26. Chapter 26- Bradford
It was five days of travel back to Northumberland, including four nights in coaching inns along the route—inns that grew less and less hospitable the farther one journeyed from London. The last night, Bradford stared out into the sleeting rain, nearly baring his teeth at the weather.
It hardly helped that there was a bucket in his room that pinged against his raw nerves every few moments, or that he’d been informed a maid would come round regularly to empty it, and that she’d try not to disturb him if he were sleeping.
As if having a strange woman silently enter his bedchamber in the middle of the night was a comforting possibility.
By the time the sleepless night passed, Bradford was determined to gain Ballam Hall the next day, even if he had to leave the carriage behind and continue on horseback in the rain.
Luckily, his driver informed him that the reports were good, that the rain hadn’t mucked the road too much for the conveyance to pass.
Bradford slept fitfully in the back until they reached his home late that afternoon.
He groaned as he stretched, shucked his muddy boots at the door, exchanging them for his indoor pair—a necessary practice in winter, lest all the rugs be ruined by spring—and went to find Rebecca. She came running down the stairs, even as her governess shook her head at the girl’s enthusiasm.
“Papa!” she squealed as he lifted her in the air on the landing and spun her around. “Mrs. Clark is baking a cake for dinner!”
He laughed—no matter the heaviness of his own mind and heart, Rebecca’s priorities never failed to amuse him. “Is she now?”
She squished his cheeks with her chubby hands and gave him a maniacal grin. “She says it’s going to contain a surprise. A surprise, Papa! What do you think it could be?”
“Hmm.” He pretended to think very deeply for several moments, his eyes narrowed and his head cocked in consternation. “Do you think it might be sugar?”
Rebecca sagged in his arms and rolled her eyes. “Papa.”
He laughed, kissed her loudly on the cheek, and set her at his side, grabbing her hand. “I cannot possibly wait. Let’s go ask her together.”
“No, Papa!”
He smiled down at her. “No?”
“Mrs. Holland says that surprises are best when they’re savored.”
“They are?”
She nodded earnestly, her dark curls bouncing. “She says that I must learn to live with not knowing, as I’ll be even more delighted when I finally find out what it is.”
He glanced back at Mrs. Holland, who smiled fondly down at Rebecca, before turning back to his daughter and whispering, “Does this mean you aren’t going to try to open your Christmas presents early next year?”
Rebecca wrinkled her nose and squirmed as if uncomfortable with the very idea of it. “Perhaps just one, Papa?”
“And what of the gift I’ve brought you back from London? Would you like to wait until tomorrow, in order to increase your suspenseful enjoyment?”
She grinned. “I think I should open that one right now.”
Bradford laughed.
There was a busyness to any return home that kept him occupied until well past supper.
None of his estate existed in a vacuum, and he’d never been so long away from home.
There was a stack of letters to attend to—mostly correspondence from his sisters and normal reports from his stewards—but everyone expected a response.
He put pen to paper time and time again without truly ever explaining his absence. What was there to say, after all? That he’d gone to London to hunt down his governess and fallen in love with her somewhere along the way?
That he’d foolishly hoped that a wealthy, beautiful young lady might look at him with anything other than regret and hidden disgust if she knew the truth? That he’d unintentionally leveraged the potentially destructive knowledge he had of her so that he might spend more time in her very presence?
There were few times in his life that Bradford viewed with more self-recrimination than his own behavior the past few weeks.
Of course he hadn’t set out to blackmail the lady.
That had never been his intent. Still, the thing was the thing, even if accidentally done.
And in the end, she’d been close to declaring something in order to keep her sisters safe.
He had many regrets in his life, but leaving Lily in London and returning to Northumberland wasn’t one of them.
There was a natural order of things, and Miss Lily Preston should marry someone as light and innocent as she was—a young lord with the fresh bloom of youth, or at the very least, without the baggage that Bradford had accumulated.
He’d already braced himself for what was to come—the inevitable announcement in the papers that he’d receive too late to interfere—not that he’d allow himself to jeopardize her happiness ever again. Miss Lily Preston would become Lady So-and-So, she’d have a husband, and children, and?—
Snap. The quill broke in his hand, sending ink splattering against the parchment. Bradford sighed, rolled up the mess into the piece of paper, tossed it into the fire behind him, and started again.