The marquessate should be able to eke out another year until the next influx of coin. Mother, however, might not have that long. Hawk didn’t want her to die believing he had let his legacy sink into destruction. But she was unlikely to appreciate his solution.
She was going to be furious when she found out about Faith. Even if he did not mention a word about Christina’s parentage, Mother was perfectly capable of simple maths.
Especially when she had lived through this story before.
This time was different. Hawk steeled himself. It wasn’t her life, but his. He wasn’t seeing one woman and marrying another, but making a true family out of the one destiny had created for him. Or at least trying to.
Mother was still going to have an apoplexy.
It wouldn’t matter that he was trying to do the right thing by being a true father to Christina. There was no right path for the marquessate that also happened to be the right path for everyone else. The best anyone could hope for in life sometimes was a compromise they could live with.
Hawk lowered his face into his hands. It was terrifying to admit it was not possible to be fully in control of one’s life. He had believed he could do it. That he could defy twists of fate in the unexpected actions of others and forge a life of his own choosing.
But that wasn’t what life was. It was making the best choices you could, one day after another.
There was absolutely no telling what the future was going to bring.
Chapter 20
Faith hunched forward uncomfortably on her favorite wingback chair in a sunny corner of her private receiving parlor.
She had spent countless hours curled against the soft pillows of this very chair, with a good book or a bit of embroidery or a cup of steaming chocolate or her daughter in her lap.
Today appeared to be a day like any other. Faith in this chair, her bosom friend Dahlia sprawled bonelessly on the chaise longue beneath the largest window.
How many other hours had been spent exactly like this? Might this actually be the last time she and Dahlia shared an afternoon in these familiar quarters?
The clock ticking on the mantel marched not toward the dinner hour, but toward the impending date in which she would cease to be Miss Faith Digby forevermore and become instead Lady Hawkridge, wife and property of the former paramour who now hated her.
“Well?” Dahlia’s head swiveled on the pile of satin cushions to face Faith. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you or gaze pensively at your lovely Axminster carpet for the rest of the evening?”
Stare into oblivion was far more appealing to Faith than the current disaster of her own making, but there was no advantage to keeping Dahlia in suspense. “He asked me to marry him.”
Dahlia sat upright. “Hawkridge?”
Faith nodded.
“I guess… Second time is the charm?” Dahlia suggested hopefully.
“Technically, he didn’t ‘ask’ either time.” Faith lifted a sardonic brow. So much for girlhood dreams. “The first time, he skillfully implied an official betrothal was forthcoming. And this time…”
Dahlia’s eyes narrowed. “And this time?”
“This time he informed me of our impending nuptials.” Faith hugged a pillow to her chest. “It was either agree or risk him upending Christina’s life and ruining mine.”
“Gallant of him,” Dahlia muttered, then fixed a pointed gaze toward Faith. “Hawkridge would never purposefully ruin your life a second time.”
“You didn’t see his face when he found out about Christina,” Faith said quietly.
Dahlia did not respond. Likely she was recalling the conversations she had shared with her husband, the unwanted bastard sired by Hawkridge’s father. Her mouth twisted. “The difference is, Hawkridge is actually going to marry you.”
Probably.
This wasn’t the first time Faith had pulled Dahlia aside privately in order to confess that a wedding to Lord Hawkridge was imminent.
Faith rubbed her face. This was what she had always wanted. He was what she had always wanted. But not like this. Not as an afterthought, a punishment, his famous “responsibility” to yet another unwanted duty.
She had been so swept away by him in the old days.
The romantic walks, the unwavering intensity of his gaze, the way the world fell away every time they kissed.
That was what she had wanted with him for the rest of eternity. Not rancor and guilt and cold silences. She had never dreamed that one unguarded moment of love would lead them to ruin each other’s lives and destroy all hope for future happiness together.
Dahlia’s expression was sympathetic. “Don’t throw yourself from a cliff just yet. The banns will take three weeks to be read, which gives us plenty of time to figure out how to make the best of this.”
There would be no three-week reprieve for the calling of the banns. There would be no reprieve at all.
Bleakly, Faith lifted her head. “Special license.”
Dahlia gasped audibly. “How did he—”
“I don’t know.” Faith hadn’t thought he had the inclination or the spare coin, and yet he had procured the document faster than she believed possible.
Dahlia leaned forward. “Then when?”
“Sunday.” Faith briefly closed her eyes. “You and Simon are hereby dutifully invited to be our witnesses and join us after for an intimate wedding breakfast hosted by my parents. As much as they hated what Hawkridge did when we were younger, they agree it’s Chris’s right to be raised by her birth parents.”
Dahlia sighed. “They’re right. It’s not worth ruining Christina’s childhood by dragging everyone into the courts.”
Faith nodded and stared bleakly at the wall. After Sunday, this would not be her house anymore.
She would no longer have her private receiving parlor, her familiar bedchambers, quiet mornings in the family library. The bedtime ritual with Christina would be completely different, in some new and unfamiliar place where they were both strangers. They would be forced to live in someone else’s home, where neither of them truly belonged.
“Of course we will be there,” Dahlia said quickly. “And we are happy to sign the parish registry and return here for a…” Her voice faltered. “…party.”
“There will be cake,” Faith said sarcastically. “And possibly a tantrum.”
Dahlia winced. “Chris doesn’t want to go?”
“I meant from me,” Faith confessed. “Christina doesn’t know yet.”
Avoiding the issue helped nothing, but she had no idea how to tell her daughter the news.
“I’m so sorry.” Dahlia’s face contorted. “There must be a silver lining.”
“There is.” If a bittersweet one. Faith gave a crooked smile. “A few days ago, I thought my greatest victory was finally convincing my parents to donate my dowry money to the school. Now they won’t have to, and Mother can give it all to a lordling, just as she’d once dreamed.”
Dahlia bit her lip. “You’ll have to find a different silver lining. Your parents already began the transfer. I received a notice from the bank this morning.”
For a brief second, Faith was actually relieved. He didn’t deserve that money. Besides, her parents would never let her or Christina want for anything, dowry or not. The girls at the school were not so lucky. Orphans had no one to turn to. No one except people like Faith. They needed her and the dowry money. Her hands curled into fists.
She had worked so long and so hard to build up the school. Had collapsed into bed many an exhausted night after waking at dawn to perform administrative duties, teach classes, mend hems, devise fundraisers, give hugs, dry tears.
Without their school to give them shelter, every one of their girls would return to a short and often violent life in the streets. Faith shivered. The money would keep the school afloat for at least another year, which was plenty of time for her and Dahlia to raise more funds and improve conditions even more.
Except it wasn’t, Faith rea
lized suddenly.
Although her parents had sent the dowry money to the school instead of to Lord Hawkridge, he would control the purse strings. As soon as Faith married, everything that was hers would immediately become his—including her half of the school.
Rather than spend her dowry on four-and-twenty unwanted dependents, Hawkridge could evict them all overnight and sell every teacup and stick of furniture as profit for his estate.
It would be a heartless thing to do. But also, a pragmatic one. He would be obliged to give the Hawkridge finances priority in any and all decision-making. His first duty was not to see to Faith’s “pet project” but to his precious title.
A cold sweat sent chills across her skin. Having her own life in upheaval was one thing. She could not possibly risk jeopardizing the futures and the very lives of the students who counted on her.
“I need to arrange a meeting with Bryony’s barrister,” she blurted. “This evening.”
“Done.” Dahlia stood up. “I’ll have her arrange it this very moment and send a note by with the time and location.”
Faith threw her arms about the one person who had always given her unfailing support and unconditional love, no questions asked. There was little in this world more precious than a true friend. Faith could not have asked for a better one than Dahlia. “Thank you.”
Dahlia’s eyes softened. “Now promise me you won’t spend the time between now and then seated in that chair, drowning in your own misery.”
“I promise to spread the misery around,” Faith replied with false earnestness. She rolled back her shoulders. “It is past time to inform Christina.”
“Good luck.” Dahlia squeezed her hand and disappeared from the room to find her sister.
Faith took a deep breath and forced herself to march directly to her daughter’s play chamber.
Her heart twisted at the familiar sight of the sunny room Christina would no longer have, beside the nursery she would no longer have, inside the home she would no longer have. Faith’s legs felt too stiff to walk upon, but she forced herself into the room. Postponing the conversation would not postpone the inevitable.
Christina was seated in the center of the plush carpet, her beloved collection of dolls encircling her on the floor as they all partook from a miniature porcelain tea set.
Faith took an empty place amongst the pillows. “Are any of your dolls married?”
“Of course.” Christina laughed. She pointed at the two to her left. “Grandmother Doll and Grandfather Doll have been married their entire lives.”
Faith took a deep breath. “And do you remember Lord Hawkridge?”
“Of course,” Christina repeated, but this time she frowned rather than laughed. “What does he have to do with marriage?”
An excellent question. Faith forced a smile. “As it happens, he is going to marry me. He will become your guardian just like I am, and I will become his wife.”
Christina’s brow furrowed. “Will he live in the guest chamber?”
Faith swallowed a lump in her throat. “No, darling. We will live in his house. The wife must always move in with her husband.”
“The wife.” Relief crossed Christina’s rosy cheeks. “But not the niece. I could stay with Grandmother and Grandfather if I wanted.”
Christina was the only thing Lord Hawkridge wanted.
Faith hesitated. “I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”
“Because if I stay here, I couldn’t be with you,” Christina said slowly. Her bright gaze shone with determination as she reached forward to rub Faith’s knee. “Don’t worry, Aunt Faith. I won’t leave you. When he marries you, we will go together.”
Faith’s eyes stung with heat and her whispered reply was barely audible. “That is very kindhearted, darling. Hawkridge will be pleased.”
Christina stared down at her dolls’ interrupted teatime. “Will my dolls have to play with a Hawkridge doll, too?”
Faith pulled her daughter into her arms and buried her face in Christina’s sweet-smelling curls. “Let’s see how things go with the real Hawkridge first.”
Chapter 21
Less than a week later, Hawk sent yet another sidelong glance at the woman seated next to him in his carriage, and still could not rid himself of the cloud of unreality that enveloped him.
Despite having spent the past two hours within arm’s reach of each other, the only words he and Faith had exchanged were the rote phrases designated by the marriage ceremony.
The signing of the registry had been as silent an affair as the wedding itself. No one had clapped Hawk’s shoulder in congratulations. Faith’s parents and best friend had all given the new bride a restorative embrace in commiseration.
And yet they’d done it.
They were finally married, but his old coach felt like it was rattling them inexorably back toward the past rather than to their future. Would they ever trust each other enough to truly become a family?
He hadn’t been back in Faith’s life long enough to know whether the gown she wore was something old from the back of her wardrobe or a new confection commissioned specifically for the occasion.
In either case, she was stunning. She always had been. Regardless of the cost of the material that clothed her.
Sometimes, he thought her hair was her crowning glory. Thick glossy ringlets that had mussed so perfectly all those years ago when he had sunk his fingers into their brown silk. That memory could still warm him on even the coldest of London winter nights.
Other times, he thought it was her eyes that had so enraptured him. Sometimes a green so emerald they glittered as much as jewels, and other times as soft and mossy and warm as a bucolic forest surrounding a burbling summer spring.
Her eyes were expressive and ever-changing, windows not only to her soul but to his own. The thick brown lashes that framed them could melt him with a single flutter. He could still remember how it felt to see love reflecting back at him.
The memory ripped open a crater of longing almost too raw for him to bear.
He might never see affection return to her gaze. She trusted him as little as he trusted her. But while her sins were now in the open and in the past, he was still disappointing her.
Shortly after he’d informed her of his intent to marry her, he had learned from Simon that after a full year of pleading, Faith’s parents had finally agreed to donate the money meant for her dowry to the school instead.
He had not spoken with the Digbys. Faith no longer required permission to wed, and with a ten-year-old daughter between them, Hawk had no need to beg for permission. But he suspected that part of the reason for the haunted look in Faith’s eyes whenever someone had mentioned the school, was because the dowry money would no longer be going to the school.
Although she would never believe it, the ordinary act of accepting his bride’s dowry wracked him with guilt.
He did not want to steal bread from the mouths of children. But he also had to provide for his own.
Accepting a dowry did not make him a monster. It made him the same as every other man who had accepted every other dowry in the history of brides and dowries. The very definition of a dowry was a gift of monetary value from the bride’s parents to the groom upon the circumstance of their marriage.
Lord knew, his estate needed the money. Their family needed the money. So why did continuing an expected and long-standing tradition make him feel like such a scoundrel?
He would not think about that now. There was nothing he or Faith could do but make the best of their situation.
And as far as Hawk was concerned, the best of their situation—indeed, the crowning jewel—was Christina.
He would finally be able to get to know her. To be a good father, even if she believed herself nothing more than a ward. Excitement hummed along his skin.
“Starting tomorrow morning, I shall arrange scheduled visits with my daughter without you peering over our shoulders. She will never get to know me with you pecking between us like
a mother hen.”
Faith’s eyes flashed in his direction. “I am her mother hen. You are the rooster that crowed once and flew away. Until I give permission for Christina to be unsupervised in your company, she will not—”
“Incorrect, Lady Hawkridge,” he said softly. “As your husband, I do not require permission for anything at all.”
Her eyes flashed. “Anything you still own.”
A cold sweat prickled along his skin. His voice filled with danger. “What did you do?”
“I gave away the school,” she whispered. “Before it could become yours. I signed my half back over to Dahlia the day before the wedding. It’s legal and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Relief washed over him. He hadn’t even considered the school. He was glad it would not be his responsibility. Hawk had more than enough already just with taking care of his family.
“I don’t want the school,” he bit out through clenched teeth. “I want my daughter. You stole the first ten years of her life from me. It’s finally my turn to have her, too.”
There was light at the edge of the darkness. The dowry money would allow him to open his port ahead of schedule. Despite the guilt he felt at spending money meant for the boarding school, Hawk was in no position to turn it down. Once his port turned a profit, he would more than match the donation.
In the meantime, he would have to settle the worst of the overdue accounts, turn the guest chamber into a proper nursery for Christina, boost his mother’s spirits with a new gown. He and Faith could start their marriage without worrying about money. Hawk’s mood lightened at the prospect.
Her dowry was ample enough to allow them to live in relative comfort until his port opened. He had done the calculations dozens of times. Thanks to the unexpected influx, in less than six months he would finally be out from under his predecessors’ debts and every shilling he earned could be used to spoil his family.
Whether this strained union would ever feel like a family was another question entirely.
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