Jack straightened. “Of course. Tell Mother I shall be down to see her directly after calling on Grandfather.”
As Jack stood to leave his father stopped him one last time. “Son, I want to give you a piece of advice that I hope you will heed.”
Jack nodded. “Of course.”
Saxton paused for a moment. “Rather than lecture you, how about we make a wager?”
Jack eyed his father with interest. “Wagering is what got me into this mess in the first place.”
Saxton’s voice was laced with amusement as he answered, “Then choose carefully. You have been eying that ruby pin for some time now. As you know it is a family heirloom.”
Jack straightened, knowing precisely the pin his father was speaking about. “Yes, Sir.”
“Let us lay odds, if you manage to win the Rotherford girl’s heart before Christmas I will give you the bobble. But if she refuses you will give me Satan.”
“You want my horse?” Jack burst out.
“You think you cannot win the heart of a girl that has loved you her entire life?”
Jack flushed as his father stood there with a raised brow. “You have a deal,” Jack said shortly. Opening the door, he turned and said, “It really is good to be home.”
Unbeknownst to Jack there was another who had stood out in the freezing temperatures awaiting his arrival. In truth, she was the reason why the young butler had been late to greet his lordship.
Tucked away behind a large evergreen stood Miss Elizabeth Rotherford, the second of the Rotherford girls, younger than her sister by mere minutes. Lizzie to everyone who truly knew her, stood with trembling fingers and a pinched expression on her lovely face. Despite her thick pelisse and woollen mittens, she was frozen clear through with apprehension.
Jack had returned. She had seen him in the flesh. His brilliant smile that he had shown his father had felt like an arrow straight through her heart. How could time have left her the same and changed him into a heavenly being.
It was really rather unsporting of him to come back here all of these years later and to be so handsome to boot. She leaned a little closer trying to see his handsome visage, her gloved fingers gripping the bark.
His baritone voice had her stomach in knots, and she couldn’t even tell what he was saying.
Blast! Why did he have to come back now?
As soon as the young viscount and his father the earl were inside the house, Lizzie sprinted to the servant’s door and rapped twice. One of the maids let her in and tsked at the snow being dragged in by Lizzie’s gown.
Lizzie hadn’t the time to even blush. She raced to the butler’s pantry to get Averill’s report.
“You are going to get me sacked!” the young butler bemoaned as she mostly closed the door.
“Nonsense!” Lizzie said dismissively. “Staines always kept me abreast of his lordships whereabouts, and so shall you.”
Averill eyed the young lady with suspicion. But seeing her loveliness and clear determination he swallowed any other protests that might have fought to come to light.
Quickly Averill repeated what he had overheard at the library door.
“He said that. You are sure?” she asked in a horrified whisper.
“I am sorry, Miss.”
Lizzie shook her head and tried to keep the world from tilting. She felt sick inside.
Is that how they had come to think of her—as a situation?
Jack and Lizzie had been in a state of limbo for ten years now. Somehow, she had hoped that his coming home this year might be the start of something new.
Now she could see how foolish she had been. Honestly, it was high time that she ended things. As much as she cared for Jack, had always cared for him, it was time she faced the truth. With a quick word of thanks to the butler, Lizzie slipped out the way she had come. With the ease of only a country bred girl, she pulled herself atop her horse and rode for Mangrove Manor.
A break was in order there was nothing more for it. She only wished that the break didn’t involve so much of her heart.
Chapter 2
Meanwhile, Jack, none the wiser for the anguish he had caused was feeling glad to be home. As he climbed the steps leading to his grandfather’s bedchamber the words of his father came to him. “After you have eaten, and your mother has doted on you, we can discuss what options are available to you.”
Jack felt the anxiety in his stomach unravelling the tiniest amount. Surely his father was correct in the estimation that he did still have options open to him. These words had given Jack a little extra breathing room, and for the first time in years he wondered if this horrible tangle might become unravelled.
After all, it was in this very home during the holidays that Jack had set things in motion that would haunt him these last ten years. He thought back to his eighteenth year ruefully. There had been far too many nights at the bottom of a bottle, and far too many decisions that had been made on the flip of a coin.
One could say that these behaviours are simply what helps to transition the boy into a man. But Jack knew better. It was because of the loss of one particular card game that had Jack hightailing it out of the countryside and not returning for nearly ten years.
The young butler silently approached. “His Grace has requested that Master Jack report to his bedchamber as soon as he arrives.”
If Jack didn’t know better, he would think that the man didn’t like him. But that couldn’t be—could it? He was obviously tired from his journey.
His grandfather, the Duke of Carthage, was neither heavy handed nor unfair. However, he didn’t tolerate fools or cheats, and Jack had a sneaking suspicion that his grandfather would consider his absence a little bit of both.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Jack noted how everything seemed smaller than it had all of those years ago. He had thought himself a man at eighteen, but now he knew that he had been little more than a boy.
Jack shared his father’s dark hair and muscular build. However, it was said that he had his mother’s eyes, blue as a summer’s day.
The door to the Duke’s bedchamber was opened by a servant and Jack entered to find his grandfather to have greatly aged. It was difficult to tell if his chest was rising and falling from his position at the door. Jack took a step inside and then another. His grandfather’s eyes were closed.
Perhaps he should go and return when the Duke was awake?
“It is about time you arrived.” The reproof was laced with disapproval, and one ducal eye cracked open.
Jack swallowed the surprised expression that had threatened to escape. As Jack took a step further toward his grandfather, he saw the familiar spirit that lingered in his weathered gaze.
“Your Grace,” Jack hated the formality in his tone, but he wasn’t sure how else to respond, he wasn’t a boy anymore. “I do hope that I find you are being treated well.”
The Duke harrumphed. “If you meant that they have hidden my best brandy, bled me until I am weak as a cat, and insist on serving me milk tea and both—then yes, very well.”
Jack’s lips twitched. In those few words his grandfather had set him at ease. “Indeed, is it as bad as that?”
The duke scowled. “Do not be charming. I am still at odds with you.”
A cough started low in the duke’s chest and had one of the servants rushing toward him with a cup of tea.
“Damnation, I am not thirsty. Put that away! Just because I have a foot in the grave it does not mean that I do not know my own head!”
Jack’s lips twitched again. “Perhaps a lusty maid and some ale?”
His grandfather barked out a laugh. “I dare say that would be the day. I would love to see your father’s face had I the strength to pull off such a feat. It would not do to tease your mother in such a fashion, but by gad it would be quite the lark.”
Jack grinned at the old devil. It was without question that his grandfather had been quite the dandy in his heyday. A comfortable silence settled between them.
<
br /> “That girl deserves better, and we both know it.”
Jack winced. It hadn’t been well done of him and they both knew it. Jack had allowed the situation to linger on far too long. He was man, no, a gentleman, and he needed to take responsibility for his actions. “I have come to fulfil my promise, Your Grace.”
The older man lifted a gnarled finger saying, “Do not think that I do not know the whole of it. What you young rakehells were thinking, I shall never derive. Making a bet on a young woman of gentle birth was quite beyond the pale and then you have left her dangling on the hook for ten years, Jack. That is reprehensible.”
Jack felt the familiar feelings of shame and mortification wash over him. He couldn’t believe that ten years had passed since he had embroiled himself into the biggest mess of his adult life. What was worse, was that in those ten years he hadn’t done more than exchange a half a dozen notes with her. It was unpardonable considering for nine years she had sent a letter of correspondence every week regardless of whether or not he responded.
It was only this year in September that the letters stopped. He hadn’t known how much he had come to rely on them. She would write of home, of his family, of things that made her smile, and of the future—their future.
“Now, do not poker up on me, boy. You know that I only say these things because I care about you. It is time.”
“I will do right by Elizabeth Rotherford, Your Grace. I have come to marry her.”
The older man straightened a little in his bed eying his grandson. “You will be lucky, my boy, if she will still have you.”
Chapter 3
“Lizzie, this is a madcap idea that will likely land us both in the suds! You know that I was never good at fabricating stories,” Ellie pleaded with her twin sister Elizabeth. “Please, let us just sit here and we can be perfectly comfortable while we contrive to put everything to rights.”
Ellie rubbed her rounded stomach and motioned to the settee.
Lizzie eyed her twin sister with a rather shrewd look. “Ellie, I would not dream of asking you or dear Horace to do anything that could causes you alarm. Also, I know that you rub your stomach when you are uncomfortable with my plans and want to guilt me out of them.”
Horace, Ellie’s husband, looked up from the agricultural tomb that he was reading to glance vacantly at the twins. “I dare say, I thought I heard my name. Did you need me for anything?”
Ellie scowled at her sister and promptly dropped her hand.
“No, darling,” Ellie assured her husband of five years. “It was nothing.”
Horace Snelling, the second son of a duke, was fascinated by farming—most especially irrigation systems. Marrying into the Rotherford family, Horace had been happily embraced and promptly put to work with Robert Rotherford, Ellie’s uncle.
Horace was kind, honest, and a devoted husband. But an adventurer, well, that was something that Horace never could be. Ellie was much like her father Charles, good natured, and willing to be led about by those with a stronger desire to lead.
Lizzie was altogether too much like her mother, wild, unrepentant, and impetuous. Cece Rotherford had been known to cause a scandal or two in her day.
Lizzie was tired of hiding out in the country because of something that had happened more than ten years ago. She thought of the conversation that Jack had with his father calling her the situation. No, she was tired of waiting for Jack Billingsworth to come to his senses and marry her. God’s truth she was bloody well tired of being the laughingstock of their friends and family.
She couldn’t, no, wouldn’t go through another Christmas holiday with their pitying stares and glances and that was from the kind ones! Plenty more would ask pointed questions that were unkind as well as uncomfortable.
There wasn’t a blasted member of the Ton that wasn’t aware of her farce of an engagement to Viscount Cavendish—and of his blatant disregard of her.
No, Lizzie was finished being the laughingstock of every joke, the spinster at every party, and the wallflower at family gatherings.
What was worse was that she wasn’t about to spend another house party for Christmas at Jack’s family estate.
Lizzie rather thought that death would be preferable.
Any kind feelings that had once resided in her heart were long buried underneath ten years of snubs from the man.
Her heart gave a twinge for the untruth of that thought. Just setting eyes on the man had her pulse racing and her heart thundering on. But she wouldn’t allow him to continue to make a fool of her. She still had her pride even though it would seem that nothing else was left.
If Jack didn’t wish to marry her, she certainly had no desire to marry him. Indeed, she would rather that she never would have to lay eyes on the scoundrel for the rest of her days.
“Lizzie do listen to me! You cannot run off to London on your own!” Ellie pleaded once again with Lizzie.
Lizzie frowned. “Have you not listened to anything I have said? I shan’t be alone; Edward and Andrew are to accompany me.”
Ellie groaned, sinking into a chair she muttered, “Fantastic, you shall have two of the biggest reprobates in the Ton as your chaperones. What could possibly go wrong?”
Lizzie pulled out the foolscap and read the contents. Satisfied with the note she stood from her place at the secretary and walked to where her sister was perched.
“Nothing will go wrong. Our cousins shall protect me, and I shall have my maid Martin there as a chaperone. You are being a pea goose, there is no reason to worry. Edward and Andrew will be seeing me as far as London. I am not such a fool as to think that they will wish to remain tied to their spinster cousin once we reach town. But it will not matter, I can stay in the London house until I am able to rent a little house.”
“Why must you go to such extremes?” Ellie pleaded with Lizzie. “I cannot see why you will not call off the wedding and spend the holidays with your family as you always have.”
For the briefest of moments some of the hurt and pain slipped across Lizzie’s face. She was quick to seal those emotions away, but it was too late. Her twin knew her almost as well as she knew herself.
Ellie caught the rarest glimpse of pain in her twin’s eyes. It was there one second and gone the next. For a second Ellie wondered if she had imagined it. During the past ten years she knew that it hadn’t been easy on her sister.
When Ellie went to London to find a suitor, Lizzie had remained in the country. After all, she had already contracted a wedding agreement. For the first time in ten years Ellie was starting to see everything Lizzie had given up by burying herself in the countryside to wait for her wayward fiancé to come calling.
It was more than obvious to everyone that he never would. Ellie had assumed that Lizzie was perfectly fine being alone, she would have challenged anyone that had dreamed of saying that Lizzie was unhappy with her fate.
“I beg your pardon,” Ellie replied in a gentler tone. “I should not lecture you. Indeed, it was most insensitive. I am certain you know what you are about.”
Lizzie handed Ellie the missive saying, “Thank you. Now, if you will please give this to Jack when he comes calling for me it will explain all to him.”
Ellie nodded miserably. “Of course, I will. It is only, I know you see yourself as an adventurer, but please exercise caution. You know how I worry.” Ellie insisted, gathering her sister into a tight embrace.
Lizzie smiled as she hugged her twin, saying, “I should think that Andrew and Edward know the way backwards and forwards. Do not fret Ellie! We shall all get along famously and once I am finally in London, I will find myself a little spinster cottage. I shall be very happy there; you know I will be.”
Ellie nodded and placed a hand on her belly. One could barely make out the slight rounding that indicated she and Horace were expecting their second child. “I wish you every happiness, Lizzie.”
Lizzie grinned despite the tears that pricked her eyes. With a final wave, she left her sister and b
rother in law in the parlour and went in search of Martin, her maid.
Once it was clear that the bags were already packed into the carriage and her male cousins were eagerly awaiting their departure. Lizzie knew it was time to leave her childhood home. She wrapped up in her heavy cloaks and winter scarves, and with a laugh alighted down the steps of Mangrove Manor with Martin in tow.
“Do my eyes deceive me or are you the loveliest creature that I ever did see?” Her cousin Edward Rotherford was only a few years younger than Lizzie’s eight and twenty. Standing straight and tall with his mother’s dark hair and his father’s muscular build. Edward was well known for his carousing with his cohorts. Edward’s eyes danced with familiar mischief as he kissed his cousin’s glove.
“Flatterer,” Lizzie said with a grin. “We are going to have a grand time of it, will we not?”
“Hello there, Lizzie-Lou!” Andrew winked at Lizzie. “Are you ready for your adventure?” Andrew, who had gone and done the unpardonable thing and grown two inches taller than his older brother, interjected jovially. “This shall be the grandest Christmas any of us have ever seen—mark my words!” Andrew scooped Lizzie into his arms and swung her around twice before depositing her back on her feet.
Lizzie squealed with delight and ignored the censoriously looks that Martin shot them. Edward and Andrew were just the ticket Lizzie needed to keep her out of the dismals. A wide smile broke across Lizzie’s face as she answered, “I have been ready these ten years past and more.”
Andrew, barely into his twentieth year, was every bit as debonair as his brother. Both of the Rotherford brothers were said to be handsome as the devil and twice as wily.
“Hand the chit up and let us be off!” Edward had already alighted into the carriage. He took Lizzie’s hand and helped to get her settled onto the bench next to Martin.
Being a similar age, it wasn’t long before the trio settled into a comfortable conversation about days gone by. There were peals of laughter coming from the coach as it bumped its way down the familiar road towards London.
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