The Earl’s Nun Bride (Daughters of the Ton #3)

Chapter 1

LUCIEN

“Papa, look at the squirrel!” Henry called, his little arm extended to point out the animal that had caught his attention.

“I see him,” Lucien said. “They are eating the nuts, just as you wished.” Henry bounced up and down, his finger still pointed at the little animals that were making quick work of the row of nuts they had set out for them.

Henry let out a squeal, and one of the squirrels sat up straight, one walnut in hand, its tail pointing upward. Then it darted away.

“No!” Henry cried. “Come back!”

Lucien smiled and gathered the boy in his arms, lifting him up.

He was four years old now, small and light in stature.

Still, these last few months, he had noted the growth spurt, and he was getting heavier to pick up.

In a few short years, he would not be able to do this anymore.

How time flew. He inhaled his son’s scent—lye soap and chamomile lotion.

“The squirrel will return. Do not fret. Come, let us sit over here on the bench. I have brought something they will truly like.” He carried the little boy over to a stone bench, the gravel crunching under his steps.

He placed Henry down and sat beside him, one hand buried in his pocket from which he retrieved a handful of almond shavings.

With his palm open, he held it in front of Henry and smiled. “I know they are fond of these. That is why I saved them. Come, throw a few to them.”

Henry’s pudgy hand grabbed a handful of almond shavings and tossed them out in the general direction of the squirrels.

“William! Charles! Edward!” he shouted. He had decided that all the squirrels had to be named after English royalty. A wiry squirrel with hints of orange in its fur darted over and picked up the shavings, munching down on them, much to Henry’s delight.

Lucien threw a few as well, so they would go farther and attract more of the squirrels that were swiftly abandoning the row of nuts they had placed earlier.

“Oh! Papa!” Henry shouted. “There’s a mama squirrel and a baby!”

Lucien squinted his eyes and saw that he was right—a mother with her baby was hovering on the edge of the group. He gathered a few of the almond shavings and tossed them in that direction. The mother and baby snatched them up and sprinted off into the distance.

“Why is the mama squirrel watching over the baby and not the papa?” Henry asked.

Lucien paused. “I suppose in the squirrel world, it is the mothers that do the raising, not the fathers.”

“In our world, you do the raising. Because I haven’t got a mama anymore.”

Lucien looked at the boy and swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat. “You do not need one because you have me.”

“The other little boys have mamas,” Henry replied, looking down at his hands.

“Yes, but the other little boys do not have a father to spend so much time with them,” Lucien pointed out gently, “Their fathers must work. Some fathers work in great houses like the one we live in. They are footmen and butlers. Others are greengrocers or barristers. And yet others are lords.”

“Like you,” Henry said, looking up at him with his blue eyes wide.

“Like me. But the other fathers...” He paused. How to explain this? “Some of the other fathers, they go to Parliament and balls and dances and all manner of things.”

“But you do not. You stay with me.”

Lucien nodded. It was true. For the last three and a half years, he had been here at their country seat near Dover, looking after his son. Yes, there had been wet nurses, and there was a governess, but it was he, Lucien, who cared for the boy and tended to his every need.

“That is right. I stay with you. The other fathers must work. But I get to stay home with you. And I think that is rather capital, do you not?”

“I do too,” Henry said. “But Papa?” He looked up at his father.

“Yes?”

“It would be nice if I did have a mama. Why is my mama not here?”

“I told you,” Lucien said, the words coming out sharper than intended. “She is in heaven. She cannot come back.”

“I know that,” Henry said. “But why did she go to heaven? Did she not want me?”

Lucien inhaled through his nose, feeling his nostrils flare. This was not a discussion he wished to have—not now and not ever.

“Henry, she is gone. She is not coming back, but you have me. That ought to be enough,” he said. “Now,” he said, rising, “we must go back to the house. I have a meeting with Stuart this afternoon, and you need to nap.”

“But Papa, you said we could walk around the lake,” Henry protested.

He had indeed promised that, but he was no longer in the mood. “No. Perhaps later. We have spent too long with these squirrels. Come now.”

Henry’s bottom lip quivered, and instantly Lucien felt quite blue-deviled for having raised his voice at him.

It was natural for the boy to ask after his mother, after all.

And yet Lucien could not bear hearing the questions because he could not bear the answers.

He picked Henry up and kissed his temple once more before carrying him into the house.

He handed him off to his governess, who prepared him for his nap.

Lucien spent the rest of his day in his study, going over paperwork with Stuart before walking through his empty house.

Seven generations of Montgomerys had lived here.

Before that, the Earls of Wexford had had a home in Brixton, closer to the city.

But he preferred it out here. He preferred the peace and quiet, the solitude.

It gave him peace. If only Arabella had felt peace here. If only Arabella had been the kind of woman he had hoped she would be. Then perhaps he would not have to face such questions from his son.

He walked through the long hallway lined with portraits of his ancestors, who seemed to peer down at him from either side.

The husbands on the right, the wives on the left.

He stopped to look at his grandfather, a regal-looking man with jolly eyes whom he had adored.

He still remembered bouncing on his knee as a small boy, hearing tales of the war in which his grandfather had fought.

Beside him, his father looked stolid. He had been a surly sort of man, but Lucien liked to think that he would have still been a good grandfather had he been given the chance to experience the joy.

He glanced at his grandmother, whom he had never met as she had died before he was born, and then at his own mother.

She, too, had died when Lucien was young, but he was old enough to retain his memories of her—unlike his own son, who would never know his mother.

Well, he would know of her... For there, hanging beside his father, was Lucien’s own portrait.

He had sat for it the previous year. He looked at his own reflection.

He appeared more like his sour-faced father than his jolly grandfather, although he hoped that in reality— or at least in front of his little boy—he was more like his grandfather than his father.

He slowly turned to look at the spot where Arabella’s portrait hung.

She had been beautiful, with flaxen hair and blue eyes—both of which Henry had inherited—and a heart-shaped face, which he had not.

She smiled at him in the picture, and he remembered the first day he saw her, how his heart had leaped a little at the hope the thought of a joint future had brought him.

He shuddered as a draft rippled through the house. The sun was beginning to set, and he made his way up the grand staircase, the red carpet swallowing his footsteps.

He arrived at Henry’s bedchamber door just as Mrs. Greaves, the housekeeper, exited.

“Your lordship,” she said. “I looked for you. Mrs. Havisham had to leave, so I put the boy to bed when I could not find you. I hope you do not mind—”

“Of course I do not. I thank you. It was very kind of you. Is he asleep?”

“He is. Off to the land of Nod. I gave him a kiss for you.” Mrs. Greaves was almost like family. She was certainly much more than a housekeeper. She had worked for the family for almost forty years, and he knew that soon enough she would retire. What he would do without her, he did not know.

Of course, he hoped she would remain on the estate. She had no family of her own, after all.

He glanced into the room. “Time got away from me,” he admitted. “I wanted to see him and beg his pardon. I was unkind to him.” He was rather cut up about it.

“He told me you chastised him for asking about his mama,” Mrs. Greaves said, the undertone of accusation evident in her voice. She did not hesitate to pitch into him, even though he was her employer.

“I do not like it when he asks about her. It puts me in the most irregular position.”

“But he is not wrong to ask. And as he grows, he will only ask more. He craves a motherly touch.”

“He has you,” Lucien insisted.

“A grandmotherly touch from me, perhaps. But I am not a mother. It is what the boy needs, my lord. A mama. He was in prime form this morning until you spoke so sharply to him.”

“No,” Lucien replied decisively. “I needed an heir, and I have one. I shall not have more children. And I shall never have another wife.”

“Perhaps you do not wish to have another wife, but Henry certainly wishes for a mother. And her ladyship has been gone for a long time now.”

He swallowed but said nothing as he looked into his son’s dark room. A sliver of moonlight illuminated the foot of his bed, but he could not see more than the boy’s outline.

“Perhaps you ought to consider it—for his sake, if not yours,” Mrs. Greaves said, patting his arm as though he were indeed her child, not her employer. She left him, and he remained behind, staring into the room.

He knew what his son needed. And he would have done anything for him—anything at all but this. He would not marry again, no matter how much society would have him leg-shackled once more.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and he shuddered, taking it as an omen from above that he was on the right track. But he was certain that if he were to marry again, the action would not only harm the woman he chose for a bride, but also his son—and most of all, himself.

For any wife of his would be destined to meet the same unfortunate fate that had awaited Arabella. Of that he was certain.