Chapter Thirty-One
Cordelia arrived at the top of the mausoleum staircase and looked around. The large oak trees swayed in the wind with pretty birdsong. Strange, she thought to herself. She could have sworn she heard someone calling her. Forcing down the chill that rose in her spine, she called out to her sisters.
“Hello!” she tried, and then paused. There was no answer.
It was odd that she was to be the bearer of such wonderful news but have no one to share it with.
Little did everyone know, the house was saved, their futures secured, and fortunes made.
In spite of herself, she laughed, dabbing at the moisture in the corners of her eyes with Justin’s handkerchief.
Sneezing loudly, she dropped the piece of fabric to the ground.
When she bent to retrieve it, the wind blew it down the steps and onto the path.
Catching a glint of gold thread in the dappled sunlight, she saw that it was Bea’s little monstrosity of an embroidered hankie, complete with three pyramids and a dilapidated palm tree.
She’d started a camel but didn’t finish it; Cordelia could tell where she’d plucked the threads out.
Instead, in untidy lettering, she’d stitched For the Duke, Love, Bea.
Cordelia’s heart surged at that, tears threatening again for different reasons. I am not ready, she realized suddenly. I am not ready to say goodbye.
She almost didn’t catch his dark coat between the trees. She knew who it was instantly. Justin was standing off in a corner of the cemetery, his back turned to her, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his trousers.
Clutching the hankie in her hand, she walked over to where he stood.
She opened her mouth to say something but then decided against it.
He’d heard her approach but was staring at a shabby old tombstone.
The hand-hewn letters read: Timothy Wright.
Cordelia’s breath caught in her throat. This was his father’s grave.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Justin asked, his voice soft, inquiring. He still stared at the tombstone.
“Yes,” she replied. It was all Cordelia could manage, though she knew it was woefully inadequate.
He turned around then and smiled. “Good. I’m glad,” he said.
Cordelia nodded, looking to her hand, where Bea’s handiwork was stuffed in a sweaty palm. She held it up to him, her throat catching. “I didn’t realize my little sister had it in her to finish a piece of embroidery,” she remarked.
Justin plucked it out of her hand, chuckling to himself as he regarded it. “She’d come and visit me in the afternoons when I was laid up in bed. She’s very bright, your Bea. She is going to hold me to that promise to show her my drawings of the pyramids.”
Cordelia smiled at that, but then she glanced at the headstone and back to him. A stone sank in her stomach as she remembered him telling her about the abuse he’d suffered at his father’s hands and how Hollyhead had reminded him terribly of that abuse.
“I’m sorry,” she said, finally.
Justin sucked in a deep breath. “For what exactly this time? For seducing me and then running away? For solving the family riddle without me?”
His tone was more teasing than patronizing, but there was an edge behind it.
“I understand why it pains you to be here, Justin. I’m…
I’m so sorry you were dragged here against your will and have had to put up with my family…
and all of its accompanying eccentricities,” she said.
Reaching for his arm, she tucked hers in the crook of his elbow.
They started to walk out of the cemetery and onto the main path toward Hollyhead.
He took a moment before responding, as though he were choosing his next words very carefully.
“Thank you, Lia,” he said, finally. “I think a part of myself has always been running from this place. Whether because of my father or because of my adoptive father… only to become the one thing I never dreamed I’d become.”
Cordelia nodded. “It may sound strange, but I completely understand that. It’s… it’s as though there’ve been two people inside of me. One always wants things to be prim and proper and in control, while the other…”
“The other scolds local busybodies with aplomb and rejects marriage proposals with gusto,” Justin finished for her.
They both laughed at that.
“You’d be able to make a pretty penny of one Lady Prudence if you set her up with that story. I think you’re the one person in Hertfordshire that’s seen every side of Cordelia Nichols,” she said, shaking her head.
Justin sighed, “Indeed. With and without clothes on.”
Cordelia’s cheeks flamed as she playfully pushed against him. “Gentlemen do not insinuate when they’ve seen a lady without her clothes on.”
“I never claimed to be a gentleman, or good at it,” he replied.
They paused, looking at Hollyhead House in the late afternoon sunlight.
Guests were beginning to pull up the drive to attend the ball.
Cordelia glanced down at her dress, which was caked in dust and dirt.
Glancing over at Justin, she saw that he had cobwebs stuck in his dark waves and dotted all over his dark jacket.
With a little dirt under his left cheek and at least a day or two of stubble, she wasn’t sure he’d ever looked more handsome.
Well, it would be difficult to beat the time he’d come out of the sheep-dip in a white shirt. Or that time he’d saved her from the abandoned abbey, when his hair was falling in his eyes. Then there was the time in the vicarage… and then the other day…
Cordelia placed the back of her hand on her cheek to cool her skin as she turned her head back to the manor house.
“Why did you let me have it?” she whispered.
“It was always yours to begin with,” he replied, squeezing her arm. “Besides, my lesson was to learn to love this place again, and to confront my own history.”
Cordelia swiped at her eyes again, feeling her chest tighten.
“I’ll also be nicer to high-born toffs,” he added, dulling her intense emotion with a joke. “I know now what it takes to run an estate.”
“Many are not very good at it. But I promise I’ll take good care of it for you,” Cordelia replied.
“Oh, I know you will. Perhaps you’ll let me visit from time to time?”
She smirked, not answering him immediately. “We make quite the pair, dressed like this,” she remarked. “What will our guests think?”
“I’m not sure I rightly care,” he replied, giving her a half smile that made her heart stutter. “I won’t be Hollyhead’s master after today.”
Cordelia bit her lip. “Not its master, no. Not after I purchase it from you.” She paused for a moment before she added, “But I do have an opening for a chief architect… perhaps you could make inquiries on my behalf?”
His deep-blue eyes darkened at that, the same way they did when he’d been buried deep inside of her. It made her shiver.
“I’d be happy to. I know several reputable people who’d be perfect for the job,” he said.
“Excellent. I’ve come into a little money recently. And now I have a proper dowry as well to offer. I’m sure we could come up with an appropriate arrangement,” she said, grinning.
She made a move to begin walking down the hill, but Justin caught her arm. Before she could say anything, he’d swung her up into his arms. She was looking down at him, breathing heavily from the small exertion. “Cordelia Nichols,” he said, “are you implying what I think you are?”
“You’ll have to court me properly,” she teased. “I’ve been off limits for years now. I want to be wooed.”
“Oh, you have no idea…” he began, but she cut him off with a kiss.
With a satisfied sound, he pressed her closer to his chest and buried a hand in her dark, messy hair. Cordelia’s heart was too full to form words, so kissing was perfect. “I love you,” she breathed against his lips when they parted.
Justin’s handsome face was slacked with shock. “I love you, too,” he said, whispering, like it was a secret.
Cordelia wriggled out of his arms and held out a hand.
“We still have to open the ball with the first waltz,” she said, breathless from equal measures of mirth and arousal.
There would be plenty of time for kisses and caresses and laughter and bickering.
But there would only be one time she could stand up in front of the entire ton, unkempt and wild, with the man she loved on her arm.
“There’s no way I’m letting Lady Prudence miss out on this scandal.”