Chapter 15
Julian had always loved St James’s Park in summer. The grounds were spectacular, the sunshine bright on every vivid color. Today, though, it was not the roses that caught his eye, nor the other figures at their promenade. His gaze searched for one person, his heart longed for one person only.
Miss Trent.
He had thought of little since but the kiss — brief, stolen, ended almost before it had begun, and the sweetest thing he had ever known.
The impropriety of it ought to have weighed on him.
It did not. It brought him no dread, but hope, and a smile he could not keep down.
He wanted to kiss her again, properly, unhurried, with no sister’s voice in the hall.
He wanted her to know how he felt. The only question that remained was whether to speak of it now, or to wait until all was explained and understood between them.
“Lord Carrington?”
He turned and bowed as Miss Trent curtsied, his heart quickening at the nearness of her. When he looked into her brown eyes, it was as if they were back in the library, the two of them alone.
“Lord Carrington. Good afternoon.” Lady Manion’s quiet voice made him start, and he forced his eyes from Miss Trent to her sister, who was rising from her curtsy with a small, knowing smile.
“Good afternoon, Lady Manion.” He hoped she would do as she had before and fall back. “I am glad to see you both.”
“I am sure you are.” A twinkle came into her eye that sent heat up his neck. “Shall we walk? My sister is eager to hear whatever explanation you have of the will.”
“Of course.” Julian offered Miss Trent his arm, and she took it without the slightest hesitation. To his relief, Lady Manion did stay back, and he felt as if he had Miss Trent entirely to himself.
It was just what he had wanted.
“Miss Trent,” he began, with a long look and a faint smile. “There is a great deal I must tell you. And in truth, I fear you may wish to step back from me when you have heard it, which would be a great pain to me indeed.”
Her eyes widened. “You alarm me, my lord. What could you have done to drive me from you?”
He turned them onto a path where the sun flooded a broad sweep of grass with a pond at its center. “It is not what I have done, but what my father did. A decision, years ago, that touched your family deeply.”
She said nothing.
“Your father and mine were, it seems, the very best of friends.” He smiled ruefully at her swift intake of breath. “That was my own response. I could scarcely credit it, for I never once heard of the connection. Yet they were near to brothers. They first met at Eton.”
“Goodness.” Her steps slowed, and Julian matched his own to hers. “I never heard of it. Your family name was never spoken in our home.”
“Which, given what followed, I understand.” His shoulders dropped a fraction. “When your father lost his investments, it was expected, not only by Lady Warrington but by all the gentry around him, that my father would do as a brother ought.”
She stopped altogether and looked up at him, her eyes huge. “People believed he would give my father money?”
Julian nodded.
“I — I suppose I could understand that,” she said, looking away across the grass. “If he was wealthy.”
“My father was always wealthy. His coin was his greatest love.” Julian grimaced. “He would do anything to make more of it, and was very successful. Any gift to your father would scarcely have been felt by him, and would have been a profound blessing to you all.”
Miss Trent closed her eyes.
“Lady Warrington spoke to him, it seems, and he refused. He would give your father nothing, and withdrew from him, took his friendship and his support away.”
Her eyes opened, the moisture clinging to her lashes, the pain plain in her face.
“He set his love of money above his love for your father and their friendship,” Julian said, his chest tight. “Things might have been very different for you, Viola, had it not been for my father’s selfishness.”
She drew a long, steadying breath, her brown eyes darker than usual. “Your father had no familial duty to be generous to mine,” she said, a catch in her voice. “I can see why it was expected. But it was not owed.”
Julian shook his head. “You are far too good to forgive so easily. I am ashamed of him — of his greed, his coldness toward your father.”
“But I do not hold any of it against you.”
Her eyes softened as she stepped closer, her face pale, her gaze steady. “None of this is your doing, Carrington. I would never set myself against you for what your father did. I cannot, and will not, hold you to account for his choices.”
Relief swept through him, loosening his chest entirely.
“I recall the note we found in Lady Warrington’s hand,” she went on, still soft. “It spoke of your father in less than kind terms, but did it not say, at the last, that she prayed neither you nor your brother would share his selfish nature?”
Julian nodded. “It did.”
“And did she not say she would do whatever she could to keep such a fault from rising in you?”
Again he nodded, and this time stayed silent, looking into her eyes.
“Then Stoneleigh House was given to me for two purposes, I think,” she said, the summer breeze warm between them.
“To show generosity where, she believed, none had been given. And, perhaps, to do exactly as she wrote in that note.” She caught her lip between her teeth, and Julian blinked, having half forgotten the note.
“To make certain I did not share my father’s nature,” he murmured.
“She took Stoneleigh from me — the house I had long desired, the one that would have added to my standing, and gave it to you. It was righting a wrong. But it also showed me I had no cause to expect such generosity at all.” He ran a hand across his brow, his breath quickening as the full design came clear to him.
“I was arrogant, Miss Trent. I expected that house. Nay — I believed myself deserving of it. Because I was close to Lady Warrington, because the house had been spoken of so often, I thought it near enough mine by right.” He closed his eyes, a dark swell of feeling rising in him.
“I never thought myself a prideful man. Never once did I count myself selfish, and yet, looking back over these weeks, I see that I was. I expected the house. I was angry not to have it. My first thought was to take it from you, as if I had every right. Had it not been for your willingness to explain, and your acceptance of my help, I should never have seen the truth of it.”
“You are not a selfish man, Carrington.” She closed the last of the distance between them.
“I do not believe it for a moment. You may have wrestled with it — but you were not mastered by it. I do not think you would ever turn your back on a brother or a friend for the sake of money.” He opened his mouth, but she lifted a hand to silence him.
“I have long valued your integrity. Your candor today only confirms it. You need not fear that I will harbor resentment toward you. I do not.” Her eyes held his.
“Indeed,” she added, her voice lowering as if afraid her sister might hear, “I find it quite impossible. My heart would not permit it — not knowing your character.” She paused.
“Not when it holds an affection for you I never anticipated.”
The confession lay between them, delicate and sweet. Julian’s heart roared to life, sweeping aside all that had been said of the past, so that only the future seemed to wait, asking to be seized.
For a moment he could not speak at all.
The park went on about them — a dog barking down at the water, a child’s hoop rattling past on the gravel — and none of it reached him.
Her hand had returned to her side; he watched it, and wanted to take it, and held himself still instead, for Lady Manion stood twenty paces back and half of fashionable London strolled within sight.
Her words settled into him one at a time.
An affection I never anticipated. She had said it plainly, the way she said all true things, her color rising and her eyes steady, and he understood what it had cost her to say it first.
She had gone first. She, with nothing in the world to fall back upon but her own courage — while he, a marquess with every advantage, stood dumb as a schoolboy, his heart hammering fit to be heard.
“Viola.” He said her name again as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Through all of this, a closeness has grown between us that I did not look for. I cannot deny that my regard for you has grown with it.”
A faint line drew between her brows. “Your regard?”
His mouth twisted, something hard kicking in his stomach as he heard how poorly he had spoken. “Regard, yes, but perhaps something more.”
He was on the very cusp of it, on the brink of telling her the whole truth of how he felt. The words rose, urgent and uncontainable, reaching for words fit to carry the depth of his affection — of his love —
“Carrington!”
Miss Trent caught her breath and stepped back as the shout cleaved the air and shattered the moment. Julian turned sharply to find his younger brother striding toward him, a thunderous look on his face, his hat clutched in one white-knuckled hand.
“Goodness.” Lady Manion came back to them. “Is something the matter?”
“I do not know,” Julian murmured, troubled by Brookmire’s expression. “I cannot imagine why he would be so improper as to shout across the grounds.”
“Carrington.” Brookmire reached him, his eyes blazing. “What is the meaning of this?”
Julian blinked. “I do not know what you mean, Brookmire. I cannot understand — ”
“What in heaven’s name have you done?” Brookmire threw up his hands. “Had you only spoken to me of your interest, I should not now look such a fool!”
Embarrassed, both by his brother’s loud manner and that he displayed it before the ladies, Julian frowned hard, hoping the look would remind Brookmire where he stood.
It did not.
“I was walking with Miss Galbraith when I heard it!” Brookmire jabbed a finger into Julian’s chest. “You knew very well I was considering courtship, that I thought her a most desirable young lady, and now — ”
“Do you mean to say that Lord Carrington is courting Miss Galbraith?” Lady Manion’s voice cut through. “Is that your meaning, Lord Brookmire?”
A small, barely perceptible sound came from Miss Trent, and Julian’s chest pulled tight with horror as he stared at his brother — who, to his shock, was nodding fervently.
“Lady Henderson is telling every acquaintance present that you are courting her daughter.”
Julian swallowed. “C — courting?”
“Yes. With every implication of serious intent to wed. How could you keep this from me, brother?” Anger gave way to sorrow in Brookmire’s voice. “How am I to bear it?”
The grief in it went deep, and Julian curled his fingers tight. One glance at Miss Trent showed her overcome — torn, no doubt, with confusion after all they had only just begun to share. He had to make it plain to them all. There was only one person his heart was drawn to.
“I do not know what you are speaking of, Brookmire.” He set a hand on his brother’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. “I have never shown the smallest interest in Miss Galbraith. I have certainly never spoken to her mother or her father of courtship.”
Brookmire’s jaw worked, his eyes assessing. Julian said no more, waiting for his brother to trust him or to doubt him.
At last Brookmire’s gaze flicked to Miss Trent, then back. He exhaled, his shoulders dropping, and Julian took his hand away.
“Then why does she say it?” Brookmire asked. “Why would Lady Henderson claim you are courting her daughter when you are not?”
Julian spread his hands. “I do not know. She wants a connection between us, plainly, but I knew nothing of the wish until this moment.”
His brother’s shoulders rounded. “Evidently I am not the choice she wants for her daughter.”
“It may be that the lady herself does not know what her mother has done.”
To Julian’s surprise, it was Miss Trent who spoke, offering comfort to Brookmire, who lifted his head and looked at her as if she alone had brought water to a man dying of thirst.
“If Lady Henderson long hoped Lord Carrington would court her daughter, and saw at last there was no prospect of it, she may have acted without discretion — out of desperation.” Lady Manion agreed, with a long look at Julian that said she knew full well why the lady thought there was no hope of a match.
“It is manipulative and unreasonable. But such things have, on occasion, brought about the very end they sought.”
Miss Trent stepped close and laid a hand on Julian’s arm, as if they were about to walk on together — a small action that roared with meaning, and set his heart beating wildly.
“I think,” she said, still looking at Brookmire, “that clarity will now be needed, for all of you. You may yet have hope, Lord Brookmire. If Miss Galbraith does not know what her mother has done, or had no choice but to go along with it, that does not mean her own affections are engaged.”
“Then I must go to her at once.” Brookmire shoved a hand through his hair.
“When I heard Lady Henderson speak of the courtship, I dropped Miss Galbraith’s hand and came striding off to find you.
” His eyes squeezed shut, his face reddening.
“I see now I should not have. I should have remembered you are a gentleman of honor, Carrington, and that your interest lies elsewhere.” He jammed his hat back on. “I will return to you soon.”
Julian watched him go, still standing beside Miss Trent, his thoughts whirling. When Brookmire had first spoken of his supposed interest in Miss Galbraith, all Julian had been able to think of was that Miss Trent would want no more closeness with him, and the thought had near paralysed him.
“Miss Trent.” He looked down into her eyes and saw the doubt flickering there. “I think it best I speak with Lady Henderson directly, even before others. I must understand what she is saying, and why.”
Miss Trent nodded slowly, but did not take her hand from his arm.
“I would not have you distressed,” he said gently. “If you would rather stay apart from this, I would understand.”
Her eyes cleared, and her chin lifted. “I would prefer to go with you, if I may,” she said, her sudden resolve surprising him. “If you were about to say what I thought, nay, hoped, you might, then I think it best I stand at your side.”
Relief buoyed him, his breath leaving in a great rush as he laid his hand over hers, the warmth of her skin and the joy of her words flooding his heart.
“We will finish that conversation just as soon as we are able,” he swore, and she smiled.
“But for now — let us go and discover what Lady Henderson is about.”