brothers scarce recall you. Your youngest sister has never met you. You should be aware too, that my own sister, your aunt Sophia, has been made decrepit by the passing years and has likely very few left to her on this earth.
Sincere contrition and unquestioning obedience in the future will restore you to the bosom of your injured family. If you come to Cavendish Square in any other frame of mind, your journey will have been pointless. On this understanding, you may arrange a time convenient to me with my secretary.
Yours etc.
Cordelia curled her lip at the reference to his heart, which she was fairly certain her father did not possess. Not that it precluded him tugging on the heartstrings of others. He knew her rather too well. The stories Caro shared with her, of their half-brothers and half-sister, were bittersweet. She had missed so much of their youth already that she would be a stranger to them. She even harboured a desire to become reacquainted with Bella, whose many foibles and viciousness of temperament she thought she understood rather more— For who would not be twisted by the simple fact of being married to one such as the great Lord Armstrong? Her feelings for Lady Sophia were both simpler and more complex, for while she had wronged her aunt, she could not help feeling that her aunt had wronged her too. And as to her father...
Cordelia folding the letter into a very small square and stuffed it back into her reticule. Neither salutation nor signature. He thought he was summoning an impoverished and contrite dependant. She wondered what penance he had in mind for her, and wondered, with some trepidation, how he would react when he discovered her neither contrite nor in need of financial support, but set upon reparation. In her father’s eyes, she had committed a heinous crime. His punishment had been extreme and it had taken Cordelia, her own fiercest critic, a very long time to realise that it was unmerited. Longer still to face up to the consequences of this, for of all things, she abhorred confrontation. Focusing her decided will on achieving independence and defying convention had alleviated the pain of her exile, but success, she discovered, instead of putting an end to her grievance, allowed it to grow. Becoming reacquainted with Cressie and Caro forced her to acknowledge the huge chasm which the rift with her family had created, though it was not until that strangest of days, last year, that she faced up to the fact that in order to heal it she would have to confront the cause of it.
Her father. Were she a man, he would be impressed by her business acumen. Though were she a man, she would not be in this position in the first place. Which made her wonder what on earth she was doing here anyway, because she didn’t need his permission to contact her own family. They were her family just as much as his.
Cordelia sighed heavily. Truth. How she hated the truth. Despite everything, despite the fact that he was far more in the wrong than she, what she wanted was his forgiveness just as much his acceptance of who she was, and the fact that she would never be the daughter he expected her to be. It was ridiculous and irrational and most likely unattainable, but there it was, that was what she really wanted from today.
The hand she held was slim. She would have to play it with skill. Lord Armstrong must be made aware from the outset of this interview that his daughter was no mat for him to wipe his feet upon. She considered seating herself behind the desk, but her father’s imprint on the leather chair made her feel squeamish. Instead, she spread the silk skirts of her carriage dress out and endeavoured to look as relaxed and comfortable as she could on the hated wooden chair. Her gown, with its wide leg-of-mutton sleeves and tight cuffs, was deceptively simple. The scalloping on the bodice and collar was subtle but intricately worked, continuing down the front panel to the the hem. The belt of the same royal blue which cinched her waist was held with a gold buckle. Her outfit was elegant and so à la mode that it screamed Paris to anyone who cared to notice. Her father, however, had little time for women and things feminine. It gave her a little kick of satisfaction, knowing that the evidence of her success, displayed in full view, would be quite lost on him.
The sound of a footfall outside the door alerted her to his arrival. Cordelia put a hand over the heart which threatened to jump out of her chest, and sternly quelled the instinct to rise from her seat.
* * *
She had thought herself prepared, but as the door opened and Lord Armstrong made his entrance, a lump formed in Cordelia’s throat. There were, it seemed, some things which neither logic nor experience could tame. Here was her father, and she could not control the rush of affection which brought tears to her eyes, stemmed only by a supreme effort of will from falling. Foolish of her, but she had not expected him to look so much older. His grey hair was sparser, revealing tender patches of pink pate. Pouches had formed under his eyes, though the blue-grey colour of his irises was still disconcertingly the exact shade of her own. His face was thinner too, giving a beakiness to his nose and a translucence to his skin, though he was still a handsome man.
He still had presence too. Barely a falter in his step there was, as he nodded curtly, as if it had been a few days since last they had met. The atmosphere in the book room changed too, when he took his seat behind the desk. She had forgotten that about him. He was like a necromancer, conjuring moods at will. She was already tense, her toes curled inside her kid boots, her shoulders straight like a soldier on parade, and it was too late to relax, because his eyes were upon her and he was drumming his fingers, his chin resting on one hand. But she was no longer a child, and had, for nine years, perforce, to consider herself no longer his daughter. He had not the right to judge her, and she was not inclined to permit him to do so.
Silence stretched. Another of his tricks, but it was one which Cordelia had also acquired. By the time he raised his brows after what seemed like an eternity, she had herself under control.
‘You are looking surprisingly well.’
‘Yes,’ she replied with a cool smile. She waited, listening to the clock on the mantel ticking. It always seemed to tock much louder than it ticked, counting out the seconds like a measured, doom-laden tread towards eternity. She wondered, as she had so many times before, if he had had it adjusted to do so.
Finally, her father spoke. ‘Almost a decade ago you absconded from these premises, leaving devastation in your wake. I shall never understand what I did to deserve such ingratitude, nor such a flagrant flouting of my will.’
‘Your will!’ The words were out before she could stop them. ‘What about my will, Father? Did you ever stop to consider...’
‘Unlike yourself, I never act without a great deal of consideration.’
Lord Armstrong steepled his fingers and eyed her across the expanse of polished walnut. Furious with herself, Cordelia bit her lip, grateful that the layers of corsets and stiffened petticoats which her robe required, concealed her heaving chest. ‘I did not request this interview to discuss the past, but the future,’ she said.
‘Indeed? You do not think the past pertinent, then? You do not feel it incumbent to explain how you have spent your years...’
‘In exile? In the wilderness?’
‘Outwith the shelter of your family,’ Lord Armstrong concluded smoothly.
‘No,’ Cordelia said baldly. ‘Caro and Cressie informed you that I was well,’ she continued, unable to tolerate another lengthy silence. ‘They also informed you that should you wish to contact me, you could do so through either of them. You did not, I must assume because you were not interested or did not care. Both most likely. So no, I don’t think it either pertinent or—or incumbent upon me to explain myself,’ she concluded hurriedly, realising that she was on the brink of doing just that.
She glared at him, defying the stupid, stupid tears to fall. He didn’t care. It made it so much more humiliating to discover that she, after all, cared
