Forget Me Not (The Gents Book #1)

by Sarah M. Eden

  A hesitant wave of relief washed over her. “Robert Finley won’t be here?”

  Mr. Barrington shook his head. Julia felt lighter on the instant. The evening would be far less miserable without that particular gentleman.

  As the set came to its conclusion, Mr. Barrington walked with her toward the spot where Lucas stood surrounded by a bevy of young people clearly eager for his company. It was hardly a surprise that he spent so little time at home. He enjoyed Society and company. The quiet existence she lived here would never suit him.

  “I am perfectly happy to sit in a chair along the wall,” Julia said. “Our mutual friend will be occupied for quite some time, I am certain.”

  “Ah, but I am under the strictest of orders to return you to his side when our set has ended, which it has.”

  “Do you always allow Lucas to tell you what to do?” she pressed.

  “Never. My orders come from Lord Lampton.”

  She was deposited at Lucas’s side with a bow from Mr. Barrington and a smile from Lucas and little consideration given to her preference for corners and quiet and being allowed a moment’s peace.

  “Friends,” Lord Lampton himself called out over the gathering. “We are so pleased that you have joined us for this wonderful occasion.”

  Father appeared at her side and nudged her and Lucas closer to the dais, where Lord and Lady Lampton stood.

  “We are delighted to have our son returned home and ready to begin the next chapter of his life.” Lord Lampton motioned Lucas forward. As Lucas made his way toward his parents, Lord Lampton continued. “We have lived many years in anticipation of this beautiful moment for our family.” He motioned to Father. “Our families.”

  Lucas stepped up beside his parents. He looked thoroughly diverted, a not unusual expression for him.

  Father set his hand on Julia’s back and directed her closer to the dais. Could he not hear? Father was growing older, but he was not yet aged.

  “Do join us, Julia,” Lady Lampton said.

  Join them? That made no sense. But Father pressed her toward them. Refusing would only cause more of a scene.

  She stepped up beside Lucas. “Why am I here?” she whispered.

  “I haven’t the first idea,” he answered just as quietly.

  “Tonight,” Lord Lampton said to the gathered guests, “Lord Farland and I are deeply pleased to be approaching the long-awaited joining of our families.”

  What did he mean by that?

  “And, thus, we are tonight announcing the engagement of our son, Lord Jonquil, to Miss Cummings, the future Baroness Farland.”

  The crowd erupted in applause. Lucas muttered something Julia couldn’t make out. Nearby, Father beamed. Lord and Lady Lampton embraced. They thought this a decided thing, apparently.

  She had not survived all she had these past years to simply cower and accept the absurdity of other people’s moments of madness. “No,” she said in a low but firm voice. She shook her head as she stepped from the dais. “No. No. No.” She repeated it over and over, head still shaking, hands waving in dismissal, as she walked out.

  Chapter Seven

  Lucas stood in silent shock as a chaotic combination of confusion and panic churned inside him. Father had just announced his betrothal. To Julia. And if her immediate departure, punctuated by an unending string of “no,” was any indication, she had received exactly as much warning as he had.

  He followed in her wake. It was an unexpected moment of déjà vu. Mere days earlier, he’d chased after her down the corridor of Farland Meadows. The din of voices behind him no doubt included his parents’. They could wait. Julia was likely in an absolute panic.

  He met the eye of the footman placed at the front door. Without needing the question posed out loud, the footman gestured with his thumb through the doorway leading outside. She had, then, left the house entirely.

  The front portico was empty. She clearly wasn’t waiting for a carriage to be called. His stubborn, headstrong Julia never had been one to do anything halfway. Lucas caught up to her at the point where the drive split, the main section continuing on to the road, the narrower branch turning off toward the dower house.

  “I’m not going back, Lucas, so do not waste your breath insisting that I do.” She spoke without slowing her step.

  “I won’t insist on it, but I will ask you to talk to me.” He stepped around and in front of her. “Please. I am as shocked and shaken by this as you are. We need to sort this out.”

  “There is nothing to sort.” Her anger rang of worry. “I am not getting married, Lucas. Certainly not to you.”

  Her animosity was still confusing, but it was also growing frustrating. He didn’t have the first idea what he’d done to earn her malice. How could he fix what was an utter mystery?

  Footsteps on the pebbled drive drew both their attention back toward the house. Their parents were moving, steps nearly in unison, toward them.

  “I am too upended for this,” Julia said. “I need a moment’s peace.”

  Father spoke first as the three of them arrived where Julia and Lucas stood. “That was quite a scene.”

  “Your sudden departure has caused a tremendous number of whispers,” Mother said.

  “And your decision not to so much as mention these arrangements to either of us has caused a tremendous amount of difficulty out here.” Lucas looked to his father. “It is bad enough that you and Mother didn’t feel the need to inform me of this decision”—he set his gaze on Lord Farland—“but to not tell Julia is the outside of enough.”

  “We’ve spoken for years of connecting our families,” Lord Farland said, clearly not viewing the night’s events as the indefensible actions they were.

  “Unless that ‘we’ includes the two people required to facilitate that connection, your excuse doesn’t hold a drop of water.”

  “Lucas,” Mother scolded, “do not speak so flippantly to Lord Farland. He has arranged a fortuitous and advantageous marriage for his daughter, as is his right and duty as her father. That in no way deserves your censure.”

  “Not offering his daughter the least warning does. Choosing for her someone she does not want to marry, who has not expressed a desire to marry her, does.”

  “I cannot comprehend your objections,” Mother said. “We never imagined you would be anything but elated at these arrangements.”

  How could they possibly think that?

  “Very few people have the advantage of knowing the person their parents choose, let alone already liking and caring deeply for that person.” Father motioned to himself, Mother, and Lord Farland. “Not one of us was granted that privilege.”

  “Not all marriages are arranged any longer,” Lucas said. “More consideration is given to the feelings of the would-be couple.”

  “There is too much at stake for this to be left to chance,” Father said. “You both will inherit titles and estates. Hundreds upon hundreds of lives are impacted by your futures.”

  Julia began walking away. “They won’t listen, Lucas.”

  He reached out and took hold of her hand, keeping her nearby. “Then we will keep talking until they do.”

  She shook her head but didn’t pull free, neither did she look back at any of them. He’d have put his arm around her if he’d had any confidence she would allow it, or that it would help her. It would have helped him. He felt terribly alone just then.

  “We cannot remain out here all night,” Mother said. “The guests, no doubt, are already beginning to gossip.”

  “You are insisting on a match that will make neither of us happy and your concern is for gossip?”

  “The worry is warranted,” Father said.

  Lord Farland took up the explanation. “A daughter cannot refuse her parents’ arrangements on her behalf. Should this announced match not take place, it will be assumed
you, Lucas, refused to marry her. I do not have to tell you what that would mean for her reputation.”

  He hadn’t thought of that complication. “Surely there is a way to avoid that. The announcement was made mere minutes ago.”

  “It cannot be prevented, Lucas,” Mother said. “Ladies have been permanently ruined for less.”

  Lord Farland moved to where his daughter stood. “This is a good match and an advantageous one. It never entered my mind that you would be anything but pleased.”

  Julia pulled away from Lucas and took a few more steps down the road, though she didn’t flee entirely, and said to her father, “You never once mentioned your intentions. If I am to be part of this marriage, why should I not at least be consulted about it? Before it is announced.”

  Lord Farland shook his head. “This match was formulated with care and consideration. Many fathers choose for their daughters a stranger, one whose temperament and suitability is not so well known to them as Lucas’s is to us.”

  She turned enough to look more directly at her father. The Valkyries of myth could not have appeared more defiant than she did in that moment. “Choosing a stranger would have been kinder.”

  A boot to his stomach would not have knocked the wind more thoroughly from him. Choosing a stranger would have been kinder. Lucas was less-desirable than a stranger? Even one who might have any number of horrible qualities?

  Lord Farland’s posture stiffened visibly. “Caroline Julia Cummings, I will not abide you acting like a selfish child. It is time you grew up and began thinking of someone other than yourself.”

  Julia paled with every word he spoke. Lucas didn’t think anyone else was even breathing. He had never before heard Lord Farland speak so sharply to anyone, let alone his daughter. Lucas took a step closer, but his father stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “After tonight, you can claim ample isolation in which to weep and curse the heavens and declare yourself put upon. And you can indulge in that all you want for a week.”

  “A week?”

  “Lord Lampton has procured a special license. The marriage will occur one week from today.”

  Blast it all, they already had the license. There truly had been no anticipation of any objections.

  “Please don’t make me do this,” she quietly pleaded.

  “Someday you will thank me,” he answered. “Until then, you can simply not make this more difficult.”

  Her shoulders dropped, and she wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Now, summon the manners taught to you by that governess we spent so much money on, and go receive the congratulations and well-wishes of your neighbors and guests.”

  “Yes, Father.” Her whisper broke even as her chin quivered. She slipped silently past Lucas, past all of them, and moved once more to Lampton Park. All of her fire and fight were gone.

  Lucas turned to their parents to offer one final declaration of his frustration. But his mother and father had moved to Lord Farland’s side. The man’s bluster of only a moment earlier was gone entirely. He looked, in a word, defeated. Lucas’s parents offered Farland reassurance and empathy.

  What a mess. What a complete and utter mess.

  ***

  “Your predicament is a difficult one, I won’t deny that.” Kes had been horrified on Lucas’s behalf but had also been an invaluable source of advice. They’d spent the wee hours of the morning after all the ball guests had left trying to sort out the mayhem his parents had caused. “But if you can convince your parents and her father to support the two of you in ending this betrothal, I do think the damage can be minimized.”

  Lucas took a fortifying breath. “Then I shouldn’t turn tail and run?”

  Kes gave him a nudge toward the library door. Father was inside, and Lucas had been rallying his optimism. The marriage he and Julia were meant to contract was a terrible idea. He wanted to believe his father could be brought around to seeing that.

  He stepped inside, ready to do battle. “Father,” he greeted.

  “Lucas.” Father waved him over to the fireplace where he sat. “Join me.”

  They were starting on a good footing. How Lucas hoped that was a good omen.

  “I received a missive from Farland this morning,” Father said as Lucas sat. “Julia is, it seems, undertaking a self-imposed exile.”

  Poor Julia.

  “I cannot say that I blame her,” Lucas said. “The three of you dealt us both quite a blow last night.”

  “You, at least, have come around to seeing the wisdom of it.” Father offered a smile.

  “If there were any wisdom in this plan, I would most certainly see it.”

  Father eyed him more closely, head tipping a little. “What are you saying?”

  “I did not wish to make a scene last evening with so many guests in the house, but only the two of us are here just now. May we please discuss this in earnest?”

  “There is nothing to discuss—”

  “Two people’s entire futures, Father. That is most certainly not ‘nothing.’”

  “This is a good match, son. One you should be celebrating.”

  He shook his head. “If you consider it a ‘good match,’ then I can only assume you have not given the matter much thought.”

  Father rose, pacing with stiff steps. “We have thought about this for years.”

  “You have thought about connecting our families for years. The specific idea of me marrying Julia is simply a means to an end, but it is a horrible means.”

  The heels on Father’s buckle shoes thwacked the ground as he continued his circuit. He was clearly not pleased with Lucas’s objections, but at least he was listening.

  “I have spent the last eight years seeing the world, making a place for myself in Society, expanding my knowledge and connections, embracing the role of an independent gentleman of means.” Lud, he felt ridiculous speaking of himself this way. But he needed to make a contradiction, one significant enough that Father would realize how ill-conceived this match was. “Julia has left home only to visit her cousins in Berkshire and associates with absolutely no Society, not even what little of it she might have here in Collingham. She sees no one, goes nowhere, and prefers that.”

  Father stopped moving, his mouth twisted in thought. Was Lucas getting through to him?

  “I would be an annoyance to her, and she would be something of a weight to me.” He hoped it was an exaggeration, but he harbored a great many doubts on that score. Resentment could grow between people so quickly.

  “You will find your middle ground given time,” Father said. “Many couples begin their marriages with disparate backgrounds.”

  “But—”

  Father held up his hand and cut off the objection. “Your mother and I began our lives together with these same differences. As you can see, it was not a hindrance to our happiness.”

  That argument wasn’t going to carry much weight, then. It ought to, but it wouldn’t.

  “When did your parents decide that Mother was to be your bride?”

  “When I was about your age,” Father said. “Your mother had completed her first Season in London—she’d made her bows in Society later than many young ladies, a result of her preference for home. During that Season, she and I were thrown together a few times and our parents found the idea of a match between us to be ideal. We hadn’t an established connection between our families yet, but one was desirable. I had, of course, paid court to a handful of young ladies over the preceding years, but your mother proved the best choice in many ways.”

  “And I cannot imagine you were the only gentleman paying court to Mother. Though I am her son, I am not unaware of the fact that she is a handsome and charming lady.”

  A fond smile tugged at Father’s lips. “She had many suitors, yes.”

  “Both of you had options,” Lucas p
ointed out. “Your match was arranged based on the two of you being one another’s best option.”

  Father’s mouth tipped downward once more. “Lucas.”

  “Hear me out, please.” Lucas stood and crossed to him. “I am not objecting to a marriage arranged by my parents. I truly am not. But, Father, I have options. I have many connections in Society. When the Season begins again, I will have ample invitations to balls and soirees. Why not afford me the same courtesy your parents afforded you? Let us go up to London and do as your parents did: choose a match based on what is best for me and for the lady who would be my wife.”

  “Your opportunities are not the only ones that must be taken into consideration.” Father began pacing again.

  “Meaning that because Julia does not have connections or suitors to choose from, I am required to fill that role.” Could Father not see how ludicrous this was? “She will inherit a title and an estate. Surely that could be leveraged into obtaining the attention she is currently not receiving.”

  “Farland does not wish for anyone to marry her simply to gain access to her title and lands.”

  That, at least, was a mark in Lord Farland’s favor. He’d not given Julia much consideration outside of that small crumb.

  “So he chose someone who didn’t need either.”

  Father nodded. “Precisely.”

  “But is that not another reason for hesitancy? The Farland barony will be obliterated by this marriage. That title will simply be absorbed by the Lampton title and will disappear. Surely, Lord Farland wishes to contract a marriage that will guarantee the continuance of his family’s long-held title.”

  Father hesitated only the length of a breath. “His family will gain prestige by being connected with ours. Julia will gain standing by being married to you.”

  “But I do not gain standing by being married to her. Neither do we gain anything we desperately need. We have land aplenty, deep coffers, standing in Society, more titles than you and I are able to use between us.” Lucas would push until he was heard. “Julia will have a title in her own right. She will have an estate she could call her own, something of hers to pass on to a child someday. Marrying me will take that away from her.”