him down.
‘Will you be going up to look the old place over, Sir?’
‘Perhaps.’ Non-committal. Evasive.
‘It is just if you wish me to accompany you, I would need to make plans.’
‘No. That will not be necessary.’ If he went, he would go alone.
‘The servants, of course, still take retainers paid for by the rental of the farming land, though in truth the place has been let go badly.’
‘I see.’ He wanted just to leave. Just to take the papers and leave.
‘Your wife’s sister’s daughters are installed in the house. Their mother died late last year and I wrote to you—’
Luc looked up. ‘I did not have any such missive.’
The lawyer rifled through a sheath of sheets and, producing a paper, handed it across to him. ‘Is this not your handwriting, sir?’ A frown covered his brow.
With his signature staring up at him, Luc could do nothing else but nod.
‘How old are these children?’
‘Eight and ten, sir, and both girls.’
‘Where is their father?’
‘He left England a good while back and never returned. He was a violent man and, if I were to guess, I would say he lies in a pauper’s grave somewhere, unmarked and uncared for. Charity and Hope are, however, the sort of girls their names suggest, and as soon as they gain their majority they will have no more claim to any favours from the Woodruff Abbey funds.’
Luc placed the paper down on the table before him. So poor-spirited, he thought, to do your duty up to a certain point and then decline further association. He had seen it time and time again in his own father, the action of being seen to have done one’s duty more important than any benefit to those actively involved.
Unexpectedly he thought of Lillian Davenport. Would she be the same? he wondered, and hoped not. Last night when he had run his fingers across the pale skin on her wrist he had felt her heartbeat accelerate markedly and seen the flush that covered her cheeks before she had turned and run from him.
Not all the ice queen then, her high moral standards twisted against his baser want. Because he had wanted her, wanted to bring his hands along the contours of her face and her breasts and her hips hidden beneath her fancy clothing and distance.
Lord, was he stupid?
He should not have made his presence known. Should not have sparred with her or held her fingers and read her palm, for Lillian Davenport was the self-styled keeper of worthiness and he needed to stay away from her.
Yet she pierced a place in him that he had long thought of as dead, the parts of himself that he used to like, the parts that the past weeks of sobriety had begun to thaw against the bone-cold guilt that had torn at his soul.
The law books lined up against the far wall dusty in today’s thin sun called him back. Horatio Thackeray was now detailing the process of the transfer of title.
Woodruff Abbey was his! He turned the gold ring on his wedding finger and pressed down hard.
Lillian enjoyed the afternoon taking tea in Regent Street with Anne Weatherby and her husband Allen. His brother Alistair had joined them, too, a tall and pleasant man.
‘I have lived in Edinburgh for a good few years now,’ he explained when she asked him why she had not met him before. ‘I have land there and prefer the quieter pace of life.’ Catching sight of a shopkeeper trying to prop up a Christmas tree in his window, he laughed. ‘Queen Victoria has certainly made the season fashionable. Do you decorate a tree, Miss Davenport?’
‘Oh, more than one, Mr Weatherby. I often have three or four in the town house.’
‘And I am certain that you would do so with great aplomb if my sister-in-law’s comments on your sense of style are to be taken into consideration.’ He smiled and moved closer. ‘If I could even be so bold as to ask for permission to accompany Anne to see these Yuletide trees next time she visits, I would be most grateful.’
The man was flirting with her, Lillian suddenly thought, and averted her eyes. Catching the glance of Anne at her side, she realised immediately that her friend was in on the plot.
Another man thrust beneath her nose. Another suitor who wanted a better acquaintance. All of a sudden she wished that it could have been just this easy. An instant attraction to a man who was suitable. The very thought made her tired. Perhaps she was never destined to be a wife or a mother.
‘You’re very quiet, Lillian?’ Anne took her hand as they walked towards the waiting coach.
‘I have a lot to think about.’
‘I hope that Alistair is one of those thoughts?’ she whispered back wickedly, laughing as Lillian made absolutely no answer. ‘Would he not do just as well as Wilcox-Rice? His holdings are substantial and Scotland is a beautiful place.’
The tree in the window was suddenly hoisted into position with the sound of cheering, a small reminder of her father’s ultimatum of choosing a groom before Christmas. Lillian placed a tight smile across her face.
‘I am not so desperate as to throw myself on a stranger, Anne, no matter how nice he is and I would prefer it if you would not meddle.’
The joy had quite gone out of the afternoon and she hated the answering annoyance in her oldest friend’s eyes. But today she could not help it. She had not been sleeping well, dreams of Virginia and the dark-haired American haunting her slumber, the remembered feel of his thumb tracing the beat on her wrist and the last sight of him tipping his head as he had left the room in the company of his friends.
To compare Lucas Clairmont to these other men was like equating the light made by tiny fireflies to that of the full-blown sun, a man whom she had never met the measure of before in making her aware that she was a woman. Breathing out heavily, she held on to her composure and answered a question Alistair asked her with all the eagerness that she could muster.
Chapter Four
The gown Lillian wore to the Cholmondeley ball was one of her favourites, a white satin dress with wide petticoats looped with tulle flowers. The train was of glacé and moiré silk, the festoons on the edge plain but beautiful. Her hair was entwined with a single strand of diamonds and these were mirrored in the quiet beading on her bodice. She seldom wore much ornamentation, preferring an understated elegance, and virtually always favoured white.
The ball was in full swing when she arrived with her father and aunt after ten; the suites of rooms on the first floor of the town house were opened up to each other and the floor in the long drawing room was polished until it shone. At the top of the chamber sat a substantial orchestra, and within it a group of guests that would have numbered well over four hundred.
‘James Cholmondeley is harking for the renommée of a crush,’ her father murmured as they made their way inside. ‘Let us hope that the champagne, at least, is of good quality.’
‘He must be of the persuasion that it is of benefit
