Chapter 20
Chapter 20
Graham squared the small box where it sat on the corner of his blotter, reached for a penknife to sharpen a quill, then picked up the box instead. A flick of his thumb revealed the ring in all its quaint perfection. The purple of Highlands heather, encircled with creamy pearls that seemed to capture all the variegated hues of clouds in a summer sky.
Would Julia accept it? Accept him?
Or would he be torturing himself thus forever?
He snapped shut the box and slid it away from him, though not far enough that he was spared glimpses of it in the corner of his vision as he spread his papers across the desktop and picked up his pen.
Yesterday evening’s tweaks to the opening of the play had been easy enough. But this morning, he intended to write the entire third act anew. The actors would be fit to be tied when he presented them with more last-minute changes this afternoon. He could hear Fanshawe grousing already, could picture the roll of Mrs. Cole’s eyes.
But there was nothing for it. He had to give the play an ending that would undercut the damage he’d set out to do so long ago, as well as whatever devilry that anonymous letter writer had planned.
With his first two fingers, he slipped the damning note from beneath the blotter. Something about it niggled at him, something about the hand or the scrap of foolscap on which it had been written—or perhaps it was merely that he’d looked at it so many times now, it could not help but strike him as familiar.
In truth, the hundredth inspection of it told him nothing more than the first.
“Enough,” he muttered to himself, tucking the note away again. He could not afford to let himself be distracted further.
He had work to do if he meant to win Julia’s doubtful heart.
The quiet tink-tink of his quill against the ink bottle was drowned out by a tap-tap-tap at his study door. He sent a scowl across the room. What now? He had sent Keynes away not a quarter of an hour ago, to find the clerk from Porter’s and discover whom else the fellow had spoken to. And he had told the servants he did not wish to be disturbed.
Determined to ignore the interruption, he dipped his quill again. Once more the knock intruded on his thoughts. Louder, this time. More insistent.
“I should have gone to the cottage,” he groused beneath his breath, then tossed aside the pen and growled out, “Enter.”
The footman who opened the door was visibly reluctant to do so. “Forgive me, my lord. But the gentleman was most insistent about needing to speak with you.”
“Who?”
“Lord Sterling is the name he gave.”
Before Graham could answer, almost before he could remember where he had heard the name before, that gentleman stepped around the harried footman and into the room.
Julia’s brother.
Even without the information Mrs. Hayes had revealed about Julia’s family, he might have guessed the two were related. They had the same dark hair, though his was a shade closer to black, and the same intelligent blue eyes. The same high color streaked across his cheeks as so often appeared in Julia’s.
Though in Sterling’s case, he suspected that the color owed something to the reflection of his red coat.
Graham recalled Mrs. Hayes remarking with some incredulity that her nephew by marriage preferred to be addressed as Captain Addison. Not by everyone, of course. He’d asked the footman to introduce him with his title.
Nonetheless, he had come decked out in his officer’s uniform, complete with gleaming sword.
Graham pushed to his feet. “Sterling.”
“Dunstane,” the other man said, tucking his hat beneath his arm and snapping into a bow. “A word, if you please.”
Graham wasn’t sure he had much choice. With a nod, he dismissed the footman and then waved his arm for Julia’s brother to take a seat.
It was too early in the day for a social call. And far too early to offer his guest anything other than coffee for refreshment. Though perhaps the proprieties could be overlooked on such an occasion.
Sterling looked as if he could use a drink.
For a few moments, however, it seemed as if he intended to refuse even the offer of a chair. At last, he sat down where Graham had indicated, fingering the hilt of his sword. An attempt at intimidation?
Well, Graham didn’t intend to go out as his brother Iain had, in some bloody duel.
Or rather, if he were challenged, he didn’t intend to lose.
Then again, what would victory look like? Killing or maiming Julia’s brother hardly seemed likely to win her hand.
Graham started to return to his seat behind his desk, thought better of it, and came around to take the chair opposite Sterling’s. Better to meet him on equal ground. They were, after all, two men with much in common. Similar in age as well as in circumstance, each one having inherited a title he had not been raised to expect.
And united, he hoped, by a shared concern over what was best for Julia.
“You’ve come because of your sister.”
Sterling’s answering nod was sharp. “Since you did not see fit to come to me.”
The uniform made it less immediately obvious that the other man was slighter of build and shorter of stature than Graham. It also made it easier to forget that his father had been a clergyman, that if circumstances had been different, Captain Addison might have followed the same peaceful path.
It was, above all, a visible reminder of his willingness to fight for what he believed to be honorable and right.
Graham weighed whether to offer some explanation for his conduct, even an apology. He’d intended to write, had even started a letter. But the revelation about Miss on Scene and yesterday’s conversation with Julia had made him hesitate. Better to wait until he had her answer before approaching her brother for his consent.
Not that he was particularly worried about acquiring it. If Julia said yes, then if necessary, he would take her back to Scotland, where she could do as she pleased.
“She’s a grown woman,” he pointed out. “The decision of whom, or whether, to wed ought to be hers.”
To his surprise, Sterling gave another nod of agreement. “And I would be thought a fool if I refused to grant my permission for her to marry a gentleman of rank and fortune.” As he spoke, his gaze traveled around the well-appointed room before settling again on Graham. “But I am her brother. I wanted some reassurance that you’re the man to make her happy.”
Graham fixed his eyes on a point over Sterling’s shoulder. Across the wallpaper, the frolicking figures of maidens and swains made sheep’s eyes at one another; their expressions still set his teeth on edge.
He understood, even admired, her brother’s protective impulse.
But how could he promise Julia happiness when he’d known so little of it himself?
“Then, as I made my way here,” Sterling continued, a new, slightly self-deprecating note in his voice, “I thought of what she would say if she discovered I’d made such a demand on her behalf. She has a bit of an independent streak, as you may have discovered.”
Graham bit back an incredulous snort.
Would that be the same independent streak that had taken her to Covent Garden alone? Taken on Shakespeare? Taken charge of his racing curricle?
Taken hold of his heart.
“Still,” Sterling went on, “since I’ve come all this way . . .” He leaned back in his chair. Graham braced himself for a military-style interrogation.
But the first question wasn’t even a question. “Mrs. Hayes tells me it was a mutual interest in the theater that brought you together.”
Graham thought of Miss on Scene’s review. Of the first time he’d seen Julia, that night in his box. Of the light in her eyes as she’d ascended to the Covent Garden stage. “Aye. That’s fair to say.”
“Julia explained something about your connection to—to this playwright fellow—a satirical sort, or so I’ve heard . . .” Sterling circled a hand, searching for the name.
“Ransom Blackadder,” Graham supplied, more reluctantly. Blackadder certainly had never been a source of happiness. Only an outlet for misery.
“Exactly. His patron, she called you. And unfortunately, it seems we’ve caught you just as his next play is set to begin. The business of it demands your attention,” Sterling went on, sounding almost regretful for the intrusion. “That’s why we’ve not seen you or heard from you since our arrival in Town, she says.”
Julia might have said nothing, offered no explanation at all. Certainly, she would have been within her rights to express reservations about his intentions or their future together, to prepare her family for the possibility of their engagement being called off.
But evidently she hadn’t. At least, not yet.
In spite of himself, hope swelled in Graham’s chest. “You’ll come, I hope? All of you,” he offered rashly. “On opening night. You’re welcome to the use of my box.”
“Very generous of you.” Sterling’s face eased into a smile. “It will be like old times. I’ve taken my sister to a good many performances over the years, you know.” Memory softened his expression further, making Graham think he recalled the long-ago outing to see the actors on the village green with the same fondness she did. “And watched her recite lines from the plays she’s seen without me—nothing like amateur theatricals to pass a winter’s evening, eh?”
Finding such a scene easy to picture, Graham nodded. But what would Sterling say to the discovery that those evenings at home had been preparation for the Covent Garden stage, albeit in the privacy of closed rehearsals?
“Yes,” her brother continued, his gaze still far away, “it seems she’s always loved a play—the farce, especially.”
“As do I,” Graham confessed. The admission would astonish Julia, who imagined him incapable of a smile.
But the spark of a forgotten emotion had flared to life in his chest and now began to emit a steady glow, a hint of warmth.
He did love the theater, though he hadn’t always known it. Certainly, he hadn’t always shown it.
He loved to hear peals of laughter coming from the audience—not wry or cynical, but . . . well, genuine.
Most important of all, he loved Julia.
He was not yet prepared to make that confession aloud, however; at least, not to her brother. Instead, he rose to his feet. “You say you wish your sister’s happiness—”
“I do.” Her brother stood, too, and looked Graham up and down with a clear eye and a firmly set jaw. “Though no doubt you think that to ask it of a man with your history is unpardonably na?ve of me.”
Graham jerked back as if struck. “What do you know of my history?”
“Enough. I know that your title was no blessing to you, coming as it did. And I know you lost a brother to this damned war, and I’m heartily sorry for it.”
The mention of Rory caught him by surprise, and he stiffened, his bow of acknowledgment for Sterling’s words of condolence little more than a jerk of his chin. “Julia told you as much?”
“No. I learned of it just this morning. I had a meeting with my commanding officer.” At Graham’s look of puzzlement, he added, “I take it Julia didn’t mention that I’m an intelligence officer? Under the command of General Zebadiah Scott.”
It took Graham a moment to recall the gentleman with whom he had played cards at the Clearwaters’. And another moment to reflect on the possibility that people had been investigating him, perhaps on Julia’s behalf, for some time.
“No, she didn’t.”
“Don’t bandy that about, of course,” Sterling added in a lower tone. “But since you’re to be one of the family, I don’t see any harm in you knowing.”
Was it possible that this visit, the one he’d first seen as a threat or a warning, had, in fact, been a gesture of trust?
“The truth is . . .” Sterling gave a rueful smile and ran a finger beneath his collar, as if the uniform chafed. “I’m much more suited to such weapons as those”—he nodded toward the littered desktop—“than this sword.”
“The pen is said to be the deadliest weapon of all,” Graham offered, and the two men shared a glance that could only be called one of understanding.
A slightly awkward silence followed, which Sterling attempted to fill by gruffly clearing his throat. “Well,” he went on, after another glance around the room, “I should leave you to your business. There will be time for getting acquainted and settling matters and planning a wedding when the play is over.”
“Yes,” Graham agreed. “My time then will be a great deal more my own.”
Which was to say, hers—if she meant to have him.
Together, they strode across the room, their booted treads muffled by the plush wool carpet. At the door, Sterling thrust out his hand.
Graham hesitated only for a moment before taking it in a firm grasp and clapping Sterling on one epaulet-covered shoulder. “You are right to say that happiness has not always been my lot, Sterling. But you may rest assured, I will do my best to make it Julia’s.”
“I could not ask for more.” He started across the threshold, then paused. “Well, one thing more. I would appreciate it if you didn’t say anything about this visit to—”
“Your sister.” Graham nodded, almost conspiratorially.
Sterling laughed. “Actually, I was going to say ‘my wife.’ Her spirit is even more, ah, independent than Julia’s. She does not approve of interference—unless she’s the one causing it,” he added with a wink. “And if she is, then heaven help you.”
Graham remembered that Mrs. Hayes had said something about “Lady Sterling” being in all the papers. Perhaps he would have Keynes look into that little mystery next. “I look forward to meeting her. She sounds an interesting woman.”
Part compliment, part commiseration.
One corner of Sterling’s mouth kicked up. “She is that, indeed.”
When he left, Graham returned to his desk, more determined than ever to set things right. He had known already that marriage to Julia would bring a thousand blessings.
Until this morning, however, he had never considered that one of them might be a brother.