A clock on the wall emitted a metallic ping as it struck the hour. Goodness, how long had she sat pondering the fate of the Ruthvens?
“I’m content to meet with Mr. Adamson if you wish me to accompany you, Mr. Talbot. Is there anything else, sir?” She’d need to be quick about it if she meant to accomplish all the other tasks on her list before catching a three o’clock train back to Hertfordshire. She’d promised Aunt Rose a new book and Juliet a bag of boiled sweets from Stimson’s, the best confectioner in the city. A visit to the bank and milliner were on her list too.
“Just this.” He finally lifted the piece of paper he’d laid atop his desk and held it out toward her. “Your first payment of royalties, Miss Marsden.”
A sum greater than what she’d expected from initial sales of her book was written in precise, elegant script.
“You look pleased, and well you should be. The discussion can wait until we meet again, but I would like to hear your notions regarding future publications.”
“Future publications?” She hadn’t considered any others. Guidelines had been born in a heated rush of indignation, half instinct, half reason. A patchwork stitched through with strands from Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill, works her parents had encouraged her to read.
“Give it some consideration. I’ll send word if our meeting with Adamson must be postponed for the funeral.”
Considering Ruthven’s standing and influence—it was said even Queen Victoria kept a copy of The Ruthven Rules—the ceremony would be an elaborate ritual.
“Will you attend, Miss Marsden, in light of your concern for his daughters?” Mr. Talbot had an expansive view of women’s sphere. He’d championed her book, after all. But others considered funerals as too indelicate for feminine sensibility.
“No, sir.” She’d been discouraged from attending her own father’s burial ceremony. The Countess of Pembry, Briar Heath’s wealthiest landowner, claimed ladies were too fragile for standing about by the graveside. In the end, Ophelia insisted. Nothing could have kept her away, but the prospect of attending Ruthven’s funeral set off a roiling in her belly.
Ophelia could allow herself to imagine a fleeting encounter with Kit Ruthven on a crowded London street, but that was fanciful nonsense. The fact was she’d been avoiding the man for four years.
Exhaling a shuddering breath, she imagined hearing his voice again, glancing up to find those chocolate brown eyes of his looking back at her. He’d had the power to melt her once, but she could never allow the man to disrupt her life again.
Four years past she’d been frivolous, more interested in passion than practicalities. She’d given her heart too easily. Now, at four and twenty, her life revolved around work and family. As Mr. Talbot suggested, she might even set herself the task of writing another book.
Kit had no place in her life. He would come to Briar Heath for his father’s funeral and return to London.
Maybe then she could finally give Lord Dunstan an answer.
CHAPTER THREE
“It is always proper for a lady to excuse herself from visits of condolence and all ceremonies attendant upon a funeral. Better she stay at home, within her proper domain, and offer comfort to her family.”
—THE RUTHVEN RULES FOR YOUNG LADIES
She didn’t come.
If his father’s funeral proved anything to Kit, it was that he’d become the selfish, heartless man his father often accused him of being. While Leopold Ruthven’s polished mahogany coffin was being lowered into hallowed ground behind the village church, Kit hadn’t offered his patriarch a final farewell. Instead, he stood scanning the line of black-shrouded mourners, hoping for a glimpse of loose red curls at the edge of a veil.
Even after four years apart and yards of jet black bombazine covering every woman in sight, he told himself he’d recognize Ophelia Marsden’s shape. She was taller than most, though he savored sweet memories of her lifting onto her toes to kiss him. She’d always been full of energy and forever on the cusp of movement, even when she stood still. Yet she wasn’t slight. Phee possessed no hard edges, despite the way she could use that resonant voice of hers to cut as deep as a man’s soul. Her softness and curves were what made his hands itch when he thought of her, all those vulnerable parts of herself she’d shared with no one else.
Who had touched her since he’d been gone? Who’d kissed her? Who’d made her laugh in that throaty way that warmed his blood? He shouldn’t care. Years ago, he’d vowed to put his feelings for her aside. He had nothing to offer Phee.
As mourners proceeded toward the village green, he’d persisted in looking for her, hoping for just a single glimpse. She’d always walked with a confident stride, pretty head held high. Chin in the air, not out of arrogance but determination. She possessed the quality in bushels.
But she hadn’t come, and as he started up the path toward the Ruthven estate, he gave up his search.
Now, sitting in the drawing room while he and his sisters waited for families from the village to come and offer personal condolences, he struggled to think of anything but Ophelia’s face. He’d convinced himself that seeing her again, even if he didn’t speak to her, would be his reward for returning to Briar Heath after such a long absence.
He was a fool.
Their parting had been agony. He’d left her in tears. Forced himself to walk away. Convinced himself that a clean break freed them both. Depart for London and never look back—that had been his plan.
And yet here he sat in the ostentatious house his father built.
“Do you think this is too much of a display? I could ask the servants to take some back to the kitchen.” His sister Sophia stood before a long table weighed down with food-laden silver trays. Some of the blonde hair caught atop her head in a severe coiffure had come loose. She swiped a stray tress behind one ear before wringing her hands and frowning as their mother used to do when troubled. Thinking back, he could barely recall a time when their mother hadn’t been troubled. He didn’t want that fate for Sophia.
“Leave it and come sit down,” he urged. “You’ve been on your feet all day.”
“There’s too much to do.” When she finally stopped fussing over the food and turned to face him, she narrowed a single blue-green eye and crossed her arms. “You look far too comfortable, Christopher. Might you consider sprawling less languidly on that settee?”
Sophia’s looks and gestures reminded him of their late mother, but she’d learned their father’s belittling tone too well.
“Perhaps you do not care that Papa is dead,” she continued, pitch rising with the color in her cheeks, “but the rest of us wish to mourn him properly. Not just the family but everyone. We’ve even had a letter of condolence from a colleague of Mr. Gladstone.”
“Only a colleague? Not the prime minister himself, then. And what about the Queen? Have we heard from Her Majesty yet?”
Sophia’s frown sharpened into a glare. Like their father, his sister seemed to think she could cow him with a steely gaze. But if the cruelty and guilt Father heaped on him over the years hadn’t chastened him, nothing would.
In the tense silence between them, Clary’s footsteps sounded in the hallway before she bounded into the room.
“Mercy, are you two quarreling already?”
“For goodness sakes, Clarissa, take care how you walk. A young lady does not skip about like a spring lamb on the day of her father’s funeral.” Sophia spouted admonitions as if she’d memorized the rubbish in one of their father’s rule books.
“Let her be. She can walk however she pleases.” He tried not to bark at Sophia, struggling to see in her the sister who’d once been his ally.
“Yes, of course, in your world everyone does just as they please. This isn’t London, brother.”
Clarissa glanced from him to Sophia and then stepped carefully toward the settee. It pained Kit to see her fighting to control her youthful energy and being chastised for how she chose to lift one foot and put it in front of the
other.
“Do you think we’re allowed to have any?” Clary eyed the sideboard of treats and whispered to him as she perched stiffly on a damask-covered cushion.
“No, you may not partake until all of the guests have gone.” Sophia took after Father’s infallible hearing too, it seemed.
Both he and Clary breathed a sigh of relief when their sister exited the room, apparently having forgotten some last piece of silver or decoration that would make the table complete.
Clarissa scooted against the back of the sofa gingerly, as if fearful Sophia was lurking around the corner, waiting to catch her in some misstep. He’d last seen Clary the previous autumn when she’d visited the city with their aunt and uncle. She’d grown so much in a few months and had crossed the bridge from childhood to young miss-hood.
“Tell me again when you turned sixteen?”
A grin plumped her cheeks. “You know precisely when my birthday is. Every year you send me a note on the day.”
“And a gift.” He usually sent her books. Fiction mostly. Anything but etiquette books.
“Sometimes . . . ” She gnawed at her lower lip and slanted her violet eyes his way. “Papa didn’t allow me to read them.”
Kit swallowed hard and reached out to pat Clarissa’s arm, as much to comfort her as to allay his guilt. He’d left her to this. Somehow he’d imagined his father would be more indulgent with the girls, especially Clary, who’d inherited their mother’s gentler nature.
“I’ll replace them. Any book you like, and I’ll see that you get to read them.” It felt odd to be certain of his ability to pay for anything. Odd and thoroughly liberating. Kit told himself he didn’t wish for a penny of inheritance from his father, but he couldn’t deny the good he might do with the money. He’d damn well indulge his little sister’s love of books.
“Oh, he didn’t get rid of them,” she assured, turning to offer him a conspiratorial wink. “And I discovered where he instructed the servants to hide them. I sneaked one out just last week.”
He smiled but feared the gesture didn’t reach his eyes. He was all for defiance, but the thought of Clary sneaking about filled him with as much anger as sadness. Their father had provided his family with a home far grander than they required, paid to garb them in fashionable clothes, provided excellent educations, surrounded them with servants. Yet he’d failed to give acceptance, freedom, or any kind of real affection.
It was why Kit had left. Not only to escape his father’s malice but for a bit of the liberty he’d never had at home.
He wouldn’t allow his sisters to be forced into the same set of stark choices.
“I need to speak with Sophia. Should one of those pastries go missing while I’m gone, I won’t tell a soul.” He pecked a kiss against Clary’s honey-blonde curls and stood. “On second thought, take two and save one for me.”
Tension tightened his body as he strode into the hallway to find his sister. They’d clashed from the moment of his arrival, but it hadn’t always been that way. Just two years apart in age, he and Sophia had once been close. Together, they’d endured Father’s wrath and Mother’s melancholy. Usually, Sophia had been the dutiful one, bowing to the rules Kit rebelled against, but she’d always defended him.
On a few occasions, his father had become so exasperated with Kit he’d locked him in a cupboard. Each time, Sophia had picked the lock with one of Mama’s hairpins and set him free.
Turning toward the door that led to the kitchen below stairs, he stopped at the sight of her. Sophia sat on a low step of the main stairwell and bolted up as he approached. By the time he reached her, she’d turned her back.
“Are you unwell?”
“Of course not.” Despite her strident tone, her voice quavered. “Fatigued, perhaps, but I am well.” She squared her narrow shoulders before facing him.
Her eyes were still glassy, cheeks flushed. Kit knew she’d been crying. “Sophia . . . ” He’d been prepared for a fight, eager to defend Clarissa’s right to read the books he sent and flit about the house however she liked.
Now that Father was gone, their lives could be different.
But in that moment his flinty-eyed sister looked so fragile, thin and pale and worn down by grief. He drew near and wrapped her in his arms.
Sophia stiffened, and he feared she’d chastise him or reject whatever comfort he could offer, but then she leaned into him. Her body began trembling, and he heard the whimpers she tried to repress as she cried.
“Father is gone.” She sounded young, more like the young woman she’d been when he left home. “What will we do without him?”
“We’ll carry on.” Kit could hold his sister, pat her shoulders, tell her all would be well, but he couldn’t share her grief. She saw their father’s death as a loss. He felt only relief, as if a weight that had been tugging at him, dragging him in a direction he did not wish to go, had finally been lifted.
“Kit?” Clary called from the drawing room doorway and then rushed toward them, wrapping her arms around his waist to join their embrace.
He could only remember one other moment of unity like this between the three of them. One Christmas, when Clarissa had still been in leading strings, Father took umbrage with a guest at their holiday celebration and flew into a rage. They’d huddled together in Sophia’s room. She’d done her best to comfort Clary while he watched over his sisters, determined to protect them from Father’s fury.
Suddenly, Sophia pulled back, twisting out of his embrace and taking two steps away. She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “We should return to the drawing room and await any guests who wish to call.”
“You needn’t always be strong, Sophia.” He gentled his tone, pleading with her, but his words only seemed to spark her ire.
“No? And on whom shall I lean? Now that Papa is gone, who will be strong when I’m not?” She lifted a hand to her chest, pressing her palm against her breastbone. Tears welled in her eyes.
“I am here.” He pointed to himself, like a fool, to ensure she noticed him.
“Then you’ll stay?” Clary released his waist and clasped his hand. “Say you’ll stay with us, Kit.”
He looked down into his youngest sister’s eyes, a vivid brew of blue and lavender hues. So like their mother’s. Her hopeful look tore at his resolve.
This visit to Briar Heath was just that. He’d come to console his sisters, but returning to London had never been in doubt. Lingering wasn’t in his nature. He changed lodgings more often than he bought a new suit. But he hadn’t counted on Clary pleading and Sophia furrowing her brow and wringing her hands like their mother.
“You won’t even consider staying, will you?” Sophia sounded more triumphant than wounded. She even managed a smirk. “You embrace me, offer comfort, but I cannot rely upon any of it. You have every intention of abandoning your duties again. Just as you always have.”
When he didn’t contradict Sophia, Clary let out a disappointed moan and yanked her hand from his. Without a word, she hurried up the stairs and slammed her door a moment later.
“She’s convinced herself you’ve returned for good and won’t go back to London. I know better.” Sophia brushed past him and headed toward the drawing room, giving him no time to defend himself. Not that he had a ready reply.
Perhaps she did know him too well.
“It’s a great deal to expect of me, Sophia.”
“Is it?” She returned to stand beside him. “You’ve shirked your responsibilities for years, and we’ve just lost our father. If Ruthven’s fails, we will lose our home.”
“Surely there are men to run the company. Father didn’t do everything himself.”
“Those men need to be managed, Kit.” It was the first time she’d used his nickname in years, which seemed significant, since she was the one who’d given it to him. “Without strong leadership, I suspect many of them will abandon the business.”
The prospect of Ruthven’s failure might have once pleased Kit. He loathed the et
iquette books upon which his father had made his fortune, but he knew the publishing house had expanded to include other titles, relationships with distributors, and a network of printers who produced their books. His father had even purchased several of his own presses and invested in companies that provided paper pulp and ink. He’d built a minor empire on the back of The Ruthven Rules.
“I would do it myself if I could.” Sophia whispered the words, as if she feared their father might overhear. He and his etiquette books were very clear on what a woman should and must never do. Business, in Leopold Ruthven’s opinion, was for men. “Gentlemen like Mr. Adamson would not wish to be dictated to by a woman.”
“I know as little as you do about running father’s company, Sophia.”
She snapped her head up and stepped toward him. “I know a great deal about running the company. I’ve assisted father with his correspondence and maintained records regarding the business for years.”
Kit cast her a surprised glance.
“I am a proficient typist,” she added, as if that explained why their father had allowed his daughter to learn the inner workings of his business. “Together we could continue what he started. Perhaps even make improvements.”
Father had never accomplished what Sophia was on the cusp of doing with a few sullen looks and a reasonable argument. She’d spun a web around him, with threads of guilt and logic, wound through with his desire to earn her forgiveness and make amends. He reached up to tug at his necktie. His chest felt pinched and empty, as if he couldn’t get any air. “I need to go.”
“Kit, please.” Sophia reached for him as he passed, but his legs kept moving. He needed to get out of the house, to take a breath that didn’t reek of his father’s clothes and cigars.
On the front step he stopped only long enough to suck in a lungful of country air. Fresh-cut grass and the scent of autumn blooms flowering in the estate’s manicured garden sweetened the breeze.
He started toward sunset’s glow, striding to the western edge of the estate, past neatly clipped hedgerows and into a field where the tallest oak he’d ever seen still stood. Somewhere on its trunk, he’d carved his initials next to Ophelia’s.
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