“You are very kind. I have come to thank you for the beautiful pearls. I can see why they were your wife’s favourite.”
“When Lucian was very small, he loved to climb up on his mama’s lap and play with them.”
“What was Lucian like as a child?” Angel remembered her husband telling her how his father had always favoured Fritz.
Wrexham smiled proudly. “He was quite something. Brightest child I ever saw. Beat me at chess when he was nine. And so curious. My God, the questions that boy used to ask. And he could ride and shoot better than anyone in the neighbourhood. Why I remember…”
Angel listened quietly as Wrexham told her story after story about Lucian’s exploits as a boy. As they talked, her puzzlement grew. They were the stories of a father bursting with pride over a much-loved son. Why, then, had he told Lucian he hated him?
Finally, Wrexham caught himself. “I must be boring you with this ancient history. I had hoped perhaps your husband would see fit to introduce you to me.” The old man’s disappointment was palpable. “But at least he has permitted you to come. For that I am grateful. It is a start.”
He sounded so hopeful that Angel hated to disillusion him, but she would be doing him no favours by sparing him the truth.
“I am afraid my husband does not know that I am here,” she said gently. “He forbade me to come, and he will be very angry with me when he learns of this visit.”
The naked pain in her father-in-law’s eyes wrenched at Angel’s heart. He seemed to age ten years before her eyes.
“I see. He still hates me. I suppose I deserve it.”
“He thinks that you hate him. He says that you always favoured his older brother, Fritz.”
Wrexham groaned. “I can see why it might have seemed that way to Lucian, but that was not the case. As a child, it was Lucian who was my favourite.”
“But you told him that you hated him.”
“God forgive me, I did. But that was later—when he was sixteen.”
“What did he do to make you say that?”
“Nothing. The fault was all mine. None of it was Lucian’s. He was blameless. I was a proud, stubborn man, and a fool.” His voice broke. “Such an incredible fool. It is he one great wrong I have done in my life, and I want desperately to correct it, but he will not let me. I wrote to him repeatedly, but the letters came back unopened. Since I me returned from Holland, I have tried to see him, but I have been turned away.”
“If you would tell me why you told Lucian what you mud, perhaps—”
He shook his head. Tears were trickling down his lined cheeks now. “I cannot. The story is for no one’s ears but Lucian’s. If only he would come to me, I would tell him the reason I acted as I did, and I would beg his forgiveness on my knees.”
Lord Wrexham was so wretched that Angel impulsively hugged him.
He returned her embrace. “Sweet girl,” he murmured. “My son is lucky to have you.”
If only his son felt the same way.
Wrexham wiped at his tears. “If Lucian would hear me, even if he cannot forgive me, at least he would know the reason I acted as I did. But I fear I shall go to my grave with him still refusing to see me.”
Angel said sadly, “Lucian has built a wall around his heart that I am beginning to despair anyone can penetrate.”
“Even you.”
Angel nodded.
“You must find a way. And I pray that I can sneak through the breach after you.”
Lucian returned home from a Council of Nine meeting, eager to see his wife. He smiled as he remembered how she had shyly told him at breakfast this morning that after examining the invitations they had received for tonight, she would prefer to remain at home with her husband.
Her husband had been delighted.
In truth, he could not remember being so happy in his life as he had been since he had married Angel.
Lucian handed Reeves his hat and gloves. “Where is my wife?”
“My lady has gone out.”
Lucian frowned, part in disappointment, part in puzzlement. “So early. Where was she going.”
“She did not confide in me,” Reeves said.
That was odd, too. Usually Angel was so open about where she was going. He thought of Roger Peck’s attentions to her the previous night, and unease prickled at Lucian. Then he remembered Angel’s confession of love for him, and he relaxed.
When Angel arrived home twenty minutes later, he went into the hall to greet her. She looked wildly excited, yet oddly nervous.
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Where have you been, Angel?”
“Please, could we talk in the library?”
He led her into that room, his alarm growing. As soon as the door was shut, he asked again where she had been.
“To see your father.”
He was stunned that after he had expressly prohibited her to see his father, she would have flagrantly disobeyed him like this.
“Oh, Lucian, he does not hate you, he loves you, and he wants to see you so desperately.” Her words tumbled over themselves in her rush to get them out, as though she feared he would shut her off before she could finish. “He says that you were blameless and that you did nothing to deserve what he did to you, and he regrets it terribly.”
“If he does, it is because I am now a powerful man, and he sees me being of some use to him.”
“Do not impugn his motives! He cares because he loves you.”
“Loves me! What a jest that is!” The excruciating pain of that day fourteen years ago when his father had told him he hated him engulfed Lucian like a poisonous fog rolling back in from the sea.
“If only you could have seen him, Lucian, seen how much he cares for you, and how much he grieves for the breach between you.”
“The breach is of his making,” her husband reminded her angrily.
“He readily admits that.” Angel caught Lucian’s large hands in her small ones. “At least listen to what he has to ay, I beg of you. Before you dismiss him out of hand, at feast go see him.”
“I will never set foot in his house.”
“Then I will invite him here.”
No one had ever dared defy Lucian the way Angel did. It made his temper boil. His own wife, for God’s sake! You will not. I forbid it.”
Angel’s face was mutinous.
Lucian would not tolerate such insubordination. He was so angry he scarcely knew what he was saying. “If you invite him here, he shall be turned away at the door. And so help me God, I will banish you to Ardmore. And you will remain there until you learn to be a dutiful wife.”
She paled at that threat, but she did not give up. “My duty is to do what is best for my husband, and that is what I am trying to do.”
“You dare to tell me that you know what is best for me?”
“Please, Lucian, only listen to your father’s reason for acting as he did.”
“What was his reason?”
“He would not tell me. He said it is for your ears alone.”
“He would not tell you because he knows full well that nothing can justify what he did to me.” Lucian’s voice was hoarse with the bitterness that had eaten at his soul all these years.
“At least hear what he has to say. That is all I ask of you. Are you not even curious to learn his reason?”
“No!” But that was a lie. Lucian wanted very much to know, but not if it meant crawling back to the man who had so cruelly rejected him. He would never give Wrexham another opportunity to inflict such searing pain on him. “I will not see him. I never want to see him again.”
“But you do! If only you would look in your heart, you would see it is what you want.”
His silver eyes were as cold as the ocean in winter. “You presume to tell me what I want?”
“You are your father’s son,” Angel said wearily.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You are so unbelievably stubborn. Your father said that he was a stubborn fool, but at
least he has the grace to admit it.”
He snapped at her, “Your graceless husband has had enough of this conversation.”
Lucian stalked out of the library and out of the house.
He did not return the rest of the day. Angel, mindful that before their quarrel they had agreed to spend tonight at home alone, dressed in a gown that she knew was one of Lucian’s favourites, and waited for him to come home.
She twice set the hour for supper back, to the consternation of the chef, and in the end she ate it alone at 9:00 p.m. in the dining room, which seemed cold and empty without her husband’s presence.
At 1:00 a.m. Angel gave up her lonely vigil and went to bed. She lay awake for a long time after that wondering where Lucian was. Finally she heard his unsteady tread in the hall. She held her breath as it approached her door. He did not pause as he passed it, but continued on to his own room.
It was the first night since his return from Ireland that he had not slept with her.
The next day he was cold and distant toward her. When lie was forced to address her, it was with freezing politeness. He made it very clear that he had not forgiven her or having called on his father.
At dinner he rebuffed her efforts to converse. By the time the strained, silent meal ended, Angel’s stomach was churning, but she resolutely brought up the subject that lay like a wall between them. She refused to be cowed because his future happiness—and hers—was at stake. Angel was convinced that unless he could understand why his father had rejected him and forgive him for it, he would never trust anyone, including her, with his love again.
“Please, Lucian, talk to your father. At least, find out why he did what he did.”
He gave her a look that would have frozen fire. “You are not to broach that subject again—ever.”
“Don’t you want to find out the truth?”
His jaw was rigid. “Not if it requires me to go crawling to Wrexham,”
“You will not be doing that. He invited you to come. He will come here if you want. He has tried to see you and been turned away.”
“I will not see him.”
You are impossible!” Angel cried in frustration.
Lucian shoved his chair back from the table and stood up. “And you are a grave disappointment as a wife!” He threw his napkin down on the table and stalked out.
After that, Angel treated him as coldly as he did her. Two could play this game as well as one. She could not bow to him now. She must convince him to talk to his father. It was the only way that he could free himself from the past.
Rather than subject herself again to the stress and indigestion her last meal with Lucian had caused her, she avoided the dining room and had her meals brought to her room.
The escalating tension between them affected the entire household. Angel had won the servants’ hearts, and they left no doubt whose side they took in this quarrel. Lucian’s morning toast was burned, his other food undercooked, and his bathwater tepid. He grew so short-tempered that even David Inge remarked to Angel on it.
At night, the lord and lady of the house went their separate ways. Angel rarely saw him at the social affairs she attended. Roger Peck, however, was never far from her side. Since her set-down of him, he had not once paid her false compliments. Instead he talked to her about himself with a candour and openness that dissolved her earlier dislike of him. He had told her admiringly, “You are the only woman I have ever known that I can talk to honestly, without pretence.”
If only her husband could do the same.
Lucian paced the floor of the drawing room, looking at the bracket clock every second minute. It was nearly 3:00 a.m., and Angel was still not home. He was as anxious and nervous as a father waiting up for a truant daughter.
He had seen her from afar earlier that night at the Duchess of Carlyle’s. She had been in a quiet corner, deep in conversation with Roger Peck, who was always at her side.
Suddenly she burst out laughing at something Peck said. As her eyes sparkled up at her companion, Lucian had fell jealousy curling within him like a poisonous snake.
And what rankled him even more was how much she seemed to enjoy the damned rake’s company.
Lucian looked again at the bracket clock. Where in the hell was Angel? Was Roger Peck the reason she was so late? The thought made him murderous.
She might not be the obedient, acquiescent wife he demanded but, God’s oath, he wanted her. He was sick of the icy wall that had been between them for four damned days now.
True, he had started it. He had wanted her to know how angry and displeased he was at her for having gone to his father after he had expressly forbidden her to do so. He had meant to show her that he would not tolerate such insubordination in a wife.
Except she had turned his weapon back on him. He missed her: missed her bright face and beautiful smile across the dining table from him, missed her astute observations that made him laugh, missed her soft delectable body entwined with his in bed.
The servants had all sided with her in this quarrel. By now he felt like an unwelcome intruder in his own home.
When at last Lucian heard Angel arriving home a few minutes past three, he pulled his frayed nerves together and schooled his face in a bland mask.
Not for anything would he let her guess that he had been concerned nor that he had cared in the least where she had been.
He politely helped her off with her satin cloak and was presented with a splendidly arousing view of her breasts in the low cut blue gown he had objected to at the Marlboroughs’ party. His control snapped. “Where the hell have you been?”
Her chin tilted stubbornly. “Would you care, my lord?”
“Aye, damn it, I would.”
“Why?”
“You are my wife, and my responsibility. It is my duty to protect you. God’s oath, you do not make it easy for me o do so.”
“Perhaps you take your duty too seriously, my lord.”
Was she mocking him? He cast her a sharp suspicious look, but she had already turned away and was heading for the staircase. “If you will excuse me, my lord, I am very tired.”
He fell into step beside her. It was the first time he had walked with her to her bedchamber since their quarrel over her visit to Wrexham. “You have not answered my question, Angel. Where were you?”
“At the Duke and Duchess of Carlyle’s party with Selina. On our way home, the axle cracked on her coach. Do not look so alarmed, my lord. We were never in any danger. Lord Brompton insists armed grooms accompany her wherever she goes at night.”
They had reached the door to Angel’s room. He held his breath, hoping that she would issue her customary invitation to join him. He was aching to make love to her.
“Good night, my lord,” she said as she opened her door. He concealed his disappointment behind a hard glare. He would never let her know how much he wanted her. “My name is Lucian,” he growled. “I want to hear you say it.” He was behaving like an autocratic prick, but he could not help himself.
“Good night, my lord Lucian.”
He had no choice but to continue down the hall. As he opened his own door, she called softly, “Lucian.”
He turned toward her, hoping against hope that she was about to relent and issue a belated invitation to join her.
“Please, talk to your father.” There was a pleading note in her voice. “You yearned for fourteen years to force him to admit that he misjudged you. Now he has done so, yet you refuse to have anything to do with him. At least listen to his reason for rejecting you. It is all I ask. If after hearing him you cannot forgive him, so be it.”
With that she stepped into her chamber and closed the door.
Would she never give up? Lucian would be damned if he would call on his father. Much as he wanted to know what reason Wrexham could have had for what he had done to him, he would not go to his father. The old man thought that after all these years he had only to snap his fingers and his son whom he had so cruelly and cavalierl
y rejected would come running to him.
Lucian remembered all the times as a boy that he had tried to win his father’s attention and approval and had been denied it.
He had driven himself mercilessly to be the best at everything he tried in the vain hope that his father would notice him. Lucian had been the finest swordsman, the most accurate shot, the most accomplished rider. He’d excelled at mathematics and natural philosophy, and had even mastered subjects like Greek and rhetoric that held no interest for him. All to impress his father. But it had been wasted effort. His father had ignored him. He had cared only for Fritz.
What the hell did Wrexham’s reason for hating his younger son matter now anyhow. Nothing on earth could justify what his father had done to him.
But as Lucian lay in his lonely bed, aching for his wife in his arms, Angel’s soft plea echoed in his mind. He wished he could fathom why it was so important to her.
His wife had grown increasingly precious to him. He had told himself—and told her—it was because he had given her his name, and she was his responsibility, but he at last conceded that he was fooling himself. She was far more dear to him than he had been willing to admit.
He would do damn near anything to be back in her bed and her good graces—except see his father.
Chapter 26
Two days later, the elderly butler answering Lord Wrexham’s door inquired, “Whom shall I say is calling?”
“Lord Vayle,” Lucian said curtly. He did not recognize the butler, but then he had never been familiar with the servants at his father’s London house.
The butler’s jaw dropped, then, recovering himself, he hastened to welcome Lucian into the house so effusively that it was the visitor’s turn to be astonished. Despite what Angel had told Lucian, he had half expected to have his father’s door slammed in his face.
As the retainer left Lucian in the drawing room, he assured him that Lord Wrexham would be with him momentarily.
The warmth of the butler’s welcome notwithstanding, it still galled Lucian to come to his father’s house like this. He had been determined never to do so, but it seemed to be the only way to win his wife back to his bed.
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