“Oh, be honest, Jack.” She twirled and stopped in front of him. “You are no longer the man I agreed to marry. Can you give me the life we planned? No.”
She shrugged. “I am sorry, Jack, but, painful though it is for both of us, you must see it is just not at all practical any more.”
“Ahh, not practical?” he echoed sarcastically. “And what exactly is not practical? Is it my sudden lack of fortune? My ruined face? Or the idea of dancing with an ugly cripple and thereby becoming an object of ridicule? Is that it, eh?”
She cringed in fright at the savagery in his voice.
“No, it is not practical, is it?” he snarled. “And I thank God for it.”
She stared as she took in the meaning of his last utterance.
“Do…do you mean to say you don’t want to marry me?” Her voice squeaked in amazement and dawning indignation. It was for her to give him his congé, not the other way around.
He bowed ironically. “Not only do I not wish to marry you, I am almost grateful for the misfortunes which have opened my eyes and delivered me from that very fate.”
She glared at him, her bosom heaving in a way that had once entranced him. “Mr Carstairs, you are no gentleman!”
He smiled back at her, a harsh, ugly grimace. “And you, Miss Davenport, are no lady. You are a shallow, greedy, cold little bitch, and I thank my lucky stars that I discovered the truth in time. God help the poor fool you eventually snare in your net.”
She stamped her foot furiously. “How dare you? Leave this house at once…at once, do you hear me? Or crip—wounded or not, I’ll have you thrown out!”
He limped two paces forward and she skittered back in fright.
“Just give me back my ring,” he said wearily, “and your butler won’t be put to the trouble and embarrassment of manhandling a cripple.”
She snatched her left hand back against her breast and covered the large diamond ring with her other hand.
“Oh, but I am very attached to this ring, Jack,” she said in a little-girl voice. “I did love you, you know. Surely you want me to have something to remember you by?”
He looked at her, disgust filling his throat, then turned and silently limped from the house.
Chapter One
London. Late autumn, 1812.
“Good God! Do you mean to tell me my grandson did not even receive you after you’d travelled I don’t know how many miles to see him?” Lady Cahill frowned at her granddaughter. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Amelia, stop that crying at once and tell me the whole story! From the beginning!”
Amelia gulped back her sobs. “The house is shabby and quite horrid, though the stables seem well enough—”
“I care nothing for stables! What of my grandson?” Lady Cahill interrupted, exasperated.
“His manservant told me Jack saw no one.”
The old lady frowned. “What do you mean, no one?”
“I mean no one, Grandmama, no one at all. He—Jack, that is—pretended to be indisposed. He sent a message thanking me for my concern and regretting his inability to offer me hospitality. Hospitality! His own sister!”
Amelia groped in her reticule for a fresh handkerchief, blotted her tears and continued, “Of course I insisted that I go up and tend him, but his man—a foreigner—would not even allow me up the stairs. I gathered from him that Jack was not ill…just…drunk! He won’t see anyone. And, according to his manservant, he’s been like that ever since he returned from Kent.”
There was a long pause while the old lady digested the import of this. “Kent, eh? I wish to God he had never set eyes on that poisonous little Davenport baggage.” She glanced up at her granddaughter. “I take it, then, that the betrothal is definitely at an end.”
“Unfortunately, yes, Grandmama.”
“Good!” said Lady Cahill vehemently. “He’s well rid of that little harpy and you know it.”
“But, Grandmama, it appears to have broken his heart.”
“Nonsense! He’s got a fine strong heart. He’s got my blood in him, hasn’t he? When you’re my age, you’ll stop prating of broken hearts and other such nonsense. Bodies mend and so do hearts.”
There was a long silence.
“But that’s just it, isn’t it, Grandmama?” Amelia said at last. “Bodies don’t always mend, do they? Jack’s servant said that Jack’s leg is still very bad and painful, although he can walk.”
Lady Cahill thought of the way her favourite grandson had looked when he’d come back from the wars in Spain. Such a fine tall, athletic lad he had been, too, before he left. But now…
She glared at her granddaughter. “Don’t let me ever hear you speaking such rubbish, do you hear me, gel? Never! That boy is as fine a lad as ever he was, you mark my words! He’s got a fine fighting spirit in him.”
“I saw no fighting spirit, Grandmama.”
“Do you try to tell me, gel, that my grandson has had the stuffing knocked out of him and hides himself away from the world merely because his betrothal to that beautiful, heartless little viper is at an end? Faugh!” Lady Cahill snorted. “You’ll not make me believe that, not in a month of Sundays.”
“No,” said Amelia slowly. “But that, on top of everything else…He will never ride again, they say. And so many of his friends have been killed in the war…And, Grandmama, you know how much Papa’s will hurt him—to be left with virtually nothing…”
“Lord knows what maggot was in your father’s mind at the time,” agreed Lady Cahill. “Bad enough to disinherit the boy, but to leave him ‘whatever is found in my pockets on the day I die”’…Faugh! Utter folly! “Twas the veriest coincidence that he died after a night of cards at White’s. Had he not just won that deed to Sevenoakes, the boy would not even have a roof over his head!”
Lady Cahill snorted in disgust. Yes, Jack had taken some terrible blows, one on top of another. But even discounting Amelia’s dramatics it seemed he was taking it badly. He could not be allowed to brood like that. He needed something to snap him out of it.
There was a soft knock at the door. “Yes, what is it, Fitcher?” the old lady snapped, her temper frayed by concern for her grandson.
“Pardon me, milady.” The butler bowed. “This letter was delivered a few moments ago.” He bowed again, proffering a letter on a silver salver.
Lady Cahill picked up the letter, wrinkling her nose in disdain at the undistinguished handwriting which gave her direction. “Humph,” she muttered. “Not even franked.”
She turned it over and broke the seal. She frowned over the letter,
