Chapter 17 #2
Hart gazed at her, doing his best to give her the soulful, innocent look he’d been told could melt the stoniest of feminine hearts. Angel glared back at him, unimpressed.
“You,” she said, folding her arms, “are utterly despicable, dreadful and… and…”
“Deceitful?” he offered cautiously.
“Yes, that too.”
“I know,” he said sympathetically. “It’s been said before, love, but you’ve got to admit—”
“Hartwell!”
Hart sighed inwardly as his father’s bellow of fury cut through their bickering, which was a shame, as he’d been enjoying himself.
He knew he’d behaved appallingly. That was obvious, and he’d have a good deal of amends to make for keeping her in the dark, but it had been so wonderful to be Leo Cheaver, to cast off the title that seemed some days like a lead weight dragging him down.
Still, there was no putting it off any longer.
“Your grace?” he said politely, turning to face his father, the seventh Duke of Langley.
The old man was almost purple with rage, the colour heightened by his shock of thick white hair.
His pale blue eyes were frigid and filled with impatience and, not for the first time, Hart congratulated himself on inheriting his mother’s eyes.
His father was still a handsome fellow despite his age, but those eyes could shrivel a fellow’s bollocks, they were so damned frosty.
“Explain yourself,” the duke snarled.
“Very well, sir,” Hart replied with a smile. “You see, it’s like this. I met Miss Everdene after her cart got stuck in the mud and—”
“To the devil with Miss Everdene!” the old man exploded. “What do I care for your carrying on with whichever little trollop you are dallying with?”
Hart’s entire body went rigid. “Miss Everdene is a lady,” he said, each word bitten off with icy precision.
“Oh, yes, I can see that,” Langley said with a snort of derision.
“We ran into some difficulties, but as you were so good as to insist on seeing us at once without having the decency to offer us the means to tidy our appearance, you must take us as you find us. However, despite our rather dishevelled appearance, Miss Everdene is a lady, and you will treat her as one or you shall answer to me, sir.”
“Answer— Answer to you?” His father surged to his feet, and the old man’s colour was so high that, for a moment Hart wondered if he was going to inherit the dukedom rather earlier than he’d anticipated. “Did you hear that, Peabody? Answer to him, by God!”
Peabody had the good sense to keep his mouth shut, but Langley brought his fist down on the desk so hard everything on it jumped. “You will mind your tongue, boy!”
“I am no boy, your grace, as you constantly fail to acknowledge,” Hart retorted, feeling the old argument brewing beneath the surface. “But if you insist on treating me as an ill-mannered child, why not act the part?”
He could see his father was grinding his teeth in frustration, but even he wasn’t angry enough to air their dirty linen in public.
Sitting down again, the duke skewered him with his basilisk stare.
“You will explain to me why you have been taken up for grave robbing, Hartwell, or by God I shall have the headborough take you away and lock you up somewhere deep and dark where no one will find you.”
Hart sighed, forcing his limbs to relax and making himself look nonchalant and unconcerned.
It had always been his defence against his father to feign indifference, to act as if he’d not a care in the world, for there was no point in trying to defend himself against the constant critique of a man who was never satisfied, no matter what he did.
At some point, he’d just stopped trying.
“Well, I did try to explain, but you insulted Miss Everdene and so—”
“Your grace.”
Hart stopped in surprise as Angel’s voice rang out. He turned to stare at her, pride filling his chest as he saw her hands trembled, but her voice was steady as she faced his father.
“This is none of Leo—Lord Hartwell’s doing.
Your son was helping me. My grandfather was Black Jack Baxter, and on his deathbed he left me an inheritance, the last of his treasure.
I ran away from home to find it along with my maid and a boy servant.
As he tried to explain, our gig got stuck in the mud and he helped us get free.
His lordship from that point on became… became our knight in shining armour.
He kept us safe, and despite being attacked by villains also intent on taking the treasure, he risked his life repeatedly to do so.
Your son is a brave and kind man, and you ought to be very proud of him. ”
“Proud of a man who spends his life indulging his vices and wallowing in mud, by the looks of it,” the duke replied with a snort of disdain.
Before Angel could open her mouth, Hart exploded.
He thought perhaps he surprised his father as much as himself, for it had been many years since he had bothered arguing about the situation.
Something about hearing his life dismissed with such contempt before Angel was more than he could bear, though.
“Well, when you’ll not relinquish your iron grip on anything pertaining to the dukedom as you’re too tyrannical in the management of your estates and will not suffer your own son to have so much as a finger in it, what precisely would you have me do?
Should I sit twiddling my thumbs like a good boy while I wait for you to turn up your toes? ”
“How dare you!” the duke blustered, but Hart decided enough was enough.
“I served my country, sir, and whilst you might sneer and rage at me because I did not do as you bid and sit meekly at home, I did my duty and did it damned well.”
“You could still have served if you had stayed here and not put your life in danger—the dukedom in danger!”
Hart shook his head, wondering why his father wilfully refused to see that he was not and never had been cut out to be a spy.
“I’m not suited for lying with a smile on my face and crawling about in other people’s dirty laundry.
I’ll leave that to you and your informants.
If I’m to fight, I’ll do it out in the open, not by creeping about and uncovering secrets.
Just because I’m not sly and manipulative does not mean I’m unworthy, but no one ever could measure up to your impossible standards.
So I ask you, what the bloody hell is the point in trying? ”
There was a short, taut silence that seemed to ring through the room until a feminine voice, cracked with age, broke it.
“Well said, Hart, my dear, and there’s no point at all. Your father will never admit you’re a brave and honourable man despite his abuse, for it would be too galling, I’m afraid. But the rest of us know it.”
Hart’s mood lifted as he turned to see his grandmother, still erect and lovely despite her years, walk into the room. He glanced back at his father, seeing the man’s face grow rigid with indignation.
“I did not invite you to join us,” his grace replied stonily.
“No, Langley, you wouldn’t, for other than Hart I’m the only one who can stand up to you and you don’t like it when you can’t crush people utterly.”
Ignoring her son, the Dowager Duchess of Langley walked to Hart and lifted her face to allow him to kiss her cheek.
“It’s good to see you, Grandmama.”
She beamed up at him, her pale blue eyes, so like his father’s, twinkling with devilry.
She liked nothing more than riling her son, whom she considered to be a pompous ass.
That she was here at all was a surprise, for she rarely stayed under the same roof as his father, but he was grateful to see her.
“Now, then. Introduce me to your young lady, won’t you,” she commanded, turning her attention to Angel with interest. “I like a girl with spirit—and yes, Hart, I was eavesdropping—but it takes some nerve to stand up to Langley, especially in such a state as you are, my dear.”
Angel blushed and Hart felt wretched for her, knowing how appalled she must feel at meeting his family in such a state of disarray.
Yet pride continued to burn in his heart, for other than the pink glow in her cheeks, she did not show it by so much as the flicker of an eyelid, standing tall and proud, her chin up.
“She is not his young lady,” the duke retorted, his voice cold with fury. They both ignored him.
“Grandmother, please allow me to present Miss Angelica Everdene. Angel, love, this is my grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Langley.”
Angel dipped a curtsey, somehow looking poised and elegant despite appearing as though she’d just been dragged from the gutter.
“Well, my dear. Did I hear you say you are the granddaughter of Black Jack Baxter?”
Hart hid a smile. He’d known his wicked grandmother could not resist such a connection as that.
“Yes, your grace,” Angel said, slanting a glance at Hart, who smiled at her encouragingly.
“And you say he left you his treasure?”
Angel nodded. “It’s buried with his sweetheart, a woman who died before he married my grandmother.”
“Good heavens. How delightfully macabre,” Grandmama Langley said with obvious appreciation. “And you were digging it up when you were taken up for grave robbing?”
Angel nodded, and grandmother let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, that’s perfectly splendid. Have you had the most wonderful adventure, Hart? You certainly look as if you have,” she said, lifting a bony hand to touch his swollen eye.
“I’ve had the time of my life,” Hart admitted with a grin. “Which is why I’ve asked her to marry me.”
“What?”
Hart sighed. He’d not really expected any other reaction from his father, but despite everything there was always a stubborn little corner of his heart that hoped the old man would surprise him one day, would mellow with age, or perhaps turn into someone entirely different. Foolish beyond permission.
“You’ll marry that—that creature over my dead body!” he exclaimed furiously.
“If you insist,” Hart told him coldly.