Very Truly Yours

by Julie Beard

  'Tomorrow I will be visiting my grandfather. Will the next day do as well? How about three o'clock that afternoon?"

  "Perfect. I've been expecting a letter from my friend Mrs. Halloway. It will be only natural for me to stop by your office. Perhaps there really will be a letter waiting this time."

  ******************

  Jack was surprised to see a light glowing in the window of his law establishment when he came home. He was quite sure that Harding had gone to bed early, and so it had to be Giles. The nerve of that lad! He didn't even have the decency to slink off like a chastised hound. When Jack shoved open the door, the clerk rose nervously from his usual place on the couch.

  "You're back," Giles said stupidly.

  Jack glared at him and tossed his hat on the front desk. Then he placed his cane down and tugged off his gloves, finger by finger, looking at Giles all the while as if he were the most despicable creature who'd ever walked the earth.

  "Why are you still here? Have you no shame?"

  "I thought you'd be proud of me, sir," Giles returned petulantly. "You have quite a reputation in such matters, you know. Perhaps I've decided to walk in your footsteps."

  Jack turned a look of disbelief to the clerk. He raised a forefinger, wagging it in the air as he struggled to find

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  the perfect rebuke. But then he realized that Giles was perfectly on the mark. The young clerk had done nothing that Jack himself hadn't done a thousand times over.

  "Look, lad, I am no more proud of myself tonight than I am of you. Now get the hell out of here while I drink myself into a stupor."

  That took the wind out of the clerk's sails. "Aren't you going to give me a tongue lashing?"

  "Why bother?" Jack said wearily as he loosened his cravat. "Words mean nothing to a young man in his prime. You'll listen to my lecture then follow your cock right back to the Cranshaws' house. But if you're smart, you'll keep it tucked safely in your trousers."

  "You're not being fair! You make this sound like a tumble in the hay with a dairymaid. I love Miss Celia."

  "Pshaw! You don't know the meaning of love. You're in lust!"

  "I am not a London rogue, sir. I have a heart. I have a sense of responsibility to those with whom I trifle."

  "And I don't?" Jack nearly shouted. "Is that what you're implying?"

  Giles glowered and bit his lower lip, but said nothing.

  "I see you've heard plenty about me already. Don't blame me, young man, because you've done nothing to prepare yourself for a bright future. You have to make something of yourself before you can have a lady like Celia Cranshaw. I see too much of me in you, Giles Ho-neycut. You're not thinking about how difficult life can be. Do you want to amount to something, or do you want to spend the rest of your life in the suds?"

  "Of course I want to be a gentleman."

  "Then button up your inexpressibles, sir, and keep them buttoned until the time is right to make your move. And

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  then move! Don't let it pass you by, lad. Don't waste your life avoiding the one thing everyone wants most in life."

  Giles frowned. "You mean love, sir?"

  Jack laughed morosely. "Is that what I mean? I was speaking about money," he said unconvincingly. He rubbed the back of his neck and poured himself a brandy. "Unless you're prepared to work hard to become a solicitor, I have no use for you, do you understand?"

  Giles scowled at him.

  "Don't give me that look. Yes, I need you. But I'd rather give you up than watch you kick up a lark and never have a feather of your own to fly with. I'd fire you and watch myself go under all the quicker rather than watch you fail. I won't allow it."

  Giles blinked twice. "Very well."

  "Now go home and think about what I've said. If you're willing to apply yourself like a gentleman, then come back tomorrow and never, ever mention Miss Celia again. Is that understood?"

  "Yes," Giles said quietly and retrieved his hat.

  Jack watched him go, then sagged in a chair, feeling old and sad and worn out. God, if only he could be that young again, there was so much he'd do differently. If only he could be on that balcony again with Liza.

  He put his thumbs in the corners of his eyes and pressed hard. Hell. Damnation. Hell. There was only one thing left to do. He had to offer for her. He had to marry Liza Cranshaw. It was the only way out for her, and the only honorable thing for Jack to do. Never mind that the very notion of marriage made him break out in a cold sweat and short of breath. And never mind that she would refuse him. He could never live with himself if he thought that his careless behavior had led Liza to making choices that

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  ended with marriage to Lord Barrington. The only way to keep her from marrying that oaf was for Jack to take her for himself.

  He knew she would never agree to breaking off the engagement. She was clearly determined for unknown reasons. Therefore, Jack might have to resort to old tactics and seduce her. He might have to make love to her so completely, so intoxicatingly, that in her dizzy ecstasy desire could finally prevail over cold logic.

  Hell, he didn't want to. He now understood fully the inkling that had startled him eight years ago on the balcony. That Liza Cranshaw deserved more than a thoughtless kiss. More, even, than one night of pleasure. She was the kind of extraordinary woman—passionate, wise, intelligent, vulnerable—who deserved to be pleasured devotedly every night for the rest of her life. Now if he could only think about marriage without collapsing into a fit of vapors!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  iza Cranshaw was very much on Jack's mind the next morning during his two-hour journey with his cousin Arthur to Tutley Castle. He had the uneasy feeling that he still had to settle with her over that blasted kiss. Even if he kidnapped her and forced her into marriage, he still wouldn't be at peace until he heard her say she'd forgiven him. She'd accepted his apology, but it wasn't the same as being forgiven.

  Forgiveness. Hell, what a messy process that was. He hated to ask for it, and wasn't very good at giving it. Fortunately, he suspected Liza would be much more at ease with forgiveness than he. She was that kind of woman. The kind who made a man better just by being in her presence.

  Jack could scarcely fathom the depth of Liza's sense of responsibility to her family, her determined grace in the face of her natural passion. She gave so much and expected so little in return. It made him want to give her

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  the world, and this at a time when his own world was about to crumble to dust. And compared to his feelings about his own family! She was a better person than him, that's all there was to it.

  Thoughts of Liza began to fade from his mind, though, when he started to recognize familiar terrain. Arthur eagerly gave him a running commentary about the scenery as it passed, talking about how this cottage or that had fallen to ruin since Jack had last been here, how well or poorly the crops had been in recent years, how many sheep the estate now boasted, and how grand it would be if Jack and his grandfather could reconcile. The conversation always came back to that.

  But soon all conversation ceased when the grand castle loomed in the distance, sitting in all its elegant glory on a hill green with well-manicured grass. Jack's heart rose in his throat, and no jostling or pitching to and fro by the carriage as its great, round wheels rumbled over the rutted road could dislodge it.

  Tutley Castle was, by anyone's account, a magnificent holding, as elegant as it was large. It had been built in the Restoration by the first Baron Tutley, who had striven to build a monument to his own ambition so grand that he'd died before it could be completed. There were more than twenty-five bedrooms and countless other chambers mat the present baron often would not see for a year or more at a stretch, so numerous and ponderous were they. Especially to a man like Richard Hastwood, Baron Tutley, who preferred the sunny outdoors to the chill of a poorly heated stone castle.

  The very sight of it brought forth a gushing river of emotions Jack had sworn he would not
feel. He said nothing until he found himself at the front door.

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  "Why am I doing this?" he muttered as they waited for the door to be opened. He rocked on his heels, his hands locked in a stranglehold behind his back. "Why did I let you talk me into this?"

  "Because," Arthur replied, "whether you realize it or not you are a man of conscience. And men of conscience always see to their family members in times of illness."

  "Grandfather is not ill," Jack groused, tugging nervously at his cravat. "The old goat will live to be a hundred. He's feigning for attention. And that's precisely what he's getting."

  "You don't know," Arthur replied patiently. "You haven't seen him in ten years."

  "I wish it would be another ten years," Jack grumbled, but silenced himself when the door opened at the hands of the butler. Before him stood the ancient, seemingly immortal, Kirby. He'd been the butler for as long as Jack could remember, and he looked as if he were already a hundred himself.

  "Master Jack," Kirby said in a hoarse and worn-out voice. His beaming smile revealed few teeth and his eyes were clouded with white rings and sentiment. "Well, well, well. What do you know? I told his lordship you would come."

  "As if he cared," Jack murmured out of the side of his mouth for Arthur's benefit.

  Ignoring him, Arthur said, "Is he up to seeing us today?"

  "Yes, yes," Kirby said, opening the door widely. "I daresay he will be, Master Arthur. If you do not mind, sirs, it would be better if I do not announce you first."

  "I quite agree, Kirby," Arthur said conspiratorially.

  Kirby stepped back and allowed the men to enter. The

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  cool, stony smell of history wrapped itself around Jack, awaking a longing for this place he thought he'd hated so. The entrance hall was tall and cavernous and their voices echoed and disappeared in a wave of insignificance.

  "You know, Master Jack," Kirby said as he led them through an enormous gallery and down a long corridor to the baron's quarters, "you look more like your father than ever."

  "I take that as a compliment, Kirby. But I can only hope for the sake of this visit that your eyes deceive you. I doubt Grandpapa cares any more for the memory of my father than he did for the actuality of him."

  As Jack had grown up and begun to look more and more like a Fairchild, the baron's reaction to him had changed. It wasn't long before he could not regard Jack without a sneer of distaste. Jack steeled himself now in anticipation of it, and he was not disappointed.

  "What's this?" the old man snapped when they entered his bedroom. He lay in a giant Elizabethan bed hung with scarlet and blue silk, and whose posts, which rose to enormous heights, were carved in the likeness of acanthus leaves and berries. He looked very small in such a large bed, and Jack felt a twinge of unexpected empathy. Even an old fearless bastard like the baron couldn't stave off time.

  "Kirby, who's this? Ah, Arthur! My dear boy, Arthur. And who's this? Good God, is it Fairchild?"

  "Yes, my lord," Kirby said placatingly. He went to his employer's side and fluffed his pillow. "It's Master Jack come to pay his respects, your lordship."

  "Respect," the old man spat. He squeezed his eyes shut

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  and his nose, which was more beaked than ever, flared. "The bloody hell he has."

  "My lord," Arthur interjected, "Jack has come a long way to see you."

  "What does he want? Money? Is that it? Well, he won't get it from me." The old man balled his gnarled fingers into fists.

  “To hell with your money, sir," Jack said smoothly and stopped at the foot of the bed. "I came to see if you were still the cantankerous old man I remember. And I see that you are."

  Jack smiled perfunctorily and focused on his grandfather's eyes. They were sharp with blue venom. It was somehow comforting. Jack would rather deal with the old man's hatred than any belated sentimentality. As long as the baron hated him, Jack knew how to respond.

  "Your parents squandered your financial security, young man. Do you still defend them? I trust you've come to beg my forgiveness and to tell me I was right all along."

  Jack looked down at his polished boots, contemplating this expectation. The journey from Middledale had given him time to review his thoughts on the matter. After his confrontation with Giles, Jack was willing to entertain the notion that he had made a mess of his own life. Perhaps his grandfather was right about that. And because of the choices Jack had made, he was very much on his own, in every sense of the word. He had no loving family, no trust funds, no inheritance. And no one to love. But neither did he have to live with the burdensome knowledge that his parents were desperately unhappy.

  "My parents are free, my lord," Jack said. "I do not begrudge them that. My only regret is that my mother did

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  not receive her father's blessing before she died. Her only crime, you see, was being faithful to the man you wanted her to marry, with no thought to her happiness. And in the end you abandoned her."

  "Don't blame me for that. Your father—"

  "My father," Jack cut in sharply, "was faithful to my mother to the bitter end. He simply loathed her, and she him. You cannot begrudge two people who should never have married in the first place."

  "They weren't the first couple to wed unhappily, and they won't be the last. They were too sentimental. And you're just like your father."

  "Me? Sentimental?" Jack snorted a laugh. "I should like the ladies of London to hear that."

  "Now, now, my lord," Arthur interjected. "Won't you join us for a cup of tea?"

  The old man sank back wearily onto his pillow. "I am too ill."

  "Kirby says you are doing much better this week. Come along, then. I will help you."

  Arthur went to the bed and helped the baron climb out. Arthur had always been the peacemaker in the family. And even though Lord Tutley treated him with scarcely more dignity than he would a servant, Arthur had been as faithful to him as a son.

  He's a bloody saint, Jack thought as he watched the younger man patiently help the older man lower first one thin leg and then the other, hoist him up, and then tie a robe around his alarmingly thin waist.

  So it was true. Richard Hastwood didn't have long to live. The realization was quite shocking. Jack's stomach pitched unexpectedly. When Jack became Baron Tutley, though he might remain poor as a church mouse, he could

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  not be imprisoned for his debts. Therefore, he should be glad that the Grim Reaper stood in wait for the old man. But he wasn't. He was unaccountably shaken.

  Jack followed a few paces behind as Arthur led the old man from his large bedroom to an even larger sitting room. Here they were greeted by a crackling fire and a cozy mixture of medieval decor and elegant modern furniture. There was a charming blue Chippendale sofa near the hearth, and two upright Hepplewhite chairs.

  Their boots clicked against the stone floor, the sound echoing softly in the rafters high above them, where ancient banners hung in dusty silence.

  Once they took their places by the fire, a covey of footmen appeared, seemingly from nowhere, producing a Chinese teapoy and a tray of sweet cakes.

  Jack watched, feeling out of sorts, as the efficient servants with their powdered white hair silently bustled about. They knew Lord Tutley would whack them with a cane or, at the very least, shout in displeasure if they failed to meet his expectations. So little did meet his high standards. That was why he would die alone, Jack thought. For the first time, perhaps ever, a chill crept over him at the thought of dying without someone to hold. That was the first and only good reason he had ever discovered for marriage, to stave off the solitude of death.

  "Sir, Jack is living in Middledale now," Arthur said with amiable determination to rescue the visit. "He is in riding distance now. Perhaps you can reacquaint yourselves."

  "Harumph," the old man said, accepting a cup and saucer with shaking hands.

  Jack swallowed the same negative response.

&nb
sp; "Why are you here, young man?" Lord Tutley inquired

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  gruffly, his sharp eyes burrowing into Jack.

  "Frankly, Grandfather, I came at Arthur's bidding. He is an incorrigible optimist and hoped that you and I might reconcile. I should think it's obvious to us both that that is impossible. But while I'm here, I want to say that, for what it matters, I thoroughly hope that you will leave your fortune to Arthur and his family. They deserve it. And need it. Whatever your anger at me may be, sir, I hope you will not make Arthur suffer for his distant relation to me.

  "Jack, that is quite unnecessary." Arthur put his cup in its saucer.

  "I should hope it's not necessary," Jack replied.

  "Do you mean to tell me what to do with my own money, young man?"

  "No, sir. I simply want to make sure that you don't think I would have it if you offered it simply because I was the oldest male descendant."

  "Jack!" Arthur choked out.

  "And how will you live now that your parents have squandered your future?"

  Jack sipped his tea. His heart beat in his throat, no matter how slowly he swallowed the astringent liquid. He looked up and answered frankly, "I will make it on my own, sir."

  "No one makes it on their own, young pup. No one who is anyone. You need your family to survive in the beau monde."

  "Perhaps you are right," Jack replied.

  Arthur sighed, but his relief was short-lived.

  "Perhaps that is what killed my mother. She was abandoned by the father who forced her into a marriage that never should have been."

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  "I did not abandon her!" The old man lifted his cane and brought it down with a resounding crack on a round mahogany table. It was a wonder the slender rod didn't splinter in two. "She and that wastrel of a husband refused to follow my advice. That led to their ruination."

  "The world is not your stage, Grandfather. You are not a god to decide the course of everyone's fate."

  "If I were a god, a just god, you would never have been born. If not for you, your mother might have divorced her worthless husband when she was young and made a better match. I would have lived with the scandal to see her happy again."