Chapter Five
Lucas crumpled up the letter he had labored over and threw it in the wastepaper basket.
Some birthday this was. He cursed as the late morning sun streamed in through the expansive windows casting rays upon the oversized desk in his study.
He had been consumed by two things since he had woken: Miss Granger and the post he had received by messenger from his solicitor on a Saturday, of all days.
Both had sent a jolt through his body, but for two very different reasons.
While the memory of Miss Granger’s beauty and kindness from the evening before lit his body and mind aflame with curiosity, the letter from his solicitor set his sense of duty and grief into overdrive.
He lifted the solicitor’s letter and scanned over its disastrous contents again.
Lord Worthing,
I do hope this letter finds you well and in good spirits this autumn. I was instructed by your mother, the late Lady Worthing, to send the enclosed letter and item to you today, on your thirtieth birthday.
Your Lordship’s obedient servant,
Christian Greene
Lucas placed the letter back on his desk and stared at it and the contents that had been enclosed within it.
The note from his mother was short, and when he’d first read it, it held a cruel sting he knew his mother could never have anticipated.
This time when he reread it, he smiled, knowing full well it had been written with love, joy and pride in the last few months of her life.
She could not have imagined what had befallen him over the four years since her passing.
Part of him was grateful she had never known the agony of all the disappointments and sorrows life had set upon him since her death.
Perhaps her being taken by the progressive cruelty of palsy had allowed them to say goodbye on the best terms possible, even though it had not seemed that way at the time. The irony was not lost on him.
My sweet son,
No doubt you and Rebecca have married and gifted the world with a beautiful child, a boy, I predict.
I imagine the future Viscount has your fine smile and her beautiful features and possesses a strong fortitude to challenge you both.
Now that you have a family of your own, I wanted to give you this.
I want you to know how proud I am of you on this day, the thirtieth anniversary of your birth.
I know you are a fine man, husband and father.
Thank you for keeping your promise to me to marry and continue the Worthing line long after I am gone.
You will be the father I know you always wished you had, and the one I always longed to give you.
You remain my greatest treasure and so I gift you this, so you never forget such.
I am with you always.
Love,
Mother
He smiled again at the letter and picked up the ring.
The familiar gold band with its small trio of sapphires had been her favourite.
One of the few gifts he thought his father had ever given her out of love.
Each of the three little stones was supposed to represent the members of their family, and it was his father’s gift to his mother the day Lucas was born.
It was a sharp reminder of how very alone he was in the world, as his father had died a decade before she had, and Lucas had not fulfilled his duty as viscount or the promise to his mother that he had made to her before she died.
Not yet anyway. He had no wife, no son and no family to speak of, aside from the one he had created here at the manor with his servants and those few friends, like Diana, who had not abandoned him despite his best efforts.
Over the past few years, he had been a terrible friend and an even more miserable excuse for a Worthing.
His mother would not be proud of him.
After she’d died, he had been lost and thrust himself into becoming a soldier and travelling overseas to the Americas to prove he was someone.
Deep down he knew it was to prove himself to his father, who had never thought much of him.
Ironically, he would lose most of himself and more than half his men in one single skirmish in that attempt to earn his Father’s love and approval from beyond the grave.
Even now, the faces of the men who’d died haunted Lucas and he knew what a selfish fool he’d been.
While he had done his best to provide financial aid and whatever comfort he could from afar to their families, he knew it was not enough.
They deserved to live their lives and see their children grow up.
Even now, he wondered if he had put off starting his own family for fear of losing them or from the guilt of knowing he was living a life those men couldn’t because of his own selfish choices that day.
Diana’s words echoed in his head.
It is time to engage with the world once more. Venture into Society. Find a woman to love. Create your own family. Matthew would have wanted that for you.
Lucas swallowed hard to keep his emotion at bay. Did he dare try?
When the battle had all but broken him, physically and emotionally, what had remained of him had been decimated by Rebecca’s abandonment and the subsequent severing of their engagement.
As his losses had compounded, he had retreated.
Certain no woman would have him with his physical scarring and struggles in coping with his endless guilt over the men who’d died under his command, he had vowed to never marry.
He had curated a hermitlike existence with few engagements and entanglements, and those were always chosen with great care.
He was no longer the man that he had once been.
All the shine had gone from him when all his hopes for the future had been dashed to dust.
He had allowed himself to become the Beast of Barnett House, the viscount who was never seen. It was easier than living his life and risking…anything.
He turned the ring in his fingers, the bright sapphires glimmering in the light.
A flash of memory of Rebecca and those commanding green eyes of hers and her beauty as she’d rejected him that final time made his pulse falter and a surge of grief and humiliation heat his body. Sweat broke out across his brow.
I cannot even look at you, Lucas. This shell of a man you have become. How can you stand to look upon yourself? I cannot. I cannot bear you with your scars and self-pity any longer. I cannot marry you. I will not be your wife.
And despite her hateful words, he had pleaded…pleaded with her to stay…like a smitten fool.
He would never let a woman control him like that again. She had possessed him, body and soul.
He took deep breaths, and his heartbeat slowed.
But perhaps…perhaps he could still fulfill the promise he had made to his mother.
He could marry and sire an heir. Find a demure woman who was kind and would be a faithful wife to him and a doting, nurturing mother to their children.
His pulse increased. But he didn’t wish to love her.
The notion of loving a woman again like he had Rebecca terrified him.
He rubbed his temples.
Perhaps he just needed to give himself time to think it over and to enjoy his birthday. He set the letter aside, settling back in his chair. It had been quite a day, and it wasn’t even noon.
The letter and its contents had been a surprise this morning as was the bountiful birthday meal his dear cook, Mrs Whitmore, had prepared.
She had made his favourite meal to break his fast: poached eggs on toast, sausages, and, despite it usually being a teatime treat rather than a breakfast one, scones with raspberry preserve and clotted cream, as a nod to his late mother, who’d eaten nothing else for breakfast. His glance flicked up to the portrait of her opposite him on the wall.
He smiled at her. ‘Happy birthday, Mother,’ he said softly, lifting his tea to her in a toast.
They had shared the same day of birth, and Lucas often wondered if it made his father despise him even more.
Lucas and his mother had been thick as thieves and rallied against Father often.
Although it was hard to cheer for a man who frequently broke his vows of faithfulness to his wife, wasted the family fortune and rarely spent time with them at home.
It was no wonder things had turned out as they had in the end: badly.
It was also no wonder Lucas was less than enthused about the prospect of fulfilling his duties as viscount.
His parents had provided a poor example of what marriage could be like, and his own attempt to find a bride had been even more disastrous.
He pulled open the side drawer. The sight of the burgundy velvet box turned his stomach, but he reached in regardless and pulled it out, opening it slowly.
The beautiful gold wedding band that had been his mother’s winked back at him in the light.
Did he dare attempt to find someone else to give it to, after his failed betrothal with Rebecca?
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
He did not know what was worse: the prospect of trying to find a suitable bride or breaking his promise to his mother.
Could having a family of his own help him find joy again, like Diana said? He wasn’t altogether sure. He wasn’t much of a man anymore, was he? Could he be? Could he find his old self somewhere in the ashes of the past?