He wondered how long his father would keep him cooling his heels before he deigned to see him: fifteen minutes, a half hour. What glee Wrexham must be in now, knowing that he was keeping his son waiting downstairs.
As Lucian looked around the drawing room, he was astonished to see that his own childhood portrait was hanging there with his mother’s and brother’s. He remembered when it had been painted. It had been such torment for an energetic nine-year-old to sit for it. He had wanted to be outside riding his new pony.
Lucian, contemptuously certain that his father must have had the portrait hung after Angel’s visit, lifted the heavy frame to check the condition of the wall behind it. The brightness of the green flocked wallpaper told him that the painting had been hanging in this spot for years.
As he stepped away from it, Wrexham hurried into the room. It was the first time in fourteen years that Lucian had seen him. He was shocked by the changes that time had wrought in his father and by the sudden rush of emotion that suddenly assailed him.
Wrexham had not taken the time to don his wig, and his once thick, sandy brown hair was white and sparse. He was thinner, too, not nearly so robust, and perhaps even a little shorter than Lucian remembered him, scarcely coming up to his son’s jaw. Pain had etched deep lines in his round face.
But now, at the sight of Lucian, he broke into a smile of such joy that the son was momentarily speechless. Wrexham would have embraced Lucian had he not stepped back with a frown that brought the older man up short. His smile dimmed.
“Please, be seated,” Wrexham urged. He waited politely until Lucian sat down on a settee covered in green brocade, then he chose a carved oak chair opposite him, pulling it closer to his visitor.
There was a moment of awkward silence until Lucian said dryly, “The prodigal son returns.”
“No, the worthy son returns to the prodigal father,” Wrexham corrected in a broken voice. “The wrong I did you borders on the unforgivable, but I pray that you are a bigger man than I was and can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
“I am not that big a man.”
To Lucian’s shock, tears glistened in the viscount’s faded blue eyes. He had never seen his father cry before, and the sight brought a fierce pain to his own heart.
“I caused you enormous misery, my son, but know that I caused myself even greater agony for the wrong I did you.”
My son. Lucian could not remember hearing his father call him that before. Fritz had always been “son,” spoken with love and patience. Lucian had been “you,” spoken with an edge of undisguised dislike.
Lucian could not keep the acid from his voice. “Why should disowning me have bothered you? After all, you had ‘the best reason in the world for doing so’, did you not?”
His father flinched at having his long-ago words sarcastically recalled to him. “I thought I did at the time, but I was wrong. Oh, God, how wrong I was!”
It was a cry of grief wrenched from a tormented soul, and Lucian was moved, despite himself, by the despair and self-loathing it revealed.
“You cannot know how bitterly I have regretted that day nor how often I have cursed myself for it. When I learned I was wrong, I wrote you time and again, begging your forgiveness. I offered you anything that was within my power to give you—a colonel’s commission, an estate of your own, anything—to try to atone for what I had done, but the letters were all returned to me unopened. I continued to write you when you were in Holland, but I heard nothing.”
Lucian had no intention of letting his father bribe his way back into his affections. “I burned those letters, unopened,” he said coldly.
“I feared that,” Wrexham said with a sigh.
“Furthermore, I had—and have—no interest in anything you can give me.”
“I know that, too. You have done astonishing well for yourself, my son. I am very proud of you.”
“I am very proud of you.” An involuntary thrill coursed through Lucian. Those were the words that he had once desperately yearned to hear, that he had worked unstintingly to earn in his boyhood. Now, all these years later, he was hearing them when they no longer meant anything to him.
But if that were true, why was he so pleased by them. Lucian could feel a tug at the walls he had built around his heart. Then he remembered the agony of having his love rejected. This man before him had hurt him as no other person ever had. The memory strengthened his resolve against his father. “I have no interest in anything you could say to me—except what ‘the best reason in the world’ was.”
Wrexham nodded. “I will tell you, but first I must clear up a misconception. Your wife tells me that you thought Fritz was always my favourite son. That was not true. You were my favourite.”
Lucian did not for a moment believe him, and he observed dryly, “You had a peculiar way of showing it.”
“I was trying not to show it at all! Fritz was slower, not nearly so quick or bright or talented as you were. He was never your match in anything. You were something else. So brave and smart. There was nothing you could not do well. I was so damned proud of you. When you were small, I could not help wishing that you had been my firstborn. You were far more fit to inherit my title and responsibilities. I felt so guilty about feeling that way that I tried to make it up to Fritz by spending more time with him.” Wrexham sighed wearily. “And your brother needed more help, so much more.”
Lucian was dumbfounded by this explanation of his father’s attention to Fritz. He thought of all his boyhood efforts to secure his father’s approval, and his acute distress at failing. But he had not failed. The realization was bitter as bile to him. If only he had known.
But it was too late now. Too late by a score of years. He said icily, “I am still waiting to hear ‘the best reason in the world.’”
His father nodded. “You know that I adored your mother.”
That had been clear to anyone who had ever seen them together. And her love for him had equalled his for her. “Aye,” Lucian said impatiently, “but I fail to see what that has to do with me.”
“Everything. You see I was excessively jealous of her.” Lucian frowned. “Are you saying you were jealous of her love for me?”
“No. Dear God, I am making a mull of this.”
“You are,” Lucian snapped. “She gave you no reason to be jealous of her. She would never have cuckolded you.”
“You are right on both counts, my son, but when she was young, I fear I had not so much faith in her. About a year before you were born, one of our neighbours, Geoffrey Ames, Lord Chelms’s second son and as handsome and strapping a devil as there ever was, began lavishing his attention on your mother. She did not reciprocate his interest, but I was too jealous to discern that.”
“I do not recall a neighbour named Ames.”
“No, he emigrated to the American colonies seven months before you were born.”
Lucian’s face hardened. “I gather that timing bears on your story.”
“Aye, I tried very hard to believe that your mother had been as faithful to me as she professed to be, but it was hard. It became harder as the son conceived during that period—my black-haired, silver-eyed son so unlike anyone else in a family of short, compact, blue-eyed blonds— grew older. Not only did you not resemble your mother or me or any of my relatives, but you were so much larger than anyone else in the family. My doubts grew apace with you.’,
“Do I look like Ames?” Lucian asked, his voice suddenly hoarse. He himself had often noted how different he looked from the rest of his family.
“Very much in colouring and build. Not in the face, although his’ eyes were gray. They were not, however, the unique silver shade of yours.”
“So that is why you said I was unworthy. You did not believe I was your son.” Despite his lack of resemblance to the rest of his family, nothing would ever make Lucian believe that his gentle, loving mother had been unfaithful to his father.
“God forgive me, that is what I thought. The suspicion
was particularly devastating to me because you were so much brighter and more promising than Fritz, who I had no doubt was my own flesh and blood.”
“Do you still doubt that I am?”
“No.” Wrexham stared with wistful eyes at the portrait of his late wife. “Your mama swore to me repeatedly that you were my son, that she had never been unfaithful to me, and that you looked just like her black-sheep brother, the one who had been shipped off to India before I met her. But, God forgive me, I could not believe her.”
His voice broke, and it was a moment before he could continue. “Every time I looked at your face that last year or two, I saw Ames in it and I saw myself the cuckold. I would have sent you away earlier, but your mama insisted that she would go, too. And she meant it. It was the only time in our marriage that she defied me. I loved her too much to lose her, and so I let you stay.”
“At least until she died.” At last, Lucian knew why his father had acted as he had, but it made him feel no better. He gave Wrexham an inquiring look. “Why do you believe my mother now when you would not before she died?”
His father’s blue eyes, tears glistening in them, met his son’s hard silver gaze. “Five years after she died and I sent you away, her brother returned from India. When I first saw him, I thought for a moment that it was you, prematurely aged. Your mama was right. You are the image of him in size, colouring, and face. Even the silver eyes.” His voice faltered. “I was overjoyed to know the truth, and sick with horror and disgust for what I had done to you. I have prayed every day of my life since then for your forgiveness.”
“It is my mother’s forgiveness you should be praying for,” Lucian snapped, standing up abruptly, ready to take his leave. He was outraged that his father could have suspected his gentle, faithful mother of cuckolding him. “She loved you so. How could you think she would ever be unfaithful to you?”
“Jealousy makes you blind to the truth that is so obvious to others,” his father said sadly.
“Not that blind! No man could be that blind.” Wrexham looked as though he wanted to say something in his own defence, even opened his mouth, then shut it resolutely.
Lucian said bitterly, “Even if I could forgive you for what you did to me, I cannot forgive you for thinking that of my mother. Good day, Lord Wrexham.”
Angel had just left her bedchamber to go downstairs when her husband come home. To her surprise, she heard him ask Reeves, “Where is Lady Vayle?” She had thought her whereabouts of absolutely no interest to him.
“In her bedchamber.”
Angel, hearing him bound up the stairs two at a time, stepped hastily back into her room. Lucian was at her door before she had time to close it. He stepped into her room and shut the door behind him.
He had dressed for wherever he had gone in one of his handsomest suits, a rich burgundy velvet trimmed with gold buttons and braid, that accentuated his dark good looks and the silver of his eyes.
Lucian acted as though nothing had been amiss between them the past week, giving her that devilish grin, which she found irresistible. He looked so achingly handsome that her body grew hot and moist in its yearning for his. She clenched her jaw against the temptation. Until he agreed to see his father, she could not weaken. She forced herself to ask coolly, “My lord?”
“You have won, my lady,” he said quietly. “I have been to see Wrexham.”
Surprised and overjoyed as Angel was to hear that, she was appalled that he would view the visit as a victory for her. The victory was his if the knowledge he had gained would free him to trust and love again.
“I hope it is you who have won, Lucian. Did you learn his reason for disowning you?”
“Aye.”
“What was it?”
“Wrexham was right. It is for my ears alone.”
Angel’s heart dropped. “Why won’t you tell me?” she cried in frustration. “Why must you always shut me out like this?”
He looked genuinely surprised. “I am not shutting you out, but the truth is he had no valid reason at all for disowning me.” Lucian’s face twisted in anger. “What he thought was so disgusting that I will not repeat it to anyone, even you.”
“Will you forgive him?” Unless Lucian could do that, Angel feared that his heart would remain frozen.
“Never! He made his decision fourteen years ago that I was no longer his son, and I intend to live by it.”
“But he is suffering, Lucian,” she pleaded.
“I suffered, too, Angel. Have you any idea how painful it is to have the father whose love and approval you craved tell you, for no valid reason, that you are unworthy of being his son and he will have nothing more to do with you.”
“I am sorry, Lucian.” Angel instinctively reached out to him, wanting to offer him comfort. Her heart ached for both men. But unless one or the other of them would tell her the reason for father rejecting son, there was nothing more that she could do.
Lucian squeezed her hands tightly, then released them as his mouth came down on hers in a kiss that left her quite unable to think of anything else, including that his fingers were busily undoing the lacings of her gown.
It was not until he slid the fabric of her gown and chemise from her shoulders and they fell about her waist that she realized what he was about. She tried to break the kiss, but he would not let her. His hand, its fingers splayed behind her head, gently but firmly held her so that her mouth could not escape his. His tongue grew bolder in its exploration.
His hand captured the weight of her breast, and his thumb began caressing the nipple with a seductive slowness that sent ripples of desire arching through her.
His lips suddenly deserted hers and moved down her throat with nibbling kisses. His mouth replaced his thumb on her taut nipple, teasing it with his teeth and tongue in a way that made her moan. His hands fumbled at her waist, and then her clothes lay in a heap at her feet.
Lucian lifted his mouth from her breast. He looked at her as though she were some delicious delicacy just served up for him. She was naked before him except for her pink and pink silk hose fastened above her knees with satin garters. She felt herself blushing and growing rosy all over beneath his intense scrutiny.
“You are beautiful, little one, and I cannot wait to have you.”
He swung her into his arms, lifting her out of the pool of her clothes, and carried her to the bed.
“But it is the middle of the day,” she protested as he pulled back the covers and laid her on the crisp, white sheet.
“I would not care if it were high noon on Judgment Day; I have been too long without you.”
He began shedding his own clothes with such urgency that a still-fastened button on his vest was torn off and rolled away across the floor.
He came down on the bed beside her, his mouth fastening on her breast as his hand moved lower to seek her moist hot depths, already aching for him.
“Good, you are ready for me,” he whispered in satisfaction, “and I cannot wait for you.” He lifted himself above her and they came together, moving in unison. She had missed him every bit as much as he professed to have missed her.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. His silver eyes were closed, his face mirrored the strain of delaying his own pleasure until she could scale the heights of passion with him. It was enough to make her convulse around him. He groaned, stiffened, and his essence flowed into her.
“Do you love me?” he whispered with hoarse urgency in her ear. “Tell me.”
She started to ask why it would matter to him when he did not believe in it, but sensing from his tone how desperately he needed this reassurance, she told him, “I love you, Lucian. I love you so very much.”
He let out a long explosive breath, as though he had been holding it a long time, and relaxed against her.
Angel held her own breath, wondering whether he would reciprocate. But he did not. She was terribly disappointed but consoled herself with the knowledge that she must be making inroads into his heart.
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He would not have gone to see his father if she were not.
Chapter 27
Lord Randolf Oldfield, another guest at the Duchess of Stratford’s garden party, strolled up to Angel in the rose arbour. “Are you looking for your shadow, my lady?”
Angel, wishing to be alone for a few minutes, had chosen the arbour because it was deserted and it partially shielded her from the other guests while offering an excellent view of the door that led from Stratford House into the garden.
She was watching the door in the hope her husband would appear. He had gone off this morning, as he had the two before it, on some mysterious business. He had refused to tell her what it was—he was still shutting her out—but he had said he thought he would be finished in time today to join her at the duchess’s party.
Angel had had such high hopes that if only she could get Lucian to meet with his father and learn the reason for his rejection, he might break free of the past and be able to give her his trust and affection.
But it had been a week since his visit to Wrexham and, although he wanted reassurances of her love for him, he did not reciprocate. Nor had he forgiven his father. He refused even to see him again.
Angel found herself trying to comfort Wrexham. Distraught as the older man was, he would not tell her the reason he had rejected Lucian either. How could she hope to bring the two men together when she did not know that?
She had begun to despair that she would ever be able to thaw her husband’s frozen heart. Angel wondered gloomily whether after years of ruthlessly stifling his softer emotions, they were dead beyond resurrection. It was becoming increasingly hurtful to her that her candid confessions of love for him were not reciprocated by so much as a declaration of modest affection.
Angel dragged her attention away from the door and focused on rotund Lord Oldfield. She did not like the man. He was a meddling, mean-tongued gossip.
“Looking for my shadow, my lord? I do not understand.”
Devil’s Angel Page 28