He hadn’t been all that close to his father but a kinship had existed between them. Although not much about the earl’s life had ever been altogether appealing, James had quite resigned himself to a life very much like his father’s.
At one time, his mother had been happy, smiling, and passionate about life—just like Missy—but that had been when he was a child. He couldn’t recall exactly when it had changed, but change it had.
He now took in his mother’s remote visage and wondered again what a marriage to the woman she’d become would be like. An involuntary shiver caught him. It might be enough for a man to wish for the tranquility of death or at the very least, to forever lose himself in the arms of other women. And his father had had women. Many women. What else was he to do with a cold fish of a wife?
James rose to his feet. “It has been a long day.” And my father has just died. But he didn’t utter the latter aloud. Instead, he gave his mother a rather pointed look.
“Italy was beautiful,” she said, gazing out the bowed window overlooking the front lawn.
James sighed. “Good night, Mother.”
Inclining her head in a dismissive fashion, and with her eyes devoid of emotion, she brought the teacup to her lips again and continued to sip her tea.
The viscountess had canceled the remaining festivities of the weekend rout once James had informed her of his father’s death. The partygoers had been most understanding given the circumstances, many of them having known the man personally. In a wave, they had vacated the estate during the course of that day, and the following morning Missy and the viscountess set out for Rutherford Manor.
The slender and efficient-looking butler who admitted them entrance to the grand stone structure heralded their arrival.
Missy had little time to take in the luxurious surroundings of richly colored silken walls, large silver-framed oils and plush carpeting before her gaze was caught and held by James’s pale blue-eyed stare.
He stood just outside the drawing room, their arrival drawing his attention. He straightened, and it was only then that Missy noticed Alex and Thomas flanking his sides. He started toward her, his regard never wavering. Missy felt her insides tighten in apprehension and, even while she reminded herself that she was here for his father’s funeral, she could not stop the twinge of excitement she experienced at the sight of him. He should have looked entirely too sober in his black mourning wear and the black armband wrapped around his right arm. But if anything, he looked devastatingly handsome.
Her mother was so busy ensuring the footman retrieved every piece of baggage from the carriage, she didn’t notice the men until they were almost upon them.
James broke eye contact to greet the viscountess. Missy stood quietly while they exchanged tender hugs of condolences. When he moved to her, Missy could scarcely think. He gazed down at her with such potency she felt her stomach take a careening drop.
He bent down and, propriety be damned, brushed a feather soft kiss across her warm cheek. “Thank you for coming,” he said in a thick voice.
Aware they held an audience that included her mother and brother, Missy murmured a brief, “I’m terribly sorry about your father.” She immediately dropped her gaze, the pull of attraction too intense for public scrutiny.
He took a step back and his hands dropped to his sides. He offered her an oddly tentative and intimate smile. “We will speak after the funeral,” he said, only loud enough for her ears.
Peering up at him, Missy could only nod her reply. Moments later, she and her mother followed the footman who bore their luggage to their guest chambers.
The late Theodore Rutherford was buried on a family plot some distance from the main house beside his parents, the former Earl and Countess of Windmere. The funeral was a somber affair with many of the most influential of the ton attending as well as the local gentry and the men and women who worked the Rutherford land.
While the mourners gathered in the drawing room for food and discussion, James escorted his mother for the reading of the will.
The solicitor, Mr. Clarence Henry, was a pudgy little man. When he walked into the library, he seemed to have to fight for every labored breath. He held a valise, which couldn’t be considered small, but certainly didn’t look weighty enough to explain the kind of exertion he exhibited in hefting it onto the desk.
The Countess of Windmere sat regally in the blue-ballooned chair, and James was relieved to see she was appropriately dressed in black widow’s weeds. He sat in the adjacent armchair while a puffy, red-eyed Mrs. Talbot, their housekeeper of some twenty-odd years, and a stoic Reeves sat on a couch nearby.
Mr. Henry held court in front behind a massive cherry escritoire in a chair that left him quite dwarfed by its dimensions. He shuffled through a stack of papers for a moment, clearing his throat all the while.
Finally, he looked up at the four other occupants and gave one last prolonged clearing of his throat. When he began to speak, James felt his mind began to drift. He heard the drone of the man’s voice as he informed them of the bequest to Mrs. Talbot and Reeves for their years of faithful service in the amount of five hundred pounds a year to each for the rest of their lives. Both servants gasped, and James noted the tears flooding the housekeeper’s eyes and then amazingly, Reeves’s. But then, five hundred pounds was very generous, indeed.
As his heir, there was little else in the contents of the will that surprised him. Christopher, who had arrived home the prior day from Eton, was subdued and taking his repast in his bedchamber. Their father had left him the grand sum of twenty-five hundred pounds a year, which would be held in estate for him until the age of twenty-one. He would then receive the lump sum and then the same amount every year thereafter.
With the countess, his father had been most generous. He willed her an estate in Derbyshire and thirty-five hundred pounds a year for the remainder of her life. A glance at his mother revealed little reaction to his bequest. After all she’d put his father through with her coldness and her severity, she had the temerity to appear not the least bit grateful. He’d seen men with more wealth than his father’s leave their widows with far less. James turned his attention from his mother.
“Mrs. Talbot and Mr. Reeves, I believe that will be all. The remainder of the will is strictly familial matters,” Mr. Henry said, his small eyes peering over the rim of his wire-framed glasses.
With that, Reeves and Mrs. Talbot gave a deferential nod and a curtsey, respectively, Mrs. Talbot, with a handkerchief clutched tightly to her generous bosom, and quietly departed.
At the loud click of the door closing, Mr. Henry directed his attention to James and continued. It was this last part of the reading of the will that caught and held his attention wholly and completely.
“And for my two daughters, Catherine and Charlotte Langston, I bequest one thousand pounds a year for the rest of their lives. My son, James Rutherford will be the administrator of their fund until they reach the age of twenty-five. If they marry before that time, the lump sum of ten thousand pounds will be the amount of their dowry…”
James’s mind stopped functioning at that point. He vaguely heard some mention of a boarding school and fees and upkeep, but that was it. He turned abruptly in his chair toward his mother. She regarded him, her visage impassive, but her hands betrayed her emotions, lying white and clenched tightly on her lap. His gaze darted back to the solicitor, whom at this point had stopped speaking and surveyed him uneasily.
“Daughters? My father has two daughters?”
Mr. Henry lowered his gaze to the desk before meeting his own again. He nodded slowly. Then he sighed. “I told your father to apprise you of the fact in the event that you would need to administer their trust but he wouldn’t hear of it.”
James shook his head as if to clear cobwebs from his brain. Nothing of this made sense. “How old are they?”
“Fifteen.”
“Both?” he asked, still trying to comprehend what it was he was hearing.
/> “They are identical twins.”
James collapsed back into his seat. He had identical twin sisters who were close in age to Christopher. Which meant of course—
He swung toward his mother. “You knew,” he stated. She had to have known. She didn’t appear shocked by the news, and it would explain so much.
Her slender hands unclenched and she regarded him, her countenance blank of all emotion. “Yes, I’ve known since Christopher was a baby. When I was in confinement, your father took up with a trollop in Lord Townsend’s residence.”
Mr. Henry cleared his throat rather loudly in protest. “She was the daughter of Lord Townsend himself.”
“You mean bastard daughter,” his mother said with venom in her voice.
James’s brow shot up. “I find it difficult to believe my father would dally with the daughter of an earl, illegitimate or otherwise.”
“She wasn’t just his by blow,” the countess intervened, “she was little more than a servant in his house.” She spat the latter in disgust.
James shot a glance at Mr. Henry and his tentative nod confirmed what his mother had just said was true.
“Their mother died thirteen years ago of consumption and, as I said, they have been residing at the Our Lady of Fatima School for Young Ladies since the age of five. Your father has been paying for their living expenses since their birth as Lord Townsend cast his daughter from his estate when he discovered she was enceinte. Your father was an extremely generous man,” Mr. Henry said, a smile of admiration transforming his plain features.
“Your father was a philanderer of the worst sort. He has visited shame upon me since the day he took me as his bride,” the countess said, her tone biting and laced with bitterness.
Unwilling to become embroiled in an argument regarding his father in front of the family solicitor, James rose unsteadily to his feet.
“If that is everything, Mr. Henry, I believe I can take the matter from here.”
Mr. Henry’s gaze darted between mother and son, before he stood and began collecting his documents and thrusting them into his valise. “I will leave you with a copy of the will. All of the information regarding your sisters’ care is there. I will be available if you require my assistance.”
James walked Mr. Henry to the library door and shook his hand briskly. “Thank you, I will do so,” he said. With a murmured farewell, Mr. Henry took his leave.
James didn’t return to his seat, instead propped himself on the edge of the desk. He stared down at his mother and, for all her hauteur, tears welled in her eyes. In that instant, his heart softened.
“Did you love him?” he asked.
She looked up at him as if startled by the question. After a moment, she nodded and closed her eyes, a tear squeezing out, managing its way down a pallid cheek.
“I loved him once,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “I believed when we married he’d stop all his philandering but I found out soon after the honeymoon that he once again had taken up with his mistress in Town. For years I tried to ignore his behavior and be the perfect wife but when I learned of the twins—” Her voice broke and she swallowed. “After I discovered, I could not do it anymore. He now had children who would forever be evidence of his infidelities. Children of a woman so beneath—”
“Tread carefully, Mother. I know you have been hurt, but they are still my sisters and I intend to treat them as such.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
“I’m saying I intend to see them. I’m going to see where and how they are living.”
The countess’s mouth opened but no words emerged.
Once she’d recovered from the shock of his announcement, she asked, “You cannot be serious?” Her tone was a mixture of affront and disbelief.
“I am.”
“You would betray me like that? When people discover, I will be the laughingstock of the ton.”
“Hardly, Mother, these things occur all the time. If anyone discovered the girls’ existence, you would more than likely get their heartiest sympathies. If anyone, it will be Father they will castigate beneath their breaths and in their thoughts and, as he is not here, it will be of little matter.”
“But why would you want to associate yourself with them? They do not know you. You do not know them.”
“Because they are my family. It would behoove me to at least meet my own sisters,” he stated quite simply.
His mother rose proudly from her chair and after sending him a condemning look, swept from the room.
Missy could say she’d left the confines of Rutherford Manor because she wished for the fresh air of the uncommonly cool August afternoon, but she knew she would only be lying to herself. She’d come in search of James. After nearly an hour of sipping sweet tea and nibbling on pastries while making light conversation with fellow mourners, she’d yet to see him again since the service. He had said after the funeral they would talk. Talk about what? Their future together? A real marriage? Well then, where was he? Her stomach churned in anticipation.
She waited amidst the fading beauty of the lush gardens, the scent of the coming season infusing the air. After another ten minutes passed without not so much as a glimpse of the new Earl of Windmere, Missy thought it best to resume her search indoors. Turning to make her way up the flagstones leading back to the house, she nearly started when she saw the countess standing several feet away.
The paleness of the woman’s visage against the cloying black of her mourning dress gave her the appearance of a ghost. As she’d already offered the widow her sympathies at the funeral services, Missy could not think of what else to say.
“I beg your pardon, Lady Windmere. I didn’t mean to disturb you. And once again, I am truly sorry for your loss.” Condolences always bore repeating.
The widow acknowledged her with a slight inclination of her head. Having no desire to infringe on what had to be a most unbearable grief, Missy dipped in a small curtsey before stepping to the side to beat a hasty retreat back to the house.
“You are in love with my son.” The statement chilled the air, as emotionless as the expression on the woman’s face.
Halting just abreast of her, Missy’s head snapped to the side to regard the dowager’s elegant profile.
Lady Windmere met her gaze with a languid turn of her head. “My dear, one thing I am not is a fool. At least not any longer. I saw the way you watched him during the service.” A smile infused with warmth enough to form ice lifted the corners of her mouth. “I hope you hadn’t intended it to be a secret. And I saw the way he watched you in return. He is like his father in that respect. Quite obvious if one knows what to look for.”
Feeling like livestock on the auction block, Missy endured the countess’s scrutiny, which commenced at the top of her upswept mane, and ended at the black satin trim of her dress. “And, like his father, he is not a man who can keep his attentions exclusively to one woman. You will indeed be fortunate if he manages the honeymoon without mishap.”
Missy swallowed. Her words rang painfully true. James had practically blanched at the notion of fidelity. Apparently, his mother knew his feelings on the matter just as well.
“I hope you are prepared for the children. My son has informed me today that he intends to acknowledge them.” She laughed, something shrill, bordering on hysteria. “Perhaps he will decide to raise them himself. Or, worse yet, eventually introduce them into Society as if they were women of quality. My equal. Again, like his father, he is determined to bring shame upon the Windmere name. Upon me.”
Missy took an involuntary step back, the revelation landing with the impact of a physical blow to the chest—the heart. A sharp inhalation of breath caused a dizzying rush of blood to her head.
“James has children?” The question was wrung from her throat hoarse and choked.
In that instant, she saw fury banked in the countess’s eyes. “Girls. And twins at that. I see he has yet to inform you of the blessed event. As I told you, h
e grows more and more like his father each passing day. And you,” she ran another jaundiced eye down the length of Missy’s frozen form, “look hardly equipped to raise children that are not your own.”
Missy could scarcely breathe much less speak. It had taken several seconds for the realization to sink in that Lady Windmere wasn’t speaking of Lady Victoria. That perhaps she was still under the erroneous conception that Lady Victoria’s unborn child was his. But the children she spoke of were already born. Two girls. Daughters.
Hadn’t it been only days ago when he’d made love to her and told her he’d marry her come high floods or a swarm of locusts? All of that and he’d never breathed a word of their existence. It hardly seemed possible.
“But—are you quite certain? What I—I mean is—” Missy halted to gain control of her tongue. Her shattered composure.
“I assure you, my dear, this is not something I would ever dare to presuppose, nor anything I welcome, as you can well imagine.”
Missy cast a bewildered, sightless look around. She needed to leave, desired it with an unwavering intensity. She must remove herself from the Countess of Windmere’s noxious presence. Quit Rutherford Manor. Quit James.
“I—I believe I must be—be getting back inside,” Missy said, her voice but a cracked whisper. She struggled to compose her features into a semblance of normalcy, one that didn’t reveal the true depth of her pain. The finality of the death of a dream unrealized. Treating the countess to a vague nod, she hastened up the cold flagstones.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The remainder of the day dragged by in a haze. James made a brief appearance at supper that evening. He stared at her frequently but hadn’t approached. She hadn’t seen him since. Not that she hoped to see him. Every bit of warmth she’d felt upon learning of his father’s death had perished under his mother’s searing words. She knew she shouldn’t feel betrayed, but she did.
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