Chapter Six
There was something so incredibly satisfying about seeing the ball thunk into the pocket. It was just a shame that it hadn’t been the ball Reginald had been aiming for.
“Bother,” he said aloud to himself.
Well. It might have been a bother. It might have been another word a little less suitable for the ears of ladies.
Not that it mattered—he was alone in the capacious billiards room in Stanphrey Lacey and had been for almost an hour. The days had slipped by and he’d found almost no opportunities to speak to Miss Chance—not that he particularly needed to.
Needed to, no. Wanted to… Well.
Heat flickered up Reginald’s spine as he strode around the table, billiard cue in hand, attempting not to think about how he had pressed Miss Jessica Chance up against a tree and kissed her senseless.
Or she had kissed him senseless. He wasn’t quite sure, even now, who had lost their senses the most.
Forgetting the kiss was impossible. Reginald had been interrupted by thoughts of it all day, hour by hour, finding it difficult to hold a conversation longer than ten minutes. He had been tormented by it at night, his mind replaying the moment as his fingers itched to feel the same heat.
It was a miracle he hadn’t marched over to Miss Chance today at luncheon, pulled her from her seat, and kissed her again.
Reginald’s jaw tightened. He lowered himself over the table, angled his cue, and took his shot.
“Bravo,” said an unfamiliar voice.
He hadn’t noticed the door open, but then, he had been focused on not thinking about Miss Chance’s lips. So that was undoubtedly why he had not noticed two gentlemen enter the room.
Reginald straightened up and inclined his head in a polite bow before really taking in who they were. When his gaze settled on them, his chest tightened.
Ah. Miss Chance’s father, the Viscount Pernrith, and her brother, Mr. Michael Chance.
He had been expecting this. In truth, he was rather surprised it had taken them a week to do it.
Yes, he had explained he was a baron, but that had been in a rather public setting, and Miss Chance’s parents had seemed glad to learn that news.
No one had pressed him further at the time.
Now, cornering him and investigating precisely why he had turned up at a private residence such as Stanphrey Lacey and proposed to one of their number?
That would have been his first port of call, if some man had turned up and requested his sister’s hand.
Though of course, the Blakley family had sufficient problems without worrying about being fastidious when it came to marrying off his sister…
“Gentlemen,” Reginald said aloud, as pleasantly as he could muster. “Care to join me in a game?”
“You appear to be in the middle of one,” Michael Chance said with a wry smile.
“Oh, I am merely practicing,” Reginald said in return, matching the expression. Was it possible this was not as dramatic as he expected? Could it be mere coincidence that both Miss Chance’s father and brother had shown up here?
“You two boys can play a game later if you would like,” the Viscount Pernrith said quietly, moving to the other side of the room. “I want to talk about Jessica.”
‘Two boys.’
Well, Reginald should have expected it. Few fathers would permit their daughters to go about marrying men they did not know, and he had made a rumpus, turning up like this and requesting the hand of a lady he had never met before.
So, how would the man approach it? Remove his permission? Attempt to interrogate him about his past, about the reason for this swift marriage?
Reginald braced himself, his shoulders tightening and his fingers constricting around his billiard cue. Whatever approach the man took, he would be ready.
“I just want my girl to be happy,” said the viscount quietly, his expression lost.
Reginald almost dropped his cue. He had not been ready.
“And I say again, you’re taking this too much to heart, Father,” Chance said with a sigh as he picked up a billiard cue of his own and approached the table. “Jessica knows what she is doing.”
“Jessica is barely a woman.”
“She is four and twenty, Father,” countered her brother as he rolled his eyes at Reginald, who stifled a weak smile. “If she wants to go about marrying a man she barely knows, so be it. Perhaps she simply doesn’t want to be a spinster.”
“I would not care if she was. If she were happy at home, she would not see the need to leave me,” said the viscount helplessly, dropping into a chair. “Do you not think so, Lord Llyne?”
Reginald opened his mouth, considered anything he could say to reassure this man, this father, then closed it again.
Poor fellow. Perhaps he should have predicted this; eldest daughter, first child to be married, it was no wonder the old boy was feeling a little out of his depth. He clearly didn’t have any real questions for himself. The viscount was just worried about his daughter.
“And you, Lord Llyne,” Miss Chance’s father said with sudden sharpness that threw Reginald immediately off-balance.
“I have to admit I had not heard of you, but I did my due diligence and checked Debrett’s, and wrote to a friend who recognized you by description—you are the Baron Llyne.
So, why do you wish to marry so swiftly? Why now? Why her?”
The movement of Michael Chance to Reginald’s left suddenly halted. The room was stilled, the air thick, and he knew that his next words would have to be very considered.
He could tell the whole truth. He could tell some of the truth. He could lie. Apparently, this friend of the viscount’s had not cautioned him against Reginald—so there was hope the news had not spread yet.
Reginald took in a long, slow inhale. He had known, hadn’t he, that some of the truth would have to come out before the Chances would permit him to marry one of them?
Oh, this family. He had longed to be a part of it for years, and his brother’s shame had given him the perfect excuse—and now he was so close. So very close.
Looking up, he met the eyes of the Viscount Pernrith and knew precisely what to tell him. Even better, it would not be a lie.
It was not the whole truth…but it was the truth Reginald knew he would accept.
“I was not born the heir to the baron,” Reginald said quietly. It was strange, saying it out loud. He usually spent so much of his time hiding this fact about himself. “I… My parents were not married when I was born. Not to each other, at any rate.”
He had not released his gaze from the viscount’s, whose steely focus somehow flickered with something. Something Reginald recognized.
After all, had he not seen it in his own expression year after year, in the looking glass?
“You are illegitimate,” the viscount said slowly. That meant his friend had not written to tell him as much. He supposed such disreputable details were not made clear in a guide such as Debrett’s.
Reginald inclined his head. Breaking the connection, he stepped around the billiards table and spoke in a light tone, as though he frequently discussed his parentage with relative strangers.
“Yes, my father took a mistress, my mother. She was soon after widowed, but my father had married another woman and after five years and no children, decided to own me, legitimize me, make me his heir.”
Strange, how the words could flow from him with seeming carelessness, as though the knowledge had not burdened him his whole life.
Chance stepped around the table in turn, taking his shot. “But I thought you mentioned—last night, at dinner, do you not have a sister?”
Reginald took a deep breath. “About a year after I was legitimized, my stepmother fell with child. Twins, a boy and girl. It made things…uncomfortable, shall we say.”
Despite his better judgment, knowing it was a topic most delicate, he looked up.
The viscount’s expression had softened. “A most uncomfortable situation for all involved, and I say that from experience.”
The tension in Reginald’s shoulder blades started to melt away. What was it that Miss Chance had said?
“You do know that my father is an illegitimate Chance, don’t you?”
Perhaps, if he was going to find acceptance without explanation…it was here.
“Perhaps this will explain in part my need to act, I admit, a bit drastic when attempting to secure a good match. Being the illegitimate brother in a family is no easy task,” Reginald said, his stomach swooping as he made the decision to say something perhaps too bold. “As I think you understand, my lord.”
Chance missed. He missed his billiard’s shot so hard that he almost ripped the baize.
Straightening up, cheeks pink, he stared at Reginald and raised a finger. “Don’t you talk to my father like that!”
“Peace, Michael.” The viscount had not moved from his chair. He had not lifted a finger. He merely looked at Reginald closely, his eyes slightly narrowed.
Reginald attempted to look a little cowed, which was not a particularly difficult thing because he felt it.
This man…he understood, he knew what it was to be given a name later in life.
He knew the distinct differences that were made, however subtly, between the son who was deemed rightfully there, and a son who was an interloper, even if no one said it.
The viscount grinned. “You know, I am impressed.”
It was not what Reginald had been expecting. “You are?”
“You are?” repeated Chance incredulously.
Viscount Pernrith shrugged as he stood up. “The man could have said anything, mumbled on about seeing Jessica from a distance, falling in love immediately, all that nonsense—”
“Like you and Mama,” interrupted his son with a grin.
Despite the son’s height and maturity, he was cuffed around the head by his father. “The point is, he told the truth. And a man who does that has my confidence.”
The viscount offered out his hand. “I suppose we ought to speak to the vicar here and write to ours back in London and get the banns started, then. Then you can wed as soon as three weeks, in either locale.”