must be other ways—but please, please, allow him to come home.’
‘If he suffers, it is right that he should do so. He will be released in due time.’
‘His release may come too late. Think how you will feel if that is so.’
‘You have an unfortunate tendency to dramatise, my dear. Rupert Lacey is where he should be. Decency has not worked to make him an honourable man. Incarceration might.’
‘But, Uncle …’
‘No more! I have no wish to continue this conversation and no wish to speak of your brother again. While you live under my roof, Lucinda, you will observe my prohibition.’
Her uncle was immovable. As so often in the past she marvelled at the strange mix that was Francis Devereux: on the one hand a man willing to spend his fortune on the pleasures of life, fastidious in his choice of dress and food, on the other, a stiff and unyielding moralist, a man steeped in tradition for whom family honour was paramount. Rupert had transgressed and was beyond forgiveness. Not that he would care. The Devereux family meant nothing to Rupert—he had said often enough that as Laceys they did not belong. Without a doubt he had been made to feel so from a very young age, punished for every small infraction of the rules, unjustly accused of every misdemeanour. She had tried very hard to protect him from their guardians’ punitive regime, but rarely succeeded. Realistically in a world of powerful adults how could one young child protect another? But the knowledge that she had failed him was always with her.
She must not fail him now in the greatest crisis of his life. He had escaped Verney Towers and its petty rules and inflexible laws as soon as he was able, but it was an escape to disaster. Their grandparents had suffered a pathological fear that Rupert would follow in his father’s footsteps and had tried to beat the Lacey out of him. By all accounts Eliot Lacey rarely had a feather to fly with and was more than happy to bleed anyone who came his way. The beatings had not worked. Rupert had become as big a gambler as ever Captain Lacey was, but, unlike his father, she knew that he took little real pleasure in the turn of the dice. He had gravitated to the tables because they represented rebellion, freedom, rather than easy money. Yet there was enough of his father in him to keep him playing even in the face of abject failure. Despite brutal punishment Rupert, it seemed, had remained stubbornly a Lacey.
Chapter Three
In low spirits, she made her way to the dining room as the last chimes of the gong echoed through the cavernous hall. Their guest was already enthroned at one end of a massive black oak table. The room’s velvet furnishings, once a majestic red, were now sad and faded and Jack Beaufort presented an enticing contrast. He had changed his riding dress to a coat of blue superfine, its cut expertly moulded across a pair of powerful shoulders, and when he rose to greet her, she saw that his shapely legs were encased in tight-fitting fawn pantaloons. There were few men who could look as good in such revealing dress. He smiled lazily at her and unexpectedly she found herself flushing.
She hoped her uncle had not noticed her embarrassment, but she need not have worried. Sir Francis had his attention firmly on the table as dish after laden dish arrived from the kitchens. For the baronet, luncheon was not the usual modest meal and for some minutes he was wholly engaged in satisfying his appetite. Only after he had made his way through a considerable amount of food did he feel ready to converse.
‘This is fine beef. It comes, you know, from a farm not ten miles away—George Rutland’s place. Do you have property in Sussex, Lord Frensham?’
Her uncle knew down to the last squire who held land in his home county, but he would be eager, Lucinda thought, for the earl to enumerate his vast possessions.
Their guest, though, was not playing the game. ‘I own nothing in the county. In fact, I have visited Sussex very little.’
‘Perhaps because it lies so close to London? That is most understandable. You have a splendid London house, I believe. In Grosvenor Square, is it not?’ Sir Francis sat back and waited to be told of its glories.
‘I do not live in Grosvenor Square. My home is in Half Moon Street’.
His host looked shocked. ‘But is it wise to leave such a beautiful house empty?’
‘It’s not empty,’ the earl answered cheerfully. ‘My sister, Lady Bessborough, fills the house with her four children. As a bachelor, I am happy with something a little less grand.’
Francis was temporarily silenced by the need to taste several of the new dishes that had found their way to the table. When he spoke again, it was to say smugly, ‘Of course, you will not have much of a garden in Grosvenor Square.’
The earl seemed disinclined to quarrel with this and her uncle went on, ‘We have some splendid grounds at the Towers, you know—parkland which stretches for miles, a fine terraced garden and any number of succession houses.’ He wiped his lips in satisfaction. ‘Why do you not take a walk? The weather remains fair and I know that Lucinda will be pleased to accompany you and explain all that we are doing here.’
The earl had long since finished eating and seemed glad to rise from the table. ‘That sounds a most delightful way to spend an afternoon.’ His smile was only slightly wry as he bowed graciously in Lucinda’s direction. ‘If you are ready, Miss Lacey, shall we go?’ Beneath her uncle’s implacable gaze, she had little choice but to surrender her seat and take the proffered arm.
They strode in silence towards the honey-coloured terrace at the rear of the mansion. Francis Devereux did not intend to waste an opportunity to throw them together, Jack thought, no matter how distasteful his niece might find it. The gardens no doubt were another step in his campaign. He felt sorry for the girl, sorry for himself. They had been put in an impossible situation.
‘Your uncle was right—you have a magnificent estate. I can see why he was so insistent that we take this walk.’
She did not rise to his irony, but said instead, ‘My uncle is very proud of Verney Towers. You may have noticed.’ There was only the slightest tinge of acid in her voice.
‘He has every right to be proud,’ he said dishonestly. ‘It is a beautiful old house and surrounded by splendid countryside.’
She wrinkled her nose and he found it oddly charming. ‘I might agree with you on the countryside, but the house could never be called beautiful. You flatter us, I think.’
‘I never flatter, Miss Lacey.’
‘I cannot imagine that is so, or else how could you have made so many conquests?’
He did not feel sorry for her at all, he decided. She was abominable.
‘Whatever you may have heard will be an exaggeration. And I thought we had agreed that gossip should be ignored.’
She let go of his arm and smoothed out her skirts of patterned muslin. She was looking as fetching as she had this morning, he noticed, a rich blue ribbon threaded through blonde curls and a blue velvet tippet around her shoulders. Yesterday’s hideous rags had seemingly been consigned to the bonfire.
‘You agreed. In any case I am not interested in gossip, but I do value the truth. I am wondering why it is now that you have decided to visit us, Lord Frensham, for your sisters must have told you that silly story about our families quite some while ago.’
‘I believe I mentioned
