Chapter 1 #3
“I am happy.” Gently, he withdrew his hand from hers.
“Why the devil does everyone assume a fellow has to marry in order to be happy?” He glanced at his grandmother.
“Remember, I did marry once. I am a much merrier chap now.” If a man didn’t set his heart on a woman, that organ couldn’t get broken.
And that union had been ill-advised at best, brokered because the lady in question had been with child.
It had been a matter of honor, prompted by threats from his father to avoid scandal, and he’d thought he could truly find the gladness he’d spent a lifetime chasing.
Since Lucy.
“Don’t lie to me again.” She rapped his hand with her fingers.
Her gravelly voice rang with the authority to which she’d become accustomed over the course of her lifetime.
“You’re not happy. Hell, you’re not content.
I can see it in your eyes. In fact, I think you’re searching for something, even if you don’t know that yet. ”
“Grandmother…” Why couldn’t his family see that his life as an eight and thirty gentleman worked perfectly for him and that he needed nothing else in life?
But the longer he held her gaze, the more his protest began to disintegrate.
If he acknowledged she was correct and that sometimes in the dark of night when he awoke alone, he wished things had been different, then his carefully crafted facade would break.
Where would that leave him? Facing the facts that he led an empty existence with no way out? Or that he was a horrible father who was teaching his only daughter bad habits?
Finally, he sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t know what true happiness is anymore.” Women, cards, coin, drinking, they didn’t hold the appeal they once had and hadn’t for some time. Without them, what was left of him?
“Oh, my dear boy.” His grandmother patted his cheek. “I’ll give you the best advice I can. Find Christmas again and you’ll find the happiness that eludes you.”
“If only it were that simple.”
“It is. Do it for your daughter. You’ve neglected her enough leading this lifestyle.
It’s time to grasp change.” The old lady pierced him with her gaze.
“Bring her with you and show her the place that built your childhood. Let her see the holiday through your memories, for you loved it so. It will bring you closer. Not all of those memories are bad.” She raised an eyebrow. “Show her, before you lose her too.”
His chest tightened. Another truth, and this one hit all too close. His fifteen-year-old daughter, Ellen, was growing into a hoyden with no sense of manners or morals, two steps away from being expelled from her finishing school, and it was very much his fault. “Is it that obvious?”
“To me? Yes. To others?” His grandmother shrugged.
“There is still time for her to behave in a manner acceptable for a young lady of breeding, but you need to be a father instead of a contemporary.” The older lady stood.
She shook out her skirts. “I’m telling you to think about things that don’t directly affect you.
Come home for Christmas. Sometimes the balm of family is all you need to heal. ”
Colin hopped to his feet. “Do you go to Lancaster Hall as well? Perhaps we can travel together.”
“I have made other arrangements, for I assumed you would not agree to the trip. In fact, I leave in two days.”
“So soon? If I go, it will most certainly not happen until the 20th. That assumes four days for travel with one to spare.” No reason to depart sooner and spend even more time with his kin.
“I have my reasons.” Her smile was decidedly mysterious. “I will be waiting for you in Derbyshire and we will enjoy the Christmastide together, as we used to, and I will tell tales by the fire with a cup of mulled wine with my whole family gathered around.”
“Fair enough.” Feeling nostalgic, he collected his grandmother into an impulsive hug. “I shall see you for Christmas breakfast.”
“I know you will, sonny. Oh, I cannot wait!” With a last pat of her hand, she sailed from the room.
Dear God, what have I done?
December 20, 1821
Colin tried to relax against the squabs of his traveling coach, but the vehicular traffic that clogged the streets of Mayfair worked against that coveted state. Carriages creeped and crawled until finally the coach came to a rocking halt just past Hanover Square.
“Devil take it! I knew I should never have consented to this trip.” With jerky movements, he rolled down the window and then stuck his head out to gauge the trouble himself. “It’s a sign, I tell you.”
“What is happening?” his daughter asked as she glanced out her window. Boredom lined her face in profile while she twirled a golden curl about her forefinger. She looked much like her mother, right down to the pout.
“I am not certain, but this is ridiculous.” In desperate need of action, Colin opened the door and then swung himself down from the conveyance.
A mail coach had apparently broken down. The vehicle tilted alarmingly to the left while the driver helped passengers out. Another man freed luggage from the top only to drop it in an ignoble pile in the middle of the street. His journey would take four days; he didn’t need further delay.
To his driver he said, “Wait here. I’ll see what the trouble is and if I can fix it so we might be on our way.”
The closer he came to the cluster of displaced travelers, the more he couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes.
It couldn’t be. Why the devil is she here?
Surely it couldn’t be true. Trick of the light, ghosts of the past?
He stared harder and even narrowing his gaze didn’t give him any different information.
It is! His chest tightened, and his heart thudded into painful life as if it had previously been dormant.
Standing within that knot of people was Lucy Ashbrook nee Hudson, a little older and wiser but still quite fetching with her experience.
A slow, calculating smile curved his lips.
How fortuitous, frightening even. Perhaps he could alleviate his ennui, plus acquire a traveling companion for Ellen, for he’d completely forgotten she would need such on the journey.
Hell, he’d offer to drop Lucy wherever she wanted along the way, but in the meanwhile, he would make her regret ever rejecting him.
Especially after she’d married his best friend.
Happy Christmas to me.