Chapter Twenty-Five
Ginevra stood before the closed door to her father’s study, a hand pressed to her flushed cheek.
She had intended to march directly inside, but the moment with Sidney in the garden had flustered her.
She had grown fond of him that term—terribly fond of him.
He was smart and self-possessed, and in a world of fawning, condescending men, his dry candor was refreshing.
But she must have been influenced by a diabolical spirit to tell Sidney he was perfect.
She had entered the partnership wanting true camaraderie, and breaking through his stiff mask of tolerance had been an exhilarating challenge.
Only Gin hadn’t expected the full force of Sidney Braithwaite’s attention to melt her self-possession to the point of letting emotions overwhelm good sense.
She could not bear for him to think of himself as broken—and yet the horror on Sidney’s face as Abbott appeared made her wish she could erase the moment from both of their minds.
Ginevra shuddered. No, it was best to never slip into such tenderness with Sidney again; not if she wanted to maintain a comfortable friendship.
She had not felt such intense feelings for a man since a pash at finishing school, and the warning signs of her emotions tipping from congenial to carnal made her heat further still.
She truly did not have time for men right now, and that included every fleeting thought about Sidney Braithwaite’s hand trailing down her calf that had started teasing her at the most inopportune moments.
Good God, she had to pull herself together.
Heeding her own admonishment, Gin straightened her shoulders, smoothed back her hair, and marched into the study.
The Viscount Walsingdon was the sort of man who filled his bookshelves with gilt tomes he’d never opened and decorated the walls with hunting trophies rather than pictures of loved ones.
The leather sofa was reserved for his slobbering hounds, and the guest’s chair that sat before his desk was set intentionally lower than his own great wingback.
Ginevra always refused to sit because she knew how it must irk him.
Her father was lounging at the desk when she entered, both feet propped on one corner as he lit his pipe.
Though he still cut a fine figure when dressed for occasions, at home he favored hideous jumpers chosen by Gin’s stepmother.
His dark hair had almost completely grayed since the war, but his mouth had retained the snide twist Gin remembered from her earliest days.
Brown eyes cut at her over his cupped hands, the prominent scar in one eyebrow shifting up, but that was the only acknowledgment of her presence.
She stopped before the desk, ignoring the pathetic chair, and clasped her hands. “Tired of Paris so soon?”
“Some business came up here that needed my attention. Sylvia chose to stay behind.” The viscount tossed the match into an ashtray on his desk and puffed, leaning back as he studied her with a blank expression that felt calculated to unnerve her.
“You should have told us you were coming. We would have canceled.”
“And disappoint Sylvia? I should hate to be a nuisance.”
He betrayed a hint of emotion then, his nostrils flaring with annoyance.
In silence, he puffed on the pipe, and Ginevra braced her fingertips on the edge of the desk.
Usually, she would have fidgeted with his pen collection while he lectured her, find some way to drown out the grating instructions he loved to give about expectations and familial duty.
But that evening, she met his hard gaze with her own of burnished steel.
She would show him she could balance on the razor’s edge, and nothing he could do would make her slip.
At last, he removed the pipe from his lips. “Why are you here, Ginevra?”
“I was at a nearby party with some friends, and one of them took ill. I brought them here to be comfortable, but we’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
“Was it Lord Donald’s party?”
Ginevra inwardly cursed, for she should have anticipated he might have heard about it, being friends with the duke. “Yes.”
“And have you set a date yet?”
“No,” she said crisply. “Nor shall we. There will be no wedding.”
“Why the devil not?”
“Because I don’t love Donald Craddock, and I shan’t be shackled to him.”
Her father’s feet landed on the floor with a thump. “You will because you have no other choice.”
“To save the house?” Gin scoffed. “Father, Donald intends to sell Chiseldon Park to cover the atrocious debts he’s accumulated and buy a place in London.”
He growled. “That’s a damned lie—”
“Donald told me himself. He hasn’t mentioned this to his father, of course. I think he fears how angry he’ll be, and rightly so.” A mirthless laugh bubbled up. “If you expected to continue living here after we were wed, you should prepare another plan.”
Her father stilled, his fist clenched around the smoking pipe.
The glint in his eyes made Ginevra uneasy, like a wild animal cornered and cut off from their path of escape.
Though he had never laid a finger on her since the incident when she was four, for the first time in her life, Gin wished she carried a pocketknife.
Slowly, she slid her fingers toward the marble globe, no bigger than a cricket ball, that sat on the desk’s edge.
He sank back in his chair. “You sound just like your mother when you’re spiteful. She loved nothing more than to put me in my place.”
Gin’s hand curled around the globe, but the cold marble did little to cool the anger coursing through her veins. “Don’t be silly; I never heard her say a cross word to anyone.”
“Oh, well not to you; not her precious little pet.”
He spat the word like an insult, and Gin flinched.
It was one thing to feel her father’s hatred, to sense it simmering inside him like a vat of poison.
But in twenty-two years, she could count on one hand the times they’d been alone together for longer than a moment.
Gin’s mother had shielded her most of her life, and he’d married Sylvia with unseemly haste before she left finishing school.
Ginevra had been so well-insulated from her father that he’d never had an opportunity to unleash all that poison.
Standing before him now, alone in his domain, the unvarnished disdain in his dark eyes said it was about to flow freely.
But to Ginevra’s shock, she realized she was relieved.
She was tired of placating and pretending.
“That’s true,” she said evenly. “She taught me to be polite and kind and gracious, which I know is a standard I fail to meet nearly every day. But it was nice to have one parent with a character worth emulating.”
The viscount’s face turned an angry mauve.
“Don’t expect to shame me with that sanctimonious prattle.
You know nothing of your mother’s character.
” He jabbed the pipe stem toward her. “Your mother was a bitch, and you’re a bitch, and your daughter will be a bitch too if someone’s fool enough to have you. ”
Gin’s fingers tightened around the globe, squeezing as though she could indent the marble. “Don’t talk about Mother like that.”
“What—don’t speak ill of the dead?” Her father scoffed, tossing the pipe onto the table, where the smoldering leaves trailed out of the bowl. “Though you’re right. Perhaps I should be cautious: If anyone were to rise and haunt me, it would be her evil spirit.”
“On the contrary,” Gin snapped. “She was clearly a saint to chain herself to you.”
She did not expect her father to start chuckling.
It was a deep, soulless sound, so devoid of warmth and mirth as though he had distorted laughter into a curse, and an unpleasant chill prickled Ginevra’s spine.
There was no liquor about him, as far as she could see; but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be dangerous.
She was swiftly learning that desperate men were the most dangerous of all.
“She really pulled the wool over your eyes, didn’t she?” His nostrils flared. “Played the dutiful mother to perfection, had you so wrapped around her little finger that you thought she did nothing wrong, while poisoning you against me—me, the one who gave you everything.”
“You gave me nothing.” It was hard for Ginevra to exercise restraint, for her anger was starting to suffocate.
“The literal dogs under the table got more scraps of your affection than I did. You can fume about me not marrying Donald, but be honest: You’ve always disliked me.
When I was twelve, I consoled myself that you merely wanted a boy, and I chopped off my hair and took fencing lessons thinking that might please you more.
And what was your response? That ugly girls were useless, and you banished me from the dinner table until my hair grew past my shoulders.
” Gin’s chest heaved with a tight burst of fury.
“Mother didn’t have to poison anything because you did a thorough job all on your own. ”
For a moment, he stared as though she’d slapped him. His gaze dropped and he picked up the pipe, sweeping the tobacco back into the bowl, then tamped it back down and struck a new match.
“One day,” he said, “you’re going to thank me.
” There was a calm in his voice that unnerved Ginevra even more than the vitriol.
“I’ve done more for you, girl, than you’ll ever know.
” He paused, and his scarred eyebrow raised.
“Actually, to hell with it all. Let your mother try to haunt me. She ruled my life for seventeen years, and I’ve continued to let her rule from the grave these past five.
But no longer.” He swung his feet to the ground and braced his forearms on the desk, jabbing the pipe stem at her.
“You, Ginevra Bishop, are not my daughter.”