asked me to dance with him—’
‘Asked you after Dunhaven asked you!’ snapped Aberfield.
‘Not at all,’ she said sweetly. ‘He had asked me earlier.’
Aberfield looked her over. ‘Think you can get him up to scratch, do you?’ He snorted. ‘I doubt it! Too high in the instep the Blakehursts, even if his brother has made a fool of himself.’
Thea froze and Aberfield continued, his voice contemptuous. ‘Knew Almeria Arnsworth would try her damnedest to marry you to him, but he’s dodged every other heiress she’s found. Some of ‘em a damn sight wealthier than you!’ His lip curled. ‘And they weren’t some other man’s leavings.’
Words, meaningless words. They can’t hurt unless I permit it …
Something Richard had said about Dunhaven slid through her mind, displacing her father’s barb: He’s so desperate … it’s a wonder he hasn’t found a young enough widow with a couple of brats to her credit … What had Aberfield told Dunhaven? She didn’t really believe it, not quite. But if she trailed the lure …
‘One wonders,’ she mused, ‘what can possibly have induced Lord Dunhaven to relax his standards.’
The fish rose. ‘Dunhaven needs an heir,’ he told her. ‘For a wealthy bride he knows can breed a brat, he’s willing to overlook things.’
‘I have no “brat”, as you put it.’
Just aching grief and guilt over the death of a nameless child she had neither seen nor held, and the opium-hazed memory of a newborn wail.
Aberfield opened his mouth and shut it again. His gaze shifted and then he shrugged. ‘Even if the whelp died, you still went full term,’ he said.
Bile rose, choking and sour.
‘More than his first wife ever did,’ he continued. ‘For that assurance and your fortune, it’s worth it to him.’
She swallowed the bile, reaching for control. ‘I’m sure it is,’ she said. ‘But tell me, my lord—was it not rather a risk for you, confiding so much in Dunhaven?’
‘Why should he talk about his bride?’ Cold triumph gleamed. ‘No reason for him to talk if you’re married. And he’s willing to marry you.’
‘But if I don’t marry him—?’
Aberfield’s fists clenched. ‘You’ll marry him, or I’ll … I’ll—!’
‘You’ll what, my lord?’ The time for dissembling was past. She stood up, casting aside caution. ‘You really have no power left, sir. Do you?’ She smiled. ‘You may cast me off, but in two and a half months I turn twenty-five and will have two hundred pounds a year. A pittance to you, I am sure, but I will manage very well. And just think of the gossip if you cut off my allowance now.’
Aberfield had risen as well, his face mottled. ‘And this is the gratitude I receive for protecting you from your folly eight years ago!’
Thea rang the bell. ‘I think there is nothing more to be said, my lord.’
‘I’ll see you don’t get a penny of the money!’ he blustered.
She laughed. ‘You can’t. Under the terms of the will, once I turn twenty-five there is nothing you can do to block the two hundred a year. With that I will be independent and can do as I please.’
Aberfield’s colour deepened to an alarming purple. ‘You mean to have Blakehurst, then?’
‘That, my lord, is not your concern.’
His teeth clenched, he said, ‘Make sure he understands you’ll not see a penny more than the two hundred before your thirtieth birthday.’
The door opened to admit the butler.
‘Ah, Myles. His lordship was just leaving.’
His face stiff with fury, Aberfield stalked out of the room without another word.
As the door closed, Thea sank on to the sofa, all the cold fury ebbing to leave her drained and shaking. But she had done it! Stood up to Aberfield and forced him to realise that he had no power over her any longer. That there was nothing he could do to force her marriage or control her actions. That knowledge had fuelled his anger. His parting shot about only receiving the two hundred per annum until she turned thirty suggested that he accepted that she would not marry Dunhaven. Which left her free to contemplate the sort of life she wanted for herself.
The future stretched out before her, not golden, but peaceful. Or it would be if she could only rid herself of the guilt and pain—the child had been an innocent, blameless of any wrongdoing. Had her actions been responsible for its death? At the very least she had been partly responsible for its unmourned, unmarked grave. It. That sounded so cold. So uncaring. Like Aberfield’s reference to the child as a brat or whelp. As though its very life hadn’t mattered. It again. She had no other way to think of her lost baby. A shudder racked her as she stared blindly into the empty fireplace. She was vaguely aware that the doorbell had rung. An annoyed voice echoed in the front hall, followed by the slam of the front door. It wasn’t important. Her vision blurred. She didn’t even know if her baby had been a boy or a girl … they had refused to tell her.
For the first time in seven years someone had spoken of her dead baby—as proof of her fertility. Her hands clenched into fists until the nails dug into her palms as she looked back at the mess her younger self had made of everything. If only she had known … had realised in time … She swallowed hard. She could see now what she should have done … and it was far, far too late. She felt cold, cold all over, as though a void inside her had been filled with ice.
The door opened and she looked round. ‘Yes, Myles?’
‘Your tea, miss.’ The old man looked at her kindly. ‘If I may say so, Miss Thea, you look as though a nap wouldn’t go astray. Why don’t you go on up and I’ll send one of the maids to help you?’
Heat pricked at her eyes at the kindness in his voice. What a fool she was to feel like crying because of a simple expression of kindness when her father’s callous actions merely left her cold with fury.
‘Thank you, Myles,’ she said, forcing words past the choking lump in her throat. ‘I’ll do that.’ She went over to the door. ‘I’ll leave the tea for now. I’m sorry to waste your time.’
He shook his head. ‘Not to worry, Miss Thea.’ He hesitated. ‘Lord Dunhaven called. Just after Lord Aberfield left.’
So that was who had owned the loud, blustering voice.
‘You denied me?’
Myles’s mouth flickered into what in a less well-trained butler might have been a smile. ‘No, Miss Thea, although her ladyship had instructed me to do so.’ The smile escaped its bonds. ‘Mr Blakehurst beat me to it.’
Warmth eased the aching chill within her.
‘I am never at home to Lord Dunhaven,’ she told him. ‘Nor …’ she drew a deep breath ‘ … to
