan and Joe both were, and with a willingness to open her heart to him, knowing that she could be hurt—again.
He must have fallen in love with her long before today. Perhaps it was that night in the garden shed, when they’d been in the dark and he’d reached for her and found her warmth and felt as if he’d stumbled upon the greatest treasure on earth.
He might have even fallen a bit in love with her when she’d railed at him from the prow of a sailing packet and he’d been a young man burdened with fears, immune to the beauty of a sunset. He’d carried that image with him ever after, had compared every woman he’d met to her without even realizing it.
She was what he’d been searching for without even knowing it.
She was his love.
They were perfect together. The same perfect that she’d spoken of on the Irish Sea. He only hoped that she’d realize the same thing.
But first, her father.
Burbank greeted him soberly at the door. The house seemed eerily still when they strode together down the corridor to the library, their footsteps resounding in the silence. The butler announced him and left.
“Come in, Chadwick,” Lord Brady said warmly.
Duncan’s heart surged with hope. “Good afternoon, Lord Brady.”
“It’s good to see you, son.” The marquess indicated a seat.
Duncan sat.
The marquess sat on the edge of his desk. “You’ve done a fine job of being earl these past four years.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re still very young. It must have been a difficult transition for you.”
“It was, but I seem to have made it to a more comfortable place.” He folded his hands in his lap and felt like a man of the world for the first time.
“That’s good,” said Lord Brady. He paused a moment and frowned. “I hate to introduce an uncomfortable topic. But I must.”
Duncan’s heart beat at a faster pace. “What is it, my lord?”
“I read in the paper that you and your brother are estranged. Is this correct?”
Duncan sat up a little straighter. “Unfortunately, yes.”
Again, the marquess hesitated. “May I ask why?”
“Certainly.” Duncan paused as well. It was a difficult subject. “Finn has shown a deplorable pattern of seducing innocent wo
men. My son, Joseph, is a product of one of those sad unions.”
The marquess raised an eyebrow. “I had no idea.”
“Nor does anyone,” Duncan said. “I didn’t feel the need to share that information with the world. It was a private family matter and still is.”
“Yet you’re willing to endure the stares, the malicious gossip, on Mr. Lattimore’s behalf.”
“Yes. That was the price I had to pay to keep our privacy intact.”
“I see. I assume your brother’s been cut off financially, as well. That would explain his sudden wooing of Lady Janice.”
“She’s a lovely young lady, but yes, I assume Finn’s motives are entirely selfish.”
Lord Brady stood and went to a small table holding a decanter of brandy and something else golden in color. He poured out a finger. “Care for an Irish whiskey? Or brandy?”
“The whiskey, of course,” Duncan said.
“A man after my own heart.” Lord Brady chuckled, and handed him a tumbler of the stuff. “Drink up, young sir.” He went back to fix himself one, as well.
This time he didn’t return to his perch on the desk. He sat in a leather club chair next to Duncan’s own.
“Cheers,” said Duncan.
They raised their glasses and clinked them.
“To happiness,” said Lord Brady.
“Yes, to happiness,” Duncan replied.
They sipped the fiery liquid in silence for a seemingly peaceful moment.
“I like you, Chadwick,” Lord Brady eventually said, his eyes on the fire in the hearth.
Duncan took another swig of whiskey. “And I, you, my lord.”
But when the marquess turned to look at him, Duncan read tension in the deepening lines around his mouth and eyes. “What I have to say may pain you as much as it pains me,” Lord Brady said. “But I trust that you and I together will find a solution.”
“I’m ready to hear it, whatever it may be.”
Lord Brady took another sip of his whiskey. “Your brother, Finn, took my daughter Marcia’s virginity on the night of her sixteenth birthday,” he said, his voice steady but somber. “And while it was long ago, and there were no visible aftereffects, my daughter was scarred. She withdrew from us, didn’t take her rightful place in society, and seems to have sworn off marriage entirely.”
“I know, sir,” Duncan forced himself to admit. “And I’m sorry. I wish I had the power to go back and undo what was done.”
“You knew?” Lord Brady’s tone was sharp, his eyes narrowed.
“I only found out weeks ago, when Finn returned. He let it slip. My immediate thought was that there was a debt of honor to be paid. Yet I wouldn’t foist my brother on any young lady of virtue. I decided I would marry Lady Marcia myself.”
“So why didn’t you come to me immediately?”
Duncan raked a hand through his hair. “Because I wanted to woo her first. To win her approval before I sought your permission. My own parents’ marriage was arranged, and they were miserable. Lady Marcia isn’t the type of woman easily led.”
“No, she’s not.” The marquess sighed. “She’s just like her mother. All the girls in this household know their own minds, and I’ve encouraged that in them. I’m proud of them—indeed, very proud of all Marcia has accomplished at Oak Hall. But those accomplishments, while worthy, don’t begin to encompass all that we want for her. Her mother and I want to see her in a loving marriage that includes children.”
“But she says she has many children, those at Oak Hall.”
“One can lead a fine life as an unmarried headmistress, I’m sure,” said Lord Brady. “But she’s made for love. Romantic love. How could she not be with her parents so much in love and a houseful of children who bring us such happiness? She may not have been born with a drop of Irish blood, but she’s Irish by virtue of being my daughter, and since she was a little girl, she’s been enthralled by Celtic stories, songs, and poems celebrating the glories of love and the heroes and heroines who fight for it.”
Duncan was burning with the desire to do just that. “It could be why she won’t have me, my lord.”
Lord Brady eyed him. “Do you not love her?”
“I do.” He could almost smell the lavender that scented her hair.
“Have you told her?”
“No.” Duncan inhaled a breath. “I haven’t found the right time.”
He remembered after they’d put their clothes back on in the garden shed, how she’d looked up at him with such trust in her eyes. That had been the right time. Or after she’d confessed at the little house on Curzon Street that she couldn’t give up being with him.
If only he’d known. The knowledge that he couldn’t go back fair drove him mad.
“It’s never the right time to tell someone you love them,” Lord Brady said, “whether it’s a father, a brother, a daughter, or a woman you cherish. But it must be done. You take the risk of having it flung back in your face sometimes. But you do it anyway.”
Duncan swallowed, unable to speak. How many times had he longed for loving words to be spoken between him and his father and brother? But they never had. It hadn’t seemed the right time. Ever.
And now it was too late.
Lord Brady shot out an arm and grabbed his. “You’re your own man, Duncan. We can’t take on our loved ones’ faults.”
He felt a physical pain near his heart. In addition to Finn’s, the marquess might know something of his father’s failings. “I’m learning that.”
He hoped he hadn’t learned too late.
The marquess drained his glass. “My daughter is stubborn and independent. Your plan to marry her is as close to a perfect solution as we’ll get. Your brother won’t do. But you will. You’ll more than do. You love her. And that’s what I want for all my daughters.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“You’ll be winning a grand prize in our girl. Hardly a punishment for the egregious wrong done her by your brother. So here’s your trial, lad. I believe in you and believe you’re up to the challenge.” The marquess finished his drink with a resounding gasp of appreciation, put his glass on his desk, and turned back to him.
Duncan braced himself. Whatever it was, he could handle it.
“I’m not giving you any more time to woo her,” the marquess said flatly. “And even though she’ll be mightily upset, I refuse to give her a choice in the matter. You two shall marry. I’m procuring a special license and submitting an engagement announcement to the paper as soon as we’re done here. You’ll have to win her as her husband.”
“But Lord Brady. Let me speak to her first. Tell her how I feel.”
“You can do that after I’ve spoken with her and informed her of my decision,” Lord Brady said. “Your words of love will soften her, I’m sure.”
Duncan wasn’t nearly as confident of that outcome as the marquess was.
“Of course, your brother, if and when he shows himself on our doorstep, will be thrown out on his ear,” Lord Brady said dryly. “Lady Janice will survive. The same way her sister before her did.”
Duncan resolved to be as cooperative as possible. “I can only guess how difficult it must be for a father to give his daughter’s hand in marriage under normal circumstances, much less one like this involving a breach of honor against the most lovely girl in the world. Thank you for your trust.”
“You’re welcome,” Lord Brady said, his voice a bit rough around the edges.
Duncan had obviously hit a nerve in the sentimental marquess. “But there’s one complication you should know about first.”
“And that is?”
“Lady Marcia has entered into a deal with the Duke of Beauchamp.”
“Already? And I wonder how she accomplished that without my assistance?”
“I introduced her to him, my lord.”
“Duncan Lattimore,” Lord Brady chided him sternly.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I believed in her. And I still do.”
L
ord Brady’s lips thinned. “Exactly what is this plan?”
Duncan told him the entire story. “Oak Hall means the world to her,” he concluded, “so on her behalf, I’m asking you to delay the engagement announcement and the wedding until the end of the Season.”
“Hmmm,” said Lord Brady. “She must stay, as you called it, ‘happily independent,’ until the Season’s over?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re saying, in essence, that my daughter is to serve as the bait to lure the duke into enrolling his granddaughter at Oak Hall.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“Damned right it is.” Lord Brady pushed himself out of his chair. “The answer is no. There’ll be no delay.”
Duncan rose, too. “But I won’t go anywhere, I promise you. I want to marry her, my lord, and I’m willing to wait.”
The marquess put up a hand. “It’s not you I’m worried about, Chadwick. It’s Marcia. I know my daughter, and she’ll do her damnedest to put Oak Hall’s requirements above her own needs on every occasion. It’s time she came first, whether she likes it or not.”
He went to the window and looked over the back garden, then turned back to Duncan. “Four years I’ve been patient with her seeking out her own life, and as long as she was happy and fulfilled, I went along with it. But my patience has come to an end. She’s still of the House of Brady and all the values associated with it. And one thing we don’t tolerate is putting the security and well-being of one of our own at risk.”
“But she can carry this off, my lord. Trust her. Trust me.”
“She’s been hurt,” Lord Brady said in a low, dangerous tone. “Terribly hurt. Her work at Oak Hall is a temporary remedy for what truly ails her. I can’t trust her in this state.”
“You’re right that she was hurt.” Duncan’s heart pounded against his chest. “And at first, she might have been running away by staying on at Oak Hall. But over the past four years, her passion for guiding those girls has become bigger than the old hurt. And it’s a joy to see.” He looked steadily at Marcia’s father. “She’s moved on, Lord Brady.”
“No, by God, she hasn’t!” The marquess pounded his fist on his desk, his eyes gleaming with fury … which quickly dissipated. “I saw it in her eyes,” he whispered. “And I heard it in her voice when she told me—and cried in my arms.” His shoulders bowed, and he leaned on the desk, lost in some memory.
Loving Lady Marcia Page 28