Lord Bachelor

by Tammy L. Bailey

  Abby thought long and hard on Raify’s response, humored how a broke American woman saved a titled English lord. Then she thought it didn’t matter. Whether she loved him or not, saved him or not, she would not live the rest of her life indebted to him or wondering what if. She had to follow her heart to England.

  When Abby finally said good-bye to Raify, she had a wrenching feeling it was for the last time. Grateful for their time together, Abby hugged her friend, shed a few more tears, and set out across the Atlantic to confront Edmund and close the gaping hole in her heart. Whatever Abby had rescued Edmund from, she hoped he’d recognize her efforts and the heartache it caused her.

  She thought of little else but him until she stood, on a rainy day, warm and a little sticky, before a blue-green painted storefront in downtown London. It was as if she’d been drunk during her impulsive decisions, and had just now sobered, her mind clearing for the first time.

  “Oh, God. What did I do?” she mumbled to herself, fear of inevitable consequences beginning to turn her insides to mush.

  Still, with no intention of turning back, she glanced at the store, astonished about what stood before her. She blinked and then glanced back to the narrow pedestrian street full of antique shops. In the middle stood a Victorian gas lamp, letting her know she wasn’t in Portland anymore.

  However, the shop before her was the exact replica of the one she and Edmund had visited. Even the sign, Lost in Time, was the same one that had been swinging outside the old inconspicuous storefront.

  She frowned. Edmund had bought a store and she’d closed one. How ironic.

  With the morning rain pelting the side of her face, she stepped forward when the glass door caught her reflection. She stopped and stared at a young woman she hardly recognized, a woman far detached from the threads that tied her to the only existence she’d ever known. She smiled and embraced whatever fate would throw her way.

  With more confidence than she felt, she tucked the invitation back into her pocket and twisted the wet brass doorknob.

  The old door moaned open, her gaze going straight to a parakeet, its yellow and green feathers familiar and a little ruffled. Like the time before, the bird’s eyes were wide, but unseeing. She blinked and wondered if she’d found a portal to the bookstore she and Edmund had stumbled upon in Oregon. Even the grandfather clock, its hand stuck in time, sat next to the stairway.

  “Hello, you must be Edmund’s one o’clock?”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Abby jumped, her gaze flying to a young man with curly dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses. He had a phone up to his ear, his hand covering the antique receiver. “I’ll be right with you.”

  Abby nodded and glanced around. To calm her frazzled nerves, she stepped between one of the bookcases, surprised at the cozy and inviting place. As the man continued to talk about the services Lost in Time provided, she stepped deeper inside.

  The shop was narrow, but long and intimately decorated with inviting dark mahogany shelving placed throughout. The maze of bookshelves created a fantastical journey from beginning to end.

  To her immediate left was a glass study with a single table made of thick oak where soft light from several gas lamps and a scattering of electrical candles wove like a gold mist.

  In another room, just right of the study, was a quaint sitting area with a tiny functional fireplace and five mismatched, high-backed chairs from every era placed around it in a pleasing semi-circle. Deeper inside, under the staircase, she found another small room, decorated to resemble a 1950s sitting area. A record player that looked exactly like the one she’d sold along with the records, sat next to a birch-white bookcase, every space filled with vintage vinyl.

  She shook her head and turned away, walking back to the study and the vast stack of books held there. She allowed her fingers to run across the rough spines of Edmund’s impressive collection.

  Then her pinky caught the edge of one of them, causing it to fall and hit the floor with a thud. She reached to pick it up and exhaled. It was the book Edmund had purchased in the bookstore, the Pride and Prejudice version he’d read to her on Private Party Dance Club Night.

  A wave of emotion washed over her. She thought she could do this, to stand where he stood, to feel his presence with each breath and not become so overwhelmed by it. One tear fell and then another on the yellowed page, her palm gliding to wipe away the wetness. She only managed to smear the delicate lettering.

  “Is that what Edmund is tutoring you on this afternoon?” the clerk asked from the doorway. His accent was more Scottish, and he reminded her of a very young Ewan McGregor.

  Abby jerked her head up to meet his. “Tutoring?”

  The clerk sent her a peculiar grin before moseying back to the counter. With the book still in her hand, Abby followed him. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

  Only half listening, the young man nodded. “Edmund meant to cancel his appointment with you. He’s been so distracted lately, you know, with this being his big day and all, poor bastard.” The young clerk’s gray eyes widened. “Pardon me. I’m not supposed to swear in front of the customers.”

  “Poor bastard,” the parakeet repeated. “Poor bastard.”

  “Or the bird,” the clerk added.

  Abby nodded, her lungs squeezing inside her ribcage. “I…I thought that Edmund was already—”

  “No, not yet.”

  Abby let out a long exhale. The clerk misread her outward weariness and sent her a compassionate smile. Without asking, he picked up the phone and before she understood what he was doing, had Edmund on the other line.

  “Hello, Edmund. It’s Carl.”

  Abby’s mouth dropped at the man’s name, her world beginning to tilt on its axis. Carl had been the person to whom she sold her father’s collection. No wonder everything looked so familiar.

  “Your one o’clock is here. You must have forgotten…oh, then, she must not have received it.” He paused, glancing up and down the length of her. “No, I’m quite sure she is not a he.”

  Abby shook her head vigorously, waving her hands to make the man named Carl stop talking. Carl paused and placed his hand over the receiver. “He understands. It really is no bother.”

  “But…but…”

  Carl returned to speaking into the phone. “Yes, I have the address. I’ll let her know.” That was it. Carl hung up, lifted his head, and smiled. “I’m to give this to you.”

  She reached out and absently accepted the scribbled address on the back of an index card. Abby felt like she was in the middle of pulling off a stuck-on adhesive bandage. In a daze, she folded the piece of paper Carl gave her, dropped into the cab she had waiting for her, and stared straight ahead until the estate on the address rose up like a gray dragon.

  A towering water fountain stood before the five-story sandstone estate, the sprays glittering off the fragmented rays of the sun. A parallel row of perfectly symmetrical hedges stretched along luscious green grass, decorated with a splattering of red and yellow flowers. Abby couldn’t help but wonder if those were the flowers Edmund had peed on as a child.

  “Are you all right?” The cab driver’s voice snapped Abby out of her trance.

  “Uhm…is there a…back entrance?”

  The man’s quirked eyebrow in the rearview mirror caused Abby to blush from her absurd question. She realized, after she’d begun to sober more, that she was about to crash her ex-fiancé’s wedding. Now, along with her frightened inner child, she hoped to sneak in, present the envelope to the man known as Timmons, and sneak back out before seeing anyone who might recognize her.

  “Then, would you mind waiting? I won’t be that long.”

  The rough-shaven man mumbled something, brought his navy blue fedora over his eyes and leaned his head back.

  Abby started to exit the cab when she saw the same redheaded man from the studio. She gasped, slammed the door back shut and sank down in her seat as tires squealed away. From the commotion, the cab dri
ver lifted his cap and peeked up at the rearview like a prairie dog.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  The driver shook his head and mumbled, “Americans,” before pulling the fedora back over his eyes.

  With her heart about to burst, she stumbled onto the cobblestone driveway, determined to keep her chin up and her eyes dry on the way toward the rust-colored door. Her body shook with anticipation, and her hands trembled as they reached up to grab the glistening brass knocker.

  ****

  Edmund asked Mrs. Robinson to prepare some fresh tea, and then alerted Timmons that he was expecting a client. He didn’t try to pressure Carl regarding the sex of the person, although Edmund was certain the man he talked to a week ago was anything but feminine.

  No matter, with everything for his “relinquishing party” in place, Edmund saw no reason not to accommodate anyone who wanted to know more about great literature. He needed the distraction after the official ceremony, and after he lost everything to his bloody cousin.

  “You should not be working on your birthday, Lord Rushwood,” Dowager Hemsley said with a sad smile.

  Edmund sent the woman a vanquished nod before walking to the dormant fireplace. “I really wish you would stop calling me that. It’s no longer my title.”

  “Your title does not officially cross to Sir Richard for another”—Lady Rushwood glanced at her gold watch—“two hours. I should know. I was in labor with you for the seven hours before that.”

  “Besides,” Dowager Hemsley interjected, “you should trust that fate will intervene and things will work out the way they are intended.”

  He scoffed at the woman’s outlandish perceptions on life. Fate was meeting Abby. Fate should have had him married to her, planning a life together, growing old together. He found out the hard way that fate was nothing but a ruse to give people with romantic notions something to talk about over tea.

  Still, through the bloody ruins of his life, Abby rose as the one thing he didn’t regret. He loved falling in love with her. He loved loving her. Of course, with distance and time, he wondered if her feelings had faded, or worse, turned bitter and resentful.

  Before he left Portland, he’d tried to see her, dropping by her father’s shop and finding Raify waiting for him, her hat monstrous and her words unyielding.

  “She is wounded, Edmund. Give her some time to heal.”

  He flew back to England, agonizing over the few weeks, missing Abby so much he thought little of anything or anyone else, including himself.

  When he tried to contact her again, to beg her forgiveness, her phone number was no longer in service. It was a harsh reality when he concluded she no longer wanted the only thing he was able to give her—him. It also made no difference if Dowager Hemsley, who’d become his strongest ally in the entire affair, patted his cheek and said things would work out the way they were meant to, every time she saw him.

  With Edmund’s mind a mess, he walked to his favorite chair and sank down. So many times, he thought about researching Abby’s new phone number, but knew he wouldn’t be able to bear the sound of her hanging up on him. What he did was unforgiveable. He should have told her from the start about his father’s will.

  He did try to make things right with a few of his other inconsolable brides however; deciding to sell Stonebridge for the asking price of $2.3 million. On his shopping spree, he’d sent Jasmine a pair of diamond earrings and arranged an all-inclusive getaway for Courtney and a friend in Paris.

  For Sierra, he donated money to one of her favorite shelters with the stipulation they use all green energy initiatives. He believed it might attract enough notice for others to want to build more. She’d wanted ten, after all.

  As for Abby, Edmund believed she’d received what she wanted: him, his heart suffering with each memory or thought. No matter the tragic end of their love affair, he tried not to succumb to bouts of depression. He’d become independent, purchasing his own shop and beginning his tenure as an associate lecturer at Cambridge, about fifty miles north of London. He also spent two days a week on tutoring nineteenth-century literature and reading at the Holly House Hospital on Fridays.

  Similar to how Abby had taught him to live, the shop was now his home, a place he’d acquired in assets from a man, without his bird, desperate to retire and move to Key West. Edmund even promised to keep the name and take the parakeet the seller wanted stuffed forty-odd years ago.

  For now, the place gave him peace, until his mind turned to Abby, a woman who haunted him almost every second of his day and refused to go away. Lost in his thoughts, Edmund didn’t notice who’d joined them in the drawing room.

  “Let’s just get this over with,” Sir Richard said, unable to hide his giddiness. Blaire followed him inside, her demeanor solemn and annoyed.

  “Why are you here?” Edmund asked on her way by.

  “I was informed by my mother that if I didn’t accompany Sir Richard, she would cancel the ball I’ve been planning since my disastrous wedding at Coombe Abbey.” After a silent pause, she apologized. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you of—”

  He held up his hand. “Don’t.”

  She respected his curt request enough to leave him to take a seat next to Dowager Hemsley. Next to her sat the master of ceremonies and family solicitor, Kenneth Duncan, who had remained seated and silent, his intellectual gaze gliding to Edmund’s mother every time he thought Edmund wasn’t looking.

  Edmund believed it might do his mother some good to fall in love again. Going to her, he placed a kiss on her smooth forehead and patted her hand.

  “Are you prepared for this, Edmund?” she asked solemnly. He nodded, relieved she’d not have to move out of her estate in Bath. She hadn’t called Danwick home for six years.

  Sir Richard took the moment to clear his throat. “I’m glad you decided not to marry that American. You would have made a complete mockery out of your family and your father’s wishes. The Duke of Dangleon, indeed.”

  Edmund rose to his full height and met Sir Richard in the center of the room. “Don’t pretend you give a bloody damn about my father’s wishes. All you wanted is his title and wealth. And I hope you are as miserable with both as he was.”

  The man smiled, but his eyes remained cold. “Do not play the martyr, Edmund, it does not suit you. Besides, you had the chance to keep the miserable lot, as you call it, by marrying Blaire. So I am not the villain you have made me out to be.”

  Edmund drew back his shoulders and sliced a glance at Blaire. She was beautiful with dark hair and violet eyes, but nothing about her stirred Edmund enough to date her, much less marry her. “Marrying Blaire would have been a mistake for both of us.”

  “You selfish imbecile,” Sir Richard said vehemently, his face purpling into the shade of a ripe plum. “Do you realize the money I spent trying to ruin her wedding day, just to throw the two of you together?”

  Edmund’s mouth fell open as the woman whose wedding the man had apparently ruined lurched herself in their direction.

  “I knew it! You gutless wanker!”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Edmund grabbed Blaire by her arm before she had the chance to claw at Sir Richard’s blustering face. He screeched like an owl to get away from her, Edmund doing everything in his power to calm her down.

  “Blaire, is he really worth murdering?”

  “Yes!”

  Timmons and Kenneth Duncan dropped Sir Richard into a chair and pressed both their hands upon his lanky shoulders. “I should let her tear you limb from limb,” Edmund said to Sir Richard.

  “Were you aware of any of that?” Blaire asked, yanking her arm from his grip.

  Edmund drew back. “Of course not!”

  Her pretty face paled. “Henry tried to tell me, tried apologizing a hundred times.” She paused to reflect on those moments before turning to him. “What do I do now?”

  “You’re asking a man who just lost the greatest love he’s ever known for advice?”

&nb
sp; She smiled weakly, turned and trudged from the room.

  “Are you ready to begin this, Lord Rushwood?” Duncan asked. Edmund glanced over at his mother and Dowager Hemsley, both blinking as if he was being led to the gallows.

  Edmund nodded and stood with his back against the dormant fireplace, staring into the east lawn.

  “Very well.” Duncan left Sir Richard to pull some papers out of his briefcase, making an organized pile next to him at an antique writing desk. Through his Lindberg eyeglasses, he lifted an official document, untied the string binding it together and cleared his voice.

  “It appears there were several clauses in the late Lord Rushwood’s will and testament that I have been unable to disclose until now.”

  Sir Richard snorted as Edmund’s mother sent a disapproving glance.

  “It reads,” Duncan continued, ‘If my son, Edmund Rushwood, before his twenty-sixth birthday, marries a relative, distant or otherwise, everything will pass to my cousin, Sir Richard.”

  Edmund heard his mother gasp. “So, that’s why you were so adamant about Edmund marrying Blaire. You are a gutless wanker.”

  The man raised his chin toward the high-vaulted ceiling. “It was a necessary evil.”

  “I know something else that’s evil,” Dowager Hemsley said, too proper to curse.

  “How you knew this will be investigated, Sir Richard.” Duncan said, his eyebrows lifted in a dead challenge. So sure of himself, Sir Richard could only shrug.

  “Very well, should I continue?” the solicitor asked, trying to keep some order in his reading.

  Edmund nodded. “Continue, Duncan. Let’s get this bloody thing over with.”

  “Edmund!”

  “Sorry, Mother,” Edmund said, the irony of his mother’s scolding after what she’d called Sir Richard forcing Edmund’s lips into a smile.

  Duncan adjusted his glasses and resumed reading. “If Edmund does not marry, but is willing to give up any or all of his possessions to one person or more whose connection is brief and inconsequential, all decrees prior to this acknowledgement will become null and void. If he is made aware of this before the deeds are fulfilled, the clause will become null and void and he remains unmarried, the next in line will inherit Danwick Manor and so forth.”