Chapter Sixteen
W ith a curse, Chase watched Tessa disappear into the dark garden, hurrying as fast as her slippered feet would take her toward the row of French doors on the terrace that would lead her back into the ball. Where she belonged.
She sure as hell didn’t belong with him.
“Go!” he shouted as the tiger shut the door. “Home to Cuillin.”
Home. A damned lie. That hellish place wasn’t his home and never would be. He knew that now more than ever. He hadn’t lied to Tessa; there was nothing here for him but ghosts and guilt, neither of which he seemed able to exorcise from his life. But the way she’d looked at him, with fresh tears glistening in her eyes—the damned chit thought he was still capable of being saved. That was what wounded him the most.
She had no right to try to save him. Hadn’t she figured that out yet? He was already damned, had been since the day he was born, and nothing she could do would redeem him.
But he also wouldn’t let her accuse him of running away again.
He pounded his fist against the ceiling of the carriage and called out for the coachman to stop. He flung open the door and dropped to the ground, then strode toward the house. The cool sea air erased all traces of her effect on him; so did his anger at himself. It wasn’t her fault. She had a gracious, caring nature beneath that prickly exterior she wore like armor. Always had. It was one of the things he’d liked best about her from the moment he’d met her. But he was beyond salvation. It was time she realized that.
So he would find her in that damnable crush of the ballroom and make her understand once and for all that his stay here was temporary, that not even her soft kisses and soothing touches would be enough to grant him absolution. Then he would steel himself in order to take her for another turn about the ballroom, then let her go and leave without looking back.
He would be gone by dawn, he determined as he took the stairs toward the ballroom two at a time. He’d leave whatever was left in the castle to her to do with as she wished, and when she’d taken whatever belongings she wanted, he’d have Porter sell off every piece of furniture, furnishing, bit, and bobble that he could and have his housekeeper close the place up for good. Let it go derelict. Let it rot to the ground. Let the damnable ghosts have the place, and he would never —
“Your Grace—a moment.”
Robert Renslow darted in front of him, forcing Chase to halt in his steps. A determined expression darkened the man’s face.
Christ. Chase truly was going to be called out at dawn. But he felt just murderous enough at that moment to turn the pistol onto himself.
Renslow gestured toward one of the empty rooms lining the hall. “May I have a word?”
Chase took a deep breath and followed him into the anteroom off Foxmoor’s study.
Two men were slumped down in chairs before the fire, slowly sipping their glasses of port and enjoying a brief reprieve from the heat and noise of the party. But when they saw the looks on the faces of Renslow and Chase, they quickly excused themselves. Wise men.
Chase crossed his arms. He had no patience tonight, especially for Renslow. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to request your permission to ask Tessa to marry me. Tonight. When I’ve escorted her back to Lord Bentley’s home.”
Chase’s heart stopped. When it lurched back to life, the pain was simply brutal. “My permission…”
A self-deprecating grin pulled at his thin lips. “I’m a bit old-fashioned, I’ll admit, and even though Tessa is an independent woman, capable of making up her own mind, I believe in upholding tradition. As a duke, I’m certain you understand the importance of that.”
The hell he did.
“I’ve been planning this for a while, and there’s no point in waiting any longer. Certainly, after tonight—and with your appearance here at her side—everyone will realize our intentions, and we can make our engagement official.” He rocked backward onto his heels, devilishly pleased with himself. “And so, Your Grace, may I have your permission to wed Miss Albright?”
Chase knew he should say yes. After all, he had no good reason to refuse. But his mind couldn’t find the word, so he simply stared at Renslow silently through narrowed eyes.
“Of course, we know you want to travel on to Spain, but perhaps we can convince you to linger long enough to walk Tessa down the aisle. We would both be honored to have you share our happy day.”
“Why?” Chase bit out.
Renslow blinked, bewildered by the question. “Because you’re her cousin, and having you there would give a blessing to—”
“No. Why do you want to marry Tessa?” He lowered his arms, stepped his legs apart, and placed his fist at the small of his back, moving into his battle stance. “I’ll admit, her prospects for finding a husband are few, and marrying a man of your caliber would be a godsend for her.”
Renslow’s bewildered expression softened into a knowing smile. “I would like to think myself a good catch, certainly.”
“But why do you want her?” Chase asked, the casual question belying the rising tension inside him.
Rising? He nearly laughed. It had been consuming him for the past hour. Hell, for the past few weeks since he returned to Weymouth and found Tessa here for the season. Every encounter with her had left him coiled as tightly as a spring.
“She has no dowry beyond a few hundred pounds left from her father’s estate and comes with a handful of a younger sister in tow,” Chase continued. “Her father was an army officer who existed on the fringe of society, and not even that once he lost his reputation after Genappe. But you,” he said, pausing for emphasis, “ you are on the rise, already well off with even more prospects set to come your way, your fortune and influence only destined to grow. Lots of younger daughters of poor peers are looking to marry someone exactly like you. Why not pick one of them instead and raise yourself even further up in the world?”
Renslow’s smile faded. “Tessa is a much better fit for me than those ladies.”
“Why? What is it about Tessa, specifically, that makes you want to spend the rest of your life with her?” He found the resolve to ask, afraid of the answer even as the words left his lips, “Do you really love her that much?”
“It isn’t a matter of love but position.”
Chase said nothing as Renslow turned his back to him and crossed to a side table in the rear of the little room, where a tray of crystal decanters and bottles of all shapes and hues waited next to a tray of glasses.
“I’m living between worlds, you see,” Renslow explained over his shoulder as he turned over a glass, then studied the brass labels dangling around the bottles and decanters on their delicate chains. “I was born to a shopkeeper in a Herefordshire village so small that a man could stand in the middle of High Street with his arms opened wide and hit the end buildings with both hands. I was the eighth of nine children, and I never owned a new piece of clothing until I was fourteen and purchased my own set of boots. Then I put on those same boots and went to work at the factories.” He selected a decanter of brandy, removed the stopper, and splashed a generous pour into the glass. “My father was a parish councilman, which meant I was allowed to attend the local grammar school, so I had a decent education and knew how to read, write, and speak well. But it was in the factories where I received my real education.”
Renslow held up a second glass in silent offer to Chase, who shook his head, declining.
“I put in years of hard work, from dawn until midnight, learning everything about the factories and how they worked. I worked every job so I would know the mechanics of the business and understand the life of mill workers, and soon, I became an engineer and inventor. I was making more money per annum than my father earned in all the years he’d owned his store, and when I had the chance to buy a share of the factory, I seized it. I was twenty-five and partial owner of one factory and two warehouses.” He turned to walk back to Chase and gestured with his glass to indicate the party around him. “I have enough money to provide a good life and a townhouse in Derby almost as grand as this one, and I no longer belong to the workaday world. And yet”—Renslow tapped Chase’s shoulder with his tumbler, as if they were old friends sharing a deep secret—“in the eyes of society, I’ll never be anything more than a factory worker.”
He punctuated that by taking a healthy swallow of the expensive brandy.
“I’m living between worlds,” he repeated. “So is Tessa. She’s a gentlewoman’s daughter and related to a duke—”
“By marriage,” Chase ground out.
Renslow smiled patronizingly at the interruption. “But her father was a military officer—nearly as bad as an industrialist in the eyes of the ton . She’ll never be accepted by those of the gentle class, yet she’s not part of the working class either. She’s caught between worlds, just as I am.”
Chase asked quietly, to make certain he understood, “You want to marry her because she doesn’t belong in society?”
“Because she understands what life will be like as my wife. She’ll be perfect for it, in fact.” He swirled the brandy as he smiled smugly. “She won’t fuss the way an aristocratic-minded wife would, nor embarrass me the way a daughter of some brewer—or shopkeeper—would. And in return, I’ll provide a good life of comfort for her and her sister.” He chuckled. “Of course, that one will be sent away to school as soon as we’re wed, probably to Scotland, where she can develop proper manners.”
“You haven’t told Tessa about your plans for Winnie, have you?” He shook his head. “She’ll never be willingly parted from her sister.”
“Once she marries me, she won’t have a choice. Besides, she’ll agree with me that it’s best for Winifred to finish her schooling outside Derbyshire.”
A cold warning tingled at Chase’s nape as a harsh realization settled over him. “You don’t love her. Not at all.”
Renslow snorted a short laugh. “What does love have to do with it? You’re part of the aristocracy, Greysmere. You understand how little importance such a thing has in a marriage. What matters is that husbands and wives share the same outlook on how their homes are run and how the children are raised. Tessa and I are fond of each other and bump along well.” He lifted his glass to his lips. “Love will come in time.”
“And if it doesn’t?” he asked quietly.
Renslow gave him a bewildered look over the rim of his glass and shrugged. “Then it doesn’t.”
Renslow finished off his brandy with an appreciative sigh, then set down his empty glass.
“I know it’s customary for women in society to be settled upon in their marriage contracts,” Renslow continued, “but since Tessa brings no property of any kind to the marriage, I hope you’ll be willing to forgo a settlement.”
“No.”
“If you insist, then.” Irritation darkened his expression. “But I won’t settle more than a thousand pounds into her dower. That’s far more than—”
“I mean, no ,” Chase repeated icily despite the burning anger swelling inside him. “I will not give my permission for you to wed Tessa.”
Renslow stiffened. All traces of a good-humored attempt to speak man-to-man vanished from him.
“In fact,” Chase clarified, his voice all the more threatening for its quietness, “I outright forbid it.”
Renslow’s eyes narrowed. “I suspected you might say such a thing. After all, what duke wants an industrialist’s dirty hands fouling his relations?”
That wasn’t it at all. The last thing Chase would allow was for Tessa to have the same kind of loveless, miserable marriage he’d had. He cared too much about her to let her suffer like that. “Think whatever you want. My answer is still no.” Hell no. “There’s nothing you can say to change my mind.”
“Not even reminding you that she’s in dire straits and has no other option for marriage? There isn’t another man in this county who would marry her. You know that.”
Chase tightened his hands into fists, summoning all his restraint not to pulp the man senseless. His chest squeezed from that same unbearable blackness that had permeated his life for the past three years—hell, for far longer than that.
No, not for the past three years, because it had lifted from his shoulders during the past few weeks, easing from him in a way he hadn’t thought possible. All because of Tessa. Since she’d returned to his life, he’d felt alive again, even hopeful.
Renslow shrugged. “She has no other choice but me.”
“Oh yes, she does.” She would have the trust Chase had asked Porter to create. Establishing it for her and Winnie would nearly bankrupt him, but it would also leave them secure for the rest of their lives. And safely out of the reach of men like Renslow. He owed her that much—and a hell of a lot more he could never repay—for guiding him back from the darkness.
Renslow took a step forward, bringing his face even with Chase’s. “I’ve learned a few things from being a factory owner, and I’m willing to negotiate terms to get what I want. Terms you cannot refuse.”
Chase dropped an assessing gaze over Renslow and gave him a disdainful smile to show he found the man lacking. “Actually, I can refuse a lot.”
An arrogant smile spread across Renslow’s face. “Can you refuse information about your late wife and where she might be buried? I think you might like to hear what my hired investigator discovered.”
Eleanor … Chase felt the world fell away beneath him as the darkness once again engulfed him.