Chapter 3
If there was one thing Lucien trusted it was his gut. It had rarely led him astray. Although he might purposely throw down a gauntlet or two, or walk into the fray—particularly during his more rebellious years—he tended to be quite decisive.
Not at the moment, however.
He found he couldn’t stomach the notion of leaving after what he’d apparently done to Emma. That he’d turned the once sweet girl into an embittered shrew plagued him to no end.
He’d had only the best of intentions by begging off their engagement—had done so purely out of respect for her father.
He hadn’t wished to dishonor the man by dishonoring his daughter, and though her father had seemed so certain a marriage between them was precisely what both Lucien and Emma needed, Lucien was equally certain that marrying her would lead to just the sort of degradation of their relationship he wished to avoid.
As it seemed, he had managed to do everyone a dishonor anyway.
For a long moment he sat, staring out of the open door of his carriage in disgust of himself as a vision of the sweet girl he’d first met loomed before his eyes.
How old was she now? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? Past age to be married, but still too young and too naive for the likes of him, even if she had been one hundred and one. He needed heirs, but not so much that he could bear to destroy some gentle creature’s life for the sake of his name.
While the notion of marrying had never wholly appealed to him, he had been perfectly amenable to doing his duty. As the last remaining Willyngham, he was now responsible for ensuring the continuation of his family line, but he hadn’t been prepared for Emma.
He was much too jaded, cynical, and selfish—a combination as lethal to the soul as acid over a thriving bloom.
He was like his father, he feared, and the truth was that he hadn’t loved the Emma of three years past—hadn’t really even known her—and while she’d certainly appealed to him in a very basic way, he hadn’t foreseen that he would ever develop such a devotion to her.
She was too sweet and na?ve.
His mother’s death had been deemed accidental, but even if she hadn’t been aware of the deadly dosage she had taken, she had been slowly poisoning herself for years.
Lucien well knew why, and once he’d realized that fact, he’d understood the folly of marrying someone like Emma—someone who wanted more from a marriage than jewels and a name.
Damn.
He had hoped to find someone he could like, and he did like Emma. But more than that, he had hoped to find someone who would be content to live her own life and who would simply leave him be. He didn’t want her to be wounded if he took a mistress, didn’t want her to care.
Emma was far too vulnerable... and if she could love him so easily—if she did love him—and she had once said she did—he could not, in all good conscience, condemn her to a life with the likes of him.
Someday she would thank him.
So why the devil did he feel this sudden, unexpected hollow in his soul?
Muttering an oath, he punched the rear facing seat with a clenched fist. And scowling, he lifted up his coat.
Devil a bit! He’d managed to botch even this, and he’d never liked himself less than he did at the moment.
The least he could do was to stay and right this wrong somehow.
He owed Emma that much—an explanation at least.
Alighting from his carriage and shrugging on his coat, he sought out Peters, hoping to explain his intentions to her brother. He found Peters within the stables, handing the reins of his bay to a young stable hand.
“She’s a bit of blood,” Peters remarked when he spied Lucien.
“Emma?”
Peters chuckled softly, his dark eyes assessing. “Her, too,” he allowed.
“Odd that I do not recall her that way,” Lucien confessed.
“Perhaps because you never knew her,” Peters said, and tossed him a narrow-eyed glance as he started out of the stables.
Lucien followed, frowning at his own sense of confusion.
“I presume you will be departing Newgale?”
“Yes, well… as to that…” Lucien sucked in a breath. This morning, he’d escaped a fist up the nose, but he might just get one now. Scarcely believing what he was about to say, he cleared his throat and proposed, “In fact... I thought I’d remain yet another day?”
Emma’s brother halted abruptly and spun to face him, looking as perplexed as Lucien felt.
At the instant, he looked exactly like his father sans the uniform, and despite that Lucien stood at least a good half-foot taller than Peters, he’d never felt more anxious awaiting another man’s decision.
Peters was entirely within his rights to ask him to leave. Whatever the difference in their station, this was his home, and feeling as awkward as a tot under his scrutiny, Lucien ran nervous fingers through his black hair.
“You say you’d like to stay another day?” Andrew repeated dubiously. Even his brow lifted as would his father’s, and Lucien found himself easily relating his concerns for Emma.
Andrew Peters’s brows drew together as he scrutinized his sister’s soon-to-be-former betrothed.
The duke placed his hands behind his back, probably hoping the nonconfrontational stance would set Andrew at ease. “I thought perhaps there might be something I could do to help ease this for her,” Willyngham explained. “Certainly, I had no intention of wounding her so deeply.”
Andrew blinked again. “So you don’t wish to leave Emma with ill feelings?”
“Precisely,” Lucien allowed, nodding, and seemed relieved that Andrew understood.
Andrew scratched the back of his head, discomfited by the request. “Yes, well... but I should think you would simply wish to go now that she’s given you leave to.”
Willyngham seemed to have no response to that bit of logic. He simply stood there, waiting, looking as confounded as Andrew felt.
His father had once respected the man, despite his reputation—enough to offer Emma’s hand in wedlock—enough to sit for that damnable portrait in the bloody hot sun once he had barely been able to rouse himself from his bed—and in spite of his proclaimed fury over Willyngham’s broken betrothal.
He studied the duke a moment, and then after a long interval consented, though he was hardly at ease over the prospect.
“Confound it,” he exclaimed. “Very well. Stay. But I am no damned fool.” He shot Willyngham a warning glare.
“I may not be as adept with a pistol as my father, but dishonor my sister now, and you will as sure as death be eating grass before breakfast. Do you take my meaning?”
Willyngham nodded soberly. “I understand. You have my word. Thank you,” he said, and shook Andrew’s hand vigorously then left.
Andrew watched him go, his brows drawing together in stupefaction.
He hadn’t a bloody clue what had transpired between Willyngham and Emma in the library but whatever it was seemed to have changed the course of this once ill-fated betrothal. Like a fish on a hook, the duke was well and duly baited. The question remained: Did Emma wish to reel him in?
He decided not to tell his sister of the duke’s change of plans… not yet… just in case. But his lip curved into a bit of a grin, because he sensed exactly what was at hand here… and it had little to do with Willyngham’s desire to preserve his sister’s tender feelings.
Suddenly feeling rather mischievous, he chuckled to himself and walked away.
Perhaps their father knew something better of the man after all?
At the very least, this promised to be a very unconventional holiday celebration… which was precisely the way he enjoyed it.
“… The murderer was discovered and as a penance was ordered to give a tenor bell to the Dewsbury parish church, and to this day on Christmas that bell tolls once for each year that has passed since the birth of Christ. Heard ’em myself,” Andrew Peters swore.
“Oh, Papa!” the children rang out in chorus.
“Andrew!” Cecile admonished.
Andrew leaned forward, removing the pipe from between his teeth long enough to defend himself. “It’s a true story.”
“But Papa, who would kill a poor little boy?” Lettie asked, her eyes slanted sadly.
“Now, now,” her father soothed. “It happened hundreds of years ago. Never fear, my dear.” He replaced the pipe between his teeth.
Cecile sighed. “You shouldn’t terrorize the children with such horrific tales. In fact, why can you not simply let Emma read her stories and be done, if you please?”
“You won’t find that one in any book,” he objected, sounding for all the world like a crotchety old man, despite his youthful age.
Cecile shuddered, her pale blonde curls quivering with the gesture.
“That one is worse, even, than the one you told last year. Ashen fagots burned on Christmas Eve in commemoration of battles is quite horrific,” she said with conviction. “But the butchery of children is another matter entirely!”
“Poppycock. It is a venerable tradition to honor our heroes who died in battle, and what better time than on Christmas, when families will be missing them most?”
“Perhaps, but there is something most definitely wrong with the need to burn the ears of innocent children,” his wife scolded.
“We don’t mind mother!” the children cried in unison.
“Well, but it is a Christmas tale,” Andrew argued. “What could be unsuitable about that?”
“Daddy,” his son interjected. “What does poppycock mean?”
“That is not a word for you to know,” Cecile admonished her son.
Andrew gave his wife a wink and a nod, conveniently ignoring his son’s question. “See, my dear… the children love my stories. Where else would they hear them if not from me? And you, my dear… as much as you protest, you always sit with an attentive ear. I believe you enjoy them as well.”
Cecile gave him a quelling glance and rolled her eyes. “Will you shush, at last,” she requested, with a tiny hint of a smile.
Hearing them carry on so, Emma couldn’t suppress her own mirth. “Even so… perhaps it is time for a somewhat less gruesome tale?”