Outshine (House of Oak Book 5)

by Nichole Van

  “Hah! We most certainly did see how you hold her!” Reverend Lovejoy retorted. “Has it not always been thus with the aristocracy?”

  “Lord Whitmoor should offer marriage to her. It is the honorable thing to do.” That was Will. His voice so reasonable and calm.

  Fossi’s heart nearly stopped at his words.

  Of course Will would see marriage as the correct option here. It was the honorable thing to do, when one was caught in a compromising situation with a genteel woman of marriageable age.

  “Marry her?!” Reverend Lovejoy whirled on his eldest son. “Why should I wish for any of my progeny to be connected with the worst of our degenerate aristocracy?”

  “Degenerate?” Lord Linwood sniffed.

  “Well, I grant that we can be quite boisterous on occasion,” Lord Stratton sighed, “but that hardly qualifies as true degeneracy. Again, I don’t think the good reverend gets out as much as he should.”

  Fossi’s heart sank.

  Oh that one could truly die of embarrassment.

  Daniel said nothing about the thought of marriage. He did not seize the idea nor dismiss it. He merely ignored it, as if it were so ludicrous . . .

  Fossi bit her inner cheek, using the pain to keep her tears from falling.

  Instead, Daniel said, “I would ask you to apologize to your daughter.” His voice so frightfully calm. A chill chased Fossi’s spine.

  “The whole world knows how Lord Whitmoor treats a wife.” Reverend Lovejoy jabbed a finger at Daniel. “I heard what transpired with your wife and the man she ran off with, sir. That little scandal even reached my ears—”

  Lord Linwood loudly sniffed. “I do believe the room suddenly smells of impudent mushroom.”

  Lord Stratton joined him in sampling the air. “Why, I daresay you are correct, my dear man.”

  Daniel’s eyes flashed, nostrils flaring.

  “You. Will. Apologize.” Daniel enunciated each word with distinct precision.

  “I will not apologize for speaking so of your wife—”

  “Miss Lovejoy!” Daniel roared. “I don’t care about my damn wife. She was the sort of woman you have accused your daughter of being. But Fossi . . .” Here Daniel heaved in a deep breath, taming a tempest. “Fossi is not. You will apologize to her at once.”

  Despite the tension in the room, Fossi’s heart soared.

  No one had ever defended her like this.

  He may not wish to marry her, but how incredible to not feel alone in this trial. To know a friend would stand by your side.

  Reverend Lovejoy narrowed his eyes and thrust his jaw out stubbornly.

  “No.” He all but hissed the word. “She has acted the whore and she knows it!”

  It all came crashing down.

  All the years of caring for her brothers and sisters, assisting her father, jumping to answer every beck and call, denying even the modest wishes of her heart for the greater good. Never once giving her father a moment’s doubt as to her virtue and goodness.

  And this was what he thought of her?

  Daniel lunged toward her father, intent on making him apologize.

  Fossi jumped between them, placing a staying hand out to stop Daniel. Which, to his credit, he did.

  She whirled on her father, fists shaking in rage.

  “How. Dare. You!” She could hiss words too. “How dare you spend decades ignoring me and neglecting me and using me. And then the second I make a decision that does not conform to your ideals for me, you accuse me of being a-a—” Fossi paused, as she couldn’t bring herself to actually say the word whore to her father, even though he had not shrunk from calling her one. “—of being a woman of loose morals. And, worse, you have now accused Lord Whitmoor of base behavior, when his lordship has been nothing other than kind and proper with me—”

  “Foster Love Among Us Lovejoy, you will march yourself out of this room and await my displeasure—”

  “No.” She lifted her chin.

  “No?!”

  “I am thirty-two years old, Father. A woman grown. I await no man’s displeasure.”

  “You go girl,” Lord Stratton encouraged.

  Lord Linwood rolled his eyes. “You’re far too old to say that, Stratton.”

  Inexplicably, Lord Stratton snapped his fingers in a ‘Z’ shape instead of replying.

  “Jasmine has been such a poor influence on you.” Lord Linwood rolled his eyes a second time.

  Lord Stratton grinned.

  Fossi shook her head. Getting back to the point at hand—

  “I chose to come into Lord Whitmoor’s employ,” she said, “and I will remain in his employ until I finish the task he has assigned me.”

  “You would spit thus on your mother’s memory? She would be horrified—”

  “That, sir, was beneath you.” Fossi’s chest heaved. “My mother loved and cherished me. Things you have never done. She would be ashamed of your behavior today. If anyone has spit upon her memory, it has been you.”

  Reverend Lovejoy flinched.

  She pressed her advantage. “You should have more faith in me, Father. I have been a good daughter to you. I would like to be a good daughter to you in the future—”

  “We’ve come to bring you home,” Strength said, jumping into the conversation. He shot a sideways glance at the lords in the room. “You belong with your own kind. Not here with these . . . people.”

  “I will gladly return home once I have completed the work Lord Whitmoor has requested of me.”

  “No.” Reverend Lovejoy straightened his shoulders. “You will come home now or not at all, Foster. How can you choose to stay with this man? He is a keeper of secrets. Do you even know what you do for him?”

  Fossi winced before she could control her expression. That little barb had struck true.

  Daniel did keep too many secrets. It seemed she uncovered one simply to find another dozen buried underneath. Would she be whitmoored in the end?

  “Father—”

  “This is your only chance, Foster.” Reverend Lovejoy pressed his advantage. “You will quit this den of iniquity, renounce your wayward ways and come home with me at once.”

  “I cannot, Father. I have an obligation to Lord Whitmoor at present.”

  “Return or I will consider you dead to me!”

  “I, for one, am heartily glad this hasn’t taken a melodramatic turn,” Lord Linwood drawled.

  “Hear, hear.” Lord Stratton nodded to his friend. “Though I still say we should have rung for popcorn.”

  Reverend Lovejoy did not appreciate their wry humor. “Consider carefully, Foster. I will disown you. ’Twas not an idle threat.”

  All eyes turned to her.

  From the beginning, Fossi knew this was how things would end with her father. She had just assumed they would never have an official conversation about it.

  “I am sorry, but I cannot return with you, Father.” A decidedly wistful smile touched her lips. “You say I will be dead to you. But such an opinion assumes I was once alive in your eyes.” She shrugged. “And we both know I have never been alive to you.”

  Reverend Lovejoy and Strength gasped.

  Will and Lord Stratton whistled.

  Fossi curtsied. First to her father and brothers. Then to Lords Whitmoor, Linwood and Stratton.

  “Good evening, gentleman,” she murmured. “Goodbye, Father.”

  Holding her head high and Lord Whitmoor’s shawl around her arms, Fossi exited the room.

  Chapter 20

  The study

  Whitmoor House

  October 3, 1828

  Daniel stared into the dying fire.

  The house was finally quiet. All his guests had left, both the invited and uninvited ones. The Lovejoy men had taken themselves off willingly, though Daniel had been half-tempted to toss them out anyway.

  Will, at least, had the decency to apologize for his father’s behavior.

  “Please send me word if Fossi ever needs help,” he had murmured
on his way out. “I do love her and want her happiness.” Will fixed him with a steely gaze. “Why haven’t you offered for her? Your embrace earlier certainly implied some affection between you.”

  It was a fair question. Daniel answered truthfully.

  “I am not at liberty, currently, to take a wife. Were my situation to change, I would happily offer marriage to your sister.”

  Will let that sink in. “I see. Fossi is intelligent and more than capable of making decisions for her own life, but I am glad she seems to have a good friend in you.”

  “That she does,” Daniel had agreed.

  Will nodded once, a knowing smile on his lips. “She is the best of women. Treat her well.”

  “I will.”

  Will left with a handshake and tip of his hat.

  Reverend Lovejoy, on the other hand, had stomped out without a backward glance.

  How a man such as Josiah Lovejoy could have sired a woman as remarkable as Fossi . . . it boggled the mind.

  Though Daniel supposed many a husband had thought something similar about his in-laws.

  Not that he considered himself a husband for Fossi.

  Though . . .

  The words he had spoken to Will were utterly true. Were things different with Simon, were he not determined to change the trajectory of Time . . .

  Daniel blinked and sank further back into the leather wingback chair. The fire flickered, bravely fighting for life.

  Images danced through his brain.

  Fossi holding the hand of a child with Simon’s eyes and her oval face, both smiling as Daniel entering the room.

  Fossi wrapping an arm around his waist as they gazed at their sleeping children in the nursery.

  Fossi cuddling next to him on the sofa, twining her fingers with his and resting her head on his shoulder—

  Longing swept in behind, nearly pulling him under with its strength.

  The sheer pain of it. Wanting something with such ferocity, but knowing that to have it, you would have to give up something equally precious—

  Daniel gasped, trying to quell his tight chest and rough breathing.

  Simon’s face danced before his eyes . . . or rather . . . almost.

  He was forgetting the exact shape of Simon’s nose, the precise cadence of his voice.

  Daniel swallowed and sat forward, tipping his head into his palms, elbows resting on his knees, fingers threaded through his hair.

  Wouldst that it had been . . .

  Ah, Fossi.

  In a different universe with a different life trajectory for himself . . . would they have met and married? Would Simon have been her child instead of Alice’s? Of a certainty, they would have been happy together.

  But this slice of Time . . . this place where they knew each other would soon cease to exist.

  She wouldn’t remember him.

  And he . . .

  . . . he would likely forget her too.

  That was why he was staring into the fire at four in the morning.

  Up until recently, he hadn’t really cared whether he remembered or forgot. The idea that he might not retain a memory of the agony and sadness of these past two years hadn’t troubled him. He would have Simon and they would continue through Time, everything restored. Anything he forgot would be re-experienced anyway, so it hadn’t concerned him.

  But to forget Fossi . . .

  It was extremely unlikely that in a new timeline, he would meet Fossi.

  And that was surprisingly . . . devastating.

  The click of the door opening startled him.

  He lifted his head from his hands and peered around the flared sides of the wingback chair.

  Somehow, he had summoned her.

  Fossi carefully set her candle down on a side table and drifted across the room to him. She wore a dressing gown and hugged his shawl tightly around her shoulders, hands clasped to her chest. Her chestnut hair tumbled in a thick braid down her back, the fading firelight catching gold highlights.

  She sat in the chair next to him, perching on the edge.

  “I assume you found sleep elusive, as well?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Settle in.” He jerked a chin toward the back of her chair. “Might as well keep me company then.”

  She sank back into the chair, tucking her feet underneath her. Leaning her head against the wing of the chair, she joined him in staring into the fire.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened with your father earlier?” he asked.

  “No.” Her voice barely a whisper but still loud in the way sounds are in the dead of night. “I do believe my father and I discussed all the salient points.”

  “You are not the things he said.”

  “I know.”

  “You will always have a home within our little clan. Stratton, Linwood and I discussed it afterward.”

  “Thank you.”

  Silence rang between them. Laden with so many things that remained unspoken.

  Finally, Fossi sighed.

  “I need to know, Daniel.” Her voice slipped through the hush, laced with gentle gloom.

  Daniel froze.

  Damn. There were far too many things that could be attached to that question.

  Why don’t you want to marry me?

  Why are you holding on to Simon so fiercely?

  Why am I here with you?

  This was the problem with being a master secret-keeper. Sometimes, there were too many secrets to choose from.

  He needed specificity.

  He hated asking the question. “What precisely would you like to know?”

  “The theorems.”

  “Ah.” Unexpected that. A relief and, yet, with her usual acumen, she had drilled down to the question that answered all the others.

  She shifted in her seat. “How did you know about my work, but knew nothing about me specifically?” she asked. “What am I working on and why? What are your goals with it? I need to know I am not being whitmoored. Your reputation does proceed you.”

  That it did.

  “Who is Daniel Ashton?” he clarified.

  “Precisely. The man behind the iron curtain.”

  He laughed at that. Iron curtain.

  If only she knew.

  He inhaled deeply. Pondering.

  He could tell her about the time portal. After she fixed it and he corrected Time, she would cease to remember. So it wasn’t a large risk. And the others would understand why he did it.

  But . . .

  “Are you sure, Fossi?” he had to ask it. “I keep these secrets more to protect you than myself.”

  She twisted her head to meet his gaze, face a question mark.

  “That seems . . . convenient,” she finally said.

  He shrugged. “It does not, however, make it untrue.”

  “I would know.”

  A pause.

  “Even if knowing will alter you?”

  Daniel’s words lingered.

  Knowing will alter you.

  But wasn’t she already altered? Hadn’t her transformation begun the second she saw his posting in Scriptis Mathematicis?

  “I need to know why I have given everything up, Daniel. Has it been worth the cost?”

  That took him aback. His bloodshot eyes gazed into hers, pools of murky blue in the low light.

  There was little of Lord Whitmoor about him now. Gone was the elegant coat and embroidered waistcoat, the sense of leashed power.

  Instead, he was in shirtsleeves, trousers and slippers, a loose banyan thrown over as a nod to decorum.

  Simply Daniel.

  Her heart lurched.

  She adored Simply Daniel.

  “You said at the beginning that I would be helping Kit, but I understand she currently lives in America.” She pressed her case. “How are my equations here helping her there?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face and then kept on going, raking it over his hair too, leaving it standing deliciously askew.

 
How she wanted to follow those fingers with her own. She had evening gloves on earlier during their almost kiss in the courtyard and hadn’t been able actually feel the texture of his hair. Would it be soft and silky? Springy and slightly coarse?

  She gave herself a firm mental shake.

  Solving the mystery of Daniel’s hair was not why she had entered the room when she saw him here.

  “Daniel?”

  He dropped his hand and tapped his fingers on a leg and then sighed.

  “Last chance,” he said, turning his eyes to hers. “Last warning before I alter your perception of reality.”

  She smiled. “Are you always so melodramatic in the early morning hours?”

  He shrugged. “When the situation merits it.”

  “You do realize that the statistical chances of actually altering my reality are improbably high, correct?”

  “About one in eleven million point three four five.”

  Fossi chuckled despite herself. How she loved this man.

  “I believe I am prepared.” She placed her palms on her thighs, bracing herself. “Do your worst.”

  It was a dare.

  And she knew Lord Whitmoor would never back down from a dare.

  “Fine. But you were warned.”

  He shook his head. Deep breath.

  “I was born at Whitmoor House to the seventh Lord Whitmoor,” he said.

  He looked at her and paused.

  Fossi blinked. Thought through what she knew of his history and then cocked her head at him.

  His words made no sense.

  “That’s not . . . possible,” she said. “You said yourself that you purchased Whitmoor House a decade ago. You were born here?”

  “Yes. My father was the seventh Lord Whitmoor.”

  “Oh.” She thought further, frown deepening. “No. That can’t be right. You are the first Lord Whitmoor. There were no Lord Whitmoors before you. You are the first to hold the title.”

  “That is also true. I am.”

  His eyes dared her to arrive at some logical conclusion.

  But the ‘logical’ conclusion was absurd.

  Fossi sighed.

  “Are you attempting a joke? Daniel, please be serious.”

  “I am serious,” he said. “Completely and utterly so.”

  He looked serious. There was no trace of humor or anything in his eyes.