Alex questioned his friend with his eyes but stayed silent.
“That’s part of the reason I asked you to visit me. Roundstone Park is not entailed. I purchased it after inheriting the earldom from my father. In my will, it was grouped with all of the rest of my holdings and would fall to Quinton. Until today.
“I changed my will this afternoon. When I die, Roundstone will be yours.” Gil coughed again after his long speech, and Neil passed him a cup of tea. He took a few sips and waited for the spasm to pass. “Talk to Chatham again. Tell him you will soon inherit property. Maybe you can change his mind.”
“I am not so certain it will.” Neil’s sober countenance gave Alex pause. “Chatham doesn’t care about his daughter. Her welfare is not his primary concern. Frankly, if you offered to double Barrow’s offer I’m at a loss as to why he didn’t jump at your offer. Money seems to be his biggest problem, from what I’ve seen of him at White’s. And Barrow is certainly not the type of man anyone of taste would want an association with. Surely Grace’s father—well, I do hope he’s not in line with Barrow. That would not bode well for him, I daresay.”
“But I did propose to double the offer. I would give him more, even, if he would allow me to marry her and then leave us alone.”
Peter had remained silent for most of the conversation, until now. “Then Chatham has some other motive for wanting the alliance with Barrow.” Neil, Alex, and Rotheby turned to him. “I believe the rest of this conversation can wait. Mama will expect us for tea, and then we shall prepare for tonight’s ball. Neil, Mama requested that I remind you she expects your joyful attendance as well.” Neil stifled a groan. Peter sent a gentle smile in the direction of their ailing friend. “I believe she’ll excuse Lord Rotheby, under the circumstances.”
As Peter stood to leave, the others followed suit. Neil and the earl left first, with Neil making a jovial remark about feigning consumption, so Mama would leave him alone and not force him to dance all evening. Peter took hold of Alex’s arm, holding him back.
“Alex, are you certain you don’t love Lady Grace?” He smiled in companionship. “Your reaction to her father’s denial makes me curious.”
“I don’t know anymore.” Did he? Could he love Grace? He knew he wanted what was best for her, what she deserved. And he wanted to protect her. But was that enough for love? He just wasn’t certain.
However, he had a nagging suspicion he was deluding himself.
Peter took his time before he continued. “Tomorrow, you should visit Chatham again. Try to convince him to change his mind, based on the property you will inherit from Lord Rotheby. Perhaps if he sees that you can be a more worthwhile gentleman for him to be aligned with, he will. Allow me to join you. I know you wish to handle all of this on your own, but sometimes, it’s best to let our family assist us.”
“Peter—“
“Don’t ‘Peter’ me. Just allow me to accompany you. I ask no more. I won’t interfere, unless you request my interference.”
Alex frowned before nodding in assent. The Hardwickes stayed together. They always had, and he hoped they always would. If Peter or Neil or Richard were in the same position, he would insist on the same thing. And every single one of them would involve themselves if either of their sisters needed assistance. This didn’t make him any less a man.
“After tea, I have another piece of business I must see to, but I’ll be ready to join everyone for the ball.” Alex needed to see Priscilla and Harry. He had to talk to her, sooner rather than later.
Peter narrowed his eyes at him. “Very well. But don’t be late, or I’ll be forced to take action against you. You will not upset Mama, Alex.”
“I’ll be ready on time. No need to worry about that.”
Side-by-side, they joined the rest of the family for tea. He tried not to think of anything but the coming ball.
But in his mind, a woman with hair of midnight and a pair of ice-blue eyes danced with him. If only he could really dance with her again.
~ * ~
It wasn’t yet dark when he arrived at Priscilla’s house. Vivian ushered him in to the cozy downstairs parlor, where Pris was seated on a sofa beneath a quilt. Harry was nowhere to be found.
“Is he already in bed, then?” Alex moved to give her a brief kiss on the cheek. “I had hoped I’d be able to see him, if only for a moment.”
“It’s better this way. He would be so excited over seeing you, he wouldn’t be able to sleep. I didn’t know to expect you. How are you?” She slid over to make more room for him and patted the seat next to her.
“Not good.” Good God, how could he hash through all of this again?
“Tell me. Let it all out.” She slipped one hand behind his neck and kneaded away his tensions. Priscilla always knew just the right thing to do.
Once he started, the whole story flooded out of him. He lost track of the time as he told her of the woman he loved but couldn’t have—at least not yet.
“So what will you do? If her father won’t grant his permission, how will you take care of her?”
“I haven’t determined that yet. This would all be so much easier if she would agree, at the very least. But taking her out of the country against her will and forcing her to marry me doesn’t seem like the brightest idea. She wouldn’t take that well.” He raked through his hair and stared at nothing. “And even if I do marry her, what of you and Harry? I don’t imagine she would be terribly keen on the idea of setting up a house for you nearby in the country.”
“Your lady doesn’t know of us, then?” Priscilla stiffened, but continued to massage the soreness from his neck. “There’s no need to move us to the country. We can stay here. I believe we could even find someone else to care for us. You needn’t worry.”
“But I do worry. You know I care deeply for you, both of you. Harry—he looks to me as a father.” Alex shook off her hand and walked to the window. “I can’t leave you behind, and I can’t allow you to fend for yourselves.”
“You owe us nothing. Nothing.” Tears filled her eyes. “You’ve done more for us than anyone ever ought to have done, and what’s that gotten you in return? We’ll be fine. Like you said, your new wife wouldn’t take kindly to having us around, I’m certain. We could only cause problems for you in the country. There would be talk. You know there would be talk.”
He punched the wall next to the window. “Who cares about the deuced talk?”
“Lady Grace will care, that’s who. You should, as well, or you aren’t the man I thought you to be.” Priscilla picked her sewing up from the table next to her. She studiously worked at a stitch and ignored him.
“Devil take it,” he muttered under his breath.
“I heard that.” She peeked at him over her notions. “Don’t forget I’m a mother. We hear everything.”
“I apologize. But what would you have me do, Pris? It seems I can’t win. I can neither take you with me, nor leave you behind. So now what?”
“So now you go make this happen. Find a way to marry her. And let me worry about myself and Harry for once.”
“But—”
“But nothing. There’s no more to discuss here.” A determination like he had never before heard from her rang through in her tone.
Alex took a breath. He didn’t know how he should approach this next bit—or even whether he should at all. “There is one other thing—one more piece to this puzzle.” Christ, they hadn’t talked about him in years. He hated to bring back the hurt and pain this would cause, but she needed to know.
“Go on.”
He turned toward her to speak, but hesitated.
“I can handle it. Whatever it is, I can handle it. I’m not as fragile as you’ve always assumed me to be. I won’t break.”
If she had not broken through all she had been through, it must be the truth. He burst forth with it before he could stop himself again. She needed the truth as much as he needed to tell her. “It was Barrow.” Immediately, he wished he could take those t
hree words back.
Tears filled her eyes and ran, unimpeded, in rivulets down her cheeks. “And what will you do about it?” came so softly, he had to strain to hear her words.
“I want to rip the bastard’s head off with my bare hands. I don’t know what to do, Pris. But first you, and now Grace. The bastard should rot for this. He should pay.” The pain in his fist from punching the wall suddenly struck him, and he rubbed his knuckles with his other hand. “I’m sorry for using such language in front of you.”
Priscilla stood gingerly with the aid of the cane next to her and limped to his side. With her free hand, she touched his cheek and then placed a single, chaste kiss in the same place. “You cannot undo what he’s done. And you cannot bear the weight of all of his wrongs. Let it be. He’ll get his due.”
“How can I let it be? Chatham will force Grace to marry the lout.”
“Not if you have anything to say about it. There’s always hope, Alex.”
“Always?” He looked in her eyes, steadfast and unwavering, for comfort.
“Always.”
Chapter Eighteen
A knock sounded at the door to Alex’s chamber while Thomas worked to secure his neck cloth. He had donned all the proper evening finery, fussy though it may be. A top hat would finish the look. Or at least it would after Thomas finished his infernal fussing over the damned cravat.
“Come in,” he called and looked up to discover his mother. “Mama. You look lovely this evening.”
She wore a bold blue gown that accentuated the richness of her eyes. Her auburn hair, the color of which she had passed on to each of her children in varying degrees, had only just begun to show spots of grey about the temples. Henrietta Hardwicke, in Alex’s unduly biased opinion, was the epitome of grace, elegance, and love.
She somehow brightened even more at his compliment, then moved from the doorway to a seat on a nearby chaise. “Thomas, please finish with my son’s cravat and leave us. I promise you shall have more than enough time to fuss over his appearance when I’m done with him.”
Alex walked to kiss his mother on the cheek as his valet bustled from the room.
She patted a spot on the chaise next to her. “Sit down, Alex. I want to speak with you.” Though he couldn’t imagine the purpose of her visit, he complied—he wouldn’t dream of defying her to her face. “I was very disappointed in you when you left for Somerton at the beginning of the Season, you know—”
“Mama—”
She lifted a brow to stop him from interrupting. “Hold on a moment, dear heart. I said I was disappointed in you.” Taking his hand in one of her own, she looked at their interlocked fingers as she patted the back of his with her free hand. “You see, I had great plans for all of my children. Your father and I both did.”
His mother looked away for a moment as a single tear fell down her cheek. She brushed at it absentmindedly. “And when Donald died, I set all our plans for the lot of you aside. My grief overwhelmed me. It became larger in my mind than anything I could want for each of you.”
“Mama, we grieved Father too.” Blast. He didn’t know how to console his mother. For too many years, her tears were a constant companion. They had slowed a good deal recently, but it still broke his heart to see her cry.
“Goodness, of course you were all grieving. I’m making a cake of myself in trying to say this.” She took a breath and continued. “But this Season—this Season, I was going to resume working toward the plans your father and I had. I’ve quite neglected Sophia, I daresay—she’s virtually on the shelf. Charlotte is nearing her come-out. And you…well, it is well past the time you determine how you want to spend your days, you know. Time for sowing your wild oats is past. So when you left for Somerton, I felt you had defied me. Oh, Peter explained you were going to spend some time in the country and think about your life, and I know Lord Rotheby sent for you and you wanted to spend some time with him, so it had very little, if anything, to do with me.”
Alex bit his tongue to refrain from telling her just how much a part of his reason for leaving she had been.
“But I wanted to find you a bride. I thought if you had a lady by your side, you would settle down and be content. But that wasn’t your way.” Mama slowed her speech and gazed at him with sorrow. Then she reached a hand up to brush aside a stray lock of hair, much as she had done when he was a boy. “You always were one who needed to find your own way, weren’t you? But Peter convinced me to allow you your space and time to find what you want.” Her look turned serious as she faced him directly. “Have you found that? Is this Lady Grace Abernathy what will make you happy?”
She placed a single finger to his lips when he tried to answer. “Don’t answer that. Not yet. Alex, I want you to have a love match, like your father and I did. I know it isn’t how many amongst our class do thing, but that doesn’t make marrying for wealth or title or prestige right. When you marry, make it count. Make it last.” She gazed into his eyes with a determination that could only come from love. “Make it beautiful.”
Beautiful. Leave it to Mama to boil it all down to something as perfectly simple and infinitely complex as that.
Several more tears wetted her cheeks, which she ignored. He brushed them away and rested his palm against the side of his mother’s face.
“So do you? Do you love her? Please tell me you do, sweetheart, and I’ll promise to love her as my very own daughter.”
He desired to tell her that yes, he very much loved Grace and would make a marriage of it with her as she had done with his father. But he couldn’t tell her anything less than the truth.
But what was the blasted truth? He exhaled louder than he intended. “I don’t know if it’s love. I care for her deeply…there is a certain affection in which I hold her. I want to protect her. There’s even a possibility I could feel a bit of jealousy at times toward other men who might fancy her. She fascinates me—she’s beautiful and quiet and passionate—an artist. But love?”
He paused and thought long and hard before continuing. “I will do everything in my power to make what I feel for Grace become love. She deserves a marriage to a man who will love her in the same way Father loved you. I intend to give her that.” A few moments passed while his resolve deepened. “I’ll fight to give her that.”
His mother looked up at him, her eyes full of admiration. “I can see you will. Do what you need to do. You know we’ll all assist you if you need it. Though I daresay you would refuse it, wouldn’t you? You have become a ferociously independent man.” She rose to leave him, but stopped when she reached the door. “Your father would be quite proud of you.” And then she left him.
A sense of longing welled in his chest, a need to make her words come to fruition. Alex never realized before this moment how much he wanted to make his father proud, or his mother for that matter, or even Peter and the rest of his siblings, or Priscilla and Harry. He wanted desperately to be the man they all thought him to be.
But even greater than that, another need grew. The need for Grace to be proud of him.
What would that require? Lord only knew.
~ * ~
Three of the four Hardwicke brothers, dressed to the nines, huddled together in the Yardley Court ballroom. They watched the crowd of marriageable-aged misses and their mamas fill the room beneath three matching chandeliers and row upon row of wall sconces filled with candles. All the candlelight cast the ballroom aglow in their shimmering glory, amongst an entire garden’s worth of pots and hanging baskets bearing flowers that perfumed the entire space. An orchestra warmed their instruments in the balcony, sending a cacophony down to the cream of society.
Across the room from the Hardwicke men, Alex’s mother was playing chaperone to Sophie, who looked bored but still elegant in a soft pink silk gown with her chestnut hair twisted into complicated twirls atop her head and tangled with matching pink ribbons. Mama was motioning to him. The first set would begin in a moment, and he hadn’t yet fulfilled his role and selected
a partner. Nor, for that matter, had either of his brothers selected a partner.
“It appears we’re neglecting our duty,” Alex said to his brothers. He extinguished a grin that threatened to appear at Neil’s rolled eyes, hoping instead to achieve something in the line of a grimace or a scowl. For some reason, he doubted he had achieved the desired effect. “Off you go, youngster. Dance with a young miss and set her heart aflutter.”
Neil wandered off, muttering beneath his breath. Peter turned to Alex with a resigned smile. “Shall we dance with the Sutter daughters? Mama hinted she’d like me to align myself with Lady Margaret, and I’ve yet to do anything about it.”
“And just why have you been neglecting such a thing?”
Peter did manage a scowl, along with a perfected glare of condescension. “If you take her sister, I’ll dance with her. Then Mama will be satisfied. Go on—Lady Amelia awaits.”
“Is that a gentle nudge? Or a ducal order?”
Peter answered him with a sharp nudge to his rib cage.
“Oof. I see it was an order.” He absentmindedly rubbed a hand against the offended area as they moved across the dance floor to where the sisters stood with their mother, the Countess of Derby.
Peter executed a deeply elegant bow to the ladies, and Alex followed suit. “Ladies. I do hope you’re enjoying yourselves this evening.” When he straightened, he flashed a devilish smile that seemed to bring even the countess to her knees.
The three women curtsied to him and Lady Margaret spoke. “Thank you, Your Grace. Yes, it’s quite a pleasant evening. Yardley Court is rather charming, is it not?” She looked at him expectantly.
“Not nearly so charming as you, Lady Margaret. Tell me, have I come too late to request your hand for the first set?” Peter placed his arm out for her hand in a clear expectation that he had’t.
She gingerly placed her hand in the crook of his arm. “Why no, Your Grace. I should be honored to dance with you.” They moved off, leaving Alex with the younger Sutter sister and the countess.
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